i.
My great-great-grandfather invented photography
Except not really
It was more a silver, round, telescope
In the process he blew off his hand
Estonians are not known to flinch
Nor gaze askance at smouldering flesh
But it’s a shame he never got that patent
It was also a shame about the depression going on
Which struck his world like lightning
No one wanted to buy a camera
Nor take pictures of bread-queues
Middle-class hookers
Or chemically-burnt hands
What a way to end it Bernhard Schmidt
Died in poverty 1935
ii.
Bold capturer of divine light
Steadfast in alchemations
Clasping at the soft muslin metaphysic
Of which chameleons dream
How fast the effervescent light
Can escape beyond human eyes
How fast a life is spent on earth
One flash
and then gone.
