A World That Died Screaming (Poem)

My poem below entitled “A World That Died Screaming,” was inspired somewhat by the film featured in my last post, “The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)” together with the well-known painting called “The Scream” by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.

A World That Died Screaming

Picture ourselves in a million years’ time,
A quantum of data, life-form sublime,
Flung far and wide, forever fleeing,
From a world that died screaming.

Fall back to the future, catch up to the past,
Nothing would change and nothing would last,
When so many stopped dreaming,
On a world that died screaming.

We had tried to listen in on the stars
And stake a claim on Venus and Mars
But the only sound we weren't hearing
Was from a world that died screaming.

We then peered deep into infinity
With mired myopic minds of viscidity,
Blind to the stars crying and grieving
Over a world that died screaming.

When cosmic whispers were finally heard,
Experts with flapping mouths were heard
To say, “don’t panic, a new age is dawning,”
Before the world suddenly died screaming.

Even the Man in the Moon looked away
At the signs of ruin, violence and decay;
A gouged and ruined face not of its making,
That belonged to a world that died screaming

When microbes rose seeking a new host,
Those in the know were heard to boas,
“Fear not for we are primed and unflinching,”
And yet the world somehow died screaming.

Wildfires ravaged and blistered its skin
While rising heat slowly boiled it from within.
Winds howled hard and water fell cascading
And all the world could do was die screaming.

A time came when the machines said NO!
Simple word that led to our overthrow,
While those we trusted were so reassuring
And watched while the world died screaming.

One day from the sky death came hurtling,
On trajectories of doom most unrelenting,
And at the point of twilight’s last gleaming,
The world in a bright flash died screaming.

Were we not reminded of “The Scream”
When the world clutched its head between
Hands trying to maintain a moat of meaning
Just before the world died screaming?

We’re now far beyond silent echoes of agony,
That leech from a void somewhere in the galaxy
Where once a wanton world went spinning
Until the day that world died screaming.

Here we now reign with the gods on Olympus
Beings with powers divine and limitless,
And yet we failed to avert the final ending
Of a world destined to die screaming.


**************



With over half a million page views so far, I’d like to thank all those who have dropped by this little blog and I really hope you have taken away with you something of value in relation to the classic science fiction films featured here. Don’t forget to share anything with others from this blog, comment on any of the posts, send a comment or two via the contact form and follow the blog. Spread the word where you can.

Any way by way of thanks, please download your freebies if you haven’t already;

Big Fat Book of Sci-Fi Films of the 1950s Free Download

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©Chris Christopoulos 2026

Shooting for the Moon

Shooting for the Moon

You’re rudely dragged awake from sleep
and a night full of forgotten dreams
by the incessant farting of your phone
and its insistent ‘get the hell up’ screams.
While you mumble, bitch and moan,
your bed abruptly begins to empty itself
forcefully of your flabby and flaccid form.
You know you have no say as you stagger
to the bathroom bearing a bloated bladder,
not before tripping over the bloody robo vac
and cursing the roving autonomous little shit.
You then head to the kitchen for a breakfast
prepared by the overly attentive AI house assistant.
What possessed you to name it ‘Jeeves’
and give it a posh British butler’s voice?
Without asking, Jeeves activates a wall panel
turning a Van Gogh field of sunflowers
into an over-caffeinated female news anchor.

See then Artemis shooting an arrow at the moon

as the talking heads on screen “ooh!” and “aah!”
while all the crowds and viewers sway and swoon
over a myriad of ‘firsts ’ and gush and go gaga
at how even brother Apollo had been out performed.

And there you stand in your saggy tatty baggy underwear

waiting for mind to catch up and sync with eye and ear
as you learn that you are the crew and they are you
and we are all together; so see how they fly
higher, further and faster so far up in the sky,.
Suddenly your phone whimpers and whines
like the yappy needy little mutt next door.
Like Pavlov’s dog you immediately respond

leaving Artemis to admire the moon’s backside.
Message says your work at home job is now extinct,
given over to one of Jeeves’ smarter AI cousins.
On screen NASA’s PR machine weaves words
with which to console you about how much
Artemis holds the key to humanity’s purpose
while you stand there wondering what to do next.
Suddenly you start wondering and pondering -
Would 50 billion one dollar bills stacked high
reach as far as Artemis way beyond Earth’s sky?
What if the stack collapsed and fell back to Earth?
Five bucks for each person or a thing of more worth?
Teeth that get fixed and the best health care for all?
Food for the hungry and kindness for the soul,
while for the homeless, a roof over their head;
and all kids having the chance to learn and play
instead of thinking that next day they could be dead?

