1948-2023 . Retired Statistician, Poet, author, historian and campaigner. Co-founder of International Society for Bayesian Analysis and of the Edinburgh All Comers Writers Club and Participant in the 2019 UCL Eugenics Inquiry.
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Saturday, 11 February 2017
LAPSUS SCRIPTORUM, A POEM BY JAMES L.S. CARTER
LAPTUS SCRIPTORUM
The clock ticks once a minute, slowly
My muse has gone.
She disappeared one afternoon.
Along with my specs
But I found my specs again:
My muse has gone.
I found my specs again
After steps retrace
I remembered where I had left them
When I came back to the place
I had originally forgotten.
I had suffered sudden lapsus memoriae (a)
It happens more and more nowadye
Along with lapsus scriptoris (b)
Lapsus calami (c)
Lapsus pabuli (d)
Lapsus crumenae (e)
And lapsus mentis (f)
Five ticks go by in five seconds
Pabulum calami (g)
Crumena mentis (h)
It is not only my money-bag which is all the time lapsing;
So are my scrotum and adjacent thingie.
A male menopause,
More or less.
I feel as if I am losing my place
At the universe table.
My hold on things is unsure,
My grasp uncertain.
Footsteps falter, waver, haver.
Mind verges on the brink,
The threshold; horizons near and far-
Spirit hovers over the void, the abysm---
hovers
over----
KEY TO LATIN WORDS AND PHRASES
(a) memory lapse
(b) writer's block
(c) typing dyspraxia
(d) hiatus in the diet
(e) shortage of cash, 'fall of the money-bag'
(f) mental breakdown
(g) food for the pen, food for thought
(h) money for the brain, ibid food for thought
Copyright James L.S. Carter February 2017
Edinburgh, Scotland
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