Atoms get around

by Dave Bradley

Monday 23rd May 2011 7:16 pm

Atoms abound

They get around.

In your body reside

Atoms which were once inside

Aristotle

Bronte (Charlotte, Emily and Ann)

Curie (Marie and Pierre)

Dietrich

Eliot

Fonteyn

Genghis Khan (and Gandhi)

Henry the Eighth (and the other seven)

Ivan the Terrible

Jesus

Kennedies (John, Robert, Edward....)

Lauder (and Lauda)

Marilyn Monroe

Napoleon

Oscar Wilde

Peron (both of them)

Queen Elizabeth

Rembrandt

Shakespeare

Tutankhamen

Utrillo

Victoria

Woolf

Xenophon

Yuri Gagarin, and

Zola

Tough on racists,

difficult for homophobes,

Sisyphean for sexists,

bit of a bugger for bigots,

challenging

for those of a nervous disposition.

Squeamish or not,

we're all in this together.

You've even got some of me.

Cf. p176, Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson. Publ Black Swan 2004.

BBC Website fact of the day 21/5/11

“The human body grows a new stomach lining every five days. The average lifespan of a human taste bud is ten days. The body grows a completely new skin every four weeks. The liver is replaced every six weeks. The human skeleton is replaced every three months.”

Comments

Isobel

Wed 25th May 2011 13:25

This opens up a whole new world of possibilities... If you really fancy someone you don't stand a chance with, you can stand close to them and immerse yourself in their dead skin cells instead - lovely...like the ideas in this poem. x

Anthony Emmerson

Tue 24th May 2011 21:16

Hi Dave,

You're right, I did have some of you - but I coughed it up and spat it out! :)

Scary idea - well expressed.

Regards,

A.E.

Andy N

Tue 24th May 2011 08:10

clever stuff, dave.. top one

<Deleted User> (7212)

Mon 23rd May 2011 18:03

I once read that every time you inhale, you breath in 18 molecules that Napoloen once exhaled (it does vary from individual to individual, if you think it through, but I've never done the maths).
aaah, just think, I've probably breathed in Jennifer Lopez's farts & never noticed :)

Cynthia Buell Thomas

Mon 23rd May 2011 15:49

An excellent Heads Up! little poem, Dave. Goodness knows how you selected your list. Clever play on words in your title. I was listening to a radio commentary on this very subject lately, and laughed aloud, more in line with Ann's comment than anything else. But it gave me cause to pause because I'm always in awe of other animals and their individual physical powers. We humans should be so lucky! We have a lot to learn, and to emulate when we can.

Dave Bradley

Mon 23rd May 2011 13:24

Sorry Ann, my brain cells are being reconstituted with wrinkles in too!

Seriously, I got Grade 5 O Level General Science 43 years ago (Aaaargh) and only know what is there to read in popularising works such as Bill Bryson's. To me, they open up things of wonder.

Ann Foxglove

Mon 23rd May 2011 11:30

Hey! If the body grows a completely new skin every four weeks and a new skeleton every three months, why am I getting wrinkles and why does my hip joint hurt? Answer me that oh scientific one! :)

John Coopey

Mon 23rd May 2011 09:47

Hello Dave
Very original way of explaining our commonality. Very enjoyable.
The opening pages of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" have a mind-focusing way of understanding it too.

Francine

Mon 23rd May 2011 05:10

A creative way to get across your message!
So then... How did you decide on the ABC's of atoms?

I would do without the last line though, as it is a given.

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Atoms get around

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