Alien Darkness

Red glowing curtains of dust and fragments of hollow moons sway.
If I knew the name of this course, if I knew the name of this pathway,
In this orbital plain, I'd sense the possible return voyage.
And I'd name it the once traveled unknown,
I'd name it the way into alien darkness alone.
Mirages of matter seem broken off from another age.

Now approaching the sole moon in the extreme outer arm of brown dwarves.
The stunning numbing vastness haunt this space like ominous lords.
This place where no place is but thick solitude in dense empty black.
Canyons of shadow hide giants of argon, then fall.
I observe and count in stellar seconds, legends recall,
This oppressing stillness that mocks back.

A sun collapsed long ago, still the soothing blankets of unfolding mass,
Creep by the sides of the slowest moving elements as they pass.
How could it ever end, this bleak course, this field of cluster's cloud?
Single layers of light emit out of dense star,
And they cast eerily upon carved planets afar.
The lone moon as the dead host on this round.

I've seen the flicker of stars shine while awake.
In this long pathway, I continue and yet break.
A dream I hold that if I view out beyond,
I could see the markers out from surrounding arms,
That close in from billion mile ultraviolet palms.
Oh why has no time passed through in so long?

Inverted now the wavelength slinks away strangely.
Can I see the expanse where it has gone? Maybe vaguely.
The angle isn't the same and the mantle's scattered.
Awry, amiss and backwards flow, what does it mean?
The sole purpose is merely to navigate unafraid of the unseen.
So through alien darkness wherefore discovery mattered.

And though the smallest square distance came to one.
And its full range calculated into safe override and run,
Something keeps pulling the magnetic sides away.
I fear this was one way, cautious maneuvers where no danger exists.
Cautious strands of time ticked out from ship's micro disk.
The very isolation has covered all but the dismay.

The dullest of traces of xenon and dust,
Fall just outside the gravitational metals that rust
I remember soft nights inside earthen chambers deep,
The way fires lit the walls of ancient brick and stone.
And only time seemed the pale force haunting me all alone.
The alien slumber I thought that I'd sleep.

Any change out there sometimes reminded me of shifted core.
That one day in its own time I'd again greet, as before,
The ways of endless void and voyage too long.
I view out beyond, small light echoes with pulsar.
If I could name this pathway I'd name forgetfulness in dead star.
Sadness in cold moon, and alien darkness where no soul could belong.



©Iggy 2001