The Nervous Spaceman’s Launch Song
All I can find to replay in my mind
as I pass through celestial stratums
is the screaming through space at a runaway pace
till we’re shaken to nothing but atoms…
What’s more horrid by half than the lightning-flash laugh
(The jar and the jostle of this fissile fossil All that’s keeping my eyes from quadrupling in size (The shudder and shriek of this iron antique, Just outside this thin shell soon I’ll sense the cold Hell And still all I can find to replay in my mind
and the comet-hair roar of the rockets
is the jar and the jostle of this fissile fossil
that powders my joints in their sockets…
while screaming through space at a runaway pace…)
and exploding (a fate I’ve grown leery on)
is the shudder and shriek of this iron antique
between me and the fire of Hyperion…
the jounce and the jostle of this fissile fossil
while screaming through space at a runaway pace…)
which would flash-freeze me quick as cremation
and the ding of the divot some space rock could give it
spells speedy or slow suffocation…
as I punch through celestial stratums
is the screaming through space at a runaway pace
and the dinging of divots and popping of rivets
the bounce and the bustle, the jounce and the jostle
the quiver and creak and the shiver and shriek
till we’re shaken to nothing but atoms!