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A review by jimmylorunning
Talk Poetry by Mairead Byrne
4.0
We Went To the Moon
We went to the Moon. We wore puffy suits & boots. We had a lunar module.
We collected Moon rock. We bounced around. Later we had a roving vehicle.
Some people said it was a set-up. That it was done in a TV studio. That there should have been stars & the flag moved.
It was a long time ago now, forty years. We went back a few times but then we stopped. There was no atmosphere. The sky was black. Everything was there but it wasn't much.
When I saw the pale sketch of the moon in the sky this morning I remembered we went to the moon. Probably.
Revision
The dogs in my neighbor's backyard have no way to process misery. We do. The dogs, stretched out in the dusty yard, might feel the sun steal along their broad pelts, slipping like quicksilver between the radiant hairs, & if sufficient pleasure is packed, might even, who knows, heave to their feet, swaying in hazy dance. But whatever about delight, I don't know that they can use pain for anything other than what my neighbors intend, i.e., attack. They do not think: I will make something of this endless experience of lovelessness, confinement, & exposure to the elements. I will write a crown of sonnets. Or We will sing a duet. But still, when these streets are rocked by sirens, as they daily are. When children shudder in their coops. When ambulances, those great can-openers of sound, slice up our street, I hear the dogs next door—or one of them—come to the chain-link fence & howl in mimicry, matching the siren's wail with fleshy tongue & throat & vocal chords, laying an answering salve, or question, over chaos.
We went to the Moon. We wore puffy suits & boots. We had a lunar module.
We collected Moon rock. We bounced around. Later we had a roving vehicle.
Some people said it was a set-up. That it was done in a TV studio. That there should have been stars & the flag moved.
It was a long time ago now, forty years. We went back a few times but then we stopped. There was no atmosphere. The sky was black. Everything was there but it wasn't much.
When I saw the pale sketch of the moon in the sky this morning I remembered we went to the moon. Probably.
Revision
The dogs in my neighbor's backyard have no way to process misery. We do. The dogs, stretched out in the dusty yard, might feel the sun steal along their broad pelts, slipping like quicksilver between the radiant hairs, & if sufficient pleasure is packed, might even, who knows, heave to their feet, swaying in hazy dance. But whatever about delight, I don't know that they can use pain for anything other than what my neighbors intend, i.e., attack. They do not think: I will make something of this endless experience of lovelessness, confinement, & exposure to the elements. I will write a crown of sonnets. Or We will sing a duet. But still, when these streets are rocked by sirens, as they daily are. When children shudder in their coops. When ambulances, those great can-openers of sound, slice up our street, I hear the dogs next door—or one of them—come to the chain-link fence & howl in mimicry, matching the siren's wail with fleshy tongue & throat & vocal chords, laying an answering salve, or question, over chaos.