Fliss, I’m glad you enjoyed my Mercury poem. I got the tail idea after reading a science article about it in EarthSkyNews (to which I subscribe).

A colleague of mine (a clarinet player) who has been notating music for composers for many years and was also the music librarian of my orchestra used to use Finale (in fact he was an early beta tester), but then switched to Sibelius, which he said he likes better.

I can understand your wish, as often the percussion section is exciting to play in and listen to. Unlike most of the other instruments in an orchestra, the percussion players are always soloists in a way, even when they try to blend in with the whole group. They can’t “hide” as a string player can among all the other strings. Also, there are sometimes lots of instruments to set up before the rehearsal or concert, which takes time and energy (but keeps us in shape). Sometimes there is so much setting up to do, there may not even be time to warm up, unlike a woodwind or a string player, who can walk in 5 minutes before the rehearsal. We must get to the gig much earlier than most of the other musicians (except possibly the harp player, who needs time to tune). So there are trade-offs. Depending on the piece, we either run around like crazy hitting, shaking, or scraping things, or we sit there counting lots of measure’s rest. But every instrument has its own unique challenges.

Speaking of counting rests, I posted a humorous poem about a timpanist who sometimes, during operas, listened to football or baseball games on headphones during long tacets. The poem is called “A Grand Slam at the Opera.” I also posted a sonnet called “The Timpanist.”

Stones

Stones huge as moons can yet strike any planet
that goes around the sun. Even a giant
like Jupiter’s at risk. So what of Earth,
our tiny water world where there’s no dearth
of plants and ants and people, all reliant
on Gaia’s bounty and of utter luck?
Our solar home, since gravity began it,
has lived through impacts thoroughly stupendous,
which made the Earth and moon yet still could end us.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had struck
a whopper world, witnessed by humankind
July of ’94. A wake-up call.
A punch in the gut! Colossal comet bits
the size of mountains gored that gassy ball
which gulped them in its atmospheric rind.
Let’s scan the skies round Earth before one hits!

(Appeared in The Oldie, May 2021.)

You're welcome, Martin. A long time ago I subscribed to New Scientist, but work became busy and I ran out of time to read it. I gave all my unread issues to my older bro.

I think the sheer sound of the percussion section drew me to it. And perhaps I was in a hitting mood; it was a strange time. I had a friend who played the double bass; that's a fairly high-maintenance instrument too, in terms of its size.

Thanks for your 'Grand Slam', 'Timpanist', and 'Stones'. I once watched an intriguing film called Melancholia, in which a planet collides with Earth (science fiction) :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss

The Loneliest Road

Another planet grows and shrinks away,

the heliosphere an ebbing memory,

you streaking like a wayward gamma ray.

Around your vessel blooms a potpourri

of comet, nebula, dark energy

rushing you through the void, accelerating,

all you’ve ever cared for quickly fading.

What road is lonelier than the universe?

For decades one could sail and never stumble

across another soul. Things could be worse.

Distracted, you could accidentally bumble

too close to a cosmic gullet and wildly tumble,

yet really no more lost than where you coast

past eagle, spider, witch-head, horsehead, ghost.

Though wandering through space entails great risk,

you have no choice — the sun’s begun to swell.

While moving at velocities as brisk

as jets of interstellar wind, you smell

the rabbitbrush, the desert breezes, dwell

on sounds of soughing yucca palms and creeks,

glimpse bighorn bounding boulders, rusty streaks

of sunsets. As you near the edge of space,

you think of the stone tools your forebears used

while breathing mayfly lives, a vanished race

in tune with wilderness; and, though you’ve cruised

for torrents of time now down this road suffused

with radiation, your single mutant eye

still sees, not stars, but fireflies in July.

Note: The title alludes to Highway 50, The Loneliest Road in America.

(Appeared in Cahoodaloodaling, Poems for a Liminal Age, and Outer Space: 100 Poems.

