When I get to Saturn,
Feet as sure as stars,

I’ll cry out in a voice,
Not a blemish or a scar,

“I’ll do it right this time”
No mistakes or misspelt words.

I won’t forget my backpack,
Cut my sandwiches in thirds.

I won't hurt anyone like I did in the last place,
This orbital acquittal for my crime.

I’ll love the right people, in the way they deserve.
And I’ll hold them for the right amount of time.

See, Earth is a write-off for me
I just did it all wrong

I tried until I bled and shook
This desert’s where I belong

I’ll wear this ring like a holy chaplet
My sins ice, dust, and rock

My memories sullied yellow
I leave them past the airlock

My mistakes can't reach to Saturn,
Though their fingers are thick and strong

I can’t break anyone from here,
My arms just aren’t that long.

There are no decisions here to fail,
No stanzas left to rhyme.  

Just me and all these moons saying,
“She’ll do it right this time.”

I asked what he does for a living.
He said I can show you,
then he moonwalked half a mile.
He could be a great dancer,
but I think he was an astronaut.

Floating
Like an astronaut
In the depths of my own mind
Devoid of anything but
Bitterness

Searching
For who knows what
In the vastness of my own home
Or so it’s called
But what do we really know?
But what really knows us?

Falling
Like a meteor
In the weight of the unseen
Heavy from the questions
And the answers

your heart will not fail in space
it will be an object of its own mass
and gravity
no longer will there be a throttle in its vessels
and asynchronicity in its rhythms—
the beats, oh, the beats
your heart, when it is in space, will only wait
for an entity
to be jettisoned from a shuttle

my oxygen is running low
i love you to your heart and never back

When within my cells there rages war,
For a second breath I’d stare at the stars;

The old world thickened under my feet,
Yet across my sorrows the ends would meet;

So to renew these aspirations of ours,
Perhaps on a missile on its way to Mars.

　　("We are past the third wave,
　　　past the coastline,
　　　past the coral reef.")

No I haven’t always been there for you,
In these gardens we’ve walked around and through;

From green to red, vice-versa and so forth,
We’ve gone past Saturn many times before;

Now I’m on my way to a distant shore,
Paddling the bloodstream of my heart.

　　("We reach through the gate,
　　　the threshold of no-return,
　　　far beyond Saturn.")

Amidst curiosity and its pulsations,
Of skies infinite, a stubborn astronaut;

It’s time to decline and lose it all
Or time to rise up and answer the call;

Fractions of a split-second, a trigger;
Wings spread to the dark yonder.

　　("The moon now floats behind us,
　　　It cicatrizes our scars as we sail
　　　Far into the night.")

The journey into the unknown
Always finds a way to take you home.

I greet you like a new shore with a wave that says hi and bye together.

Somewhere in between, I entertained the idea that we might have met on a train in Seattle once. We sat sideways on the edge of a deep conversation, staring out the window as the rain did the talking.

My mantra is an old Samurai teaching: defeat who you were yesterday. I told myself that I'll have something to say to you by tomorrow.

I write stuff down for inner peace. The pen is my sword.

I got it. When the pandemic is over, let's order clam chowder in lidded to-go cups and meet at the edge of a pier where ships leave. After a while, the sight of departure takes on a charm of its own.

I can talk to you more freely on higher ground, like a rooftop. Or a train platform overlooking uptown Chicago. It will feel like we've risen above the noise.

I make a pretty good penpal. I also have anime hair. And an enviable Samurai sword collection.

Do abs still count?

My brain is in great shape. Don't mind if the thoughts floating out of it are going over your head. It's better than going over heels. That would be hopelessly romantic.

Dating apps remind me of a formula in astronomy that says the odds of intelligent life beyond Earth are a statistical impossibility. Still, you can't help but look up on dark nights asking if you're alone.

I want to say I met a girl who I began writing about, the kind that doesn't just smile at you to be polite. Consider this an invitation to write back.

You'll get my name then,
-Annonymously Yours

The lonely astronaut adrift in space made friends with the stars
Who gave him something to think about besides the chill in his arms
Who twinkled in tandem to the beat of his heart

“I have no one but these lights and they have no one but me
But because I cannot burn like they do,
I’ll drown in this infinite cavity”

The lonely astronaut surrendered himself to the void with a sigh
Who let him exist as a bystander to time
Who saw him as space debris and brushed him aside

Alien Nation
by Michael R. Burch

for J. S. S., a "Christian" poet

On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices “speech”
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.

And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro —
far colder than Jesus’s words
over the “fortunate” sparrow.

And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.

Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.

Note: The coinage “grok” appears in Robert Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel "Stranger in a Strange Land." The novel’s protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, was raised on Mars by enlightened Martians, and he often feels out of sorts on Earth, where he struggles to grok (understand deeply and profoundly) earthlings and their primitive, often inhuman, ways. Keywords/Tags: Mars, astronaut, alien, primates, stars, words, ice, crystals, Jesus, sparrow, Emily, Dickinson, zero, bone, arctic, thought, human, inhuman