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Starman


(This poem may make more sense if you’ve seen what it’s about. If you haven’t, you can search for “Falcon Heavy Test Flight” on YouTube and skip to around 21:30 in the resulting video.)
On the launch pad
The first Falcon Heavy stands
Fog flows from its three towering cores
Jets of water rise in salute
At the fire which kindles in their midst
Surging smoke pours out from under, expanding outwards
The rocket ascends
Riding a tail of incandescent white
Soaring into the wide blue
Both boosters fall away
Spinning and plummeting back
Two pillars of steel pierce the sky from above
And settle to Earth amid rings of flame
Lines of glowing red stripe the upper engine’s smooth, wide nozzle
The payload’s walls blast away
In a blinding blaze of reflected sunlight
A convertible drifts through the void
Our planet’s reflection oozes across the car’s polished red surface
A spacesuit is driving
One arm draped over the side, it looks forward
And flies off into the purest black

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