Ballade of Space Colonization

Hot Sol, while towns drift through the skies
of Venus and those farther spheres
with rings and raging storms the size
of worlds, a rocket thunders, clears
the coral clouds of Mars, and veers
to bump an Earth-bound asteroid
tumbling, tumbling as gravity steers
it toward the stars beyond the void.

Fat Sol, from the cliffs of Neptor, cries
of ra-birds reach a girl, who hears
and smiles while watching three moons rise
through cobalt blue. A boy appears,
watching, too. Synthetic ears
catch finch trills. Eyes show unalloyed
delight at the interstellar smears
but seek more stars beyond the void.

Pale, shrunken Sol, no space-child dies
of oldness. While devouring fears
they rush like bees and visualize,
with the boosted brains of pioneers,
dodecasaurs and octojeers.
Time’s toyed with man so man has toyed
with time and leaped galactic years
to chase the stars beyond the void.

Dark, frozen Sol, your fusion gears
all rust, they’re gone, those who’ve enjoyed
your rays. And yet, what swarm careers
to touch the stars beyond the void?

The World

Unlike the azure that protects the world,

the sky-dome’s plexiglass reflects the world.

A spherical lab experiments for eons.

Slowly, the life it bears perfects the world.

Billions of bits of sparkle whirling, whirling.

Something’s alive among these specks: the world.

A robed astronomer sees a curious glow

light up his globe as he dissects the world.

You shut the greenhouse windows one by one,

then wonder who it is that wrecks the world.

With a writ of attachment in its curved appendage,

the alien says it must annex the world.

Amphibians, mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, insects—

two by two a ship collects the world.

“Farewell,” she said, and fled to a new planet.

He shrugs when queried, “Was your ex the world?”

Tumefied into a scarlet monster:

the sun. Nobody resurrects the world.

The astronaut, though warned she’ll turn to salt,

glances back and recollects the world.

A cosmic magpie spies a blue-white marble,

then, comet-like, swoops down and pecks the world.

Note: Magpie is Elster in German. Example: "Die diebische Elster" ― "The Thieving Magpie" (Opera by Rossini)

(Appeared in The Chimaera. Subsequently in Eye to the Telescope and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.)

Celestial Euphony

As dark and distant spheres resound like whale song in our ears
***and cosmic microwaves caress our spirit,
we pioneer, alone, across infinities of tone,
***amazed that we’re the only ones who hear it.

While we glide amid the planets plump as plums and pomegranates,
***sailing with the interstellar current,
the sounds we make are quiet or they’re louder than a riot,
***but for grooving, neither’s ever a deterrent.

With clari-snare and flute-o-phone and tromba-sax and lute,
***xylo-horn and cymbal-harp and cello,
we shake our little craft with a great hurricane-like draft,
***cacophonous while synchronously mellow.

There’s no one at the wheel; the skipper capers to a reel,
***a jig, flamenco, jota, or a salsa.
While galaxies collide, we’re absolutely occupied
***as we zip through space in a ship as light as balsa.

If we chance on a black hole and, inattentive, lose control,
***free-falling ever faster in its eddy,
we won’t freak out or panic, we will go on being manic
***till the cosmos bellows, “Guys, enough already!

(Appeared in Lighten Up Online. Also in my book Celestial Euphony.)

The Black Widow Nebula

A scarlet-spotted shadow lies in wait,
sequestered in the crawl space of the skies;
her venom can subdue whatever beast
may brush her filaments. From cosmic ray
to comet tail, the brute will gladly feast
on anything approaching her eight eyes.
For decades this behemoth’s not been seen

by us, who’d be fang-watering cuisine
for such a carnivore, as succulent
as any planet, moon, or galaxy.
(Thank heavens she can’t leave the Milky Way!)
With all her baby blues, she cannot see
even a light year off. Still, she can scent
the breath of suns, feel shivers in her silk,

detecting prey, as does her earthly ilk,
capturing crickets, katydids and ants,
beetles and flies, digested as they flail.
Inside her abdomen, spiderlings play
and grow, emerging from their gauzy veil
to blaze with splendor. Through the vast expanse,
was it just chance when, in 2005,

dust-piercing eyes had caught the thing alive?
They saw, not just the hourglass-like mark,
but youngsters greedily gorging on their quarry—
the monster which had spawned them. They obey
the age-old urges, being as predatory
as mom, whose body, slowly growing dark
will, like all nothingness, evaporate.

