Donald Barthelme vs. Russell Edson In Outer Space

At the space station, time stretched out like taffy.
We made up slogans
out of our asses
for absurd commodities which, if they exist, shouldn't.

We voted (ourselves)
into made-up offices.
We issued edicts to each other,
and had drunken fights over borders we dreamed, or misremembered
from wasted schoolroom afternoons.

Abruptly, we were summoned home,
though the trip took months, and we strangled or ravished each other
at intervals all the way, regardless of
gender or
consequences or
any pretense of sanity or cohesion.

Arriving from the Space Station, we were feted as heroes.
We had intimacies with heads of state,
and endorsed, on camera, preposterous shit with unknown risks and
dubious utility.

Wish upon a star, said our mothers
so many years ago,
as we lay in cribs like soft, wonderful jail cells for the innocent.
Wish upon a star, 
and we did, God help us, we did.
_______

I discovered two of my strongest (and most bizarre) influences in my teens (Donald Barthelme) and early 20s (Russell Edson). Barthelme is the author of several collections of short stories which describe dryly absurd situations rife with irony and failure. The first one I found was a paperback copy of "Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts" (find quotes from which, HERE). I owe a significant debt to Mr. Barthelme for the indelible mark his style has left on my sensibilities. Then there is Russell Edson, whose book of prose poems "The Wounded Breakfast" showed me that poetry, and story line, and creativity, and just about anything else on a page, could be however my mind could imagine it. Find "Angels" by Mr. Edson, HERE.

For Karin's "Under The Influence" mini-challenge at Real Toads. The artwork at top is hers.

Medea, NASA Wife

Death is the ultimate gravity.
Astronauts understand this, and live forever,
but weep as they work, knowing they can never go home again.

What friend, what doctor,
can comfort the deathless in their solitary endlessness?
What aspect of research, 
what nourishing knowledge
could ever make their exile bearable?

Look! In the sky!
Nothing. 
Woman, you cannot touch them; there is nothing so remote as a departing spouse,
sure of everything and saying so,
all the while

fearing the fire of re-entry
and the facing of wives and waves which once welcomed, and now destroy.
______

for get listed with grapeling at real toads.

Requiem For A Cassowary

Here is the man, your hero, shot
into space by sign of what man can do;
what ass can question, what ass has got
more than an astronaut's glory? You?

Halo'd on podium with his lessers, the crew,
he's God's own bratty favorite.
Shine and stardust? He's made of it.

The Moon and Mars fall back a pace
in the face of science's full command,
to probe, to pierce, and then retrace
back home to our grand blue ampersand.

Yes, here is the hero, the amplified man
in parade, in decline, in decaying orbit,
ceasing the circle before he could form it.
_______

for Margaret's Play it Again, Toads # 14. Bursting with hubris, I did my own!

 
 

Data Not Commonly Known

Neil never came back.
What is she supposed to do now? Dust?
She can't--
the task seems too monumental, 
and with him gone, who cares anyway?

He came out of the blue, fell from the sky,
a knight in shining armor.
She should've known he'd have a wife.

He went home to get some things
in 1969.
Now, here she is alone--
losing her mind,

getting older,
and wearing his stupid flag around her face
like a wedding veil.
______

some facts about milk

Milk is made from stars;
Milk is liquefied stars.

Jars for milk are made from glass;
Glass is made when lightning touches sand.

Jarred milk is most similar to the Moon;
Jarred milk wants to be the Moon.

One becomes an astronaut by drinking milk from jars;
Inside each astronaut: stars.
______

a list poem for "Are You Listing?"

and 55 words counting the title for G Man.

 

Herd Memory

HERD MEMORY

The moon is nothing but a dusty ball of rock.
Men were made to go and find out for sure,
flung there like a little handful of rice
at the wedding of desolation and ruin.

The bride wore a white dress
and her chalky carriage was pulled by moon horses,
made from pale stones and solar winds.

When the astronauts came home,
one of them married an albino ticket taker
from a traveling circus.

Their children were wild--
with black hooves hammered from the spaces behind the stars,
and their bedroom shelves filled with rows of Mane N Tail,
they were vain, high stepping Gypsies.

Farmers wanted to shoot them
for eating all the clouds after midnight
because they wanted to see the moon.

"Grandmother," they said,
"Look at us. We are beautiful."
The kin tie pulled them toward the sky like kind redemption,

Where each night they hovered half-way,
hooves up, heads down, arrayed across the sky
Shining Brightly.
________

This poem is for Real Toads mini challenge #24, featuring a collection of amazing dolls. The one I have written about here was made by Junsung Lee. I think it's gorgeous.

Children's Stars

When we last saw the astronaut, she was having quintuplets.
There was nothing left to drink but stupid Tang,
And no one to help her except for her dog Sirius.

Under an orange sky, she invoked the Divine.
"Dear God," she gritted out, adding monikers and flourishes that would make a Saturnine whore blush,
"Give a girl a fucking hand. Amen."

Twenty-three hours later, the astronaut was as empty as her discarded NASA helmet.
Who knew such small faces could make a constellation?
Five perfect points like a yellow star drawn by a schoolgirl.

"Sirius, keep us and protect us," prayed the astronaut, to the nearest known power.
The dog did exactly that, with noble fearlessness,
Down all his days under the dome of Heaven.

______



 
 

Christmas Jane

Christmas Jane loses her seasonal job,
And so she returns to Summer,
Long days on the high grasslands
Laid out flat on the back of a silent black horse, she sleeps in the sun.

Christmas Jane eats peyote,
And hears bells.
There are no churches out here;
Just the wind that's born at the ends of her hair,
Making it long to travel.

Christmas Jane sends a post card home;
Sleeps with a guy in the heat mirage morning,
And with a girl under the stars that night.

It is not so bad, this loose wandering.
She loves the buffalo herds, both ghostly and real,
And stays between their hooves, light as a feather, easy and unharmed.

Christmas Jane loves the Autumn,
The fires that begin,
And the smoke in the air.
Whoever she is, she isn't Christmas Jane anymore,
But her black horse will carry her across the frost
To the next place,
Always,
With a nicker she interprets
As a prayer.

______

Excelsior

"Melvin? I ran into our old neighbors today. They asked about you."

"Huh? Oh. Fine."

They have a new Escalade. You know, the Suburu is making that weird pinging noise again. Tom said he could get us a deal on--"

"Tom's a prick. Laurie's a slut."

"Melvin!"

(shrug)

"You know what, Melvin?"

(mumbling) "For god's sake..."

"I feel like some Twizzlers."

"Try the store."

"Well....I was hoping you'd go get some for me."

"Fuck that."

"Melvin!"

"What? Are your legs broken?"

"Do you even love me anymore, Mel?"

"Yeah. Wow, look at that dunk."

(sigh) "When we got married, all my friends were so jealous. I was marrying an astronaut!"

"Why don't you go to the store?"

"It's too far."

"It is not. I went to the freaking moon for chrissakes. You can go to the store."

"Well I don't trust the Suburu, and you won't let me take the Rover."

"So walk. It's good exercise." 

"Like you would know. C'mon, I want some Twizzlers. Be my knight in shining armor and get me some."

"What?"

"Goddamit, Melvin."

"The 7-11 is right around the corner. It's one small step for--"

"I swear to God, Melvin...don't say it."

_______