THEY KILLED THE MOON I'D LIKE TO WRITE ABOUT

Photograph: Buzz Aldrin sets up an experiment into solar wind. Credit: Neil Armstrong/AP/Press Association via the Kennedy Space Center

Martha Landman lives and writes in Adelaide, South Australia. Her work has appeared online and in print in UK, US and Australia and she has previously contributed to TheNewVerse.News.

DEAD AIR

by Alejandro Escudé 




There is no man on the moon tonight.
And it is there, golden and full. I spot it above the empty golf course.
And one can watch as many footage hours of the first mission to the moon
as one desires, but they are never going to return.
Instead, they’re still debating our race. Instead, they’re still defining America.
It’s interesting to learn that Armstrong had to pilot over a cluster of boulders
to find a fitting landing spot. It’s interesting to know
that the astronaut suit-makers did not appreciate Buzz’s leaping, kicking up
moon dust.
And it’s fun to think of Collins circling the pale satellite like a giant man-embryo
inside a metallic uterus. But there is little room to be dumbfounded anymore.
Everyday, the internet steals the soul. They try to make us believe there’s an
alternative to coal.
Last week, Manhattan went dark. Just like in 1977. They tell young students they
don’t need to able to sit in a class anymore and to stay home and learn on an
online school.
They sell a long gun that can take out a small, midwestern town.
Our President is a clown-salesman, a weaponized being sent into the hallowed
chambers of a static, broken government. He is a human improvised explosive
device with a ticking mouth.
People still die in floods in the South.
Yet, they project the Saturn V rocket on the Washington Monument,
our country the equivalent of a middle aged man recalling his high school football
victories with rancid nostalgia, while his children have moved clear across the
country to get away from his unpredictable temper and judgement.
The Russians are still rivals.
Sputnik spins around the world yet.
Does time even really happen to us all?
Did Armstrong really come up with that poetry about one small step?
Such a quiet, distant man,
a man on the moon, three hundred thousand miles away, knowing just what to say
and how to say it—with that pause, that dead air between the word man
and the word one.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

OLD GLORY

by Thom Young

we're not alone
there are aliens
with moon bases and ancient pyramids
in a vacuum
because that's what the universe
is
no chance and no wind.
but you saw Old Glory
waving
as
 Neil danced
his small steps for man
while
the women never got mentioned
again.
there's a chance they're lying
to us
but I wonder what
comes on channel 5
tonight?


Thom Young is a writer from Texas. His work has been in The Commonline Journal, 3am magazine, Word Riot, 48th Street Press, and many other places. A 2008 Million Writers Award nominee for his story "Perico".

BEFORE OBAMA CAME

by Brandon Mullis

Once this land was beautiful
With shining silver springs
The dew-kissed fields'
old harvest yields
Fit both for man or king

But then the sky grew darker
The fields were kissed by flame
O how grand
was once our land
Before Obama came

The forests played a melody
Its fauna harmonized
The sparrow's tweet
so nectar-sweet
A robin would reprise

Now it's all so raucous
The wind sings not my name
Those dulcet tones
soothe not my bones
Not since Obama came

The sun was so much brighter
Water just seemed wetter
A woman's touch
healed twice as much
My pants fit so much better

There was no Justin Bieber
No "Glee" or "Jersey Shore"
On demon's wings
came all these things
With number 44

The world is now so flimsy
So malleable and frayed
The hidden cost
of things we've lost
Might never be repaid

We still had Michael Jackson
Steve Jobs and Neil Armstrong
These men and more
stood strong before
Obama came along

The future's bleak and ominous
Like many futures past
As in them all
we'll surely fall
If we don't do something fast

I may not have the answer
But I do know who to blame
So let's raise cheers
to those great years
Before Obama came


Brandon Mullis pretends to be a writer. While doing this, a number of short stories and poems do accidentally get written. His work has so far only been published in that mythic forest we hear so much about -- the one where no one's around to hear them, so nothing makes a sound. Rejection notices, however... let's just say if they ever become a form of currency, Brandon Mullis will be the 1%.