On Some Faraway Planet

On Some Faraway Planet

Funky Space at the Boogie Lounge

Amplify your visuals, get connected, go anywhere.
Hot metal, new leather, fishnet crop tops
Scalp electrodes connect us to fashion dreams
When, after a grey and misty start,
The future merges with yesterday’s news
And mirror ball madness vamps up your eyes
All table dancing, flirting and catfights
At a burlesque cabaret in a downtown cellar
On some far away planet a long way from home
Where raffish grid girls wear suede retro hot pants
And alien entertainers swoop from the chandeliers
Yeah, it’s love, lipgloss and show business
Out here on the Western Fringes, so it’s
Another teen slasher bloodbath from Mr Pink
As Starfleet Command takes all the tables
Calling for posh totty, sentimental songs
And two pianos on wheels of steel,
Like this sex bomb in specs adds some oomph
To her scary cocktail shaker routine
Behind the bar on the seventh floor where
Snap happy space cadets preen in their frocks
Flicking ciggie stubs across the room
At some hick comedienne from The Big Squirm
Too boring darling I hear you say.
Where’s that pause button?
No wet shirt moments here then, just armchair
Radicals, Mr White, some other geezer
And a crystal breeze chilling the action, while
Sporting a smarter class of clobber,
Mohair suits and electric boots,
We truffle shuffle to a plinky dinky soundtrack.
You lucky, lucky people!

Published in Inclement Vol 11 Issue 1 Spring 2011

Illustration: We Always Come Back, 2003

Swan of Yuggoth

Swan Of Yuggoth

Albedo
Becoming music unfettered, white-winged, the Swan
Calls out from where a blue supergiant circles
The Ancient of Days.
Beneath a leprous, hermaphroditic moon the Earth’s Lover
Sees a rabid dog
Escape through a secret rose garden.
White roses covered in snow,
The sacred source of illumination, kalas out of space.
Sounds awake, aeons of light years so far distant
Before the scattered remnants of the Milky Way
Spawned this Swan of other aeons,
Cross of Northern Skies, Bird of Aethyr returning to aethyr.
Penetrate unhindered
Even here
Crystalising arcane colours.
Eidolon of Yuggoth, glorified, spotless, virginal,
The light touch of your icy plumage ruffles this lake’s
Clear surface, reflecting tall trees, pale pillars
Descending quiet as splintered sunlight
Glances from your rippling wake.
Opposites are transformed
Into a new cold being, Diadem of My Heart.
Incorruptible, arising reborn,
Displacing ashes of purgatorial fires, long-necked body thrusting
Towards Leda, as the cries of her conjoined twins
Smash open the cosmic egg.
So, you are still dreaming.
But your eyes are perfect stones, like mirrors;
Transplutonic realms,
Awesome power zones, disguised as petals.
Their supreme light pervades the Ultimate Snow,
An incursion of otherness, a visible vibration.

Bird of Aethyr, returning to aethyr, Swan of Yuggoth.

Dream of Aldebaran

Dream of Aldebaran

Blazing red star flaming eye
Taurus Alpha following
Images of opaque objects
From the Hyades to the Pleiades.
Nine bright stars that rule our sky, with
Nine ladies and three dark sisters,
Mystical figures who control our destiny:
Calliope, her epic screams create terror,
Clio, her revelations paralyse thought,
Euterpe, the sound of her flute chills the blood,
Thalia, her laughter is an antidote to death,
Melpomene, her tears flood the universe with pain,
Terpsechore, her ritual chanting is the dance of the stars,
Erato, Angel of Eros, her lyric passion excites the senses,
Polyhymnia, her devotions define the limits of the possible,
Urania, her science is the word of truth.
Just turn the lights out – this is a chapter from
The Book of Storms,The Primal Dream of Three Uncanny Sisters
(Melete, Mneme, Aoide) – no Fates these,
Three Dark Stars in the shadows hidden
From the advance of Orion.
As the galaxies expand,
Surreality is disclosed in moments of distraction.
And these are the Nine bright stars of the dream:
Aldebaran, the burning eye
Capella, so much brighter than the sun
Castor, twin star so far, far away
Pollux, hero of the hour but so far, far away
Procyon, you rise before the dog
Sirius, source of Sothic Mysteries
Rigel, you dominate the mirror world
Bellatrix goddess of war, you are deadly nightshade
Betelgeuse, you tower over all, but
The blazing red eye feasts on human flesh.

A previous version of this poem appeared in Bard 74, 2009

Boo Galaxy

Boo Galaxy

We reached the Boo Galaxy
Via the Shrine of Roquepertuse
A gate mounted with severed heads.
We were blazing a path
Through an evaporating universe,
Escaping from an old film
Called Chain Gang Charlie.

Yes, we attain immortality through art
For divas never die, and
Even topless movie babes live forever.
Not just a playground love spat
The situation was much, much worse
– Apocalypse when?

As we approached the Boo Galaxy,
At just below the speed of light
Well within the law,
Edging into overkill, I said,

Oh, darling!
You’re an icon of sleaze
I can forget my painkillers now!

As we waited for the lights to change
– Emergency road works – I thought
We’re a pack of ragged ravers
A troupe of mad performers,
Heading for Seventh Heaven,
Not Arcturus – and the Boo Galaxy
Engulfed us in a violet glow.

A previous version of this poem appeared in Handshake 75, 2008 edited by John Francis Haines

Welcome to CygnusX

This is the constellation of Cygnus the swan distinguished by the brilliant star Deneb or Alpha Cygni: the energy source object CygX-1 was discovered here in 1965. In 1973, after the Uhuru Mission, CygX-1 was confirmed as the first Black Hole, sinister companion to the star HDE226868.

H P Lovecraft refers to Cygnus, with Deneb 'twinkling above the others' in his tale of alien incursion The Colour Out Of Space. In Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsys, the scientists Dr Valentine Pilman locates the origin of the Visitation Zones 'somewhere along the Earth-Deneb line'. The point of origin is known as The Pilman Radiant.

The cosmic Black Swan is also the The CygnusX Blogspot radiant, a continuing point of reference for current works and projects; for notes, observations and comment; for random incongruities and improbable juxtapositions. Occasional progress reports, featuring back-catalogue items from the CygnusX Archive will also appear from time to time...

Astro Black Morphologies/Astro Dub Morphologies 
Deep Space Poetics from CygX-1 by Flow Motion (2005)