CHILDREN
HE TIGHTENED HIS GRIP ON THE CHILDREN
Virgil Gus Grissom 1st casualty of the 1st seven astronauts
of U.S. manned space flight Gus died in 67 perished in a
fire aboard Apollo 1 All were: superb physical specimens
with genius IQ’s none taller than 5 ft. 11 the dimensions of
the Mercury capsule
Gus looks older than the rest He looks like a friend who died
John Glenn is the only one of the 7 still alive Godspeed Gus Grissom
Posed in spacesuits silver with many zippers + round white helmets
Smiling faces robot-men except for Gus Grissom serious +intense
Hand of Mcfate on his left shoulder It is 1959
14 yrs. had passed since the great liberation NASA hopeful after rape
+pillage of planet 70 yrs. now come & gone Buchenwald survivors lay
flowers They wear their striped pyjamas +one man his striped cap His
home held 250,000 More than 56,000 died there from torture +medical
experiments +starvation
Next to these images today our National newspaper displays 3 girls
hanging out of a window one clutching a small stuffed cat all looking down
at fellow students U of Nairobi who jumped to deaths in mistaken terrorist
attack Felix Muriuki a 3rd year student said: I could see students jumping
one of them landed on his head
Now move your eyes down the page right smack in the middle of all this in
red+blue is Hillary Clinton: The deck is still stacked in favour of those at the
top she said Her strategy in the next race for President will be to avoid a sense
of celebrity
Despite wealth+fame Hillary cares about ordinary people: I want to be their
champion! Her blue hawk-eyes may belie a just folks sincerity but more likely
they scream: Don’t fuck with me and especially no questions about Benghazi
I leave you with the fresh faced men of Mercury 7 explorers of the heavens And
the news that: today’s largest manned space flight will be one way 86,000 Canadians
have signed up so far They unlike Hillary are proud to be celebrities
__
She is plump. Her beak is open. She breathes hot hawk breath on my face.
Formidable talons. Sleek. (H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald 2014)
Simpler Times Mercury 7 1959
RIP Gus Grissom
Spring 2015
songanddancegirl 