Lay for the Day 26th March

A song to mark the birthday (in 1931) of the actor Leonard Nimoy, which is also the birthday (in 2225) of Mr Spock, second-in-command of the Federation Starship Enterprise, its five-year mission etc, etc. (Captain James T. Kirk, it appears, also shares his birthday – 22nd March – with his alter-ego, or former self, William Shatner.)

Stargazer Shoes

My heart’s gone into heavy red shift
Watching the interstellar dust drift
Over domes of galactic suburbs,
Phasers set to Please Do Not Disturb.
And my brain’s reached warp factor 15:
She won’t take much more now, captain.
Now we face the final frontier.
Must have been mad when we volunteered.
Yes I’ve got those deep space blues
From the tips of my pointed ears
Down to the soles of my stargazer,
Soles of my stargazer shoes.

Here comes blue moon number 7
Queueing up in the crowded heaven.
Wish I was back good old Sol Quad.
Don’t leave me in the garden shed of God
With boredom denser than a neutron,
Creds not worth the quarks they’re beamed on.
Let me change my red for blue skies.
Beam us up from this crazy enterprise.
Yes I’ve got those deep space blues
From the tips of my pointed ears
Down to the soles of my stargazer,
Soles of my stargazer shoes.

Once I had a star to swing on.
They sold it to the Klingons.
Dear God take us out of orbit,
Let your big black hole absorb my blues.
Yes I’ve got those deep space blues
From the tips of my pointed ears
Down to the soles of my stargazer,
Soles of my stargazer shoes.

Infinity means it’s never over
As my heart goes supernova
In pleasuredomes of sheer depravity
Far from home at zero gravity.
Here I stand on soles of solid lead
With stars that shoot and shine about my head.

Words and music by The Children, from the album Play

The Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar


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