POETRY

Radio

Polyglot Poem — English and Spanish

Optical: NASA/HST/ASU/J. Hester et al. X-Ray: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Towers fell and up flew
metaphors, lamentations.

A drone, Herzog ersatz, shot the collapse.
No more blue pulsar impressions.

The staff chilled Hope in their icebox
(The most desired reply).

Instruments probed cold, vast, void;
Crashed and carved unknown pleasures.

We missed the cosmic bus,
Delayed by stale supremacies;
Old rotten tensions gave way
To anemic celebrations
Of bubbly-worthy star gazers…

In Another Time-Slice,
Arecibo collected aural debris —

Never San Salvador; always Guanahani…
We’ll weave neural simulacra,
And dull the pain of conquest.
This encryption is from a non-human source.

Spanish version (original)

Cayeron las torres
& todo es metáfora & lloripari,
Precariedad & abandono.