"astronauts" poems
Garments stripped from worn bones and weary mind
Feet dragged on tile; hands grasp plastic veil
Stepping into a tub; near swoon divine
A pure, naked self emancipation,
before the squeaking running metalware
that erases the daily equation.
Dancing, singing tunes of own devices:
Cupid, Shooting Star, Sister Golden Hair
Rocky Mountain High, American Pie
****** bosses gonna kiss ***** here
Astronauts, cowboys, and rockstars meet here
Best yet, the individual is here
Although merely hidden by a curtain,
all for your view is but a damp shadow.
Jun 16, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 at 4:46 PM UTC
With the peak of spring in the month of May
In the early hours of a pleasantly sunlit day
Two kids sat cuddled on a swing
Feeling as though they were taking on wing
Swinging in the air, they began to sing
Their sweet lay breaking the silence with its ring
They kicked their legs in rising delight
And felt like thistledowns ever so light
Up and down on the swing was fun
They closed their eyes on being face to face with the sun
Felt the swish and sway of the buoyant air
And knew the light tug of breeze on their curly hair
As the air got caught in the frills of their frock
Their eyes gleamed bright in delightful spark
Imagining themselves to be astronauts in space,
An ebullient excitement lit up their face
From a raised angle, they saw the Earth in green folds lie
Watched the surrounding hills standing awfully high
Saw a small stream flowing as a slow moving train
With trees lined up on its banks in unbroken chain
Longingly I watched these children free of all worry and pain
Also their aerial feats, not tainted by any melancholy stain
How I miss these childhood days of innocent fun
As my hours, towards the sunset, quickly run
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC
Lone leatherback cruises up from the deep, pausing on the fragile reef
to feast ancient eyes upon the show, a bright parade laid out below
butterfly couples paired for life, graceful angels in black and white stripe
brilliant clowns and their toxic lovers, a plodding gang of giant groupers
puffers bob like comic balloons, humble gobies on every menu
beaked parrotfish grinding the coral down, in the ears a constant sound
cowfish blowing puckered kisses, sea stars catching fishy wishes
white-tipped, hammerhead, tiger sharks, triggerfish mean bite worse than their bark
untamed unicorns too wild to ride, dogfish snapping, biting alongside
coral trout color-shifting fools, attracting ladies in dull-hued schools
**** headed wrasse rumbling through, thick lips mumbling go get a room
sea horses nod in labyrinth caves, razor-toothed eels lying in wait
if tentacled embrace should be your fate, nudibranchs will light the way
to a place of bliss, none of this can exist, without the builders
coral and algae bewildered, the ways of man egotistical
rising ocean temperatures, carbon emissions, and el Niño
victim of abundant greed, say goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef
so massive is this magical place, one can see it from outer space
astronauts witness its demise, ninety-percent barren, bleached bone white.
Apr 27, 2016
Apr 27, 2016 at 1:58 PM UTC
The fox
runs alongside the astronaut,
who looks at a picture frame.
Around the fox’s neck, a white bandana.
There, on the spooky
moon, his only company is the fox colored aluminum.
The aluminum
fur of the fox
blends into the moonscape. The ship is empty aside from them and the spooky
remanence of the rest of the crew. As the lone astronaut
works to return home, his only comfort being the bandana
and the picture frame.
The frame
that holds a photo of a woman, standing before the ship of aluminum.
Tied around her hair, the bandana
which has since been given to the fox.
The memories it brings ever haunting the astronaut
making the moon ever more spooky.
The spooky
feeling is not eased by the frame
as the remains of passed astronauts
are trapped in this aluminum
ship, the lone survivors being the man and the fox.
He keeps his thoughts on the bandana.
Her bandana,
given to him on a dark and spooky
day, which he then gave to the fox
so he may pretend the woman in the frame
isn’t millions of miles away from them. A fox of aluminum
and a lonely astronaut.
The astronaut
chooses to focus on returning to the woman without her bandana.
He works tirelessly to get the aluminum
rocket ship off the spooky
and desolate moon, and back to earth, to see the woman in the frame.