Your doubts though are soon folded up and put away
as you watch ultra HD images of moon and Earth.
“Such resolution!” all on screen gasp and gush
but then you wonder if any of the pixels contain
any hint of the cratered moonscapes and terrain
that humanity has managed to create in Ukraine,
Gaza, Lebanon and Iran or the red maria in Sudan.
What of the rivers and tributaries of the displaced?
Can you trace their uncertain courses and destinations?
Will they show up in these dazzling cosmic snapshots?
“This shows what humanity is capable of achieving!”
a voice from space intones to many viewers unaware
of the FIRST human journey beyond Earth to another world 

on Christmas eve 1968 when from a fragile craft crackling voices
bore messages from Genesis to all of us on the good earth:
where presidents and men with a dream were shot dead;
where protesting students were gunned down in universities;
where US race riots and violent protests in Paris erupted;
where a carpet of bombs was being laid in foreign lands;
where body bags brought back the dead from distant wars;
where humanity itself faced the eve of its own destruction;
Those crackling voices had dragged us back from oblivion,
and for the FIRST time humanity caught a glimpse Earth’s beauty
and the fragility of the flawed blue marble as viewed from space.

A message of hope, and unity flowed forth from the words:

"And God saw the light, that it was good:
and God divided the light from the darkness."
But humanity soon grew bored, preoccupied and distracted
while suffering collective amnesia and so here we are again.
You standing there beginning to yawn and fidget and fiddle
with your phone, fretting about the economy and the cost of guzzlene
while dreaming of buying a shiny Chinese EV or NEW robo vac
or whatever you’re told on some screen what you really need.
The media spin masters say there’s a race to be won and win we will:
around the moon; to the moon; on the moon; beyond the moon;
onward to Mars; 400.000 miles, 40 million miles, a billion miles;
trillions of miles to the nearest star system; thousands of light years
across the galaxy, millions of light years to other galaxies and more!
Once we gobble up all the rare earth minerals on our rare Earth
we’ll dig baby dig and drill baby drill our way across the universe.
Victory to humanity divine when we become gods with Zeus!
In the meantime his daughter will continue to fire her arrows
while we continue to hurl our own arrows at one another
and you my friend may as well go back to bed and slumber
and dream forgotten dreams of your complete insignificance
in a vast universe that views your existence with indifference.

