Astral Lore

Well
this brain splatter could be colorful
upon the spin art crests of a more daft poetry
but yet I still wonder
what it is that yearns in the firmament of my remaining nerves
for a modicum of transitive velocity
within the sea sick canvas of outer space,
filling up spacecraft with water based engines
and shooting crooked strands of electricity
in small measures in the veldt of twilit perdition.

I could write about designs that could be in future textbooks
like a graviton machine that functions on a large circular orbit
with a smaller one inside performing hydrostatus
for a perpetual energy machine
but these may be laughed at
since they began with a pen,
and well, neither you nor I
are as simple as a silent machine
that came running with clean thoughts through my inordinate dreams.

A spaceship, yes
one that could be manufactured out of wood or tree branches
which would perfume the cabins with oxygen from the natural mechanism of leaves
functioning on the other end only on CO2 in a person's breath,
or a suit knitted out of sealed rubber composites
that could fly an individual to the brink of outer space's vast sea
or some kind of gizmo
that would bend light with mirrors and an electric whip
to flail gently out into the purple dark
to provide a pale illumination.

But for the children I attended school with,
these may be possible,
the ones who poured sea salt on snails
to watch the saline mess bubble in pops and cruel crackles
as they cawed in malicious laughter like ravens,
maybe something wrong there
with their brains and bloodlines
like the switches for interspecies empathy had burned out
on the metaphorical circuit boards of their minds,
failing them in science lessons
that proved other creatures possessed nerves to feel.

I could ransack old magazines and notebooks
for cautionary tales
of taking cruel captains into the backdrop of space,
like the story of poor Nevel
who they locked in space prison for a million and a half years
without cryosleep
for simply professing that a pencil with an eraser
could be a better tool than a billion dollar robotic pen
which could write upside down in no gravity,
when all he said after that
was well, the pencil performs that trick too.

Wondering if a black rosebud
or an artichoke plant
or some kind of humane symbolic flower
like an orchid
could float out into the layers of the upper atmosphere
and seed the external orbits of our fledgling planet
with scenery and beauty
as gifts to all those insane insectile spy satellites
who get used to probing for old Cold War designations
in terms of high definition black and white
across both the screen and politics.

I wonder too
if you would laugh
at a plan to make outer space habitable
without the concepts of submarines and skyhooks
but maybe just with staircases of Light
that we could rummage through with our running styles and laughter
like MC Escher drawings, hiding and surprising each other again
without painful hackles such as explosives attached to lasers and engines
without obtuse senses of disbelief in the sufferings of our longing and lack of belonging
without the cruelty of too much thrust and too much power while trapped by technological rapes
without the ideas that had planted the bodies of our kin beneath earth and bedrock
and without the miseries of hearts broken like porcelein bells at all the senseless murders extracted on soul and spirit.
We could live a nice life up there,
you in your mansion made of Light
with me sitting in a giant glowing cup, drinking water that wouldn't sink
as our feelings and love and notions extended into free form without gravitational predialections
and broke free of even the Beauty of Flight.

Maybe
this Life on Earth
came here to teach us about Pain and Bondage
and our Destiny
lays in the billowing silk of Starlight
as promised to us by even merely the reflection in your eyes
when you promised to be brave even if they decided they didn't love you
before you met those who had accomplished the stories of myth
with common items, such as fending away fear and dread
with rubber bands and a butter knife
or those who had nothing
but meant everything
to the astral navigations of Life's fulfilment
as the robin still tweets and scatters seed through its being
and as the silver flash of a fish
reminds us of sleek movements of belonging in a school
will we one day place our hands
not on each other
but where our hearts had desired up there on celestial objects
that would want to become symbols
for the times when our species finally discovered True Love.