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Ten Years After

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This is one of my oldest extant poems kindly published by John Hall in the first edition of Citizen 32.

 

 Ten Years After (1979)

 

I am bobbing in a tiny boat upon a velvet ocean

Above me the moon smiles down

I now know there is no moon rabbit

And they know it is not made of cheese.

 

It is merely rock and dust, lit by the sun’s aura

Its smile merely craters ranged across its surface

The stars observed it all, impervious

To the puny meddling and jettisoned hardware.

 

We are somewhere in the South China Sea

And those same stars are now our company

Our vessel suspended by invisible thread

Rising and falling between sea and sky.

 

It is calm, nothing but the slap of sea on wood

And the occasional swish of a surfacing shark

Phosphorescence twinkles in the moonlight

As our rudderless craft drifts to the moon’s whim

 

Silence on board, even the children understand

But now and then a wheeze, a rasp, a cough, a whimper

I stare skywards and guess our direction

Orbiting satellites remind me we are not alone.

 

Things could be worse, they often were

We are drifting towards freedom, under a smiling moon

Three lives lost a small price to pay

Three drops in a vast and endless ocean.

 

I remember ’69, the world was different then

We learned to ask for KFC washed down with Bud

We stared at flickering TVs to salute those grainy heroes

As they destroyed our myths

 

I look at my huddled family

And turning towards the moon mouth a prayer

“Oh mother moon guide us to a new life.

May our voyage be as blessed as theirs.”

 

◄ 20 July 1969

Little Roy ►

Comments

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Isobel

Wed 22nd Jul 2009 08:20

Don't know how this one drifted by without me noticing it. A great one Dave and such an unusual idea. We can send men to the moon, 'destroy myths' but back here on earth very little changes...

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Cynthia Buell Thomas

Fri 17th Jul 2009 17:12

Dave, this is really good; I greatly enjoyed it. May I ask if you have read my own Television Moon? I only do so because we share so much of the same sentiment.

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Louise Coulson

Fri 17th Jul 2009 09:55

Hi Dave

This is one of my favourite poems of yours; beautiful, gentle and traquil - delightful!

<Deleted User> (5646)

Thu 16th Jul 2009 13:56

Hi Dave,
this is really good with some powerful imagery.
This is the kind of poetry i aspire to write myself one day. One day maybe a million miles away but i'll get there with a little help from my friends.

Janet.x

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