Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Michele Cariveau Sep 2016
I look up..into an blackening sky
and imagine a wonder as I fly..
gaze upon Cygnus the swan
and think of X-1 residing inside..

A spinning hole of fourteen solar mass
as black as the devils devious ***
enshrined in belts of orange and red
energy stolen from the star that has bled

Into its fierce companions consuming hole
gnawing on the sun like deaths own toll
blasting out jets like an angels glowing trumpet
swallowing stars like a streetwalker strumpet

Its partner a sapphire star seriously suffering
the loss of mass with no way of buffering
its pull into the black holes continual maul
matter tattered like an old beautiful shawl

six light years away from our Earth
as a massive star its original birth
as a super nova mass playing its role
shrank into a carnivorous black hole

X-1 sprawled as a devouring creation
cruising through the Cygnus constellation
event horizon spinning 800 times a second
even as it grasps and continues to beckon

deadly beauty dancing in an obsidian gown
wearing the stars matter as an elegant crown
energy it has stolen and devoured whole
lost forever to the mouth of a black hole
I am a beautiful song
Humans do not see me
But the stars besiege me
And my vision is for they.

For they see me truly,
In the night sky we play.
The humans beneath are nothing
I forget them now.

(A sign for us alone
We who see beyond
The swans we are are seeping
Into the great pond.

Past the way of milk
We've lost the bounds of silk
Woven for the lost souls
Yoked to sirens' ilk.)

We see.
We sought.
And not for nought.
We sing, we.
Libby Graham Feb 2014
You remember that cow they told us about?
The one that jumped over the moon?
Well.
It never came back.
It’s hind legs were so powerful,
it’s hooves so sturdy
that he jumped from here,
on earth,
all the way over the moon.
All the way through the asteroid belt
past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
and even Pluto,
that tiny little sphere of ice
those *** holes at the International Astronomical Union
declassified as a planet in 2006.
The cow died before it got there though.
Maybe because there’s no oxygen in space
though I’ll never be certain.
But his body kept on floating.
Still propelled by the force it left earth with:
a dead black and white cow
sailed out of our solar system
and into the Arm of Orion.
But the light from Rigel and Betelgeuse
chased him away.
Blue-white and red supergiants have that effect on people.
Or cows.
Even dead cows.
And so, our travelling hero, who I’ve now named Frank,
spiralled through 0-gravity
and ended up
on the other side of the Milky Way.
Cygnus. Cygnus’ Arm is what caught him.
Cygnus and Frank became good friends.
Who could imagine!?
A dead cow and swan made of stars!
How preposterous.
But eventually they spread apart
(as all friendships eventually do)
and so Frank was left without a companion
and drifted off through space once more.
And we haven’t heard from him since.
Torin  May 2016
Cygnus
Torin May 2016
I see you in the stars
Somehow you have been changed
From how the mortal eyes have seen you
Your mouth which used to speak
Of hatred and hope oblique
Becomes a beak without your teeth

Rage was born
But it will die
When its thrown into the fire

A brittle constellation
An ancient observation
You invite your guest to **** them
The poison of your being
These wounds caused by your sword
Let Heracles avenge them

All night
I look at you
Such beauty born from hatred

The knives in your hands
Cannot be be held by wings
Your arms that change until you drop them
The blasphemous skin
And fingers meant for ripping
These are the feathers that replace them

The sound of blood
And ugliness
Becomes beautiful music
Cygnus the swan. Greek mytholgy. You as a reader, I doubt you'll understand.
TW  Jan 2019
Constellations
TW Jan 2019
You once told me that when we die,
we become another star in the night.

I never really cared about your zodiac and lunar signs,
I never paid attention to the solar action shooting by,
You'd wonder if it's magic plans or broken scrap that flew the skies,
You were psychedelic dresses, I was only wrapped in suit and tie,
It never blew my mind until I finally gave your truth a try,
I glimpsed the puzzle pieces in the time before the moon would rise,
A tapestry on galaxies, depicting myths, and human lies,
I guess you proved me wrong again, I was quick to scrutinize.

Now, I'm studying the subjects and sitting in observatories,
Thinking back to when I'd write them off before I heard the stories,
Earth is boring now you're gone, I hope you're up there yearning for me,
Every star's a soul, I'd see you but there's nothing worse than stormy
Nights and light pollution, it's a blinding kind of nuisance,
I'd be admiring your fusion but the sky has turned translucent,
But still I'm plotting charts of stars, I'm always making observations,
Waiting for the day I get to see your face in constellations.

I wanna chase you forever, whether heaven or hell, I'll go,
Can't let you float away, I'll take a world tour with my telescope,
The way I speed through hemispheres, this night will be the death of me,
But otherwise I'd only see you half the year, you're my Persephone,
I'll trek from Arctic harbors, give binoculars to polar bears,
Shiver in my igloo, hands together, say a hopeful prayer,
And no, I won't be lonely there, your soul will be a solar flare,
You'll whisper an aurora, northern lights to let me know you care.

