the planets
If you're waiting for a comet to come hurtling
down and land on your house, don't.
It won't happen.
It will happen.
It's a figment of our imagination.
It's our destiny.
"Don't you?” she said.
I didn't answer.
I just stared out the window of the diner.
There was a bright light in the sky, like a
comet or something, and it appeared
to be coming closer.
Perhaps this was all predicted in Holst's The Planets.
Symphonic foreshadowing, one could say.
Just listen to rhythmic encounters, swallowing whales whole and bellowing cries of despair. It's not just by chance that the spheres have aligned in this way, after this much time. They rotate, invert, add and subtract, deviate, spin according to the master's orders, gravitate, press hard in the central zone, initiate atomic propulsion, rewind, counteract, inspirate, fire it up, explode on the micromark, measure through, floating helplessly in dark imperialism, and never see the other side of themselves. They bare all, but no more do they tell us our fate than a calculator. Generating space energy, cosmic accounts of history. It's a record well kept.
We stopped at Pluto first.
Being so far away from all the noise though,
he had dozed off, blissfully unaware of what had been occurring.
The last he checked it was thirty-three thousand B.C.
He was no help.
Mercury was angry.
I have been asked to describe him as hot-tempered.
It was his belief that some of the other planets had stolen
material from him, and thus he should be much larger.
It was suggested to him that he take them to court,
but as of yet he had only thrown some rocks.
Venus was admirable.
We had no complaints about her.
Earth, however, was in an uproar.
No, Earth was calm and willing to cooperate.
Earth had so much information it was confusing itself.
Earth said that a larger idea, one not completely visible all at once,
would better communicate the change in something-
a painting being painted eternally.
So is it a trade?
Happiness or eternity?
Forgiveness or conquest?
Wait a minute.
There's something missing.
Earth was stuck, mid-thought.
I'd have to get back to it.
The Sun was agreeing with me
over some lemonade: Earth was obnoxious.
Always yelling like that.
Saturn was having a daydream.
She dreamed that none of this had ever happened,
as if it were all a dream within a dream.
Within another dream, for that matter.
I left her alone with her thoughts.
There was quite a bit of controversy over on Jupiter.
They seemed to be splitting hairs about something,
passing around documents and petitions,
talking about legal precedents...
Mars was in chaos.
War was breaking out in all the surface countries,
with the subterraneans soon to follow.
Entities were devouring other entities.
Satellites and power grids were going offline.
Clearly this trip was a mistake.
Uranus was quietly observing all this, but didn't want to get involved.
I would like to say that we had
a great time on Neptune.
Yes, we did.
But what of it?
I stepped into temple Assyrius and walked the forlorn steps, counter judgment in waiting for high routes of conduct only. This is not what I said it was, what it was that I thought I said, if I had said what I was thinking, which was obviously what happened, if anything at all.
The tables were all carved and edited by most of experience. I took my seat. It was all procession and tradition, and the explanation for tradition was tradition itself. The rule books, the who's what and what's when the event transpired. I ran my hand over the smooth wood. If not this fine grain, then what? I swooned over its beauty, and the feeling just took over.
So what is this mechanical mind that
predicts monstrous earth quakes and thunderous cave-ins?
Who dares to condemn me?
Who dares to condemn my friends?
Where is the point of no return, and how do I get there?
Always the right things at the right time.
Logically speaking, we could just advance a little and see what's going on.
Is there death around the corner?
The information is there, but the knowledge is too much.
What history has brought us here, oh great explorers?
All of it.
From armada destroying wind tunnel testing revolutionary interplanetary worship reactionary native walking sniper grassing scorpion stinging and killed and since then the son was not able to finish the invention of green metals used in various parts of manufacturing the great and powerful spiral of doom.
It makes me sad to see that things have not worked out.
If only we had recognized the secret symbols.
But now it's all going to collapse, at precisely the moment it's been waiting for.
The coasts will be obliterated first,
but your neighborhood will have its turn soon after.
Of course, this is all drug store paper prediction hysteria.
The real experts write books.
Thick, wordy books.
Oh, it ended there?
But what happened after it ended?
So don't give up.
The alchemists will figure
something out.
They always do.
~