Looking Back to the Stars
Vince Gotera
—hay(na)ku
My
child’s eyes
adored starships, SF,
anything
space-oriented:
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.
1969:
Neil Armstrong’s
astounding moon landing.
Barsoom
novels by
Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Superman.
Flash Gordon.
2001: Space Odyssey.
Comics
utopias, dystopias:
Magnus, Robot Fighter,
Thor’s
Marvel debut
battling space aliens.
Cartoons:
Duck Dodgers
in the 24½th
Century!
The Jetsons
and Jonny Quest.
Plus,
always nonpareil,
original . . . Star Trek.
Now,
grown up,
I ask you,
Where’s
my jetpack?
My flying car?
Where’s
Penny Robinson,
my spacegirl crush?
We
were promised
outer space tourism.
Instead,
we got
runaway climate change.
Repubs
fighting Demos,
progress always retrograde.
Ah,
Dale Arden,
Princess Dejah Thoris,
Uhura,
Yeoman Rand,
let’s fly away.
Theremin
eerily undulating,
let’s fly away.