(Appeared in Antiphon.)

Ballade of Mysteries

These luminous fluttering flakes of snow
are but a whit to the utterly great
sum of suns we cannot know
in the galaxies which populate
creation. Eyes that navigate
through nights as clear as infinity
itself can’t begin to estimate
how huge it is. How small are we?

What spark made life so long ago,
fashioned nebulae ornate
as dahlias, galactic winds that blow
like blizzards, worlds that whirl, rotate,
makes astral A-bombs detonate,
made stars white, blue or burgundy,
caused all existence to inflate?
How huge it is! How small are we?

Snow swirls like moths in the streetlight glow,
hiding the heavens on this date,
a fiddling date in this riddling O,
an O no mind can penetrate,
where photons never gallop straight,
where clocks can’t tick in synchrony,
where seeming nothingness has weight.
How huge it is! How small are we?

Space seems quite pleased to isolate
us on this rock, yet aren’t we free
to feel the sun and contemplate
how huge it is? How small are we?

(Appeared in Better Than Starbucks.)

Hi Martin,

These are great. You seem to have had a lot of success in poetry publishing; congrats! I particularly like 'The Black Widow Nebula'. I note that magpie is 'Elster' in German, which gives you the jaunty name of 'Martin Magpie'. There's been a magpie with no tail in the garden recently, but he/she seems to be coping. Well, I'm just waffling now.

Did you read about the Winchcombe meteorite? It landed on the driveway of a family I happen to know. One of life's strange coincidences :-)

You seem to have written quite a lot of space poetry. Do you think you might submit your collection for publication?

Best wishes,
Fliss

Hi Fliss,

I’m pleased you like “The Black Widow Nebula.” That’s one of my favorites, too. Speaking of publication, I feel fortunate that a pretty good amount of my work has found homes, though I don’t spend a great deal of time sending poems out. You seem to be extremely prolific. I admire that.
Added in: I want to add that I am extremely grateful for Eratosphere, which is an excellent place to develop one’s skill, grace, and confidence in the art of poetry.

Regarding the Winchcombe meteorite, I didn’t know about it, but just read it in Wikipedia. They mentioned that the fragment that landed in a driveway is now in the London Natural History Museum. It’s a remarkable coincidence that you know the family in whose driveway it fell! It is, indeed, a small world. It was the first meteorite found in Britain in thirty years (the last one was found in 1991) and the first carbonaceous one ever picked up in Britain. The Winchcombe fragment weighed 11 ounces. Other fragments were found in a nearby sheep field.

You may know that in a ghazal, the last couplet traditionally alludes in some way to the poet’s name. So the magpie pecking the world seemed like a fitting conclusion. I’ll bet the tailless magpie in your garden with grow its tail back. Maybe it was torn off by some predator or the poor bird had an accident of some kind. But hopefully it’s just the feathers that are missing and not something more vital. Apparently it flies (am I right?). So it’s probably not a serious injury.

Celestial Euphony (my book) does include a few space poems. But I like your idea of having a whole book devoted to them. Maybe that could be a chapbook. Something to definitely think about. Thanks for suggesting it!

Best,
Martin

'The Black Widow Nebula' is excellent, Martin :-)

I'm not sure about prolific. Last month a work project was late so I had the full day for creativity; I wrote 20 poems, but that doesn't mean any were particularly good, lol.

