Hey, CBC, 'spaceman' is all one word. I can read a dictionary, too! Does any CBC listener recall that host correcting my hyphenation in 2007? But his Saturday Night Live friend who stole my scripts didn't have to worry about my hyphenation because the words were spoken rather than written. These CBC staff frown on my cigarette butt smoking. But the Saturday Night Live cast takes the money they are paid from stealing my poems and apparently smokes so much crack with it that they burn out the centers for moral judgement in their brains. And do you judge hate by appearance or by action? Sharing my songs and telling the truth are acts of love. And stealing my songs and lying are acts of hate. As for my anger, well, I think it should be understandable under these conditions. Gee, maybe I wouldn't have went running to a psychiatrist to complain about how the TV was out to get me if it weren't true. That's a lot of destruction they're allowed to wreak on an independent artist. So much for justice and fair play. I: The Prospector The Earth was in an equinox, her crusted pools amassing To break the ice and flow again upon the hemisphere But rather than remain at home for one more summer's passing The scheduled departure for a restless man drew near The loving two who'd nurtured him and named him Alexander Had made sure that his education would surpass in scope A prodigy, he'd been prepared for competitions grander Than those with which his able peers were disciplined to cope Excelling in the sciences, at distant suns he'd wonder And soaked up, most, the knowledge for an interstellar flight He'd picture how he'd turn the key and feel the engines thunder As afterburners liberated plumes of yellow light Humanity had far advanced its certain apprehension To touch the surfaces once thought beyond the mortal reach Detecting in the spatial void, a singular dimension That cut the light-years of the ride to barely moments each The globe became a speck to him, against a mighty Titan An isolated outpost of significance too small From which to look beyond for any measure to enlighten And whose amenities could only capture and forestall The boundless possibilities of other shores to land on Distracted him from noticing the beauty of his home Restricted by the gravity, a better life, he planned on Once out into the galaxy and fully free to roam Scholastic labs afforded him exceptional resources To see the needed breakthroughs and design the proper ship He programmed it to keep inside the esoteric courses To make the most he could of the anticipated trip A lifetime of engaging in his astronomic passion Had culminated finally upon the launching pad A perfect world awaited him to freely form and fashion Which as a mere terrestrial, he never could have had II: The Craft The spaceship Gnostic cleared the clinging canopy of cobalt And on an intermission, caught the pale unfailing moon For sentimental looking back, his course would offer no halt But promised his arrival to the destination soon He'd poured his utmost into the concern of good propulsion Installing extra turbines to accelerate his speed He fed them with a mixture that was processed by emulsion A few collected particles was all that he would need Her hull consisted of an alloy recently discovered By drawing on the minerals of otherworldly mines Against the jeopardy of space, entirely, it covered And cut the sleekest path along the slenderest of lines The cockpit offered cozy seats within a thoughtful layout Where sensors captured images from odd and even side And cybernetic games gave an imaginary way out To he whose passage through the door might strictly be denied The legend that enticed him to the far-flung planet, Ova Was of a large community of women fair and tall Who'd only come to visit when a sudden supernova Would vaporize their home world and make singles of them all He figured he'd be better off than with the Terran choices Who always sought to alter him in inconvenient ways Intoning their admonishment in thin, unsparing voices Until his plain environment became a hopeless maze The Ovans had no other man to use for their example Of how he might improve himself or know where he fell shy His average virility should still prove more than ample To dominate them utterly without the need to try The ship's computer told him to prepare for hyper travel He buckled in and waited for the customary burst A modicum of mystery remained, yet, to unravel But he would have to get there and attempt his project first III: The Women As fits the cosmic scheme of things, millennia transpired Since women had arrived to make their novel new abode By visions of Utopia, the builders were inspired Towards a brave but soft new world, they passionately strode A founding myth was fashioned to extol their halved condition So that descendants would not pine to have the former whole And with the independent means to render parturition Successors were restricted to the rightful gender, sole While many of them might have liked to have two parents better Their caste of ruling priestesses, to power, tightly clung To save them from an outcome where domestic chores would fetter As by unjust supremacy, their highest fell a rung The priestesses could read the stars and someone was expected To come down from the heavens soon, in answer to their need Since implantation to conceive was, by a host, rejected Which called for a replenishment of healthy human seed A lookout saw the Gnostic make an unobtrusive landing Outside a population centre, on a vacant lot And once she saw the pilot on the Ovan soil, standing Sent word to her superior to come straight to the spot His eyes received a thrill upon his incidental gander At well constructed women in an exercise routine Who stopped what they were doing when they noticed Alexander Because he was the only man that they had ever seen They came up close to stare at him and touch his chin unshaven And keen was he to touch them back, but from it, was deterred When