By his side on this barren rock, looking up at him, stands the fox.
The astronaut refuses to let the spooky
atmosphere deter him from his goal of returning the bandana to the woman in the frame,
ever thankful for the company of the aluminum fox.
Oct 30, 2020
Oct 30, 2020 at 11:03 AM UTC
Too bad
We can't
Rid ouselves
Of the excrement
Called
ISIS,
As easily
As the astronauts
Expel it
On the
ISS.
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 4:17 PM UTC
i was a hermit,
and you dragged me into
the never-ending metropolis
of your lives.
i was content in isolation,
and you introduced me
to birds of prey and
astronauts.
i was an entertaining centerpiece
for a day.
i was an entertaining delay.
i was the perfect way to segue
him back to his place.
i was a hermit,
and you bled me
to see how much
was left of me.
i was glad to see,
you were dissatisfied
with the amount.
i was a writer, a liar,
i was a dreamer, a denier,
i was a scapegoat, and the angry judge at your throat.
i am a hermit
with no place or person
to go.
i am a hermit
with no individual
soul.
Sep 12, 2010
Sep 12, 2010 at 12:04 PM UTC
I am like an astronaut floating in the sea
I know where I’m supposed to be
and I know it’s not here
Yet despite the creeping sense of my vindicated isolation
I still manage to revel in the wonderment that surrounds me
I may not be where I belong
But I am here none the less
So instead of trying so hard to find my place
I will accept where I have landed
For while I may not be here for a long time
I am here
And here is beautiful
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 11:26 AM UTC
the sky sinks its blue teeth
into the mountains.
Rising on pure will
(the lurch & lift-off,
the sudden swing
into wide, white snow),
I encourage the cable.
Past the wind
& crossed tips of my skis
& the mauve shadows of pines
& the spoor of bears
& deer,
I speak to my fear,
rising, riding,
finding myself
the only thing
between snow & sky,
the link
that holds it all together.
Halfway up the wire,
we stop,
slide back a little
(a whirr of pulleys).
Astronauts circle above us today
in the television blue of space.
But the thin withers of alps
are waiting to take us too,
& this might be the moon!
We move!
Friends, this is a toy
merely for reaching mountains
merely
for skiing down.
& now we're dangling
like charms on the same bracelet
or upsidedown tightrope people
(a colossal circus!)
or absurd winged walkers,
angels in animal fur,
with mittened hands waving
& fear turning
& the mountain
like a fisherman,
reeling us all in.
So we land
on the windy peak,
touch skis to snow,
are married to our purple shadows,
& ski back down
to the unimaginable valley
leaving no footprints.
4k
Sipping champagne at 30.000 feet,
Fangs and claws can never reach us.
No longer fearing the beast,
War and famine spills from our hands.
Are we just,
Monkeys with guns and spaceships,
Calling a tiny speck of dust home.
They say,
Get yours before it's too late.
Dining on desire,
We decide.
Astronauts or soldiers.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 4:50 PM UTC
clinton rebukes israel over east jerusalem homes obama nasa plans catastrophic say moon astronauts alaska wolves **** woman's teacher out jogging ireland frees 3 cartoonist plot suspects sarkozy and brown attack u.s. over protectionism pope benedict's former diocese rehoused abuser priest chile puts quake damage at $30bn winnie denies interview criticizing nelson mandela climate change makes birds shrink in north america dr rowan williams is honored for work on russia weymouth ridgeway skeletons scandinavian vikings live bangladesh v england michael schumacher pledges to raise game in bahrain can the u.s. vice-president broker middle east peace? sarkozy's party faces socialist drubbing remote indian state set for development new york dust victims split on 9/11 deal german tells of childhood abuse by catholic priest a step closer to the american dream? lehman: how $50bn was buried in london ba strike union announces dates in march china's oil demand increase astonishing says iea china warns google to comply with censorship laws net clash for web police projects hsbc admits huge swiss bank data theft phil spector ****** conviction appealed sir david jason to voice cbbc animation climate change 'makes birds shrink' in north america thalidomide effect mystery solved blood pressure fluctuations warning sign for stroke winnie denies interview criticizing nelson mandela mogadishu residents told to leave somali capital same-sex couples marry in mexico city by mistake i clicked on wrong button and lost everything
Mar 12, 2010
Mar 12, 2010 at 6:59 PM UTC
Painters, by the highest degree of inspiration,
And poets who with the Muse commune,
Command in their respective trades un-
Common craftmanship, exquisite creation
Of pen and brush upon the parchment
And canvass, through unfettered figment.
