FIERCE INVISIBLE HEAVEN

MIRROR TO THE LIPS

SATELLITE AND BIRD

UNKNOWN BELOW

THE PLOT THICKENS

HUNTER'S MOON

GASSENDI GIRL

HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE?

SATURDAY INBETWEEN

WAXING

AFTER THEIA

Earth minds her business being born

In subtle rhythms

Vibrancy of space

When blindsided by Theia blundering by

They kissed and swung

Garlanded by debris discs expanding

Rippling sunlit fragments

Back out towards the Sun

Then came those moments

Waiting in stunned still

Seeing the Moon melting out of gravity

Into mottle and pucker of sea and crater

Earth ingests her clumsy

Creative gate crasher

Deep in her core and mantle

Finds herself tilted so round her jaunty axis

New seasons strum her

Rush over her shimmering colours of bang

HARES

My tribute to the hares lovingly carved as they climb towards the waxing crescent Moon on the trunk of an Oak tree in Wickersley Wood, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, UK.

ORDINARY MORNING MOON

Here's one I took (much) earlier of the eclipsed blood supermoon back in 28th September 2015

I catch her early

Between wake and wash

(Me, not her!)

Slipping down sassy

(Her, not me!)

Swanning through sycamore twigs

In her lap-dance

Way way west.

I’m such a lightweight,

Not up to the occasion,

I stand watching

At the foot of the bed,

Shivering in woolly shawl

Over my PJs

Mittens missing fingers

Thermal hat half over one eye

While silver she stoops to stun.

Last night,

In the cross hairs of half the planet,

She hid from me, smirking,

Strategically gathering

Colonnades of cumulus

To cover her scarlet blush

Her lupine loveliness

Her winter plumage

Plump as the robin’s

Her breast as red

Eclipsing carmine

Cochineal completely

At the nub of the night

But now she is already

Moving on into wane

Nibbling her rind away

Crater by crater

Knowing I must wait

Years to witness the same.

If on such ordinary mornings

I ever fail to be

Bowled over by wonder

At her wistful waning,

I don’t deserve

Her headline-grabbing

Up-all-night

Shadow play

Her super, her full, her blood.

WHAT TIME IS IT, MRS WOLF (MOON)? - OR THE AMATEUR ASTRONOMER’S LAMENT

Wolf Moon rising - before the total eclipse in the wee small hours (Author's photo)

She’s risen! We’re feeling alright.

Best chance in ten years for a sight.

So get out the bins,

The thermos and lens,

And gaze at the sky, dead-of-night.

She’s Wolf! She’s Super! She’s Full!

Eclipsing like blood she’ll soon dull;

You think in your head,

“She’ll look great when she’s red!”

But that isn’t Wolf, it’s just Bull!

Cos when your alarm rings out loud,

And you’re poised, gazing moonward, so proud,

Comes that moment you dread,

And you’re straight back to bed -

There’s nothing to see but thick cloud!

SO FAR UNDER

SO FAR UNDER

So far under I can't swim back to the surface.

Was I ever up there? Stark in the sunshine?

Shifting ponder mouths me down, floors me.

Somewhere Moon is plucking up tides,

Distorting the equator,

Puckering cliffs,

Frothing rock-pools with crisps of dead kelp.

My ribs ache from the kiss of a flame-tongued chimera,

Thump of pantechnicon push in the seething dark

Breaking me utterly, no tracks to trace retreat.

I should be psalming howls and how longs

Yet I banter and jive from that place called normal

Bobbing my head with quotidian nods

Catching crabs in the slipstream undertow

Sucking me down askance

So cushioned and carried

You need never know.

Space Station Shuttling

Well, I didn't manage to see the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station from which it undocked today, passing over at 7.23pm tonight even with clear skies. I've seen it in the past, but this time was a hopeless "fail", even though thousands saw it. Didn't even have a good picture of the new moon to post tonight, so here's one I took during the afternoon of Jan 14th 2011 over Rotherham, Yorkshire, UK, as a compensation prize, plus a poem I've written to capture tonight's abortive quest to see the satellites.


It rippled through the evening news
Last chance! Look out!
The Space Station and the Shuttle at its heel
Undocked, wheeling unmissable
Over our northern hemisphere


We note the time, the appointment,
Synchronise our watches,
Tapping and nodding,
Grabbing scopes and cameras,
Listening to "The Archers"
To anchor us to earth.


I focus on the new moon
Tipping its cartilage comma,
Punctuating space.
But my hand trembles,
Fluttering the tripod
Like a baby's heartbeat


Each time I frame it,
The image is a paroxism, a ditzy squiggle
Melting as cheese on a burger,
Dithering like the plosive song
In the wren's zithering throat.


So I never saw 'Discovery' rising,
Or the Space Station arc up a mute rainbow,
Clearing the horizon from West through South.

But now they are gone down
Under the obstructive shoulder of earth's core,
I watch the blank plates
At the back of my lens,
While the carnival colours from bulbs
On the Working Men's Club
Scrub out the stars with a litter of lights