interrupted by the one whose face, by years, was graven And taken to confinement without so much as a word The Amazons were tough enough to tie him at a table As he beheld them silently and showed his broken heart They'd banish him to whence he came, as soon as he was able Retaining of his person, merely one productive part IV: The Refugee Securely bound, the hapless man was, by one sentry guarded But she released him just as soon as they were both alone Along a private corridor, they stealthily departed To find the site where he'd made his disruptive presence known The Gnostic beckoned warmly with electric doors outstretching His friend insisting she stay with him all the way inside But though delighted to appeal to one so kind and fetching He'd strictly planned his voyage as a solitary ride The posse made his mind up for him, closing in behind her He realized that she would have no other place to turn Of urgent need to flee the scene, they needed no reminder As gas ignited in a blaze to, back to space, return She said Aurora was her name and that she long had waited For anyone to rescue her from rulers so corrupt But Alexander, on the navigation, concentrated To modify their flight path with a bend, steep and abrupt She told him how she broke the rules to learn his strange expression And how a ban on imports kept her education dim As he was busy tending to the cabin's air compression And technical complexities were what distracted him She let him know the plan for him and of her opposition In their dependence on a foe, she'd sensed a thread amiss The jarring news succeed to take his mind off the mission And silence her pronouncements with a long and grateful kiss The intimate encounter would the primal urge awaken With caution, on the starter's part, incumbent for the while As dissolute and insincere, he feared he'd be mistaken If he proceeded to a soul so innocent defile He let her go and went back to the mundane task of flying As she allowed her new sensations presently to fade He'd found for them another prospect fit at least for trying A planet where the men and women equally were weighed V: The Musicians Impelling Alexander to more isolated reaches Though on the gender issue, he'd been sharply proven wrong Was Earth's profound cacophony of tools, machines, and speeches But worse for him turned out to be Aurora with a song She penetrated to his spine with notes askew and jumbled Her offbeat trilling blinded him with welling tears of pain To find his sidearm in a vault, he feverishly fumbled And told her he would kill her if she ever sang again With sanctuary from the din, their bearings were in chorus Where laws assured the harmony of all entangled sound He slowed at the appearance of the planet called Sonorus To bring his awesome vessel landing softly on the ground A welcoming committee was dispatched at once to greet them And give them special footwear that would cushion how they stepped The king had seen their spectacle and eagerly would meet them For far too long his area had in seclusion kept Sonorus offered symphonies from every direction The wind was like an oboe on an odyssey sublime The rushes oscillated with an angel harp's inflection And mass communications stayed in perfect pitch and time The visitors were brought to hear the ruler's condemnation In perfect verses, rolling from his rich, melodic throat Apparently their noisy ship had made a violation For which eternal silence must become their final note Once Alexander gathered how the sentence would be rendered His future running out against a hard collapsing ring To desperate requirement, he readily surrendered And urged his mute associate to go ahead and sing The notes that had them crying out for mercy were Aurora's To clear a way back to the ship, her music was enough He told her she was free to sing, once light-years from Sonorus As long as he had something for his ears that he could stuff VI: The Cosmic Rapids Although the voyage seemed to have been, thus far, disappointing The stubborn spaceman still chased his celestial Shangri-la He brought about the tight nose of his craft to get it pointing To one last possibility of triumph that he saw The thing that bothered him the very most about Earth Living Was how no matter seemed to count outside the shallow self As if contempt for neighbours were the only thing worth giving And tyranny the one productive purpose for great wealth He'd learned that an oasis of philanthropy was hidden Beyond the cosmic rapids on the region's outer belt To travel to its whereabouts was stringently forbidden Because of unpredictable effects that would be felt But he'd anticipated, fully, just such an obstruction And made his spaceship fit to stand the stress of a black hole With calculated odds against her fiery destruction The Gnostic gathered up her force and jumped towards the goal He took Aurora by the hand and waited for a flurry The elements all marshaling to thwart the infidel But what would overtake them would be less a source of worry Than deeply to befuddle them and hold them in a spell A dazzling kaleidoscope consumed their field of vision It swept them up and spun them in a whirlwind slow and strange From time to space, there grew a bright and psychedelic fission To planes of vast infinity, they watched their borders change They gave in to the tantric force by which they levitated And let their feelings out in fitful tremors of delight As one coherent soul, was their connection consummated The fires in them rising to the climax of their flight They cleared the hurdle with a jolt and in a heap descended Their heads a little dizzy from the overwhelming spin Along his predetermined line, they resolutely wended Relieved of both the pressure from without and from within (to be continued) |
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© 2007, 2016. Verses by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
The Heavenly Escapade: Parts I-VI
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