“ISON Approaching”

 

Still not a naked eye sight, but brightening,
Dawn-dewed telescopes reveal your tail
Stretching out at last: a narrow Maglite beam
Pointing back towards the Oort.
Your head glows a Wicked emerald green,
Shining like a shard of Kryptonite
Heading for the heart of the Sun,
And every clear morning now, as the eastern sky lightens
With the violet blush of dawn, more and more eyes
Swing towards you, searching for you
In the spilled salt star-field behind
The ruddy spark of Mars,
A whispered “Yes!” celebrating each success…

Inevitably your Green Lantern light
Has sent the crazies scuttling out
From under their cyber-stones like woodlice.
Cowering from chemtrail criss-crossed skies,
Hidden in the Bat Caves of their parents’ basements,
Wannabe Muldurs tap away on keyboards beneath
Faded “The Truth Is Out There” posters,
Swamping YouTube with their deluded diarrhoea,
Desperate to generate and spread fear
With tall tales of “ISON Debris Hitting Earth NOW!”

This Comet Craziness is nothing new, it’s true.
In 1910, when Halley’s cyanide-laced tail
Tenderly brushed Earth’s face
Moustache-twirling conmen made fortunes
Selling comet pills and “Are you my mummy?” gas masks
To the frightened and naïve, who believed
What they read in newspaper and shop window ads,
As others blew whistles to scare the comet away.

A century later have we finally learned to stop fearing
And love these icy visitors from the depths of the Dark?
No. Today, ignoring the dozens of pixellated portraits
Spacecraft have taken of these icy visitors,
The internet-infesting halfwit hordes scream their lies
At the sky louder than ever. No fantasy is too extreme.
Shouting “Alert! ISON is not a comet!”,
Preppers, ‘Pastors’ and ‘Professors’ rant and rave about grave dangers
From gigantic sparks arcing between you
And the Sun; wonder why Mars has suddenly grown
A coma of its own after its Close Encounter of the Faraway Kind
With you and your poisonous tail, which,
They are convinced, is trailing captured Doomsday asteroids
Like tin cans tied to a newly-wed bride and grooms’ car.

Concealed behind their Anonymous masks
They breathlessly ask “Is Comet ISON Nibiru?”
Others insist “It’s Wormwood!” or “a fleet of UFOs!”,
Shamelessly and shamefully regurgitating
The same BS they spread when Elenin passed this way
And their make believe Mayan calendars ran out,
Conveniently forgetting how those shouted predictions
Of Armageddon failed to come true…

Oblivious to it all you continue your fall towards the Sun,
Bathing in its increasingly golden light,
Basking in a delicious thawing warmth
You’ve never felt before.
Mars is far behind you now;
The CCD eyes of Earth’s invasion fleet of orbiters
And rovers have swung away from you,
Surrendering you to the relentless gaze
Of the skywatchers on the blue-green star
Shining off to Sol’s side,
Standing in their gardens and fields before sunrise,
Desperate for our first sight of you…

© Stuart Atkinson 2013