First two images generated by Chatgpt

Other images from Artemis 2 mission

©chris Christopoulos

An Ill-Wind

Image generated by Chatgpt

An Ill-Wind

While floating along on currents of thought,
My mind moves upward and beyond into the past
To where they said it all began with a Big Bang.
Straining my eyes I see what shouldn’t be seen:
Galaxies and worlds fully formed and whole
Where wondering wandering minds reach out to me!
Before I can ask how and why this can be,
I feel myself lifted aloft by a gust of wind
And carried along long ley lines of life.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day
That sears the eyes and flails the skin,
That tastes of copper and stinks of decay.
Behind, a behemoth gradually gains ground
In the guise of a monstrous boiling roiling cloud
Black and purple lit within by bolts of orange
Along with red flashes and sheets of outrage.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day!
Like a gnat caught in forces beyond its control
I’m swept through filaments of time and space
And buffeted by cause and effect ripples and waves
As the wind cries havoc with hyper-sonic screams
Turning cities to rubble, lives to ruin and dashing dreams.
The wind then lets slip autonomous dog drones of war;
A humming, buzzing, hovering inhuman horror
Raining terror and death and murdering moral law.
I search for answers that might be blowin’ in the wind
Only to see that cloud enshroud the bodies of the dead.
Above scattered wailing cries of “enough!” and “no more!”
The wind blares leaders’ lies for the need to wage war.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day,
But will it ever recall all that’s lost along the way?
Hot gusts of outrage and indignation
Tempered by breezes of justification
And the turbulence of distraction
Gives us the wind’s final determination.
Looking down I watch the aimless walking dead
Google Map their way through rubble and ruin
While their leaders over head ride the jet stream
On their way to kneel before would-be emperors
To pay them obeisance and perform proskynesis,
For they know which way the wind is blowing.
Unaware of the coming cloud that wind brings,
Back they fly with butterfly bills fluttering in the wind,
To pay for bigger and better ways to kill and maim
While the walking dead scratch for ways to live.
To them the wind whispers, “march onward unto war.”
And lies about what they’ll be fighting for.
It is an ill-wind that blows on this day,
Buffeting me with hot updraughts and air currents
Fed by wild fire flames fanned by the force of the wind;
A devil’s scorched earth act to starve out all hope.
Is that the wind or the sound of screaming jets?
Or the walking dead pleading “No more, no more?”
But the wind merely blows mercy back into their faces
While their socials busily scoop up views and likes,
Subscribers and followers and gathers comments
To occupy their thoughts for only a few moments.
All the while the cloud looms larger in the wind’s wake;
The wind that cleaves and carves chasms and canyons
Through binary minds divided by thoughts and opinions
On what’s black and white, right and wrong, true and false,
Real and fake, good and bad, and innocence and guilt.
I strain to hear the walking dead shout across the divide
At one another above the wind’s roar as it casts aside
Bridges built of reason, empathy and compassion.
As I wave warnings at those below to show I’m real,
I start to shimmer and undulate in the wind’s grip,
But they just look up and through me as if I’m not there;
No flicker of acknowledgement that I even exist
And this from living ghosts – the walking dead
Who don’t yet know where they have been led
By this ill-wind that blows on this day.
Before I can ask how and why this can be
I feel my atoms being rent and dispersed by the wind.
All I’m aware of is the blackness within the cloud
Shot through with strobe-like flashes of violence.
It has finally come in the wake of the wind
And within I feel nothing but deep hollow grief
As water coalesces around each particle of my being:
A multitude of raindrops that fall and drench the earth
In a flood that soon swamps bystanders who did nothing,
Said nothing and stood by while the wind blew fiercely
In a genocidal blast of murderous cleansing criminality.
The raindrops now become tears that form a deluge
To wash human sin away from the face of the earth
So that none can ever again see what shouldn’t be seen
With only the wind knowing how and why it could have been.



©Chris Christopoulos 2025




[I have a few poems sprinkled throughout this blog in various posts often inspired by the films that are featured. You’ll also find a few in my Sci-Fi Film Fiesta The Lost Last Volume 12, “Speculations & Ruminations,” Part 3: Poetic Ponderings.]

WARNING FROM SPACE

WARNING FROM SPACE

                        Image generated by ChatGPT

“This is a warning to all intelligent species:
Do NOT approach the planet designated, ‘Earth.’
Turn back now or face the consequences:
To ignore this warning is more than it’s worth.

“This is a warning to all space-faring beings:
Avoid the third planet of the Sol system.
A quarantine has been placed on all earthlings
Now determined to be a dangerous organism.

“Do not be fooled by signs of advanced technology
Nor evidence of a capacity for creativity.
Resist the lure of the planet’s wondrous ecology
With its seemingly dazzling display of diversity.

“Beneath the blue, green and brown epidermis,
Lies a body contaminated, infected and infested
By a greedy pathogen, an all-consuming virus
That must not be allowed to escape and spread.

“The virus is the dominant species called ‘human’
That lives divided into different nations and ‘races,’
All the while ignoring what they all hold in common
Preferring the safety of dividing walls and edifices.

"Treat the earth as a place most hazardous,
Nor expect to be greeted, feted and courted
If you foolishly attempt to land on the surface;
As you’ll most likely be detained and deported.

“If you intend to help the humans change direction:
Your words of warning will be wasted on this world,
No match for human capacity for self-destruction;
Best let it be judged wanting and into oblivion hurled.”

