I wrote this science fiction blank verse poem soon after reading about Birkeland currents and going "Whoah! Cool!" at the sheer amount of amps involved. Imagining a Birkeland lattice or array capable of tapping that trove was a natural extension. One of my flatmates sardonically speculated that the changes in the magnetosphere consequent upon our, well, slurping from it might unpleasantly destabilize "things", consequences unknown! Well, let us do as we usually do, release a technology into the "wilds" without having studied it intensively to root out any negative effects which might follow from its use... We seem to have made a bad habit of doing that, technocratic savages that we are.
"Patent Application" 8-28-10 Christchurch
The distant tether of the 5-Austral-
is Birkeland Aerostat Array, 5A
for short, was like a boy with 18 balloons,
Breath puffing from his mouth in rich volcan-
ic locomotive plumes of CO2;
Or even like Medusa, snake mouths lung-
ing into the magnetosphere to sip
A million amps or so like butterflies
Alighting on a wild auroral orchid.
T. Appleman
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