I got started late with my Wild Rose Reader plans for National Poetry Month this year. One thing I decided to do recently was to look through all the poems that I’ve written—many of which I’ve already posted at this blog—and organize them by theme. Today, I’m posting original poems that I wrote on the subject of outer space/space travel/planets and the moon/rockets.
I wrote the first two poems that I posted below about Mars for the “Famous First Words” contest that Anne Levy had at Book Buds in 2006.
Here’s what Anne wrote: Okay, we all know what Neil Armstrong said when he set his boot down on the moon. Or at least we all thought we knew.
So now we're sending people to Mars, maybe. We're sending you, in fact. You open the hatch and leap onto the surface of the Red Planet and say ... What? Honey, I'll be home in time for supper? Hi, Mom?
A Martian Chronicle
(Note: This poem was the contest winner.)The sky is pink.
There ain’t no birdies
Overhead.
It's bare. It's bleak.
Don't see no plants
Or other green
Inhabitants.
It's desolate.
The air is scant.
Except for me--
No life's extant.
It’s dusty, dry.
I need a beer.
Houston,
Get me outta here!
A Loquacious Astronaut Waxes Poetic after Stepping Foot on Mars
Whose planet’s this? I know I know.
His home’s on Mount Olympus so
He will not see me stopping here
To go exploring to and fro.
The polar ice cap’s very near.
I spy three skaters. Drat! I fear
Some other life forms came before.
I’m NOT the first Mars pioneer.
I see a Super Star Trek Store…
And garish neon signs galore!
There’s garbage everywhere I tread.
Don’t want to be here anymore.
This trip’s a bust to “Planet Red.”
Yo, Earth, give me the go-ahead
To visit Jupiter instead,
To visit Jupiter instead.
Here are two poems I wrote about the demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet status in 2006. Note: IAU stands for International Astronomical Union.
PLUTO 2007
Made of ice…and, maybe granite,
A distant, tiny, frigid sphere
Demoted to a "dwarf" last year.
Pluto, Pluto, once a planet.
Astronomers said: "We should can it.
It’s much too small; its orbit’s odd
It’s named after a nasty god."
Pluto, Pluto, once a planet.
The IAU? It chose to ban it
From the planetary club.
That’s a solar systemic snub!!!
INTERPLANETARY FAX
TO: Pluto
DATE: August 24, 2006
RE: Demotion to Dwarf Status
Sorry, Pluto, you’re way too small.
You’re just an itty-bitty ball…
An insignificant cosmic dot…
A speck in the Milky Way. You’re not
Considered a planet anymore.
Here’s your pink slip; there’s the door.
You’re off the list. Goodbye! Adieu!
Don’t go making a hullabaloo.
There’s nothing…nothing…you can do.
Accept your fate.
FROM: IAU
**********
THERE WAS A WITCH
There was a witch who liked to race
Her supersonic broom through space.
At six o’clock last Friday night
She blasted off at speed of light.
She whizzed past Mercury and Mars…
Then headed off toward distant stars.
Across the galaxy she sped,
A black peaked helmet on her head.
An interstellar traveler, she
Explored the Milky Way with glee.
She chased swift comets here and there.
She watched bright supernovae flare.
She zipped through clouds of cosmic dust…
A witch bewitched by wanderlust.
There was a witch, I’m sad to say,
Flew near a big black hole one day.
It sucked her in just like a bean.
You won’t see HER on Halloween!
Relativity Quatrain
I’m taking a trip in the rocket, my dear.
I’ll travel far faster than light.
I’m leaving tomorrow—but don’t you fret
For I will return tonight.
**********
SPACE ACROSTICS
Poor dwarf, so small, so far from the sun,
Lost in a sky full of stars.
Underworld of ice
Traveling its lonely path around the sun,
Outcast of the darkness.
A band of old buddies
Sticking together through the years.
Too small to be planets,
Each one a world apart,
Rocky and lifeless,
Orbiting
In unison,
Dancing a ring around the
Sun.
Mirror
Of the sun, bright
Orb in the evening sky, Earth’s
Nightlight.
Roaring
Off the launch pad in a
Cloud of smoke,
Kicking off its invisible tether to
Earth, it blasts into space, blazing a
Trail, searing the sky with its fiery tail.
Spheres of fire, cosmic
Torches,
A billion billion beacons lighting
Runways to the farthest outposts of the universe
Showing the road back to the beginning.
**********
Asteroids
Tiny planets
Together in a cosmic kindergarten
Holding hands in a circle
Playing Ring around the Sun
Yearning to grow up and have orbits of their own.
**********
THINGS TO DO IF YOU ARE THE SUN
Be big
and round
and bold
and bright.
Wear a crown
of golden light.
Keep the planets
in their place.
Be the queen
of outer space.
Things to Do If You Are the Moon
Live in the sky.
Be bold…
OR
be shy.
Wax and wane
in your starry terrain.
Be a circle of light,
just a sliver of white,
or hide in the shadows
and vanish from sight.
Look like a pearl
when you’re brim-full
and bright.
Hang in the darkness
and dazzle the night.
********************
I highly recommend Douglas Florian’s poetry collection Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars. You can read my review of the book here. You can read my 2007 Wild Rose Reader interview with Douglas about the book here.
Click here and here to look inside Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars.
NOTE: I'm still having trouble with Blogger. That's why the text in this post isn't uniform--and why the letters at the beginnings of the lines in my acrostic poems aren't sized properly. I'm not sure what the problem is.