Yes, that was a strange coincidence re. the meteorite. Mr W was keen for it to be on public display, for the learning opportunities it would provide. The family has three guinea pigs; fortunately the meteor just missed them :-)

I think I wrote a ghazal once, about an emerald dove at Slimbridge, a haven for waterbirds. At the time I was calling myself 'Emeralde'. Yes, the magpie without a tail is able to fly, thankfully, as there are a few cats in the neighbourhood.

You're welcome for the suggestion; best of luck with the chapbook :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss

Thanks very much, Fliss!

Twenty poems in one day are way too many. ;) It called to mind a little story that I read many moons ago in John Cage’s Silence (or perhaps one of his other books):

https://www.inquiringmind.com/articl..._14_john-cage/

I’d love to read your ghazal. I’m glad to hear that your magpie can fly. Domestic cats are notorious for catching birds — even ones that fly — creeping up on them from behind bushes and things.

I just started reading a book called The Peregrine by J. A. Baker. I heard about the book while watching an interview with Werner Herzog and Lawrence Krauss. Herzog rhapsodized about the book, and I’m beginning to see why. Baker becomes the peregrine himself.

The Space Roadster

Elon, you’ve lost one of your cherry cars.
We doubt you miss it, though, for Starman steers it,
piercing the emptiness en route to Mars
and the ring of rocks beyond. What flyer fears it,

the absolute of space? Not this fake pilot!
Its gaze is black as the gaps between the stars,
and yet the worlds and suns seem to beguile it.
Who would have thought that dummies in red cars

could zip into Earth orbit and keep going?
They flabbergasted us, your booster rockets
which settled like a pair of sparrows (owing
to bang-up engineering). In your pockets

were all the funds you needed for a test
that bested your most hopeful expectations.
Now car and mannequin are on a quest
to beat our wildest visualizations

as Earth recedes with all its blues and whites
as Mars grows closer with its browns and coppers
as space becomes spectacular with lights
as we audacious apes become star-hoppers.


Even Elon Musk, engineer of the circus show, was surprised that his audacious stunt worked. “Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth,” he tweeted. His plan is for the $100,000 Tesla Roadster—with the message “Don’t panic!” stamped on the dashboard and David Bowie playing on the speakers—to cruise through high-energy radiation belts that circuit Earth towards deep space. —The Guardian, February 7, 2018

(Appeared in The New Verse News.)

You're welcome, Martin :-)

I should mention that many of the 20 poems were in free verse, lol. I like the little story.

I'm afraid the ghazal is terrible; I'd need to pretty much rewrite it before posting it on the 'sphere. The magpie has visited the garden and seems well. He/she tends to keep to the centre of the front lawn, where there's just one magnolia (pink/purple flowers).

I wish I had time to read books; The Peregine sounds very interesting.

Congrats on another poem in The New Verse News. I particularly enjoy 'like a pair of swallows' and the colours in the final verse.

Best wishes,
Fliss

Hi Fliss,

What's wrong with free verse? Whatever you might call it, writing is writing. When you get your ghazal gelled, I'd like to see it. Maybe you could post it at Metrical. I'm glad the magpie is doing fine.

Last night my dog (a fifteen-year-old rat terrier) disappeared in the park we often walk in. It's a really big park with a pond, woods, thickets, hills, all kinds of paved and dirt paths. Ironically, a few weeks ago I ordered a brand new dog light to put on his harness, as his old one was getting very dim. (I have a battery for it somewhere, but I can’t locate it.) So he was wearing his old, dim light. We started out just before dusk. The full moon was rising in the East. About 20 minutes into the walk, he vanished from sight. It took me something like 3/4 of an hour to find him. By that time I was exhausted from walking all over the place. But that wasn’t enough. When we got home, he pulled me to a large tree (he was on a leash then) and grabbed something from the grass. I tried to pull him from it, but he was quicker than me. It looked like the tail of a squirrel — skin, fur, and perhaps some bones. I lifted his front end off the ground by his harness, thinking he might actually drop it, and yelling. The louder I yelled, the faster he chewed. He swallowed it like a snake swallows its prey. It took him about half a minute to get it into his stomach. (My legs are tired and I didn’t get much sleep, either.)