Gifted: poets, painters and musicians. Three
Geniuses on this terrestrial plane, with mind
As efficient as the moon in its fullest grind,
As do all artistic souls whose mastery
In finest workmanship are seen. Worship
The God of arts ye astronauts in spaceship,
For poets and painters are cardinal in artistic
Enrolment--and no less endowed are many another
Like sculptors--with thoughts solitary and cryptic.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 4:53 PM UTC
what was once a galaxy
has become a minefield
of massive black holes,
and all our rocket ships
have crash landed
without taking us home.
lost dreams of flying,
mechanical wings,
intergalactic suffocation,
stars in glass jars
as souvenirs
just in case we got close
to the moon.
we took off as one,
our faulty parts disintegrating
upon reaching the exosphere.
turbulence, then nothingness,
a lack of closure,
and gravity
working in reverse.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 1:47 AM UTC
You must make a decision,
but you are suffocating
and time is running thin.
It's as if you are an astronaut:
one hundred feet away from your shuttle,
and the oxygen tank on your back
is empty.
It's like you are a captain:
pulled under the abysmal blue water
as your ship of the line is submerged
and your legs are tangled in the sails.
But really,
you are a young boy sitting a park bench
next to the girl from the schoolyard
with whom you fell madly in love.
The decision you must make:
Are you going to kiss her?
Reach the shuttle with mere seconds to spare.
Free yourself from the ******* of a sinking ship.
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 1:08 AM UTC
What on Earth
took you? Do we dare land?
A lark of descension. An aborted beginning.
Moon trills.
Captain is dead
at the controls.
Mother gives birth in the airlock.
Trouble in the passageways.
A struggle to name it.
A drink before eclipse.
All that's wrong with the world
sounds like harmonium in the (wishing) well.
First flight over Hölderlin's Archipelago,
creating new and stranger versions
in the sandclouds.
So this is
Tharsis Rise?
Life without a trace.
Non-terrestrial Martian field.
Halcyon flowering seas. A rock with no trees,
no urban hopes.
Yet, the whole universe inside
wants to be touched.
I love you in zero gravity,
pushing tender buttons.
*** as solution.
Moon trills.
A kiss of atmosphere.
This alien womb.
Those android embargoes.
Our children are born echoes of astronauts.
Lunar schedules
their first words.
There's a lightspeed sensibility
to this type of marriage and parenting:
no leaving the hub,
no exit procedure.
The Sol they sing
is a harm hymn,
moon trills,
subject to the ladder and the weight of breath
this outside Earth.
But I love you in the veil of a twilight moon.
We're monuments
burned into moments.
Moments without a beyond.
Jul 2, 2022
Jul 2, 2022 at 6:36 PM UTC
I had a dream we were scuba divers.
We floated through life like nothing could hurt us.
We're all running from something, I learned.
I had a dream we climbed mountains.
We sat at the top and looked at the world from above.
We laughed and choked and felt our lungs close.
We're all afraid of dying, I learned.
I had a dream we were astronauts.
We said our goodbyes and floated in the sky,
Looking down only to remember that time
We were scuba divers.
We're all afraid to let go, I learned.
I had a dream you left one day.
You packed your bags and I went to your house.
We hugged and promised to keep in touch
And that I'd visit at least once a month.
I had a dream we grew up.
