Planet Suite (Poetry)

Far across vast laval plains, the drums are speaking war
as swirling dust storms gather force — hot winds blow red and raw
where battlefields are scenes from Hell in astronomic guise
and music stirs the soul to fight beneath pink Martian skies.

Soothing Venus, evening star, employs her woman’s wiles
to calm the raging hearts of men with quiet, melodic smiles
and, ever-constant, offers peace — her promise virgin white —
by dropping liquid silver notes into the pool of night.

Fleet of foot, the messenger — a sprite equipped with wings —
an elemental charged by gods, the herald of all things
that change the course of history — it’s written in the stars
as Mercury quicksilvers by and whistles a few bars.

Jupiter the jovial, who has the greatest girth,
spins merry as a circus clown — the harbinger of mirth —
a swirl of grease paint on his cheek that glows a primal red;
a twinkle in his rheumy eye and jollity to spread.

Ringed Saturn plods, funereal, begs dignity of age —
a geriatric player on the interstellar stage —
with tolling bells, he measures time and contemplates the cold
emptiness of outer space: a dirge to growing old.

The black magician, Uranus, reveals his charcoal rings
and fifteen moons he holds in thrall without the aid of strings —
a master of illusion as he conjures with a flair
his greenish mass of rock and gas revolving in thin air.

Neptune: inaccessible and swathed in swirling mists,
and haunted by a wailing wind — its banshee choirs exist
to fill the aching silence where the mystic lives alone —
an enigmatic giant, isolated and unknown.