Thanks for saying you liked “like a pair of sparrows” and the colors of the planets. Here is another planet poem which appeared in Verse Wisconsin.

The Art of Exploration

They work like one machine

even as grunts and groans

of effort stay within

their spacesuits while they toil

with bedrock, boulders, stones,

loader and excavator,

creating in a crater

a building that will screen

them from the ultra-thin

Martian atmosphere,

and so as not to broil

from ultraviolet rays.

They plan to engineer

extensive passageways

atop which they’ll assemble

a shape that should resemble

the ancient Astrodome

in disrepair at home.

It will not quite be art,

but it will be a start.

This one is more about a star than a planet, but anyway ...

Arcturus

Arcturus sparks the night
when croci spring from the earth.
Light left its stellar berth
years, years, and years ago.
On seeing its face (the glow
as orange as the fruit),
we know our planet’s flight
has brought the robins to root
for grubs in parks, backyards,
and along those strips of lawn
that split our boulevards.
They trill a tune at dawn,
hunt angleworms at noon,
and slumber when the moon
comes up and greets the Bear,
which bright Arcturus follows
as it glisters through the air
ringing with the swallows
by day and, in the dark,
the singing of the lark
till Vega, overhead,
says, “Time to go to bed!”

(Appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.)

Nothing wrong with free verse in general, Martin, just the way I set about it, lol. And the ghazal really is ghastly, probably unsalvageable. I was laughing at it earlier today.

I enjoyed the account of your dog. It sounds like he keeps you fit. Are rat terriers quite inquisitive? Of course the Dog Star is the brightest star in the night sky (I just checked that online).

Congrats on Verse Wisconsin and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily; these are great poems. I like the robins and the swallows particularly :>)

I could fill in the details of the dog episode (like how I lost sight of him), but that would take too much space. Needless to say, I was quite worried. I thought that, though unlikely, he might have tried to make his way home (which would have been disastrous, not only because he'd have had to cross a couple of dangerous streets, but also because I would have spent the whole night, till dawn, at the park before giving up the search). We do, indeed, keep each other fit. (He is almost impossible to keep on a leash, because he has no leash manners and generally lags behind, so I end up dragging him. So I go places where I can, for the most part, let him run free. He mostly follows me, except that he tends to stray away when scavenging for trash — and there's plenty of it around, even in the park.)

But to answer your question, I don't know about all rat terriers, but mine is about as inquisitive as a canine can get. Plus strong-willed, playful, and crazy. (Though not as much as in his younger days.)

I'm glad you enjoyed those last two poems. Yes, Sirius is the brightest star by far. It has a mysterious companion, a white dwarf star. You can spot Sirius in the wintertime just east of Orion and always following him. Yup, the Dog Star. The constellation is called Canis Major (the Great Dog). Robert Frost wrote a cute little poem about it, along with the Canis Minor (the Little Dog). It’s another dog following Orion. It contains the bright star Procyon. Procyon is higher in the sky than Sirius.

The Dog Star

There’s a dog in space! Am I delirious?
No! Its eye is a star they call Sirius;
**The brightest by far,
**it’s a binary star—
with its unseen companion, mysterious!

The companion is known as “the pup.”
Do you think that I just made that up?
**That white dwarf is as small
**as a puppy’s toy ball.
If you ask, “Is that true?” I’d say, “Yup!”

Are You Sirius?
 

A Sirius Romance

She’s Nature’s art in full disgrace
beginning with her longing face.
Below her bangs the eyebrows mate,
her eyes are runny, teeth like slate.
Her ears, unlike smooth tiny seashells,
swing a lot like misshaped cowbells.
Her twitching nose is ski-slope long
and never has inspired a song.
With lips severely under-drawn
and tongue that yaps from dusk to dawn,
with sour breath to make one reel,
this is one gal no one would steal.
But I’m a pooch who loves her smile
when we’re romancing doggy style.

