Rocket Ships

In the future that was often dreamt of in the past,
With chrome plated prophecies of a tomorrow that never was,
Atomic rocket ships, like fissison’s silver arrows,
Would glide seamlessly past the burning golden stars.

Their cargo would be colonists, travelling to imperial Mars
Or the frozen viscous wastes of pale blue Europa,
Anchored to the King of the Gods in His cosmic Olympus
Uncountable miles from Terra Firma.

And every evening back on Earth in laminated nylon aprons,
Their wives would gaze upwards from suburban porches,
Searching for that brightest star and wishing they had listened
When the General had explained the mission brief.

The husbands, bastioned in red plastic helmets,
Might shed the dry and silent tears that men sometimes do,
Carelessly smothered out of existence by Big-Bang static
When they know that far away the one they love worries for them.

But they must Go West, or whatever Cartesian folly it may be
To the Mobius twisted frontier of their present,
Where asteroids string celestial barbed wire fences over the light years,
And the final hitching post is the ancient grey luna surface,

The Moon cannot help but sympathise with those lonely pioneers,
As She stares downwards at her estranged blue companion,
And although those wanderers may talk as fast as Einstein will allow,
Their voices can only sound out to each other from a million miles away.