"8Space"
New Intro:
When I began to rewrite the poem, I had two basic problems I wanted to address. First, the line towards the end about bedding the moon felt kind of right, and kind of wrong. Needlessly provacative, I guess. The poem was meant to deal with Huntsville's weird mix of fixating on it's past and it's future, while somewhat ignoring it's present, bedding the moon did not quite get the message across. Describing the moon as a long dead Garden of Eden was much closer to what I was going for. Also, towards the end, as is true of most of my poetry, there was the old "repeat but alter the first refrain and end on an off beat". I liked the off beat, but the restarting felt false in this case, so I rewrote it so that the first refrain's repetition is more implied that directly stated.
Old Intro:
I wrote the line "no one calls [Huntsville] home" I was mostly referring to my college days. What I find most powerful about this poem is this still seems to be the truth. I am nearly 30, and my life is filled with people who flow in and out of huntsville all the time.
8 spacemen walked the moon floating
Downtown Huntsville,
Walked the sunset as it called out red.
Walked standing tall and pointing.
8 spacemen past and future, and
8 spacewomen.
Orbitting the bars, and lost in asphalt,
the cars, the highfalutin dreams,
the fields of corn
Slightly to the west, whatever they mean, the stars
Reflecting from the hazy fog and
Background lights.
No one calls this home.
Rivers in and highways out,
Poured and unpoured. Tastefully
Displayed. Temple of space,
And cautious engineering:
Come and worship
For just a glance, a taste,
As though it were nectar.
8 spacemen found stone and budgetary setbacks.
8 women space found Eden, but what can you do
With such a long abandoned garden?
They laughed,
Or something like it,
If you had to call it something said. Laughed
Downtown Huntsville, then fled the dawn
As it bled.
And 8,
Like arbitrary numbers,
Walked tall and stood pointing.
Rewrite: October 11, 2009
Original Version
8 spacemen walked the moon floating
Downtown Huntsville,
Walked the sunset and called it red...
Walked standing tall and pointing.
8 spacemen past and future, and
8 spacewomen.
Orbitting the bars, and lost in the
Stars
Reflecting from the hazy fog and
Background lights.
No one calls this home.
Rivers in and rivers out,
Poured and unpoured. Tastefully
Displayed. Temple of space,
Come and worship.
8 spacemen bedded the moon
Downtown Huntsville.
8 spacemen fled the dawn and
Called it bled.
8 spacemen and 8 spacewomen,
Like arbitrary numbers...
Walked tall and pointing.
This poem was written sometime about 2003 by W Doug Bolden, and has been slightly rewritten and reposted on May 5, 2006.
"The hidden is greater than the seen."
