3 phase 415 volts probably.

I wrote this piece of witless whimsey sometime in 1978 apparently. Typed up in April 1978 at any rate when I was obviously going through some sort of “electrical” phase, 3 phase 415 volts probably. There is a second “electrical” poem from around the same sort of time, I’ll post it separately.

I’ve tidied up the punctuation a little bit, but the word order is as written apart from “semiconductor” which I’d originally written as two words. I’m not happy with “…it’s them that hertz the most.” I think that “them” should probably be “those” but hey-ho, thems the words I wrote at the time.

I’ve also veered into big-headed sexual innuendo at the end there, or have I? Yes, I did, didn’t I? It’s a bit risqué I know but that’s how us poets rock.

I nearly always baulk at the convention of starting each new line with a capital letter. I assume it’s a convention as nearly everybody does it but to my eye it always looks odd when the capital at the beginning of a new line is part way through a “sentence” as it were. And yes, I’ve left commas at the ends of lines but in places where they probably shouldn’t be. Nobody said this was easy…

In my original I’d followed the convention but here I’ve dropped it and stand ready to be criticised for it, but I would cite rule number one.
Rule 1. My poem, my rules.

Reading this back, I had no idea what an MPX decoder is or does, so I had to look it up. I’m guessing that I did know back in 1978 but then again maybe I was just winging it, anyway, here for your delectation:

Solid State Ignorance

I knew a mister,
sold his sister,
for a five-ohm resistor.
Got a letter,
now and then,
from a logic gate,
he knew.
The fuse he blew,
left him in the dark.

Saw a brother,
sell his mother,
to a shifty semiconductor.
MPX decoder,
said it was OK.
Those semiconductors,
are all the same,
give them an inch,
they’ll blow your mind.

All in all, you see,
your linear IC,
really touches my heart.
Electrolytic static,
is all the same again.
My resistive load design aim,
was never made to cope,
with the amps, you see,
it’s them that hertz the most.

Solid state ignorance,
I sleep with solder sheets.
I eat potentiometers,
they taste of volts so sweet.
I’m an electric ego maniac,
So, if you’ re the same as I am,
come closer to my circuit diagram.
I’ll cut out your input impedance,
with my pulse generator.