That's really good, Ralph. I enjoyed it.

Cosmic Canines

Two dogs, one large as Jupiter,
the other small as Mercury,
dance gravitationally round
a star we call the Now.

As solar winds whip past their fur,
they gambol through the galaxy,
glee plain as tongues and tail-wags, sound
of woofs, and breaths of wow.

Immersed within the quantum whir,
they move with such agility,
they make a light beam look earthbound,
and teach with every bow

how, lost in a ray of timeless play,
to romp and revel in today.


Tweak: The penultimate line was: "lost in the rays"

After Studying the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field

(Rondeau Redoublé)

“Once upon a time, faint lumps of light—
coiled bluish millipede, plump tawny snail—
each formed of scores of flames, whose rays took flight
soon after the Bang, appeared exquisite and frail

as spores,” you muse as you tramp along this trail
through oak and hickory filtering the might
of the low-slung sun. You’re lost in a fairy tale
of once-upon-a-time, as flecks of light

wink softly from radio towers on the height
like fireflies sparking the dusk. A fingernail
of moon appears while, beyond a long-winged kite,
coiled bluish millipede, plump tawny snail—

invisible as viruses—glide and sail
on waves of ion seas. How did the night,
beyond a jet plane’s woolly water tail,
form multitudes of flames whose rays took flight?

You suddenly catch sight of a wary white-
tailed doe and her fawns, which follow without fail
as without fail the world became just right,
just right for a bang, a bang zapping the frail

and exquisite, as exquisite as the pale
but darkening skyline. Somewhere out of sight
a hoot owl harmonizes with the wail
of air-raid sirens. Things were looking bright
once upon a time.

Betelgeuse

The red giant Betelgeuse is the dimmest seen in years, prompting some speculation that the star is about to explode.
—National Geographic

The stars of Orion are not the same
**as they were a few months ago,
for his right hand has dimmed so much
**you scarcely see its glow.
Yes, Betelgeuse, the supergiant
**lighting up the sky,
has lost its luster, barely noticed
**by the naked eye.

Yet still it’s so immensely bloated,
**if swapped with our own star,
it would eat Earth, Mars and Jupiter
**like a bear at a salad bar.
When Father Time soon gives the order
**to explode, so shall it,
glittering like a glockenspiel
**struck by a metal mallet.

In a hundred thousand years—or now—
**whenever it takes place,
it will be brighter than the moon,
**and all the human race
will watch in awe an event that happened
**in the middle ages
of a well-upholstered gaseous blob
**that’s gone through its life stages.

But if tonight that cosmic whale
**so pale now in Orion
spews its seed of elements
**like the floss of a dandelion
to make more suns and worlds and life
**(akin to me, in fact),
I’d feel as high as the moon itself
**to catch it in the act.

This one is not about a particular planet, but an Italian philosopher. A supporter of the heliocentric Copernican view of the solar system, envisaging an infinite universe of numerous worlds moving in space, he was tried by the Inquisition for heresy and burned at the stake.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

Folks reckoned the Earth is so rare
that the rest of all space must be bare
**and empty of creatures,
**but among all their teachers
one asserted what most wouldn’t dare.

That philosopher’s surname was Bruno.
His claim? We’re not numero uno
**and each star is a sun—
**that there’s not merely one
but bajillions!—a thing we now do know?

But for a heretical scholar,
it could be quite risky to holler
**that we’re not the hub
**of existence, ’cause, bub,
you will blaze from your shoes past your collar.

(Appeared in The Asses of Parnassus.)

Meditation on a Twilight Union

Luminous, numinous,
Venus and Jupiter
triangle-set with a
**scimitar moon:
soon they’ll descend into
invisibility;
stars will appear and the
**crickets will croon.

