[Martin Elster]

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 wish I could play percussion. One summer at Dartington I made a friend in a percussionist, Jess, and I remember watching her and thinking her section seemed a lot more exciting than woodwind.

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.”

[Martin Elster]

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.)

[F.F. Teague]

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

[Martin Elster]

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. Subsequently in Poems for a Liminal Age.)

[Martin Elster]

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?

[Martin Elster]

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.)

[Martin Elster]

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.)

[Martin Elster]

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.)

[Martin Elster]

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.)

[F.F. Teague]

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