AWEN ONLINE ISSUE ELEVEN: FORGOTTEN FUTURES
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Cinquain
by David Edwards Futures Forgotten, they outnumber Remembered Pasts by multitudes of no size, yet vast Another World by DJ Tyrer Pluto doesn't exist here But Vulcan circles the sun Enticing aether voyagers To sail solar winds Past Mercury's orbit To the unbearable heat Of that distant world Voyage to Venus Terrible lizards roaming Alien vistas by DS Davidson Time machine journeys From an alternative past To a lost future by Aeronwy Dafies Dim Fields of Fading Stars by Phillip A. Ellis To distance, stars and galaxies recede to dim and dying fields that fade in time to nothing more than memories. We few who sleep not find our way towards a light that's dust as yet— it closer comes, and soon the midpoint shall be reached, when, in our deft manouvering, how our vessel shall but turn decelerate, so that we shall not go further. And all who sleep shall find their way into another world we'll build, the ancient sun no more than dust unseen by eyes. British space empire Utilising strange science That cannot exist by Aeronwy Dafies
After the War
by Phillip A. Ellis
The lifeless day that the space station fell back to the earth, its orbit frayed, it had ages before driven the last men mad then killed within its waterless, foodless hell. No-one on board realised that sudden day how a quick slip could make the winter come after a brief and sudden exchange, numb at the thought of their planet dead, and left to pray in vain for nations wrecked and peoples ash, in vain as nuclear winter took, and slow death had appeared before them. All would know fears of extinction approach, before they'd crash. And, one by one, the men succumbed to madness with the Earth dead at last, sans hope or sadness.
Theory Of Gravity
by David Leverton
I have a private theory that gravity is less a law than an option. Transcendence should be graspable. We broke free, once, lined up our rockets and shot for the moon, rising on towers of fire, leapt free of that sphere-pull, sprang like mad crickets, drove buggies and drove golf balls into the wild yonder and observed the lunar Countryside Code, taking nothing but photographs (and the odd ton of rock), leaving nothing but footprints (and an abandoned buggy and a flag on a stick, and somewhere, a forlorn golf ball, resting on the universe's biggest fairway). I think Newton would've seen the joy in that. Those prints will last a million years etched in pale fine sand in their freezing vacuum, untouched; dusty, distant achievements, ancient history before I was born. We have never gone back to add more though we were supposed to have built moonbases by now, that was what my books said when I was young and I believed them, and the TV: all white-grey plastic and chunky consoles with flashing lights, flared silver-foil suits and huge boots, perhaps some helpful robots tending the green plants beneath the low domes of the oxygen farms while liberated women and men build new modules onto their utopias. |
Mars Attacks
by DS Davidson Alien war machines Stride across the Earth Red weed choking the waters The dead choking the streets Humanity has no answer Slings and arrows alone Against the lightning Mankind's final stand Martians have perfected Immunisation Victoriana Scientific romances Forgotten futures by Aeronwy Dafies Mechanical men Our servants for all seasons Minds of gears and valves by DJ Tyrer
Don't Forget My Rose!
by Stacey Law
Memories! I trace the tracks of my past Through time! I walked the paths and then endured The beauty through these divine eyes of wine My sorrows! They are ultimately prevalent The feelings – my senses cultivate at last As I step forward standing tall I too oppose The calamity in my soul – I relish the rose In the seasons – be it may that it die Bewildered! I ponder! I then wonder why? I stand on a solid rock – my foundation Imagining the nurtured soil in the spring That our future holds the beauty they bring In my presence – the beauteous petals Blooming in my mind – the imagery I seek to find – the creative sense In my eyes – I am bliss, I see – Hence! I believe in the love, I do so admire That the rose represents in my life Purity – pure in the heart of gold I still sit on the rock , forgetting what is told Now the bush that died – I blame the most May it bloom in the spring – love it may bring Yet I am forgetful – the imagery dissolves Around the bush – the cycle that revolves And the hues of the beauteous sun, I do see Brings the nurturing rays – but the rose did disappear And my rock as I stand and my feelings so cold In the winter blues – I forgot the rose I am told Is life after death – in the soil now froze May I remember in my mind the beauty of the rose Bittersweet memories – I cherish the most My garden of the flower again I cultivate The weeds as they strangle my breath, spring! I can wait! thus in my unconscious mind In my dreams I silently listen, to what I find In the freeze , beneath the bitter snow Is my bud! in the roots of my bush and yet Listening to the branches fill my conscious Each future year! I tend to forget!
Sipping tea on Moon
Genteel exploration
Different values
by Aeronwy Dafies
Missing hover cars
History took a wrong turn
To future present
by DJ Tyrer
Instead we struggle to rise
a few miles above the cloud-tops.
Our faithful shuttles
ploughed valiant furrows
in low-Earth orbit
for thirty years
still grasping at a great leap forward,
their blunt-sleek streamlining
a promise of bringing the sky closer,
but even they are gone now.
They ended as expensive relics,
a false dawn, trailblazers to nowhere
but fiery disaster blasted
across the smoking skies
or to museums and the memory
of flight, and in my head
I am forever weighed down,
earthbound,
waiting for the future
that never comes.
There are still humans,
—a few, rattling around—
high, high
above the world in perpetual motion,
from blistering ascent
to a rushing glide through
the velvety night, where gravity's grip
is gone, a transcendent floating
as natural as breath or pulse,
a soundless streak across the stars.
Yet I am forever weighed down,
earthbound,
standing by a dead road,
some highway to the cosmos
with my thumb held out.
No-one ever comes past,
but I will wait;
I still silently long to travel,
soar into the firmament with
power and cacophonous grace,
untethered,
a weightless dream, still,
to be the first boy on Mars.
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