Still thinking about astronauts - a fragmentary draft of sorts

Caelanaut black-box transmission MMXI

i looked and looked but didn't see God/expelled forth upon gilded chariot/i heard angels singing as i ascended into the heavens/sent with a thankyou message to pass on to prometheus/suspended in the subterranean/there is now a celestial frost binding my pinions/a single thread dangling from a burnt web/the hunger/oh how starved i have become so that i must chew upon my umbilicus/i looked and looked but didn't see God/i searched long and hard for old constellations in the new confusion/i rapped my own knuckles/the firmament is broken/who set this canopic jar overflowing with all the fears and loathings of the priest/i am halted in pouring rust into the abysmal gutter/i choke upon feeling/i can hear the tone of a lyre its notes reverberate echoing off distant worlds and rebounding off spheres/i can hear the drums this tattoo and that tattoo cascade as a battery upon my senses/they are words unheard and unwritten/the syntax pierces my wrists and feet/i clasp these words to my breast but they slip through my fingers/the grains scatter to the vacuum/oh how light is worn like a crown/how fiery burns the truth/its tongue is silent as smoke and now i am fluent/i have drenched the banner of my flesh in its outburst/i wave and i scream and still i hear nothing but song see nothing but particles of dance/dust celebrates/waste has found its legs/the sarcophagus rotates in the penumbra/i can see my mother and my father but i can no longer see God/time has been made redundant/the ladder has been kicked away/i have found bad medicine in my locker/why was i prescribed these tablets/the surface of the world is like crushed paracetemol/i hear the angels singing again/alone they send me tales of love and myself/the last man mobile oubliette/frozen and encircled by history/the tigers goad me/go back they cry/they send me away but with a message from prometheus/the proto-tiger/they saw the ashes coming/my orbits are filled with dust but my ears are filled with the music of their howling/
End transmission.

Old constellations in the new confusion

Friends and family gathered at a hangar in the car park of Moscow's Institute for Medical and Biological Problems to welcome back the six-man crew, breaking into applause as they emerged one by one.
Blue jumpsuits hung baggily from the men's thinned frames and sagged around their skeletal wrists as they waved hello to the friends and family who awaited their "return to Earth".

The unprecedented experiment saw the six men locked up in June 2010 as Russia and the European Space Agency sought to come as close as possible to recreating the long, isolated voyage to the red planet. The crew was free to communicate with "mission control", as well as with family and friends – but with 20-minute gaps to recreate conditions in space. Their physical and psychological health was closely monitored, and they were put through stress tests such as a total communication blackout.
The crew has now been taken to a Moscow hospital for a three-day quarantine. They will be shown to the public at a press conference on Tuesday. Psychologists are hoping the men will easily reintegrate into society, and doctors will check that their immune systems haven't been compromised after 18 months "away".

But seen from out here everything seems different. Time bends. Space is boundless. It squashes a man's ego. I feel lonely.

Little information has been released about the psychological effects of space travel, both on the astronauts and the public at large. Over the years NASA spokesmen have even denied that the astronauts dream at all during their space flights. But it is clear from the subsequently troubled careers of many of the astronauts (Armstrong, probably the only man for whom the 20th century will be remembered 50,000 years from now, refuses to discuss the moon landing) that they suffered severe psychological damage. What did they dream about, how were their imaginations affected, their emotions and need for privacy, their perception of time and death?

The Russian astronaut Col. Komarov was the first man to die in space, though earlier fatalities have been rumoured. Komarov is reported to have panicked when his space-craft began to tumble uncontrollably, but the transcripts of his final transmissions have never been released.

The last man, alone with God.

During the Apollo flights I half-hoped that one of the spacecraft would return with an extra crew-man on board, wholly accepted by the others, who would shield him from the prying world. Watching the astronauts being interviewed together, one almost senses that they constitute a secret fraternity, and may be guarding some vital insight into the nature of time and space which it would be pointless to reveal to the rest of us. Unless the space programme resumes, the secret may die with them.

