Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Everyone's Gone to the Moon


I just can't believe that fifty years have passed since the moon landing.   I remember it well.

I wrote this poem about it  ( sort of )  perhaps thirty years later:


Everyone’s Gone to the Moon



Rousseau painted the gypsy sleeping under the full moon
in dazzling deep cobalt sky ,
dreaming face like a totem serene
in a dream of lute music.
Pipe song,
grazing wildeyed lion
huge behind him
standing guard over his dreams
bedhead mane stiff with moonlight
eyes wild white balls and staring corneas
tail at the alert

1969 and I’m serving drinks
at the Kennett Square Country Club,
so glad to be 21 and able to serve drinks.
The golfers at the bar stare with wild white eyeballs
at the tiny moonman in his white spacesuit
moving jerkily on the cratered surface
faceless, the glass in his helmet shining back
the distant earth
and I notice it without much excitement,
immersed as I am in being 21 years old,
thinking this will happen a lot
from now on.
In my dreams.









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