The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
Carl Sagan in Cosmos
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. ... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve, and cherish, the pale blue dot; the only home we've ever known.
Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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Flying at Night
lost in the universe
counting stars
hurtling through space
this spaceship
for six billion years
shunting through
crevices, corners
dark as the dark sky
the stars its guiding light
from corner to corner
this realm ever expanding
casting mysteries of its origin, vastness
only one or two manage to touch
its workings in figures and letters
einstein leading the pack
but the spaceship waits for no man
the realm waits for no one
every sphere expanding
moving us to somewhere
the corner of our mind
the corner of the realm
inspired by
Flying at Night
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
Ted Kooser
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us for our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.
Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
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In Prison
I cried out for the pain of man,
I cried out for my bitter wrath
Against the hopeless life that ran
For ever in a circling path
From death to death since all began;
Till on a summer night
I lost my way in the pale starlight
And saw our planet, far and small,
Through endless depths of nothing fall
A lonely pin-prick spark of light,
Upon the wide, enfolding night,
With leagues on leagues of stars above it,
And powdered dust of stars below—
Dead things that neither hate nor love it
Not even their own loveliness can know,
Being but cosmic dust and dead.
And if some tears be shed,
Some evil God have power,
Some crown of sorrow sit
Upon a little world for a little hour—
Who shall remember? Who shall care for it?
poem by Clive Staples Lewis
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Pale Blue Eyes
Sometimes I feel so happy
Sometimes I feel so sad
Sometimes I feel so happy
But mostly you just make me mad
Baby, you just make me mad
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Thought of you as my mountain top
Thought of you as my peak
A thought of you as everything
Ive had, but couldnt keep
Ive had, but couldnt keep
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Skip a life completely
Stuff it in a cup
They said, money is like us in time
It lies, but cant stand up
Down for you is up
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
It was good what we did yesterday
And Id do it once again
The fact that you are married
Only proves youre my best friend
But its truly, truly a sin
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see
Id put you in a mirror
Id put in front of me
Id put in front of me
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Backlash Of Misunderstandings
We want to...
Control one's breath,
And each step they make.
We want to...
Have others say what we wish,
And dismiss them quick.
Caring less about them.
Or if they experience heartbreak.
We want to...
Prove to the Earth's inhabitants,
Our way of life and thought process...
Is throughout the Universe,
The very best.
We want to impress with this message,
That reflects...
Who it is we are,
As we thump upon our chests.
But,
Nowhere can we defend and keep protecting...
These delusions.
There seems to be assaults coming to us,
From every place we wish to share our good graces.
And all that we face...
Is a backlash of misunderstandings,
Of our extraordinary principles.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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We are star stuff, which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter. Our own planet is only a tiny part of the vast cosmic tapestry, a starry fabric of worlds yet untold. Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours. In every one of them there’s a succession of incidents, events, occurrences, which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time, and our small planet at this moment — here we face a critical branch point in history. What we do with our world, right now will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate a superstition or greed or stupidity, we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet, to enhance enormously our understanding of the universe and to carry us to the stars.
quote by Carl Sagan
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Our Paranoia
the uncured disease of mankind had always been
that the earth is the center of the universe
that man is at the center of all these
that he is loved by the skies and the seas and the mountains
that i am the center of your attraction
or that i have loved you truly too
these are the demands of illusions
the sun is just one of the thousand stars
though it may be true that it is the center of our universe
that you may have loved me truly and i may think that i am the only
star in your universe
how hopeless can i be thinking that way
when the truth is just i am just a dust, a speck of this vast space of dusts
one night i stand in the middle of the grass and looked at the stars
i feel so far and so tiny just like Venus that planet that glitters in the north.
human love is as small as a grain of sand, yet somehow we imagine that
as a Saturn in the planetary system.
i am not saying the truth that indeed we are nothing but an empty sigh.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Lonely Grill
Box speaker talkin out a tune
Two for one on a blue lagoon
Another lost and found
Bartender takes another pass
Puts the salt on the rim of another glass
And he sits it down
I know every color of every neon sign
Flashing out a heartache in the back of my mind
Down at the lonely grill
Got nothing but time to kill at the end of everyday
I sit in a corner booth and do nothing but think of you
And the love we threw away
And I guess I always will
Down at the lonely grill
Sad-eyed waitress called betty lynn
Got her order pad and her ball-point pen
Said whatll it be
I said a tall glass of cold regret
A full order of loneliness
Like every night this week
Ill shoulder my pride and I drank it down
Another smoke filled evening with no fire to be found
Down at the lonely grill
Got nothing but time to kill at the end of everyday
I sit in a corner booth and do nothing but think of you
And the love we threw away
And I guess I always will
Down at the lonely grill
Lonely grill
I sit in a corner booth
And do nothing but think of you
And the love we threw away
And I guess I always will
Down at the lonely grill
Lonely grill
Down at the lonely grill
Down at the lonely grill
Down at the lonely grill
At the lonely grill.
song performed by by Lonestar
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pale
Pale blue clouds, in a pale blue sky,
Pale sea birds, fly every which way.
