Four

Alan Shepard, astronaut, took golf balls to the moon He whacked them only when he knew that he’d be leaving soon ‘One flew two hundred yards,’ he said, ‘and as I recollect one came down in a crater, although I never checked.’ In seventy-one that bit of fun by NASA was allowed Such jollity in twenty-one would now be disavowed Like all the stuff they’ve left behind those golf balls lay there stranded At least they do if it is true that both those golf balls landed And then it all got boring with rockets on the wain Those Saturn V Apollos superseded by a plane Referred to as the shuttle like a boat, a bus or train I doubt that space flights ever will excite me once again Be careful what you wish for: is that not what they say Something mad is happening, in outer space today It should be so exciting as beyond the Milky Way A hurtling flying saucer makes our population pray It’s passing stars and galaxies at speeds beyond compare We know it’s heading here because it didn’t stop off there And now the bloggers tell us what the BBC refutes It doesn’t come in peace because it’s loaded up with nukes And finally it slowed down as upon our moon it came And then it simply hovered there like it was taking aim Then each TV and radio and stuff with speakers in Crackled into life with a God almighty din You humans shall obey these words and leave to us your earth Or you shall be destroyed because you are of little worth And then that space-ship blew apart as something smashed its shields In orbit its astounding how much power a golf ball wields *** [Postscript: in 1971, Alan Shepard took two golfballs and a modified club to the moon. Apparently, aware that any ‘whoops’ moments might be blamed on ‘larking about’, this was sanctioned on the proviso that all scheduled tasks had already been completed: thus Shepard teed off shortly before leaving the moon. To this day, Shepard retains the record for the longest golf shot on the moon... Duh!]