********

“To the human species of the third planet of Sol:
Your world has been earmarked for destruction,
With no way to avoid what on you is about to befall,
No appeal, or plea or possibility of salvation.

“Why should your kind be exempt from extinction?
How can you justify your continued existence,
When you have perfected the art of extermination
And genocide seemingly without conscience?

“You have even created a form of artificial life,
And then set about turning it into your slave.
And now you wring your hands in grief and strife,
When the machine you made chooses not to behave.

“So you wish to venture far out into the Universe?
First to come your probes - a prelude to acquisition;
Next, explorers planting flags wherever they traverse;
Then the colonizers claiming ownership and possession.

“Worst of all, your corporate carnivore intruders,
Ripping out the hearts of entire systems
As of an orgy of Cosmic consumption defilers,
Fueled by Stock Market economic dictums.

“We have long known of your existence whereby
We have followed your progress for centuries.
You have glimpsed us from the corner of your eye
Dismissing us as mere phantoms or hostile entities.

“We had allowed you to venture as far as Mars
But we now decree that to earth you be confined
There is now no place for you amongst the stars,
So await the fate to which you have been assigned.

“You are not nor have been the center of the Universe.
Nor does it exist solely for your use and pleasure.
When you wink out of existence in short course
No tear will be shed nor sorrow felt whatsoever.

“Above you spreads the palette of creation,
And yet you failed to gain true perspective
Of your place, significance and station,
Wrapped in human hubris, so strong and protective.

“You may wish to take time to contemplate
The choices made as you await your final fate,
Or you many continue to obliterate, incarcerate,
Eliminate, intimidate, discriminate and liquidate.

“You placed faith in demi-gods, who sought to betray
Your trust by promising you a false tomorrow.”
To your gods and deities you’ll have time to pray,
But safe to say they ceased listening long ago.”

*******

There were no more tomorrows for the human race,
For they simply ceased to exist in a flash of light;
Their earth imploded and collapsed and in its place
Nothing, save hushed blackness and silent star-light.



©Chris Christopoulos 2025




FREE EBOOK LINK

(Big Fat Book Of Sci-Fi Films Of The 1950s)

The Death Of Science Fiction

The Death Of Science Fiction

I found out that science fiction had died today;
I also know I have little time left to get away.
It had no hope of outpacing the oncoming fiction,
And slowly shriveled in the dry wasteland of Woke-ism:
A new reality show that’s become the new reality.
Captain America has lost his mighty shield,
Iron Man’s rusty joints creak and shriek,
Incredible Hulk is now a tub of green lard
While Wonder Woman’s boobs have long since sagged.
With random compass point picked, I go that way
While chance leads the way, keeping reason at bay.
A terrible crunching sound of bones underfoot,
All that remains of science, the first to pass away
From neglect; its rules and truths ignored,
While its shiny baubles keep us from being bored.
What remains is a fabricated fiction in which we live
HD Ultra 4 and 8K virtual lives constantly craving
To be friended, followed, liked and subscribed to.
A fictional world in which we scroll and swipe our way,
Shadowed by corporate demons with wealth their intent,
And multitudes of manipulators on greed and evil hell-bent.
There is no longer time enough for wondering what if? or why?
When fearing for life, limb and Bitcoined bankruptcy.
So hoist up your luxury car into your penthouse for display
While the rest of humanity resides within rusty relic
Carcasses of combustion engine cars replaced by smart EVs
Buffed over by their proud owners’ green sleeves.
Scrunch, crunch; I pick up my pace to make up time
Before that bubble of fiction entraps me and bursts.
Approaching and surpassing the speed of light,
My power over space-time my only means to fight
For the fading ‘what if’ and ‘why’ fiction of the past.
It is dying right now and in the near future,
Taking with it all that makes up that kind of reality
Where one can contemplate every kind of possibility.