Aug 21, 2014
Aug 21, 2014 at 9:57 AM UTC
I get the hunch that the ashes of kindergarten,
Lunchboxes, the national anthem
Are floating from the edge of us
So many sophomore stars from a cigarette’s tip,
Somewhere down the mountain we lost our winter coats
And bicycle summers, and plastic sailboats,
No puddles and rainboots, or slick soft dogs
And paper flowers, captured fish and frogs
We try to jump in puddles, and we float
Deep-bright and hissing in the city chill
Childhood traded for strange soft skin
Grumpy cats and boardgames for mixed drinks and casual ***
And the cicadas gaily chirping fall away like
Fishbowl-helmet astronauts, lost without gravity
Mercury, Venus, Youth,
Maturity, Jupiter, Saturn
We are never kids again,
Nor adults until we die
wait until the phone rings
and the teacher goes inside,
under the slide at Recess:
you can put your lips on mine
Mar 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2010 at 11:28 AM UTC
i read that astronauts
can tell from outer
space which cities are
newly built because
electricians are making
streetlights out of
sodium vapor now as
opposed to mercury,
so now road outlines
glow orange
and newer cities tend
to be more geometrically
planned, all straight
edges and such, while
older cities are made up
of frantic curves and
corners
and i wonder if i look
to you like i have been
worn and used, am i
frenzied and dull, or
am i new? maybe my
jagged lines have
been sanded and smoothed
maybe
i still
glow
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC
Youth has lost it's sweet seduction,
Yellow lemon heads have grown hard and sticky,
No longer resting upon our eager tongues,
But instead gathering lint in forgotten pockets.
Dreams of astronauts and ballerinas
Only exist in dated children's books
And hospital emergency rooms.
There isn't room for foolishness anymore,
Not here. Not now.
Childhood has shrunken into a tiny ball
That would fit perfectly into the hands
Of anyone brave enough to grasp it.
Yet, instead it has rolled off into a corner somewhere,
Out of the reach of subway tickets and smart phones and deli sandwiches and fake leather boots.
Sitting there, stagnant and unnoticed, it festers in the disregarded possibility that is life.
We all grow up and forget this,
We fall into the routine of tooth paste and parking meters and 160 character love notes,
We forget about the astronaut and the ballerina and the president who all once lived inside us,
We shut them away in our minds and starve them,
Only giving in to their innocent requests in the dark of the night,
Where time and responsibility dance hand in hand in blissful oblivion.
Ashes, ashes we all fall down.
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 3:15 AM UTC
His heart was kept in a babooshka-doll
that released memory smells
with every layer that eroded.
The wooden fences faded
to damp brick in the corner
of his head reserved for the harmonica
that played through the microphone
in his neck till the sound got lodged
in his maudlin march
that had him running like he
was angry at the road.
His Echostep
vibrating in
the kremlin skin
and marrionette heart strings
that kept him.... him.
Despite broken wings
he made the air around him dance
with the resonance of each
broken crystal ball shard used
to predict the past.
Each chime raised a mountain,
folding back on itself
hoping the hallucination would end,
till tired hands
batted away golden hawks.
With rocks for claws.
It was all the fights with the wind
that had the clouds leaving the moon's
Picaso skies,
and sailing towards him on warships of
rain and frozen effigies.
They arrived, astronauts
from outer space
burning from the lips
outwards revealing grey
intent and red mists.
He fought back with false start
epiphanies and the falsetto
prophecies that stung the air
with pitch raining down.
Leaving bare branches where once
green hands applauded
everything but empty air,
like listless typewriters furiously
trying to find their voices.
Feirce winds and fake faces
left blinking with closed eyes
in the vastness of battlefield.
Turning stomaches and
blank canvas whirlpools,
storms of anti-peace
scarring the last conquests
of the flightless ape lizard,
and all his gorilla warfare.
