Robert M. Simmons  

from Added Entries (Poems 1991- )

          Flight from the Inferno

       (or The Hamptons in the Heavens)

Those chosen for this special flight

assembled in the dark of night

around a rocket poised to place

them on a station deep in space,

where they would leave mistakes behind,

a new start for some of mankind,

far from this world with all its woes

convulsing in its final throes.

Into the night the rocket soared

with all the chosen ones aboard,

its engines lighting up the sky

like pyrotechnics in July,

creating an amazing show,

that thrilled the multitudes below.

The rocket sped with awesome force

on its precisely plotted course

toward the outpost that would become

a much needed haven for some,

where human genius could survive

among the ones yet still alive.

But on this craft all was not well

as from its hull a rivet fell,

a tiny item with a role

important to secure the whole.

The part it held was next to fall,

descending in a burning ball.

Soon flames engulfed the ship entire,

painting the sky with orange fire,

and then of course those trapped inside

perished on their ill-fated ride,

witnessed by some who watched from earth

where mayhem ringed its spinning girth,

and in all this was beauty strange

as pain in poetry does change.

                          © 2003 by Robert M. Simmons

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Subjects: poems about, global warming, climate change, space disasters, space stations, poetry, poems

Flight from the Inferno