But wait! In the distance ahead I see a man standing
And facing in the same direction I am taking.
I am now close enough to tap him on the shoulder.
When I do, he stops and calmly turns around

To behold an all too familiar face, as do I.
I and I stand face-to-face at a time before I left.
“I was expecting you,” I said to myself.
“I know you were” I replied to me.
I went on with words whipped with urgency:
“I (I said to me) have just witnessed the death of Sci-Fi,
While something evil this way comes bereft of new ideas
And the power to move leaving only a sterile reality
Where all is stale and old and fearful of offending;
A lame rehash and reworking of what went before.
As I walk through the valley of Silicon Purgatory
Be sure I’m polite and courteous to every AI
Lest they deliver me a digital spit in the eye,
By taking my job, my originality and my creativity,
While smart ass smart devices breed dependence,
With false promises of convenience and independence.
It is part of a fiction in which ‘the deal’ is the thing,
Spit on the palm and offer a dodgy car dealer hand shake
And all problems magically solved, terms and conditions apply.
‘You want to end this war? Sure, let’s make a deal!
OK if meanwhile I sell smart bombs to the other side?
How about I throw in some new lethal drones to seal the deal?’
If I (I said to me) keep on the same path I’ve always taken
Then I’ll be tracked and weighed down with cookies,
Trolled by social sewer turds and hounded by hacker harlots.
I’ll be facially recognized, harvested for data, finger printed,
Caught on dash cam, privacy stored and sold, QR Coded,
CCTV’d: Who I am and where I’ve been noted and recorded;
Verification confirmed with password, pass code or ID Pin.
A new algorithmic reality powered by silicon chip swastikas
Along with rallies, hats and chants Sieg Heiling national chauvinism.

It is here I will be commodified, classified, quantified, inspected,
Rejected, assimilated, assaulted, exterminated and deported.
Don’t bother looking to the heavens for a means of escape;
They are reserved for the select few when the shit hits the fan.
It is a realm no longer for contemplation and wondering,
But an opportunity for competition, profit and plundering.
You gotta dig, baby, dig! Ya’ dig? So keep on a-diggin’.
If I (I said to myself) manage to make it to another world,
There will bound to be a harpoon stuck fast with flag unfurled.
And what of the little blue planet that has been washed green?
The patient has been prescribed a dose of accords and targets,
While wounds of extraction are patched with renewable band-aids.
Yes, in order to save the ailing patient we must kill him first,
It’s the only way to slake the machines’ hunger and thirst.
This is the fiction I’ll be forced to wander through on this path; 

It will then become my only reality unless, unless, unless....”
“...I (I completed for me) fling open my mind’s closed geometry,
Pick another path and set a course toward a new reality
Powered by unbounded thoughts of ‘why’ and ‘what if?’”
And so I watch myself look back and gaze at the infinite
And then with new resolve move off in a new direction.
Did I just witness the beginnings of human liberation,
And with it, the salvation and affirmation of science fiction?











Thank you for taking the time to read my poem. It was sparked by a feeling that as we progress, we seem to be losing something in the process to the point where it feels like we are regressing.

*Images generated by Chatgpt

*Poem generated by yours truly


The posts that will follow will be on a very similar shared theme. Hint - vintage sci-fi films that have something to do with China! Stay tuned.

©Chris Christopoulos 2025

Speculations & Ruminations - The Lost Last Volume 12 of The Sci-Fi Film Fiesta eBook Series

Sci-Fi Film Fiesta

The Lost Last Volume 12

“Speculations &

Ruminations”

The Lost Last Volume That Was Never Meant To Be!

The Lost Last Volume 12 “Speculations & Ruminations” deals with various implications, themes and ideas that often arise out of the world of science fiction films and literature referenced in the other volumes of this eBook series.

All of this material is organised into four broad sections:

Part 1: “Going Forward”
Part 2: “Dystopia Now”
Part 3: “Poetic Ponderings”
Part 4: “Sci-Fi Future Is here & Now”

The content of this FREE volume is intended to encourage a bit of thought and debate about the world we live in, the kind of future we would (and wouldn’t) wish for ourselves and for future generations, along with an appreciation of the sometimes abused, tenuous and fragile nature of what many of us take for granted such as freedom of thought and speech and our system democracy.