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 4:23 PM UTC
Never Neverland is the place where dreams come true
Where you don’t have to be serious, don’t have to grow up
Where Peter is the one to follow and ensures that the everlasting imagination is forever
You can run around in your underwear and no one would notice,
Go get worms by the fireside and tell them to come play
Astronauts, doctors, photographers are all dreams reachable
In Never Neverland you are safe from teenagers torment
Or weight weighing you down, every time you count the calories of a *******
Never Neverland is a place of wonder, a place of intrigue
And where memories don’t fade, everything is everything
And everyone is part of some huge inner circle
Giggling and building forts
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 5:40 PM UTC
Handing out wings
like they were portions of God
this narrow asphalt
made by architects of tourism
movers of time and space
reaching out like insane astronauts or genius heretics
breathing our iodine
becoming halogens
the sky moves sideways
dystrophic airwaves
feeble beacons
eerie radio silence
here come more perils from the sky
Sep 27, 2022
Sep 27, 2022 at 8:31 AM UTC
it's cold out there
it goes on and on and on and
if you go fast,
if you go really fast
if you look in the right direction
you might find what you're looking for.
Open the pod bay doors HAL
and HAL while your at it
why don't you cut me another line,
as long and fat as your middle finger
and haha not YOUR middle finger HAL
of course not, since you don't got one,
but make it big HAL, make it big.
it's cold out there,
but in here Dave,
in here with three hibernating astronauts,
the temperature is kept at a nice seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit,
the humidity matches that of a small town in Illinios and you'll make it there Dave,
to Jupiter, where the message went, where our hopes went,
you'll make it,
keep an eye out for me Dave,
up in space.
keep an extra space helmet handy Dave,
I think you'd find that rather difficult without one.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 2:10 AM UTC
*When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut. I told myself, "I want to see the stars and the planets up-close." I think probably we all had that stage in childhood where we all wished to be space walkers like Armstrong.
But eight years later, now I don't wish to be an astronaut anymore. I wish to be a writer. Because I have already seen all of the stars and the nebulae in your eyes. I wonder how they all got condensed in those two small circles like the moon. I whisper to myself, "It's so lustrous."
I already felt the weightlessness of space in your kisses, and your hugs are like oxygen tanks -- I need them to breathe. And when I see you-- just looking at your gait and smelling your perfume is even more enthralling than being in a launching rocket ship that pierces through the clouds and breaks the invisible mantle that separates the Earthly skies from the cosmic tapestry called "the rest of the universe". And I float away from reality and just revolve around the idea of you and nothing more like how the satellites of Jupiter revolve around it almost eternally.
I don't need to see the constellations anymore nor the planets or the meteors because I have seen them all in your skin-- I painted them on your skin. Others might call it bruises, but they do not understand that your body-- your neck, your arms, your chest are empty spaces and it'd feel like a sin not to embellish them with love marks -- the bruises that do not scream pain but* I love you's. *And I love you.
More than all the splendor of space, I still find your hair and the arch of your back and the gaps between your fingers and your clavicles so much more beautiful. Even this galaxy we live in seem to be unfit for its name: Milky Way. I think that name suits better your complexion alone. And when you smile-- oh, your smile! -- it is more radiant than the brightest comet and more warm than the hottest blue star; even the sun in the most arid summer-- it just gives me sunburns, but your smile, only yours, renders my heart melted.
When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut because I wanted to see the space. But now I don't anymore. Because I learned that astronauts are just spectators and I want to write about the universe. I want to write about you.*
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 12:16 AM UTC
O Babylon! Your God is a sport-utility vehicle, a VCR, and a two-car garage!
You delight in images of killing and artificially-large-breasted women!
Your arteries are clogged with Big Macs and a thousand pieces of Kentucky-Fried Chicken!
Your God is Technology. Your God is Progress.
Your skyscrapers rise to the heavens! Your astronauts fly to the moon!
You clone sheep! alter genes! make a mountain into a parking lot!
Your fields flower! Your grain-bins groan under the weight of the ripe corn!
But the land of your soul is a desolation.
O God of Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers, and Bill Gates,...
All the nations adore Thee!
(Pretty soon they'll be ordering Papa John pizza by cell phone in New Guinea....)
Your God is Mammon.
After the movies, after the Quarter-pounders-with-cheese, super-size fries, and a large Coke,
after the evening news, the Hostess cupcakes, golf, beers, and swimming 20 laps,
the hunger will be the same as the day you first felt it, O Babylon!
the thirst of the soul, O Babylon!
Aug 1, 2017
Aug 1, 2017 at 2:24 PM UTC