Hello Arthur,
Thanks for your comments. Your strictures on the breakdown of my scientific vision and logic are all justified. It looks like I´ll have to live with being unscientific and illogical. The truth is that I wasn´t really aiming for absolute scientific verity, just playing with ideas that I have understood very imperfectly from reading popular science books, which I love, they´re so mind boggling. I seem to remember that you have once mentioned that you are a trained mathematician and so you obviously have a far more profound understanding of these things than I have.
The question of prose or poetry is an interesting one and your test sounds quite reasonable. Another test that I try to apply is rhythm. Do the line breaks create a rhythm that would be lost by writing it as prose. I had tried for the excited, breathless rhythm of somesone speaking here. I don´t know if it comes across. That was also why there were so many `and´ s in the piece, although as you mentioned I do start sentences with `and´ elsewhere. I´ll leave you with this as an explanation:
And....
A sentence starting with an `and´
is poor English and has been banned
by teachers harbouring a dread
of pupils´ writing turning bland.
In essays and all pieces planned
to argue with a just command
of words grammatically orderèd,
on this point, unanimous they stand.
Schoolbooks, each filled with a neat hand,
are weekly scrutinised for that grand
error, and underlined in red.
This method children best understand.
One sole exception to this rule
may be admitted, though not encouraged
in writing which is termed `creative´.
And that´s the truth.
Best wishes, Mike
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