O'er the pale blue sea, they softly fly,
Throughout the pale blue day.
Pale brown grass, withering alone,
Amid the sand dunes dying.
Pale as a sun bleached animal bone,
As you hear the sea breeze sighing.
Pale grey mist upon the sea,
Slowly creeping to the shore.
Pale giant tarpons jumping free,
As the pale Atlantic, gently roars.
12/3/11 Alton Texas
poem by Juan Olivarez
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Twenty
This is my world, small as it is,
It is a planet by itself with very
Small moons, and tiny stars,
And so tiny, you cannot just
See me there, I am hiding,
But I still live here just the same,
Breathing atomic air, and drinking
Molecular waters, so you see,
How tiny I could be, how tiny
I could get, but this is my
Small happy world, my smile
My laughter so tiny, that you
Cannot hear, you cannot feel,
And that is your world as big
As the sun, with comets and
Meteors, and so big and so
Wide, with oceans and rivers,
And continents, and gigantic
Arctics, and snowy lands, and
We are then so different, and
With me, there is no problem,
I, in my small world, can fit
In yours, but you, you cannot
Fit in mine, that we must
Accept, I am a small world,
And you are a space still expanding,
Now, do you understand,
why I hide?
why I shy away from you?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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This Is My World That Is Your World
This is my world, small as it is,
It is a planet by itself with very
Small moons, and tiny stars,
And so tiny, you cannot just
See me there, I am hiding,
But I still live here just the same,
Breathing atomic air, and drinking
Molecular waters, so you see,
How tiny I could be, how tiny
I could get, but this is my
Small happy world, my smile
My laughter so tiny, that you
Cannot hear, you cannot feel,
And that is your world as big
As the sun, with comets and
Meteors, and so big and so
Wide, with oceans and rivers,
And continents, and gigantic
Arctics, and snowy lands, and
We are then so different, and
With me, there is no problem,
I, in my small world, can fit
In yours, but you, you cannot
Fit in mine, that we must
Accept, I am a small world,
And you are a space still expanding,
Now, do you understand,
why I hide?
why I shy away from you?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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God's Light-Houses
1 When night falls on the earth, the sea
2 From east to west lies twinkling bright
3 With shining beams from beacons high
4 Which flash afar a friendly light.
5 The sailor's eyes, like eyes in prayer,
6 Turn unto them for guiding ray:
7 If storms obscure their radiance,
8 The great ships helpless grope their way.
9 When night falls on the earth, the sky
10 Looks like a wide, a boundless main.
11 Who knows what voyagers sail there?
12 Who names the ports they seek and gain?
13 Are not the stars like beacons set
14 To guide the argosies that go
15 From universe to universe,
16 Our little world above, below?--
17 On their great errands solemn bent,
18 In their vast journeys unaware
19 Of our small planet's name or place
20 Revolving in the lower air.
21 O thought too vast! O thought too glad!
22 An awe most rapturous it stirs.
23 From world to world God's beacons shine:
24 God means to save his mariners!
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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Here to Disperse
And the last conflict comes.
With the winning of it...
Not done by Earth inhabitants.
But by beings around the universe.
Here to disperse...
Misunderstandings of 'who' commands.
To stun the barbarians.
And bridge with a healing.
That spreads a peace...
Upon all lands.
With a removal of diseased minds!
So magnificent and bright.
Descend the colorized lights!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Weltschmerz
my hands are always small
enough to cover
a weeping face, my body too frail
to stay at the corner of one
hospital where one by one
the friends of friends are dying...
my heart too tiny for grief,
the universe is grief, and the stars are too small to appease the tears of rain...
my feet are always not enough
for the thorns
the rocks
my brain is a tiny speck of dust
to the howling storm of misunderstanding
i wish i had enough space to scatter whatever i have
till i am finished with this
struggle for emptiness...
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Prologue
Chronicle of The House of Maltus
In the corner of history you were there
watching the broken shadow of the air
cast by the light- from the uncertain future
of the recorded fate clothe of horror
In the corner of history- they
people of strange tongue and of ancient way
pale skinned creatures: silent in the day,
at night they with sharp and penetrating eye
In the corner of history- was a sight
the undying old between day and night
-he was un-earthed master of the tomb- the knight
and, -she was, in the womb of the lord's might
In the corner of history- still is
the great ancestors buried to the chest of bliss
lords and ladies- the royal blood of the fathers
warriors and servants- the welcomed guests
In the corner of history- I am
-the last of them, wise and valiant half man
-hundred years and more; I am the to and the from
-their birth, their death in my heart precious so warm
In the corner of history- the face and the name
of the creature cursed by them
man they are all the same
consumed by their malice they named us villain
In the corner of history- I, vanished
left the cruel world created by mans' heart
doomed by their own malice, their hatred
to my own kind- the sons and daughters of god
In the corner of history- I found
at last the heaven for us, above the sand
were memories from the past un-harmed
by the filthy beast: man, and their kind
Note:
Book the first, The Prologue
From the tradition of the “vamperas”- the story of Maltus.
