A Foolish Wish of Improbable Proportions: How I Stopped Worrying About Space Debris

constables squeeze crude

irradiated by bessie’s beard on paul’s right side

giant worms steal silver forks

while bats attack religious manics

and tom

restores order

on a space station

headed for the spoon

 

<restart process and program.  enter a glowing door

made of breasts.  because ellis is chaste.  and chaste

is great>

 

liadia wraps roti over goat bone

when meteor takes off house-top

she taps a song on comp’ter keys

in rain of falling debris

and tom’s bones

 

—take apart sentence.  adjust noun.  delete precursor,

and remember.  words are your sense of song.  you

sing twice a year.  and worms puke up cutlery.  and

satellites stumble into craters.  and tom falls prey to

procedure.  and lipids boil.  when men fall from stars—

 

“tulip, are you hearing that commotion?  it’s a bloody

cackle of old people having sex.  on a trash heap.  with

pitchforks.”

 

<the connection cuts.  float if floating important.  vaccum

take us all.  in a pocket of positive pressure, we live

to tell.  a tale.  or a centimetre that it is an inch.

and

back in sarge’s time, he kept a gun in a shed.  in case

something dropped from clouds where commies

commiserate the loss of lenin’s bones>

 

“I see some old people humping.  and they are screaming

that revolution.  is.  right here.  in the wrinkles and folds.

growing cold old and bold.  revolution starts with the elderly.

mark it.  watch.”

 

tom digs shoe marks in splintered orbits

but asia in on fire

beneath his place in space

and science experiments on plant life

differ because he wants a smoke

takes a knife

gives himself a new face

lets in the vacuum

and the stardust

and plummets through the top of

liadia’s house

and lands in a graveyard

and awakes the dead

who are old

and dying for revolution

Dream hard, rage hard.

18 thoughts on “A Foolish Wish of Improbable Proportions: How I Stopped Worrying About Space Debris

  1. aren’t we all eventually “heading for a spoon?” lol great line. sounds like something you would tell a child, the space station is heading for a spoon. course, you wouldn’t be able to tell them the rest of the poem…lol and WHY is Bessie’s beard only on Paul’s right side….so very Trentish. 🙂 so very good!

  2. Ye gods! How many times I read this searching for a graceful umbrella-like meaning, only to have all different connotations pour!Not sure how to label this. Mastery, for sure. Yes, something I would be too intimidated to attempt I must say.

    1. Pirate, I must admit to being sober during the moments when this came out. I read it again a few moments ago, and am pretty much at a loss. You are too kind, honestly.

  3. Yeah! I sailed over many seas of meanings -some very stormy -with the pirate on this.
    You were sober when you write this???????? I find that hard to swallow. Maybe if I found tom’s bones + unicorn horn + eagle egg mixed in, I would be able to swallow that fact.

  4. Not everything that is a gem should make sense, should it? Bet you it did to me in one corner of that undescribable…unique you created there…like the asteroids burning in atmosphere unexpectedly. Leaving all and any stereotypes outside the door.

    1. Well, I tried, but it was a mash of things I still don’t understand. Honestly, I’m a little horrified by the post, as it’s so all over the place. If perhaps a more sensible post is of use, try the newest one on my blog. It doesn’t really offer too many confusions I hope.

      1. If it was up to me, I would have a look at it some other day. And maybe in a few after that. Might be wrong but have the feeling something more than familiar might appear through those layers are horrifying you right now. Off to your last post – thank you for the suggestion.

      1. well that’s funny… I don’t think I have much skill, just lots of feeling. I think the skill is in the heart of the reader, so if you feel it you get it, and that makes you extra interesting and highly skilful to me

        1. You have a rather amazing way of turning words to your end. I’ll take that comment, but I’ll never not acknowledge the skill of your poetry and the magnificence of your soul. Never.

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