My Cosmonaut
Scouring the stars for me
His life is all night and glitter
As I watch from my little marble
He floats
He flies
My Cosmonaut will rise
To the challenge
And bring a little space back
For me

Jenny and Malcolm
lie in a field
on a hill
straddling the countryside
at midnight.
The grass tickles
their toes and noses
as it flows up
getting the stars.
Jenny passes the roach
and sings the blues.
Malcolm casts
a long line of smoke,
fishing for meteors.

"You think
there's anyone
out there?"
Jenny asks.

"I knew a kid,"
Malcolm says,
bobbing his head
to Hendrix,
"18, in Philly,
went to grab
a bag of dope,
but his buddy's brother,
he was nine at the time,
wouldn't go,
so he had to go,
thought it would be quick
so he brought him
but forgot the cash
and tried to dash,
but the kid wasn't so fast.
They caught him
and laid him to rest
with his head on the curb
and teeth in the gutter.
After that, he said
he couldn't be the same,
forever paranoid,
society pushing him
towards suicide
or addiction.
Desensitized
he decided
he wasn't made for this place
so he got high
and rode a cloud
out beyond
where we stare now."

All I hear are muffled sounds
as I walk slowly, closer toward the light.
Today is the final step in which I’m bound
by duty and history I’m about to write.
Everywhere I look are cheers
from people I do not know;
their spirits are high above the skies.
Beneath my mask is a certainty unclear
of the task I am about to undergo;
no time now to say proper goodbyes.
Up calmly, ascending the stairway to the unknown,
my heart pacing more rapidly than before.
Though safe in numbers I feel more alone,
all courage and might I now implore.

Radio sounds buzzed and fed through the lines;
the countdown now comes down to Five, four,
three, two, one—my ears ring from the sounds combined;
this is what it means, what it feels to be alive.
All signs seem well, so far so good;
though I feel as if my weight is pulled down.
Everything looks so small, so minute,
so close yet so far as it really is should;
it’s into unfamiliar ground we’re abound.
Left and struck with awe, I see no one up here;
dark matter clouds all thoughts of fear,
as the stars shimmer even closer in space.
This memory, this single moment will never disappear—
up and away into a sweet unfamiliar embrace.

There in the field she came to me,
The last of the silver honeybees.
I could see the years worn in her face,
Lost in the dark, one foot in the grave.

She held the ache behind her eyes,
So young to have her throat closed tight.
Poor girl, an orphan, with ribs of steel
Bone cage laced too tight to feel.

Then came the lonesome cosmonaut,
Betwixt the stars, those years he lost;
A nomad’s tale, nor here nor there
Too high up to come down for air.

Celestial darlings, they go round and round,
Dysphoric we hasten the final burnout:
From birth to evanesce, the hedons expire
Would love rot my teeth for afflictions less dire?

Last came the poet, out from the gloam
******* on pennies, and ink soaked through bones.
She gathered her strength and fell from the sky
While friends in high places twinkled goodbye.

He’s a chain smoker in his head
And a businessman with his hands
He was a cosmonaut at the bar
And a bear with the North Star

You're a solar system,
and I'm a rogue cosmonaut who
(having fallen in love with you  through a telescope)
has built a ship from the salvage
of lesser explorations;
now I spend my days
(or nights— hard to tell)
looking at you, chin in hand,
waiting for a place to land.