Starman

 

From the whirling clouds of matter swirled

From some dark distant place,

Far beyond the distant vistas that

The Hubble's lens could trace,

There approached a battered vessel like

The long lost Holy Grail,

With a magno-drive, half crippled, as

It landed on its tail.

 

With the crusted metal glowing with

The detritus of space,

And an inner hum, a grinding like

A flywheel out of place,

There was seen to be an opening,

A long descending lip,

And a man with moons and crescents

On his helmet, left the ship.

 

And the suit he wore was silver of

No texture known to man,

With a symbol on his shoulder like

The god we knew as Pan,

While an aura formed around him

Like the stars within the skies,

They were whirling in confusion,

Were reflected in his eyes!

 

And there followed in his train a host

Of men with angels wings,

But they shimmered like the mist of

A mirage, the desert brings,

And the sound they made was painful like

The music of the spheres,

It made soldiers drop their weapons,

Fall to earth, and hold their ears.

 

Then he strode on out amongst them like

A giant in the land,

And he seemed to grow in stature as

He opened up his hand,

Where a tiny whirling cosmos whirled

Elliptic in reverse,

Like a model of the galaxy,

Our own small universe!

 

He looked up at the sky where all

The clouds had turned to gold,

With the flash of distant lightning that

Some prophet had foretold,

And the thunder rumbled eerily

Across the planet's face,

As the angels rose about him in

Some panoramic grace.

 

He removed his gilded helmet, and

He then began to speak,

His voice like some dread avatar

That men had feared to seek,

His words were faintly chilling as

The sun sank in the west,

'I see that you have multiplied

Inside my treasure chest!'

 

'When last I came among you

There were fields and mountain streams,

There were mighty oaks and redwoods,

Sweeping vistas made of dreams,

And the skies were blue, unclouded,

And the air you breathed was pure,

But I sense some foul corruption has

Crept inward from the shore!'

 

'For your seas are now polluted with

Your fæces and your greed,

I left fish and healthy species, for

Your food, and for your need,

But you hunted to extinction,

Now the buffalo is rare,

And the ice is slowly melting

Underneath each Polar Bear.'

 

'So we'll take your finest women

As we did in Moses day,

When we came down from the heavens

To improve your DNA,

And we'll leave you to your folly,

To the wages of your greed,

While we choose another planet

And implant another seed.'

 

Then the wind, it came in scurries

And it whirled about his knees,

The pollution from the gasworks, from

The belching factories,

And it covered all the angels in

Corrosion from its rust,

And the angels dissipated

With its acid, turned to dust!

 

Then it swept into his face and made

His Holy features burn,

As it made his eyes to water and

It choked him as he turned,

And he tried to make it back toward

The ship that lay in wait,

But his skin began to fester,

And his head began to ache.

 

Now he's breathing in a bubble, fed

With oxy through a line,

And his skull has been uncovered

Much as if he'd washed in lime,

And his ship has been dismantled,

Melted down and turned to cans,

Filled and labeled 'Holy Water'

For his few remaining fans!

 

David Lewis Paget

Author's Note

Genesis V.6 - When mankind began to increase and to spread all over the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of the gods saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; so they took for themselves such women as they chose. (New English Bible)

Reviews

[softlyfall]

He is gone, the ultimate starman. In the end, we are all made of a cup of stardust. But his wings had such style, covered with glitter and bling. He flew with such delicious swag.
We are all stardust, countless individual cells that only cling for the mutual purpose of giving carnal form to our souls, just for a while.
This is so excellent it makes me almost sad. Why does real beauty often make us sad I wonder?

[Phillip Francis]

Very enjoyable. I felt the need for multiple read throughs.

[MomzillaNC]

A testament of man’s destruction perhaps left to late to redeem

[minisla]

Abousolute genius. Great portrayal of mans desire for destruction. Enjoyed every word.

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

Well, you seem to have dipped your pen into stardust with this one as it's quite out of the ordinary for you. Despite the ending, I think this poem has a positive tone to it; and I rather fancy that this earth will long outlive us all.

As always, great job!

Linda Marie

[Holly]

I liked this line: It made soldiers drop their weapons,
Fall to earth, and hold their ears.

[R J Askew]

Kept thinking of Bowie emerging from the tin can, mic in his hand. Yes, we are a monstrous species. Will it matter when there are no more men around? I imagine all trace of us will soon be gone, in a couple of million years say.

[Merlot]

So, so true....one of the things the human race does extraordinarily well is destroy the beautiful things around it. If we don't stop, there will be nothing left for our grandchildren to enjoy.

[emmajoy]

What an incredible piece of writing! Not only do you set these thoughts down in such an imaginative, complex manner but you set the mind ticking over the lines as the reader travels down the work.

Strangely - because i dont know why .. these are the lines that hit me between the eyes : 'And we'll leave you to your folly, To the wages of your greed, While we choose another planet And implant another seed.' Somehow that puts things into understandable order. Yes, we know what Man's doing to the planet, but .. might we not just be left to nothing .. ignored, useless .. then .. explode into space, as if we never existed?

There appears to be a meld of God, the Creator, and some Unknown being that appeared ' There approached a battered vessel like The long lost Holy Grail, With a magno-drive, half crippled, as It landed on its tail.' Not sure if this was to appease believers or .. whatever the arrival and the end result is heartbreak ..

[Lena M. P.]

The imagery in this poem is phenomenal. The concept is so believable and the ending in your usual twist of blindsiding the reader. It's amazing where you get your inspiration from. To have seen this story unfold from that line from Genesis is truly art. However, next time pay more attention in church; you're mind is drifting :)