Vol 3 No 1 2009
Planetarium
Having lit every inch of the heavens
they closed the planetarium.
It lulls there now, on Avenue Road,
its small, sad orbit decaying.
But I don’t blame you, alone.
I too,
forgot to look up.
The sky changing so little.
The
stars, pointless
points of
institutional light.
The
moon’s
mechanical tugging of tides.
Somehow,
we lost a universe.
Dust and bones
of the galaxy’s brittle arm.
There was a general drop in demand
for universes, black holes,
starry-eyed husbands.
I admit, I see the stars
as pointless points of light,
The moon as a
The sky has changed so little
what the point in looking up?
The inability of the sky to change
But for the odd meteor shower
skies don’t change enough.
The Big Bang, a primal bore,
a premature ejaculation.
The moon a beaten whore,
lazily tugging the tides.
and the moon’s beaten face
The moon’s become a clingy whore,
lazily tugging the tides.
Black holes were distant, lousy lays,
that’ll suck in anything.
The moon, a clingy whore,
lazily tugging off the tides.
(make it sexual (but spiritually sexual) cosmic revitalization out of the destruction)(Phoenix like)
But I’m still here,
inside its big white dome,
darkness buttressed with beams of dust,
shitting inside my space suit.
My bones like the galaxy’s brittle arms.
the engineering wonders of shitting
inside a space suit.
(End of wonder – quick we are to discard, banish to the outer limits. Conclusion must be that they are alone, but in unlimited variability and complexity unlimited wonder – in language of space – you never know it all about someone.)
expanding from the big bang.
meteorically unchanging
for things
the unchanging sky.
and the humour of husbands
Even planets tire
of the unchanging sky.
dark-side silence beyond radio range.
the engineering wonders
of shitting inside a space suit.
The boredom of planets
And about the same time
of that celestial passing,
the meteors that showered us in debt
and death, when you left,
the stars becoming pointless points of
institutional light, the sun
a daft totailitarian.
–
or like the moonthe moon
a budding billboard, the sun
a discredited, rather daft,
totalitarian.
the search for marvels in a static sky
became empty as altruism,
as one giant sleep for mankind.
For true seekers, destruction
is the next frontier.
Inside, I sit –
our too tight pants rolling up muffin tops –
waiting for the 70’s return.
The big bang’s disco wrecking ball,
our eyes bleak as beams of dust,
bones like a galaxy’s brittle arm.
as piercing light
there was no purpose left to look for wonder
anywhere
only we cosmonauts were left behind
the heavy doors, in the
the cold, silence, the threat
of blood boiling
(death of wonder – post modernism and belief in nothing, except, or not even, yourself. I am the personification of the collective left behind (lonely). Personal level, deep black space they are in).
among the passers-by on Avenue Road,
the whirling worlds of
Laughing Out Louds,
weightless
atmospheres burning to the touch.
Prying contact, botox injections –
we’re getting so young we know it all.
I think of you,
(the all-knowing who stopped going,
all you passers-by)
as cold, alloy spheres,
like tiny planets, whirling
worlds of weightless
Laughing Out Louds,
atmospheric burns to the touch.
Many times,
I thought I’d made contact,
playing you the street-side edition
of the Voyager Gold Record
Chuck Berry, greetings
in 50 dying languages,
the Pigmy Girls Initiation Song of Zaire.
I wanted to understand
why you don’t understand
that there are billions of galaxies
in deep, black space
and only one of me.
Inside now,
the dome of black deep space
thinking webbed thoughts
like an orphaned mind.
Inside is a dome of deep, black space
I’ve taken to writing poems.
You can consider this one my gold record,
like the disk on Voyager with Chuck Berry,
and the other sounds of earth.
A needle going round and round in a groove,
and falling – no one listening.
–
Glenn Gould, greetings
in 50 dying languages,
the Pigmy Girls Initiation Song of Zaire.
Many times,
I nearly made contact.
Played them my
I thought they found it alluring.
But, in fact, they were laughing at me,
marveling with the turntable,
the needle protruding in the grooves,
falling in.
My record player stopped working in 1989.
It was shortly after the
It takes a billion years to make a diamond stylus.
And they’ve closed the planetarium.
But they’ve dismantled all the turntables.
Didn’t seem fond of fucking
with me.
And now,
they’ve closed the planetarium.
Brian Dundas