On Your Moon

 

your moon is enveloped by a thick, gaseous atmosphere

 

 

dense clouds of molecular graphite and coal swell and collide

 

 

rippling into crystalline, airborne cyclones

 

 

thunder and lighting crown the poles,

 

 

awash with heavy rains of hydrogen cyanide

 

* 

 

first glimpsed by Tycho Brahe in 1598,

 

 

your moon was named, Den Svarte Svane,

 

 

due to its lack of reflectivity and its strange,

 

 

non-elliptical orbit, keeping at an aphelion to Saturn

 

*

 

on your moon

 

 

there is a low rocky terrain of red and black onyx

 

 

with a surface temperature of 0.1 bar 239 ° K

 

 

pools of liquid platinum scallop the topography

 

 

punctuated by deep caverns of arsenic vapour

 

 

*

 

on your moon

 

 

the sun does not shine

 

 

the stars do not glimmer

 

 

on your moon

 

 

electricity split the air

 

 

as vague, shadowy gods

 

 

lurk and brood amid the toxins

 

 

postulating the theory of mortality

 

 

with songs of grace

 

 

and barbarity