I'll whistle Canis Major and Minor, and let Orion guide me,
I'm quite unlikely to quit, what kind of guy would I be?
To search the Seven Sisters for an eighth and get inside their psyche?
I'll question Cassiopeia, Cygnus, and Pisces nicely,
Ask if they've seen something fishy, and then I'll talk to Taurus,
An orbit tourist, I'm daunted without the gall to forfeit,
So if you're gone, then I'm glad that this was all you taught me,
I live each day for the night and just endure the morning.
Q  Mar 2013
cygnus
Q Mar 2013
-The stars in the sky have done nothing,
-Nothing, I think, to deserve their immortalization in verse
-They are the gas lamps still burning
-From the Universe’s Victorian Anglophile phase
-Old lights we haven’t looked at long enough
-To make them fade away

-The stars are dull and distant
-And yellowed with age
-When you step out to confide in them
-On a clear Winter’s night
-And instead find yourself starstruck
-To be surrounded by shattered sky
-Collapsed at your feet and dazzling only for you
-And the deer
-Picking through this fallen snow
-In quiet meditation

-Maybe the snow dazzles only for them
-It knows your heart looks skyward
(10/24/12)
spysgrandson Dec 2015
kayaking, on the same lake
since college, two score before
by the tiny bay ice fishermen swore
was haunted--having lost one
of their own, only last winter

if the dead man's spirit lingered
he hadn't heard or seen it, and the bay,
though small, was deep, calm

he rowed daily to this big cove
a treasure trove of quiet and color
without a house or pier in sight

as the sun was sinking
into the lake one August eve
he heard a hissing from the thick
stands of pine

webbed feet, he did not imagine
could be as treacherous as talons
but the were, and the knobby beak
of this mad mute swan felt like pliers
when it yanked on his ear, ripping
nearly half of it off

it took but one sharp blow
from his oar to thwart the attack
and the giant bird disappeared
into the dusk

in its wake a pool of blood
and pain he had not felt since hot shrapnel
pierced his young shoulder
in that crazy Asian war

the battle lasted
but a few manic moments
as is the case with most wars of the flesh
though long enough to end his silent sojourns
on this still blue glass, now shattered
by flapping limbs of man and beast
Cygnus olor in the more technical name for the mute swan, a large and aggressive bird not originally from America, but here in considerable numbers now.
Luna D  Oct 2018
Cygnus the swan
Luna D Oct 2018
I’ve been sitting here
Sitting here on this distant planet
For what seems like years
I ran away to get away from the dark.
Away from a broken heart
 
I’ve sat
And I’ve stared at the little dot every night
That little dot that I had once called Home
That no longer was Home in my heart
 
Then you appeared
A cluster of stars
Peeking out from behind the clouds
I wanted you
in that very moment
I needed you
 
This distant planet I sat upon knew
It Knew you were the one.
The one I needed to call Home
so it sent me off.
 
And I took flight once more
Soaring through the galaxies
Past the planets who nodded at me
They too knew
Knew that I was headed towards you
The cluster of stars.
 
When I arrived
It was unlike anything I had ever seen before
Your stars,
no longer a random cluster
they had a place
they had purpose
they had me mesmerized
 
when I met you I was reborn
reborn into a star
a star who’s only purpose was to be with you
to complete the cluster
the constellation
 
you became my favorite constellation
you ARE my favorite constellation
WE
Are my favorite constellation.
Kris Pretorius  Jul 2022
Cygnus
Kris Pretorius Jul 2022
I smelt your sweet scent whilst traveling home,
And got overwhelmed by my emotions,
Remembering all we said and done,
My tears became an ocean.

Though the sea of time has drifted us apart,
And others than I have given you love,
Know that ever here that’s left in me,
Is yours just as it was.
Lucy Crozier Jan 2015
you smell like water boiling
with maybe a teaspoon of salt in it.
like safety, like a prelude to food,
like the reason everyone gathers in a kitchen during a party,
like home. which is cliche and sappy and ultimately true.
my least favorite poems tend to talk about how
cliche they are and how it's true anyway.
it's true I don't know another way to say this.
not yet. i think i'll learn.
there are constellations that you can only see from the other side of the world, that i've never seen.
the southern cross, phoenix, carina.
constellations I've seen over and over again.
orion, cygnus, the pleiades.
I've never seen them in your eyes. I'll never see them in your eyes.
There are still a whole universe of stars behind them.
this is really sappy. comments welcome. I'm working on the title and this may be finessed further.
Ciel Noir  Mar 2019
Cygnus
Ciel Noir Mar 2019
there are poems
I do not share
with the world
many of them
are songs

I do not sing them
for anyone
I hold them in my heart
like a swan

— The End —