It's not black nor white

Grey waves, leaden clouds
Wind blown fighting tops twixt swell
Slate battleship hulls

Credit: IWM

Or do you prefer

Cold green-grey waters
Lowering leaden-grey skies
Steel-grey hulls and men

Frozen Waste

Captain Scott

Consigned with regret his ponies to the pot.

Though he drew the line at oats,

Preferring to stare at imagined goats.

or do you prefer

Scott of the Antarctic
Scorned a chap-stick.

British chaps prefer a stiff upper lip
To looking like a weedy drip.

Credit: Antipodean Selfie

Guilty As Charged

Had Marie Skłodowska Curie
Sat on a jury;
On ionizing radiation her verdict
Would have been easy to predict.

"Marie Curie circa 1920" by Unknown - Christie's.

Licensed under Public Domain via Commons

Cloud Base

Orthogonal Tor
Stark lines softened by white light
Slanting through base clouds.

Or do your prefer

Impressionist tooth
Stark through diagonal muslin
Landscape spread below.

Burning Issue

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin,
Told by a man to put her thesis in the bin,
Was proved right;
Hydrogen illuminates our day and our night.

or do you prefer

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
First of the pioneering astro-wimmin.
Disliked heavy metal;
Light elements kept her in fine fettle.

''Cecilia Helena Payne Gaposchkin (1900-1979)'' 

by US Smithsonian Institution

Licensed under No restrictions via Commons

Remembering Lost Comrades

Held together by
Pins, plates, willpower, friendships.
Today you can weep.

11.11.11

Infinitely Archaean Hyperborean Hyperbole

Did H. P. Lovecraft,
In his second draft,
Change the molehills of sadness
To mountains of madness?

"H. P. Lovecraft, June 1934" by Lucius B. Truesdell

Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia