If mothers had their way
if they always held sway
The world would be a duller place
little advancement for the human race
Imagine the mother of brave Admiral Peary
shielding her precious charge from
Arctic perils, to her so overwhelmingly scary
Or Yuri Gagarin's mom, locking him in his room
never in space 'round the earth three times to zoom
Ah, you say, Prince Charles played polo easy and free
Ha! -- probably drugged Queen E's daily tea ...
Then again, if they always had their way, those mothers
~ their sons would never go to war killing each other
yuri of pure white
essence of nobility
temperance of soul
Actually, I like Russia
But want her to join Asia:
Doesn’t really belong to Europe;
Like she is there tired with a rope:
So much Asian bravado:
Others under my shadow!
Shall I forget her Brezhnev
To Cowboy Reagan, Quite Brave
Or her Yuri Andropov
Whom you couldn’t say was ‘Dove’
Then, they were dying much fast
Chernenko could not quite last
Also, like Russian Ruble
But from her sensing trouble
When efforts Russians double
To Dollar change with Ruble …
Actually, some friends’ gossip
But persons whose tongues don’t slip.
So many women,
Lost to time.
Mileva Maric,
Helene Kaufler-Savic,
Chien-Shiung Wu.
In a world of men,
Their lights in shadow,
We’ve left their memory to fade away.
The pedestal they deserve
We gave away.
Away to men who were so very wrong,
To men who took the freedom of others,
To men with brains, but no heart or humanity.
Aristotle,
Thomas Jefferson,
Albert Einstein.
These men of history, and many more,
With their large shadows
Bury the names of women who were their equals.
Names that time and history have erased.
Margaret Sanger,
Yuri Kochiyama,
Rosalind Franklin.
These women with minds as brilliant as those of they men with which they were forced to compete with,
These names which few know, but changed the course of history.
In remembrance of them,
A moment,
To the women that were lost.
As much fame for Yuri Gagarin was never afforded
First man in space in 1961, was Yuri who completed one orbit
A Soviet Air Forces pilot
The acclaim was more quiet
A gigantic achievement but the acclaim was more biased
Yuri,
as elegant as a knife is, danger comes with it.
and so are you.
The closer you come to a knife, the more you can feel its beauty,
untill the point you start to feel the fear.
and so are you.
one can admire how gracefully a knife cuts,
till it cuts in to your heart.
and so are you.
Im sorry. i cant get cut.
again.
About an hour later she slipped
Yuri Andropov into the conversation:
*“I have to drop off a blouse at the dry cleaners.”*
Suddenly it was May Day &
I’m back in Red Square,
Dwarfed beneath larger than life
Lenin, Engels & Marx mug shots.
Inter-continental ballistic lorry loads
Roll past the reviewing stand, while
Geezer Reds in Ushanka fur hats,
Soused on *Stoli,* reeking of borscht,
Chain-smoke cheap Soviet Belomors.
I share these thoughts, handing
Mrs. Khrushchev the car keys.
Having cowered herself in terror,
Having ducked & covered many
Burial promises & shoe-pound threats,
She gives me a tired babushka smirk.
We are conjugal Cold Warriors,
Both weary now, creeping up on 70,
Skirmishes & brinksmanship behind us.
Tolerant of each other at last;
Lukewarm *détente* between us.
Venera one
Mission Venus
Yuri Gagarin on Vostok
First man in Space.
Mars One
First woman
Valentina Tereshkova.
In space.
Leonev’s ten-minute walk in space.
An unmanned Soviet Craft Luna Nine
Soft landing
On moon
The first probe in lunar orbit
The first unmanned rendezvous and docking
The soil samples brought to earth
Ram’s probe on to the moon
First and only daughter
Luna brought on earth
Exact date
Exact time.
Dr. Ram Mehta
=================================
Fourth Place win in:
Contest: Magic Decade's Mood sponsored by nette Onclaud
GAGARIN AND COLUMBUS
Brave or foolhardy
He was a dreamer of voyages
Into unexplored, unknown, undiscovered country,
The first to pursue the visionary images
That few had even seen clearly.
On an odyssey in void or foam
Many followed his footsteps on
The path but did not return home;
And fell over the edge of the horizon
With no return to Ithaca’s loam.
The face of an entirely new world
Never before seen mentally or visually :
He reached over the horizon and touched
It, as his voices told him this was all folly,
With no light, no chart unfurled.
……………………………………………………………..
NOTES:
(a) This poem was written to commemorate the 50 th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s
spaceflight.
(b ) Ithaca was the home of Odysseus.
(c) “voices…..folly “ is based on T S ELIOT’S lines in Journey of the Magi.
(d) Gagarin, Columbus, Odysseus, Eliot were all undertaking a journey into the unknown.
An unusual lady I barely see,
My love for you will drown the wide seas
And in the wide seas I shall find you, o’ black pearl
‘Cause staying beside you is my unfathomable lair.
But they always say that you are an illusion,
An illusion that always complete my delusions.
Yet you are not an illusion in my heart,
And not a delusion of my art.
O’ every time I hear the church bell rings,
I can see a girl who wears a ring.
And a man who stands inside a rim,
Who realizes that it is just a dream.
And now here I am to write and sit,
Trying to think with my chattering teeth.
Yet I realized that you are not a fairy,
Because you are my heart o’ beautiful Yuri.
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