Welcome Home Space Cadet

After 520 days of being away things change.
After more than a year away
one cannot expect things to remain
the same.

It's not like we didn't know you were gone.
We were watching from home base,
safely and with sound (waves).
We celebrated and we waited
for your safe return
and now you're back
we've learned.

Well sir, welcome home to Earth
 you now have a million twitter followers
for what it's worth.

Imagine the mail, the mess waiting
for him upon return-
and how his eyes and ears must burn!
I imagine our hopeful sunrises are dim,
slim and nowhere near as bright
here comparatively.
When watched from exosphere
perspective where the altered subjective,
figuratively rises either way, for another day
some where
and the effect of green flash last
until at least until tomorrow
I don't know
how
you held on for six
reloads, but with your body double
down here,
we hope to better understand your year
in space, at least physically, for history
sake, the emotional toll will remain a mystery.

Mr. Kelly, you said sleep was hard up
there, there is no rest,
and that was all just part
of the nightmarish tests
to see if you'd keep your head on
straight
without gravity
or a leg to stand on.

So how does one acclimate
to a constant limbo state?
Is fate suspended,
karma expended elsewhere?
Will he ever remember
how to be a heavy human member?
Perhaps he will take more leaps
after he sleeps
for a long
long
long
time
(stretched
blini
thin).

NASA noted
the newly made progress toward
the next giant leap for that kind of man.
Nearer are we, said the space agency
to getting 'boots on Mars'
which sounds warily like warfare jargon.
I dare say, it should be worded another way,
perhaps NASA should ask the ESA...

But NASA's not so concerned with tact,
and rathering to collect all the facts
from more than four hundred
experiments performed,
data they've been dying
for, they said
a benefit to all humanity.

Hopefully Mr. Kelly kept his souvenir
in sanity.
We are glad to have you back,
let's start you off with some Prozac.
The weight of the world is rather heavy.



Image By NASA ([1]) of Scott Kelly (left) and Mikhail Kornienko on the ISS 2015[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Anti-cedent

It all started here-when-
It was not begun-before
It was said
In the beginning
who said It
when It was
the first
notion before motion
set in-
side-out-
side the difference in
between mover and moved
when It
is found In
and all around
before sound made it
said or heard
It was on the third day
It was idea, a seed sown
the sky glown
in sacred rhyme
the making of
difference In time
then and what
will be
started over
counting It out
to find our place
only to begin
again
at one.

Image by Gustave Doré (1832-1883), Creation of Light[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Perso in la biblioteca Umbertos

Leave a light on
so the bugs don't eat the books.
The grandfather clock
must be wound
so our heart keeps ticking.
Stock up on the stories
so you have many maps
and mythos to go.
The journey keeps us young,
but the last leg catches up...
You've lost me-
many times
in the labyrinth of
your enigmatic fantastic
winding fallacious folios
that make ones head spin-
Are they books or bottles
with memories as mixed
messages?
Translation tends to
misinterpret and blurs,
slurs, like tears on ink
there's a leak, (I think)
Ahh-look up-
always-the sky
knows how to read infinity
as long as your words remain
contained and
eternally with me,
I'll be happily lost in the library.


Image of painting By Unknown Dutch Master (c.1628) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Alter ego

Having an alter ego
is better than being schizophrenic,
clinically.
Although its still not quite right
to say it has to do with our
size shifting ego.
It could have been called
alter(nate) reality
-but that was taken by technology.
Parallel universes could work, theoretically.
This would not conflict or cross hairs,
like egos.
Who knows,
maybe being a writer is just ordinary
crazy. After all,
it's a scary thing
to think like Stephen King.
Though the average person
keeps their twisted thoughts
to themselves,
but knows how
alter(nate)ing egos
allow acceptably
multiple personalities.
And many is more than one-
identities, like secrets are sweet,
indulgent even, but one
can have too many of those
personality wise, everyone knows
those are aptly called lies.

The scenery in between

All the faces
in their cars, stopping, going
to and from
look so tired and miserable-
like they are being drug around,
he noticed.
When people walk,
they participate in the traveling.

Going Places,
she said
Look at him,
now he's going somewhere
and his air was lighter
the wind was with him
as they say.

Have you walked anywhere
without a destination,
and seen what's between
point B and A
(where are those located anyway)?

This thing stumbled upon
called ambling along-

not to ramble on too long
but wandering is no easy thing-

thankfully though,

it requires no licensed training.
Practice, yes,
lots of pedestrian practice,
yet even pacing is prior
enough preparation

for lack of destination.

The art of the amble:

when out walking
in a leisurely way
one can confidently say
I went somewhere today
without a point.




Image By Stupich, Martin, creator, Weeping Wall, Flathead County MT[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Spectator Sport

Middle balcony

where reporters are filed

and whores are stashed

doesn't seem so long ago

Middle balcony

up in the branches

the birds mast

where cackles sink

and wails lilt

into the rafters

it used to be so

Middle balcony

cast in the dark

as a side remark

of jesterly hospitality

and for courtly banality

Middle balcony

too far to catch

the rigs and ropes

behind the magic

show down stage

Middle balcony

posts up extras 

for the epic play

with broken legs

and body doubles

Middle blacony

 is a caste idealist 

for the grand finale

leap of revelry 

one must take

into the pit

of the old

Globe.

Image of painting by Thomas Francis Dicksee, Juliet on the balcony (1875) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

De mure De moon

She walks in the open at night
wrapped in white sheets wet from sweat
that darken in every crevasse
by her movement

She speaks in shapes of words
by the phase of the moonglow
and knows she is watched, barely
as she pulls the threads closer

lightly, it was the way she cast
down her eyes
dutifully does not speak
until spoken at

The careless sashay,
the way her hips open
to accommodate the frame
that holds her

Embellished, a facade
shiny with optimism,
buffed and presentable as
Potemkin villages
de mure

But the light from
her being
there shifted and softened
features receptively

In decent she saunters
the skies, timidly taking her place
outside public walls
where no artificial light falls

She sees purely, clearly
she is not needed to light the way
for others to see, but every so often
she brightly becomes
full of herself.



Image by Luis Ricardo Falero [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.