Some very interesting thoughts here from the Night Poet:
– Carl Sagan ~
Digitally enhanced image created from an original photo taken in February 2020.
© 2020 nightpoet all rights reserved
He sleeps on while I awake
to hear rain on the roof
lie snug listening to a
long familiar sound
pattering, gathering strength
and force until
it pounds
and the roof resounds.
Gasping with sudden
shattering realisation
I grab for the breathers,
the suits,
scream for the children.
It does not rain
here on Mars.
Copyright © 2019 Kim Whysall-Hammond
This poem was published as ‘Rain’ Star*Line Volume 42, Issue 2 –the in-house print journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
Neon shattered voices ring across dockside
joshing, laughing.
A gaggle of youth, glories of hair and beard,
jaunt along a just washed walkway,
looking for nothing,
arms linked, heads thrown back
deep laughs mixed with shrill cries.
Pocked skin drawn
tight over smashed cheekbone,
hair frizzy and sculpted
or flopping over acid kissed eye.
Wide grins stretch mouths
faces marred by occupational hazard
adorned with tattoo.
Brightly painted prostheses refract
glitter, crack together
as shoulders nudge hard
in proto-embrace or witty retort.
Tonight, youth’s incandescent joy uplifts,
they will launch into the dark
escape this gravity well tomorrow.
Other crews drift along
washed by unfathomed
tides of rumour and gossip
pushed-pulled to entertainments
you cannot, would not, share.
Our girls and boys josh on
exchanging joyous insults,
impervious to all.
An enclave of companionship
in a lonely night.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
First pubished in Wizards in Space 3, a print journal, https://wizardsinspacemag.com/
I’m at Eastercon (the UK national Science Fiction convention) this weekend, with paintings in the Art Show……..
An Apollo astronut floating high….
….plus a bonus poem, this time about someone in a red suit:
Resplendent in red
She came to see me
Resplendent in red
Glittering with dust
Her elegant bone structure evident more than ever
Desiccated and dead
Spacesuit blown
Floating past the view screen
When I know we retrieved her from orbit yesterday
First published in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Associations print journal Star*Line 40.4
Both Painting and poem Copyright © 2019 Kim Whysall-Hammond
She came to see me
Resplendent in red
Glittering with dust
Her elegant bone structure evident more than ever
Desiccated and dead
Spacesuit blown
Floating past the view screen
When I know we retrieved her from orbit yesterday
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
First published in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Associations print journal Star*Line 40.4
She came to see me
Resplendent in red
Glittering with dust
Her elegant bone structure evident more than ever
Desiccated and dead
Spacesuit blown
Floating past the view screen
When I know we retrieved her from orbit yesterday
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Originally published in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Associations print journal Star*Line 40.4 October 2017 http://www.sfpoetry.com/sl/issues/starline40.4.html
Unimaginably ancient, preserving moments in time;
billion year old pebbles from unknown floods
bones fallen into an ancient abyss
ten thousand year old footprints along an English estuary.
Sitting on a rock, you touch time.
Rocks move. They melt and set, erode to dust
and then the dust settles
forms new rock over time almost unimaginable.
This undulating plain formed at great depths
was thrust up to mountainous heights
now lies placid for your walking comfort.
Go find a rock
and travel in time and space.
Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond
We are a brief bloom
On the fragile skin
Of a molten body
Encircling a massive furnace
We are a blossoming of sentience
With encrusted technologies
Craving wonder, hoping for company
Seeking knowledge and excitement
We truly are stardust
Our bodies built from atoms
Forged in successive stellar explosions
We crave the glories of the Universe
We are Human
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from last year
Visitor from afar,
tracked by orbital telescopes
calculated trajectory indicating
an extra solar origin.
She is dropping past and zooming out.
Rock studded ice lump
possibly formed without a mother sun
in the darknesses between stars.
Interplanetary orphan,
we have only just spotted you.
Where are the others?
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
In honour of object A/2017 U1 , now visiting our solar system from who knows where.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/2017_U1
The Cheesesellers Wife 