And is it getting easy not to care
Despite the many rings around your name
It isn’t funny and it isn’t fair
You’ve travelled all this way and it’s the same

But you are, my love, the astronaut
Flying in the face of science
I will gladly stay an afterthought
Just bring back some nice reminders

Each of the six also each received bouquets of flowers from young Russian women upon emerging. It was their first sight of a woman for 18 months.
Russian scientists chose an all-male crew after an attempt at a similar experiment in 2000 went horribly wrong when a Russian astronaut tried to forcibly french kiss Canadian Judith Lapierre. Scientists have yet to report any conflicts inside Mars500.

Imagine me needing someone. Back on Earth I never did. Oh, there were women. Lots of women. Lots of love-making but no love. You see, that was the kind of world we'd made. So I left, because there was no one to hold me there.

I looked and looked but I didn't see God.

Vic Bettany.

Vic Bettany.
b. 1948 – d. 2011

When I entered the public house of mourning through the back door, a jackdaw enshrouded in fog cawed discordantly, clashing with the strains of Amazing Grace floating out from inside. Now someone stirs the jukebox into life and the Stereophonics immediately begin to suffocate the piano's elegy.

    They'd all walked in suited and booted, shiny and black like ravens' beaks awaiting worms from the soil. Dull-eyed boys in falsely buttoned waistcoats began handing out crudités from a silver dish to the ensemble, greedily snatched at by fat hands. It seemed as though little expense had been spared in catering for this affair.

    Who was Vic Bettany? He never existed in my mind. My job was simply to serve the double vodkas and coke respectfully. People will be disgruntled when the complimentary food and drink run out, just like at a wedding reception or parents' evening or mandatory training event. The plan was for everyone to be too drunk to care by this point, but it's hard to say whether this will happen. The crowd could be the kind that are easily disgruntled. I'd best just smile and carry on serving.

    Despite this, I'm telling myself not to smile too much. He could have been a wife-beater or a child molester or a rapist or an abuser of animals for all I know. I have to pay my respects though. Perhaps. No-one would be any the wiser if I decided to curse and spit on his grave behind the bar. No-one's looking except for poor old Vic up in Heaven. Or down in Hell. If angels can look down on us from Heaven can demons look up from Hell?

    There are lots of people here. Did all of them know Vic Bettany? Do all of them know Vic Bettany? It doesn't seem as though anyone really cares right now. They're all immersed in conversation with each other about their plans, their weekends, their jobs, their children, their Xmas proposals. The hard part is out of the way, on with the drinks.
It's what he would have wanted, for everyone to have a good time. No one paying any attention to his infidelities, foibles or peccadilloes. They're more concerned with hiding their own. Vic Bettany's face has disappeared from their minds and now just a dull stone,  sterile urn, or blank casket remains. There's nothing left to exhume the truth from.

    Two rowdies from a pub further up the road burst in, ordering shooters, chasers and bombs in an aggressive manner. It's not long before I've lost them in the pre-assembled sea of violence; a whole crowd united in killing Vic Bettany. There are children here too, but no obvious parental figure to anchor them to the deceased. Maybe they're just friends of friends, or maybe they were already here, like me. Do they have a role to perform, or are they just passing through like Vic?

    I'm suddenly unsure if Vic is male or female. Vicarious Bettany? Vicious Bettany? Vicissitude Bettany? Victim Bettany? Perhaps I should raise a glass myself; whatever he or she was is now just a name carved onto the faces of these people and their pasts. Time will erode the edges; we must continue to run our fingers like needles through the grooves or else what is it all for? There has to be more to it than a free lunch and unnecessary small talk.

Corvus Corax

In recent years, biologists have recognized that birds engage in play. Juvenile Common Ravens are among the most playful of bird species. They have been observed to slide down snowbanks, apparently purely for fun. They even engage in games with other species, such as playing catch-me-if-you-can with wolves and dogs. Common Ravens are known for spectacular aerobatic displays, such as flying in loops or interlocking talons with each other in flight. They are also one of only a few species who make their own toys. They have been observed breaking off twigs to play with socially.

