THE PLANETS - NOT HOLST
A little was never enough.
The garbled voice on the message
machine seemed balanced like a Jupiter
on some Venus or the sort of sixth-grade
astronomy I remembered from the old Mercury
Space Program from long ago. Men breathing air
that was no air in the most perfect surroundings of
weightlessness and no meaning at all. Fraught with
struggle, their surroundings had already killed dogs
and monkeys, so why not them? Things seen in outer
windows looked like celestial lights or nightmares - one
way or the other, new ground was being covered; yet,
oddly enough, there was no ground at all? What did that
stupid on-air commentator mean, I wondered? We were
sitting on the steps at the old portables wherein were held
our fifth and sixth grades. Stupid places, really, with stupid
people too. And now this - some guy on the radio spouting
his nothing. My 8-transistor Emerson, even IT knew better
than that. Why then should we bother? The entire world, if a
continuing lie taught by 'elders', was deemed (by me) to be
nothing more worthwhile than spit. Or the astronauts above me,
I figured, with their - weightless and airy - bags of shit. Powdered
foods and freeze-dried mealtimes. Not for me, thanks. If I had to
take my Heavens, and ruin the stars, it would be with a five-course
meal, tablecloths and napkins, candles and a bar. Generations
of grown men, cavorting in capsules, high above and afar, piling
up their meaningless drivel for everyone and all to hear and see.
A little was never enough.
The garbled voice on the message
machine seemed balanced like a Jupiter
on some Venus or the sort of sixth-grade
astronomy I remembered from the old Mercury
Space Program from long ago. Men breathing air
that was no air in the most perfect surroundings of
weightlessness and no meaning at all. Fraught with
struggle, their surroundings had already killed dogs
and monkeys, so why not them? Things seen in outer
windows looked like celestial lights or nightmares - one
way or the other, new ground was being covered; yet,
oddly enough, there was no ground at all? What did that
stupid on-air commentator mean, I wondered? We were
sitting on the steps at the old portables wherein were held
our fifth and sixth grades. Stupid places, really, with stupid
people too. And now this - some guy on the radio spouting
his nothing. My 8-transistor Emerson, even IT knew better
than that. Why then should we bother? The entire world, if a
continuing lie taught by 'elders', was deemed (by me) to be
nothing more worthwhile than spit. Or the astronauts above me,
I figured, with their - weightless and airy - bags of shit. Powdered
foods and freeze-dried mealtimes. Not for me, thanks. If I had to
take my Heavens, and ruin the stars, it would be with a five-course
meal, tablecloths and napkins, candles and a bar. Generations
of grown men, cavorting in capsules, high above and afar, piling
up their meaningless drivel for everyone and all to hear and see.
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