Vega, Arcturus, and
countless bright crystals will
quiver the heavens and
**dazzle the eye.
Journey your eyes to the
phantasmagorical
reaches of space and your
**spirit might fly!

Alpha Centauri, Ca-
nopus, Capella: stars
incontrovertibly
**gave us all birth;
Ponder the chill of deep
space, though, your mind will then
unhesitatingly
**kiss Mother Earth!

I reposted this poem ("Sol Concealed") in Post #92.

Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

You could fly while still growing and green,
could repair any flying machine
**by your twenties, and tested
**new rocket planes, crested
the clouds in your bright X-15.

In due course, you were picked for Apollo
(undreamed of by falcon or swallow)
**to land on the moon,
**and to do it quite soon
so the Commies could no more than follow.

You touched the moon’s hide, took a stride,
spoke of steps and of leaps, then all pride
**disappeared as you turned
**toward your planet and learned
that your thumb is precisely as wide!

(Appeared in The Society of Classical Poets.)

An Affinity with Infinity

Views on the universe flit round like bats
inside my head. It seems I even dream
of planets and ETs, savor the cream
of nebulae on the Milky Way. The rats
of science brood about the fact that cats
can be alive and dead at once, a beam
of light be waves and particles. Why deem
my cosmic place like dogs asleep on mats?
Though comfortable on Earth (at least somewhat)
I daydream about being on a crew
of rovers zipping fast as light. Though told
that isn’t possible, I am a sot,
drunk on the kaleidoscopic hue
of suns that made both bat and marigold.

Ralph's back. Hooray! And what a great poem; it made me chuckle all the way through :-)

Martin, your dog (I almost typed 'god') sounds like a real character. Have you ever written any dog poetry? Thanks for the additional info. re. Sirius. I know a couple who named their house 'Sirius'; initially I thought they'd called it 'Serious', silly me.

Your poem 'The Dog Star' made me laugh. I like limericks. The rhyme scheme of 'Cosmic Canines' is very effective, I think. Well, it's all good. I'm sorry I haven't written anything new for a while; I'm a bit tied up with work at the moment, but I might be slightly less busy next week :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss

Thanks, Fliss. A house named Sirius? Were they serious? I'm pleased you liked "The Dog Star" and "Cosmic Canines" and I appreciate your saying the rhyme scheme works for that one. Thanks also for reading all those others.

"My dog is a real character" is a huge understatement. I have, indeed, written a lot of dog poetry. My first big project, in fact, was writing a whole book of them, mostly limericks but also other forms in iambic meter. After about three years, I got enough material for a collection, which I had published with a print-on-demand company. (It came out in 2003 and revised in a Second Edition in 2005.) A few years ago I decided to let it go out of print. The title of the book was There's a Dog in the Heavens!: A Universe of Canine Verse.

Have a great weekend!

Martin

You're welcome, Martin. Yes, they were/are deeply serious about Sirius. The dog-themed poems are excellent, and congrats on the collection; I like the title :-)

Unfortunately it'll be another working weekend here, but possibly with a bit of creative time depending on how quickly I can plough through the current typescript. I hope you have a great weekend too :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss

Fliss, thanks for liking the dog poems I posted (some of which I wrote after the book came out). Thanks also for liking the title.

I made a slight tweak in "Cosmic Canines" (Post #62). Changed the penult line from "lost in the rays of timeless play" to "lost in a ray of timeless play." I think the full rhyme (ray/play) sounds better.

I hope you have a nice weekend, even though you have to work.

Martin

You're welcome, Martin. Dog poems are always good.

I like that tweak to 'Cosmic Canines'; yes, the full rhyme sounds v.g.

I was up fairly early this morning and have just completed Chapter 16 of 21. There has been a lot of coding and referencing, but I don't mind that as I can listen to music while attending to such tasks. Today we've had Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, so far.

Still thinking about writing a poem re. the Winchcombe meteorite; I just need to check a couple of things :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss

Fliss, I'm glad you feel the full rhyme works better. I hope you're not too tired from getting up too early. But it sounds like you are doing your job, despite that. Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky are some of my favorite composers.