Notes on the New Art Exhibition - draft1

The signature is worth more than the other 99% of the piece.
The cost ratio of signature to rest of piece is 99:1.
The exhibition in the gallery is comprised of seven sculptures, each facing into the centre of the room.
Eyes are drawn to the prices, situated below the name of the sculptor and the title of the piece in a font equally sized.
The display says that each piece represents a different facet of human emotion.
There is more feeling in the small wooden bench in the centre of the room which manages to face all the pieces simultaneously.
If eyes were drawn on the sculptures they in turn would see the bench.
The emotional pieces are inspired by acts of vandalism on public property and postcards can be purchased at the gift shop so that visitors can share their experiences with friends and colleagues.
The postcard stand was knocked over once by a delinquent exiting through the gift shop, who was then dealt with appropriately by security.
Art is taught frequently in prisons as it is seen as both practical and therapeutic.
99% of the general population do not work as artists.
There are many benches in prisons, some of which have been vandalised.
An artist could vandalise public property by writing their name on it without permission.
The item could then be sold at an extensively marked up price.
The prized tag is the price tag.
How many artists are imprisoned?
What percentage of the prison population are artists?
What percentage of the general population are prisoners?

Romance in 2011, or, Messages from Granulated Venus

Angel Face
Best Mate
Pamper Me
Cool Kid
I Spy
Spoil Me
Dream Girl
Great Guy
Love You
Sweet Heart
Love You
Grow Up
Lush Lips

WPTDITB? draften eins

That's the question I'm going to press them, find the answer instead of second guessing them
What possessed them? Who expressed that they should take our canine and repress them
That's the lesson, have you heard it? It's written down but badly worded
Statements blurted are barely lucid, yet scant details are fairly lurid
Stand up, testify what you did, dumbstruck caught up acting stupid
A cargo plane will help you move it, take your will power and reduce it
Vampire corp is playing Cupid, tyrannosaurus corpses are putrid
They're dressed up now, suited and booted, prejudices unfairly rooted?
I don't care about the cover up. I just want a dog to show some love
To throw sticks with and take for walks, a dog that listens every time I talk
You take that away from me right now and I can't see how we can turn it round
There's the sound of tears hitting the ground like infirm ants on a burial mound
I see evidence piled up around, it's lack of witness leaves me dumbfounded
They've got the anchorman surrounded, the dogsbodies take the horn and sound it
The noise it makes, you'll never mask it, not even with a magician's casket
So there's the question, I'm going to ask it; tell me who put the dog in the basket?

Tell a dog stories just to shock it, with a plot that's too priapic
Well I don't care how big my cock is, as long as I've got a band to rock with
It's definitely time to stop it, leave your bad manners in your pocket
I see your advance and block it, disconnect the chair from socket
I can tell you don't want me to like it, you spoil the ending like a psychic
A Keyser Söze/Rosebud hybrid, take that pleasure and deny it
Just when we had got excited, you pour the petrol and ignite it
Fire and noises get dogs frightened, easy then to let the purse strings tighten
Shocking doctors deal in violence, advocated by a silence
No one here designates the drivers and so our protest is unlicensed
Disappearing all the writers, like the dogs they once were priceless
Dipping toes into the fight test, make sure your bruises are quietest
Hide a book under your floorboards, keep it from your sons and daughters
Turn your sofa into a fortress and fade away to rigour mortis
Anaesthetise with holy waters, share your wafer with the paupers
I can't quite tell just what the cause is so I listen to feline reporters

When Milton Friedman told you Santa was nothing more than a lie
The next day Xmas budget plummets and there's no money left for mince pies
This may seem like a trivial example but that's a claim I must deny
Because this foxy boxing is part of a doctrine that takes our lives from under our eyes