(vamperas- equivalent to vampire; Maltus- character
appeared in the author's dream)
poem by Jordan Legaspi
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The Corner Man
I dreamt a dream at the midnight deep,
When fancies come and go
To vex a man in his soothing sleep
With thoughts of awful woe --
I dreamed that I was the corner man
Of a nigger minstrel show.
I cracked my jokes, and the building rang
With laughter loud and long;
I hushed the house as I softly sang
An old plantation song --
A tale of the wicked slavery days
Of cruelty and wrong.
A small boy sat on the foremost seat --
A mirthful youngster he,
He beat the time with his restless feet
To each new melody,
And he picked me out as the brightest star
Of the black fraternity.
"Oh, father," he said, "what would we do
If the corner man should die?
I never saw such a man -- did you?
He makes the people cry,
And then, when he likes, he makes them laugh."
The old man made reply:
"We each of us fill a very small space
On the great creation's plan,
If a man don't keep his lead in the race
There's plenty more that can;
The world can very soon fill the place
Of even a corner man."
I woke with a jump, rejoiced to find
Myself at home in bed,
And I framed a moral in my mind
From the words the old man said.
The world will jog along just the same
When the corner men are dead.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Revolutionary
Look at them standing there in authority
The pale-faces,
As if it could have any effect any more.
Pale-face authority,
Caryatids,
Pillars of white bronze standing rigid, lest the skies fall.
What a job they've got to keep it up.
Their poor, idealist foreheads naked capitals
To the entablature of clouded heaven.
When the skies are going to fall, fall they will
In a great chute and rush of débâcle downwards.
Oh and I wish the high and super-gothic heavens would come down now,
The heavens above, that we yearn to and aspire to.
I do not yearn, nor aspire, for I am a blind Samson.
And what is daylight to me that I should look skyward?
Only I grope among you, pale-faces, caryatids, as among a forest of pillars that hold up the dome of high ideal heaven
Which is my prison,
And all these human pillars of loftiness, going stiff, metallic-stunned with the weight of their responsibility
I stumble against them.
Stumbling-blocks, painful ones.
To keep on holding up this ideal civilisation
Must be excruciating: unless you stiffen into metal, when it is easier to stand stock rigid than to move.
This is why I tug at them, individually, with my arm round their waist
The human pillars.
They are not stronger than I am, blind Samson.
The house sways.
I shall be so glad when it comes down.
I am so tired of the limitations of their Infinite.
I am so sick of the pretensions of the Spirit.
I am so weary of pale-face importance.
Am I not blind, at the round-turning mill?
Then why should I fear their pale faces?
Or love the effulgence of their holy light,
The sun of their righteousness?
To me, all faces are dark,
All lips are dusky and valved.
Save your lips, O pale-faces,
Which are slips of metal,
Like slits in an automatic-machine, you columns of give-and-take.
To me, the earth rolls ponderously, superbly
Coming my way without forethought or afterthought.
To me, men's footfalls fall with a dull, soft rumble, ominous and lovely,
Coming my way.
But not your foot-falls, pale-faces,
They are a clicketing of bits of disjointed metal
Working in motion.
To me, men are palpable, invisible nearnesses in the dark
Sending out magnetic vibrations of warning, pitch-dark throbs of invitation.
But you, pale-faces,
You are painful, harsh-surfaced pillars that give off nothing except rigidity,
And I jut against you if I try to move, for you are everywhere, and I am blind,
Sightless among all your visuality,
You staring caryatids.
See if I don't bring you down, and all your high opinion
And all your ponderous roofed-in erection of right and wrong
Your particular heavens,
With a smash.
See if your skies aren't falling!
And my head, at least, is thick enough to stand it, the smash.
See if I don't move under a dark and nude, vast heaven
When your world is in ruins, under your fallen skies.
Caryatids, pale-faces.
See if I am not Lord of the dark and moving hosts
Before I die.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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Mission (A World Record)
For may days we travelled from a distant place and time,
To reach a place they call the planet Earth,
There was to be a celebration,
On the mission of the sacred heart.
The planet Earth from way up there is beautiful and blue
And floating softly through a rainbow,
But when you touch down things look different here,
At the mission of the sacred heart.
CHORUS
Watching all the days roll by
Who are you and who am I?
On a dirty worn-out sidewalk, sits a mother with a baby,
In her vale of tears she sees no rainbow
And someone's singing from a window
In the mission of the sacred heart.
CHORUS -- repeat
There's a building on a corner, in a city, in a land,
On a place they call the planet Earth,
My orders are to sit here and watch the world go by,
From the mission of the sacred heart.
CHORUS -- repeat
song performed by by Electric Light Orchestra
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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