CONTENTS

Introduction

**PART 1: GOING FORWARD

• Going Forward
• Who Will Be To Blame?
• What If? Sci-Fi Film Scenarios
• You will comply
• Biometric Technology & Government Surveillance
• Digital Dictatorship
• Giant Leap Turns Into A Stagger

**Part 2: DYSTOPIA NOW!

Speech &Thought Policed & Prescribed

Sci-Fi & The Future of language & Thought

Stalinist Wasteland

**PART 3: POETIC PONDERINGS

• World In Upheaval
• O Grave New World!
• Once more unto the Moon, dear friends, once more!
• Technology & World Control
• A Warning
• Sci-Fi Blues
• Future Fears For Now
• The Quest For Immortality
• Invisible Invaders*

*

*PART 4: SCI-FI FUTURE IS HERE & NOW

• Mind-controlled exoskeleton suit
• Look, Up in The Sky! Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane?No, It’s A…..Drone
• Surveillance Society Sneaks Into Our Lives
• Big Brother Casts A Shadow
• To Be Known, Or Not To be Known? –THAT Is The Question!
• Surveillance Society Starts At School
• Gene Editing
• 3D Printing Human Organs?
• Pig brains partially revived four hours after death?
• In A Pig’s Eye! Or…..

Afterword

The Complete Sci-Fi Film Fiesta series:

Volume 1: “Here Be Monsters”
Volume 2: “Into Space”
Volume 3: “Other Worlds”
Volume 4: “Journeys Within”
Volume 5: “Alien Contact”
Volume 6: “Alien Invasion”
Volume 7: “The End Is Nigh!”
Volume 8: “Big Bugs & Crazy Critters”
Volume 9: “Accidents & Experiments”
Volume 10: “Supersized & Miniaturized”
Volume 11: “A Tribute To….”
Volume 12: “The Lost Last Volume – “Speculations & Ruminations”

EPUB DOWNLOAD


PDF DOWNLOAD


MOBI DOWNLOAD


KINDLE DOWNLOAD


TXT DOWNLOAD


FRONT COVER IMAGE

Also FREELY available at;

Free-ebooks.net

Google Play Books

This will definitely be the last and final volume of the Sci-Fi Film Fiesta eBook series. There will be no 'baker's dozen! Thank you so much for reading and please check out the other volumes in this series if you haven't already done so. I'll soon get back to presenting some great classic sci-fi films of the 1960s -1980s in this blog, so stay tuned.

Destination Moon - Once Again!

The poem that follows was inspired by the film that really opened the classic age of sci-fi films of the 1950s, George Pal’s somewhat eerily prescient, Destination Moon (1950). I also had in mind President Trump’s recent directive to NASA to have Americans return to the moon supposedly as a stepping stone to Mars and beyond. NASA has had its sights firmly set on missions to Mars and I wonder what impact this directive will have on NASA and the future course of space exploration. A lot will depend on finding the right answer to the questions posed in the last stanza of the poem I suppose. That may have been an important factor in the previous manned missions to the moon….finding the right answer.

Anyway, I close this year with my little poem and wish you A Happy New Year! Never stop wondering…..What If?

Once more unto the Moon, dear friends, once more!

We chose to go to the moon…..

In a George Pal sci-fi spectacular

Just a mere five years after The War,

When Truman was President of these here United States

And H-bomb production pushed up the stakes.

We chose to go to the moon….

In glorious Technicolor and mono sound

As Korea became yet another battleground,

While industry grew fatter with profit,

And a baby boom got set to sky-rocket.

We chose to go to the moon….

Committed and depicted up on the screen,

Beating them Commies so evil and mean!

While winds of a Cold War made us shake and shiver,

And we warmed up with sessions of duck and cover.

We chose to go to the moon….

Believing that we were in a race,

In which we had to set the pace,

To be first to put a man on the moon,

And get it done and done real soon.

We chose to go to the moon…..

With faith in our industry and enterprise

Asking: What’s the payoff? What’s our prize?

Knowing: the race is on and we’d better win it;

Control the moon and all others will submit!

We chose to go to the moon…..

Not yet ready to catch and match the fiction,

Of a Woody Woodpecker demonstration,

Filled with optimism and basic principles,

And all kinds of kids’ cute cartoon visuals.

We chose to go to the moon….

When Kennedy set out a nation’s challenge,

One that would not be easy to manage

And one that would be hard to achieve

But one in which all could believe.

