Monday, July 20, 2009

Happy Moon Day


Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, the first human beings in history to set foot on a body other than the Earth.
Happy Anniversary.


We walked on the moon in '69,
Didn't seem like much of a thing at the time.
We had the moon and we never went back.
We forgot our dreams, or just lost track.

Oh, there were rockets, and wonders, and Viet Nam,
protesting the war, protesting the bomb.
Gotta take some time and just get high,
had to bust our balls to just get by.

We looked back on our planet from out in space
a tiny and fragile and beautiful place
then we came back home, and sorta forgot,
didn't really give it another thought.

There were Watergate plumbers, and marches for peace,
dodging the draft and the Chicago police,
We just had to lay back and just get high;
we were busting our balls just getting by.

We walked on the moon in '69,
didn't seem like much of a thing at the time.
We went to the moon and just never went back.
Did we forget our dreams, or just lose track?

5 comments:

Geoffrey A. Landis said...

I also notice that Julian Long reprinted Archibald MacLeish's Apollo 11 poem, published July 20 1969, over on the Out the Backroom Window blog.

J.E. Stanley said...

In my opinion, the most significant event in human history to date.

Happy Moon Day!

J.E. Stanley said...

Only the Moon


The sun pounds us down
with its August hammer.

The earth draws us back
to its womb of moistened dirt.

Stars wink and flirt,
but from an impossible distance.

Only the moon still
calls us to flight

and says "Come back.
Come back. I miss you."


--first published in Dark Intervals (vanZeno Press)

jesus crisis said...

Cool poems! July 20th always reminds me of my grandfather, Bernard Eldridge Hanna, who was born on this day in 1911 and passed away in 1989. I don't believe in spirits, but I can easily imagine him walking on the moon today in our absence.

Mary Turzillo said...

Early Moon Traveler Fantasies
by
Mary A. Turzillo


The moon is a saucer of cream;
what cat will drink it?
The moon is a silver solstice ornament;
let me hang it on my tree.
The moon is a porcelain plate;
I put at each place-setting rocket silver.
The moon's a period;
it ends my sentence.
The moon's a silver nailhead;
my hammer must strike it.
The moon's a pearly bead;
give me a needle to thread it.
The moon's a zero;
I am its decimal point.
The moon's the center of a lotus;
I am drunk on its fragrance.
The moon's the pupil of an eye;
what does it see? Who does it watch?
The moon's the top of a deep well;
let me climb to the bright sky.
The moon's a drop of semen on black satin.
From what lover? What god?

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau