Day 5: Inspired by a spacecraft.

The prompt for today was to draw inspiration and a poem's title from the name's of spacecraft in Iain M Banks' science fiction. I saw Iain Banks when he spoke at the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2011 and I was much saddened to hear of his recently announced illness.

Although I'm not much of a reader of science fiction, when I do read it, I generally enjoy it a great deal so here's my poem drawing inspiration from two science fiction writers.

Jaundiced Outlook¹

dark they were,

and golden eyed²

jaundiced outlook

of moonbeam babies

never meant to be here

staying only long enough

to change

move away

become liquid in

non-existent Martian seas

they float

limbs longer then they should be

distorted

and we are afraid

misunderstanding

their strange voices

¹ Taken from Excession by Iain M Banks, Jaundiced Outlook is the name of a spacecraft.

² Taken from the title of Ray Bradbury’s science-fiction short story, “Dark they were, and golden eyed”.

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