I'm in the middle of watching a video about the Voyager probes, both of them having gone past the heliopause (the boundary of the heliosphere, caused by the sun's magnetic field). They are now beyond the influence of the sun's radiation (the end of the solar system) and are at the beginning of interstellar space (which has its own magnetic field — the probes are bombarded by cosmic rays from supernovae, etc.). They have sailed through an 89,000ºF wall of plasma, which is the interstellar medium colliding with the heliopause.

Here is a poem I wrote a while ago about those probes.

Voyagers

Two eagles soared amid the Jovian spheres
before they hurtled past the heliopause,
becoming so unthinkably remote
from Sol, the photons pouring from his throat
now travel a million million miles to cause
those regal twins to lift their silver ears.

They focused in on rings of ice and rock,
great clouds of red, volcano bands the size
of California, moons with skins so bright,
they outshone even Venus’ lustrous white.
These sights had mesmerized the many eyes
that dreamed of rising like a kite or hawk.

Then when they’d reached the solar system’s brink,
one took a backward look and snapped a shot,
a picture of the place their architects
called home, a mote among the sundry specks
revolving round what dwindled to a dot,
its radiance continuing to shrink.

These travelers shall eternally convey
a pair of golden records with the sound
of trains and Bach, of wolves and whales and fire.
Who knows if any being will admire
two earth-born pilgrims launched from sandy ground
to skim the thermals of the Milky Way?

(Appeared in The Chimaera.)

That's a brilliant poem, Martin; I'm drawn to any poem that mentions birds, but this is particularly vibrant, I feel. I hadn't heard of The Chimaera, so I'll take a look.

My psoriatic type of arthritis is controlled by medication at the moment and I find I don't need much sleep, which is good. The osteoarthritis and other things will always be with me, but the morphine helps. I love what I think of as the fire of those Russian composers. I appreciate Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky too.

The video sounds interesting; to sail through a wall of plasma must be no mean feat! The Winchcombe Meteorite poem should be here soon.

Best wishes,
Fliss

Well, I've written the poem, but I'm having trouble posting it. I'll go and have my Fortisip and then I'll try again :-)

Ah, that's better.

Here's a poem about the Winchcombe Meteorite, which somehow became more about Moppet and her two companions, guineas owned by the Wilcocks of Winchcombe (Cathy is friends with my mum). Performance note: squeaky voice.


Moppet's meteorite

It was cold. It was dark. We were grateful for hay,
00we being Portia and Parsnip and me.
We were singing and snoozing and feeling quite gay;
00we'd had cabbage and carrots for tea.

Parsnip said she was thirsty and moved from the bed
00to the diner, to have a quick drink;
but she rushed back, her tufts raised. 'What is it?' I said.
00'I don't know, Mop! Come, let's sit and think!'

So we all ambled out and sat still for a time,
00ears and noses a-twitching a lot.
We heard whistles and rumbles and some sort of chime
00and the air felt remarkably hot.

'Something's falling!' breathed Portia, her eyes very wide,
00and we heard a sharp thud not far off,
then a human, perhaps. Parsnip said, 'Time to hide!'
00No one came, though; we just heard a cough.

We continued to sing and to snooze through the night
00and through dawn, 'til we heard a big noise!
Human voices, so many, they gave us a fright.
00Even Portia could not keep her poise.

Breakfast came; it was carrots and cabbage again.
00We were puzzled; it's normally weeds.
But we ate all our veggies and made a nice den
00in our hay, which was sweet, with no seeds.

I love it! What did the guineapigs think of that crash in the driveway? Now I know. It's amazing that the meteorite didn't smash through their house. It's also amazing that you are acquainted with the family.

Thanks, Martin; I'm glad you enjoyed it. This is just a flying visit, but I'll be back later (and I'm about to post on the poemusical thread) :-)