“It looks like it would probably work. It’s actually
safe to create a universe in your basement.”
– Alan Guth, physicist

As long as the weekly washing is done,
they never wonder for even a moment
about my secret science...
so upstairs the washing machine rumbles
and the television talks to itself
of ordinary Saturday lunchtime worlds
while down here, I do bigger things.
Amongst the clutter of basement apparatus
I make tiny adjustments,
stare deep into the heart of a small glass jar,
then flick the final, vital switch.

A small flash flashes, leaves a single dark spot
in the centre of my vision –
and then otherwise, all is as it was before.

Not quite.

For the fleetingest of moments, I have pulled the huge forces
from beyond our own small universe
into my little jar – a crashing together of things
from the eleventh dimension, never more
than a millimetre away – created
a new universe: tiny in the instant of its making,
but growing at the speed of light,
flipping out of our own universe in that same instant
to become itself.

What galaxies, stars and planets may grow there?
What worlds and lands and creatures?
Will they worry about work and school on Monday?
Will custard-shaped somethings
fall in love and live forever?

I write my careful notes,
then return upstairs to the washing machine.
Somewhere another universe makes its new beginning.
In this one, I check that the clothes are clean.

© David Bateman

Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
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David was Liverpool Poetry Slam Champion 2007, and still hasn’t got over it. His one proper book is Curse Of The Killer Hedge (Iron 1996). He also writes stories and teaches some creative writing.

“Police chiefs fear the lack of loo breaks is
behind complaints from members of the public
of ‘incivility, impoliteness and intolerance’.”

We are sorry – Mail Online, 20th July 2011

We are sorry about the incivility
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about the impoliteness
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about the intolerance
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about the baton charge
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about going a bit mad
in that beanfield in Wiltshire that time
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about Jean Charles de Menezes
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about Sharpeville
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about Dachau
but we were all really, really
dying to go to the toilet.


© David Bateman

Riot police demand toilet breaks 'to stop them from wetting themselves'
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David was Liverpool Poetry Slam Champion 2007, and still hasn’t got over it. His one proper book is Curse Of The Killer Hedge (Iron 1996). He also writes stories and teaches some creative writing.