Spaced

 Spaceman
© dave calder,
Toulouse Press 1978, Hilltop Press 1995

Spaced
© dave calder,
Toulouse Press 1978

Uncollected
© dave calder, 1989-99


return
UNCOLLECTED

Interview with the Star Captain
On the late massacre in P...
Megaleague 3000
Return to the planet of Ozyman
Search and delete
Information for travellers
Starship blues
We are not alone
A short guide to the solar system
Talk

Many of these poems were first published in magazines, or in anthologies from Riverun and Macmillan publishers.


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Interview with the Star Captain


Today is good. I feel very well.
(What I remember is what I must be)
You are acknowledged. Is this a trial?
(I am in control, I am useful and free.)
All banks intact. The mothers still fertile.
Home? This is home: what is miss, what is tree?
(The dials, I must watch the dials.)

No comparisons. No private hells.
The children? Zone L. What is cry?
(Two and a half times time will tell)
Smile? No data. I'm sorry, I ..
(A bell. Change function. Obey all bells)
No time but the present till we die
(Today is good. I feel very well)


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On the late massacre in P....

If they had had tentacles or three heads
we would have treated them with more respect,
if they had had exoskeletons or antennae
uncertainty would have stayed our hands

but in their shapes we so our own vunerability
in their faces we saw our own fear and treachery
they were so like us.
                                    How could we be sure
that we would not, in time, become them,
given time, that they would not become us.
And then how would we know ourselves,
be chosen and unique in all the universe?

So we killed them - once we started
the moans, the screaming, the red mist of blood
certainly made them seem different; and then
it was easy, as easy as killing ourselves.


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Megaleague 3000

Earth has not anything to show more fair -
the referee computer in its sphere
floats o'er the pitch with electronic ear
and cameras that zoom in everywhere
to judge on instant replay; and besides,
there are no human players anymore -
their massive transfer fees made the sponsors
turn to androids whose moulded plastic hides
are easily replaced. The act's the same,
they're programmed to gesture wildly, to shout,
cry and groan - all the rituals held dear
by the few billion who still watch the game
on real-size viddy-screens (no one goes out)
and press their buttons to boo, laugh or cheer.


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Return to the planet of Ozyman

The desert stretched to the horizon, bare and empty -
only two vast blocks of stone stood on its level sands.
Old, decayed, like pillars from a ruined temple;
we were sure something had made them when this land
had life. But searching in their shadows we found simply
nothing, no sign of who or what had raised them here.
There was just a knobbly rounded rock, lying half-sunk near there,
its huge hacked surface split by deep cuts that seemed to sneer,
and on a slab beneath them we saw marks that might have sometime
been words: man or king perhaps, perhaps mighty and despair.
It was not important. This world was wrecked, by who and why
no-one could know. It was cold. We were getting bored.
It was then the odd-shaped rock yawned, opened wide blind
eyes and wrinkled lips. "Put me back on my legs at once!" it roared.


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Search and delete

# include "id card.h"
# include "government policy.h"
# define GOOD 1
# define BAD 0

FILE *open (Yourname)
gets (status)

if (status == 1)
puts ("sorry to have bothered you sir")
if (status == 0)
puts ("terminate")
unlink (Yourname)


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Information for travellers

As you read this poem you are on a spacecraft
travelling at sixty six thousand miles an hour.
It spins as it flies: since you began to read
it has already turned nine miles to the east.
Be honest, you didn't feel a thing.
You are orbiting a star, not a very big one
compared to many of the ten thousand million others
that go round on the same galactic wheel,
and are flying at a height above its surface
of some ninety three million miles.
We hope to cruise at this distance for another
eight thousand million years. What happens then
is anybody's guess. Despite its speed and size
this craft is a spacestation, a satellite, not designed
for interstellar flight. Its passengers
rely on the comfort of a pressurised cabin
to enjoy the voyage. We must advise you that,
in the event of collision, loss of atmosphere,
or any alteration in course which may result
in overheating or extreme cold, this craft is not
equiped with parachutes or emergency exits.
On a brighter note, the spaceship contains
an enormous variety of in-flight magazines,
meals to suit every taste, and enough
games, puzzles and adventures
to last a lifetime.
We hope you enjoy your voyage.
Thank you for flying Planet Earth.


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Starship Blues

It's hard out on a spaceship, couldn't get much worse,
All we get to see is the same old universe

The food tastes like rubber and looks like concrete tiles
We only change our spacesuits every million million miles
The captain's going crazy, he thinks we're crocodiles
The doctor's seeing double, the atomic drive's got piles

We've been light years in a rocket-jam on the Milky Way
It's "Watch that star!" and "Mind that sun!" all day
We never get back home, we never see our pay
The ones we left behind have all turned old and grey

Our ship's computer's happy, it thinks it's made of cheese
It only answers questions put in ancient Japanese
Something with no face and a horrible disease
is doing something nasty down in the deep-freeze.

They told us we'd be heroes, go where none had gone before
but we sit and stare at starscreens till our eyes are red and sore
Sirius or Saturn, I don't care any more,
if it wasn't for the black holes life would be a bore.

There's a jelly in my cabin, it's eaten up my berth
Beam me up, beam me down, beam me back to earth

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We are not alone

Captain's Log. Starship Saturnalian.
Earth year 2030, day 358 -
The new drive worked! We've tracked the alien
spacecraft that vanished from earth's orbit late

last night. We followed its fantastic leap
across the galaxy and now can see
its sledge-like shape dropping in steep
descent to a planet. Incredibly

a single cosmonaut whose suit glows red
clings to its tail and holds long ropes to steer
a group of prancing creatures: from each head
sprout ariels that make them look like deer.

The planet's steaming, its surface smooth and
dark as Christmas pudding. Prepare to land!


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A short guide to the solar system

On the sun-side of Mercury you sizzle like a sausage.
on the other side you freeze deeper than ice.
Perhaps if you stood in between
you'd become half-baked ice-cream,
but simply stay away is my advice.

Venus is very sticky like a sauna in a steel-works-
be sure to take plenty to drink.
The smelly gases make you sick
as you swelter through oil-slick -
just think how your armpits will stink.

The Moon's dusty deserts delight day-trippers
from the snobby rocketjet set.
They can lie on beach chairs
in designer spacewear
and don't have to get their feet wet.

Mars is marvellous, if many massive red rocks
make you happy. And there's red rubble,
red dirt and red dust.
And at night it's just
the same, but black. Don't go. It's not worth the trouble.


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Talk

We cannot live with ourselves,
we feel alone, we need
a reassurance -
new gods, barbarians or slaves.

Machines speak for us to the stars,
metal ears flower in the fields,
listening. We are waiting,
please, say something, anything.

What do we want to hear,
we who have not learned
to talk to each other,
to ourselves?

Yet we are so anxious, and soon
we'll go out there, stand shouting
in the dark under the lighted windows;
thinking the further we are from here
the closer, the louder, will be the voices.

We want to hear talk -
to feel, to see, is not enough
to fill the haunted hole of silence:
suspecting we are decieved, rejected,
we watch the stars, the moonlit ceiling -
talk to me, we say, talk to me.

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