Research: Journals
The Journal
Past Issues
29.2
Dan Bogen
The PlanetsWorlds of sand, of ice, of swirling gas--
dreams of the planets still entice.
Eight separate surfaces to land on, one after another,
a march from mid-century to the predictable future.
That never was.
Just a shell game, then, an easy trick
like the heliocraft that vanished from my garage.
No international rocket ships but Humvees, war after war,
no chatty robots but ATMs--
where is my inheritance, techno-fathers?
Now there are two worlds, one ahead of us, one behind:
cold desert and cloud sauna--both hell.
The rest just gas bags and lumps.
I can't give up, though--even the impossibilities lure me:
the dropped probe crushed and melted,
thousand-year hurricanes roiling hydrogen seas.
It must be the mysteries and the colors:
technology's failure as the potting soil of art.
That pink globe on my calendar looks pretty as a beach ball.
I'd like to give it a spin.
