Post by job on Jul 20, 2009 16:42:02 GMT -5
Before I post, just want to congratulate the DT crew again for a great issue.
The architecture piece (which I was honored to provide a prelude to) seems like something new - and the calibre of the writing throughout continues unabated.
This is something I wrote I think about ten years ago or so. I'm blowing the (moon)dust off it now because of today's more momentuous anniversary...
Enjoy - and feel free to comment, critique, etc.
JOB
Lost Moon
At the Lincroft Reservoir, July 20, 1986
In the evening dark’s reservoir, summer keeps its own atmosphere.
A perfect night for a man to land his first kiss: lying there, cradled
In my lap, her face opened with a smile and offering a clean plateau
For touching down: lock engines, burn thrusters, begin final descent.
Gently floating down, we came to a rest, shaving gravity to a fraction,
Until gravity itself caught up, adhering like skin to the smooth surface.
We explored regions that were lost forever in earthlight’s shadow.
She was an alien place, full of shadows and crevices and whispers
Which I couldn’t be sure were not emanating from my own head...
If not from all the Earthmen who gazed on her in their own night sky,
The monthly millions reinterpreting love by her shades of face.
But despite unstable surface conditions and dizzying lack of oxygen –
“The atmosphere is so seductive that it’s like breathing pure lotus... “
Blast-off lingered like the elastic echo of a woman’s whispered question –
“Something out there moved! “
What, a shadow’s trick with light?
But as the craft shudders at lift off, the volcanic trembling of her lips
Blows my answer into orbit (and crew members scramble to map out
The body falling away beneath them). The sensation of falling
Upward is clearly an illusion and yet believed. In our ascent, craters
Begin to darken at their edges like eyes plunged in onyx iridescence,
All contact is lost as the ship steepens towards its own event horizon
Scanning the yawning void above as fish splashings in the reservoir
Send their buck-shot messages into deep space, riding the radio signals
Of crickets. Luna moths like green comets tangle their tails. Closer bodies
Dance around the constellar sweat of the moon’s brow. Veined light
Burns pinholes into their powdery wings, like stars milled into dust.
Fireflies beckon the universe with the chaos of their own slow twinkle.
It is from this lunar face, tapping into hidden reserves of male desire,
That she peers up, the very ensoulment of stillness, still beckoning,
Still whispering, still sending one constant sentinel signal:
Man, when will you come again?
The architecture piece (which I was honored to provide a prelude to) seems like something new - and the calibre of the writing throughout continues unabated.
This is something I wrote I think about ten years ago or so. I'm blowing the (moon)dust off it now because of today's more momentuous anniversary...
Enjoy - and feel free to comment, critique, etc.
JOB
Lost Moon
At the Lincroft Reservoir, July 20, 1986
In the evening dark’s reservoir, summer keeps its own atmosphere.
A perfect night for a man to land his first kiss: lying there, cradled
In my lap, her face opened with a smile and offering a clean plateau
For touching down: lock engines, burn thrusters, begin final descent.
Gently floating down, we came to a rest, shaving gravity to a fraction,
Until gravity itself caught up, adhering like skin to the smooth surface.
We explored regions that were lost forever in earthlight’s shadow.
She was an alien place, full of shadows and crevices and whispers
Which I couldn’t be sure were not emanating from my own head...
If not from all the Earthmen who gazed on her in their own night sky,
The monthly millions reinterpreting love by her shades of face.
But despite unstable surface conditions and dizzying lack of oxygen –
“The atmosphere is so seductive that it’s like breathing pure lotus... “
Blast-off lingered like the elastic echo of a woman’s whispered question –
“Something out there moved! “
What, a shadow’s trick with light?
But as the craft shudders at lift off, the volcanic trembling of her lips
Blows my answer into orbit (and crew members scramble to map out
The body falling away beneath them). The sensation of falling
Upward is clearly an illusion and yet believed. In our ascent, craters
Begin to darken at their edges like eyes plunged in onyx iridescence,
All contact is lost as the ship steepens towards its own event horizon
Scanning the yawning void above as fish splashings in the reservoir
Send their buck-shot messages into deep space, riding the radio signals
Of crickets. Luna moths like green comets tangle their tails. Closer bodies
Dance around the constellar sweat of the moon’s brow. Veined light
Burns pinholes into their powdery wings, like stars milled into dust.
Fireflies beckon the universe with the chaos of their own slow twinkle.
It is from this lunar face, tapping into hidden reserves of male desire,
That she peers up, the very ensoulment of stillness, still beckoning,
Still whispering, still sending one constant sentinel signal:
Man, when will you come again?