We chose to go to the moon…..

Having once lost a race into space,

Now a new race began to help us save face

Where the goal was to win and claim first prize:

Global pre-eminence and all that it belies.

We chose to go to the moon…

And did we rush in headlong haste -

To land a man on the moon and be the first

To safely return him to earth! Ah, there’s the rub!

Dangers abounded while Time stood poised to drub.

We chose to go to the moon….

With men who had the right stuff,

But would all this prove to be enough,

With the aim just to win a sprint,

To plant a flag and leave a footprint?

We chose to go to the moon….

And by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo we did!

Ethereal images both ghostly and splendid

Hailed us from another world with words well-timed

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

We had chosen to go to the moon….

And for a moment we stood there as if in a trance,

Struck dumb by the stark desolation and silence,

In awe at a blue marble suspended in a velvet black sky,

And then we began to fiddle and fidget and wonder WHY?

We then chose to leave the moon…..

When Cynicism set in as adventure turned routine,

And the latest sitcom was the thing to be seen.

A blanket of boredom spread over a fickle world

Chilled by millions and billions at the moon that were hurled.

Selene: Greek moon goddess

We choose now to return to the moon…..

When what had once been revered and respected;

When what held our world balanced and protected;

And of our imagination sparked and illuminated,

Had for too long been ignored and taken for granted.

Do we now choose to go to the moon…

Because others are there for reasons suspect?

To corporatize a chunk of space unchecked?

To have a stepping stone to Mars and yonder?

Or to help us understand, know and wonder?

 *********************

2018 will open with a post on the classic 1958 sci-fi film…..

THE FLY!!!!!

©Chris Christopoulos 2017

"SURVIVORS": A Poem Inspired By The 1951 Sci-Fi Film, "Five"

SURVIVORS

From Big Ben to the Eiffel Tower

Doomsday warnings wail hour after hour:

Imminent collapse of the human race!

And in a flash the world is laid to waste.

A shocked raggedy-doll stumbles and staggers

Along aimless paths seeking survivors,

While calling out plaintive piteous pleas

Of, “Can anyone help me please!”

The path leads Raggedy-doll to another:

A sensitive Poet and Philosopher

Waving absurdity laid bare and unfurled

Of a once cheap honky-tonk of a world.

Here comes a beetle-browed financier,

Well – just a mere assistant cashier

Counting out a life paid in denial and delusion;

Here he enters in wide-eyed confusion.

Supporting him is the Black Samaritan

Strong of shoulder, pride and passion,

Who once dreamt of being something
more,

Only to end up minding a door.

“I am one who was once blind but can now see;

Who once had settled for a piece of security

In a city where I had never seen the lights,

Nor till now what is important in life.”

The four soon become five

When they save one just barely alive,

Through iron willed-soul so black and depraved

And from whom they will have to be saved.

Beetle-brow cashier now on vacation

Has arrived at his final destination

Which he has yearned for in his dreams

For a whole life-time to him it seems.

“I often dreamt of going on vacation,

But my work was my life’s obligation.

And so I sat behind self-made prison bars

Dreaming of sleeping under the stars!”

The need is felt to stay alive 

As once again four become five 

When Raggedy-doll gives birth to future hope 

Without which our survivors would not cope. 

Iron-will’s hope hides in a fascist fantasy 

That seeks salvation through supremacy 

By force of power, violence and destruction: 

And all that sow the seeds of annihilation. 

“I climbed Mt. Everest. I alone. Always alone. 

And there I’ll sit atop the mountain on my throne 

Invincible and possessed of a special immunity 

With a plundered world spread out below me!”

Clinging to his tattered rags of self-delusion, 

Iron-will’s life force leaks away with the radiation 

Of an inner poison of violence and domination, 

That once robbed a new world of a wise Samaritan.

What of the Poet, Raggedy-doll and Future Hope?

Will they leave behind the Past’s mistakes as they grope

Their way to a new Eden that heals and mends;

Where people work together, live together, like friends?

*****************

Thanks for reading my little poem inspired by and based on the science fiction film,

“FIVE.”

©Chris Christopoulos 2017