You make one simple mistake…
Lunacy
I didn’t mean to kill the moon,
Your Honour. Just bad luck, I guess –
one hiccup, and the sky was strewn
with moon-rocks. Whoops! Who doesn’t mess
with isotopes from time to time?
I didn’t mean to kill the moon.
Ballistics? Well, if that’s a crime,
they’ll ban my vortex factory soon,
then what? Some health and safety goon
declares my new black hole a sin?
I didn’t mean to kill the moon.
Uh-oh – the shrapnel’s coming in,
prepare to die! No, seriously,
can we get under something hewn
from rock? What’s up? Don’t look at me –
I didn’t mean to kill the moon!
First published in Snakeskin Poetry
Geek note: This poetic form is known as a quatern. It has four stanzas, each of four lines, with a refrain which appears in line 1 in the first stanza, line 2 in the second, line 3 in the third and line 4 in the fourth. It’s a really fun form to write in, as you fit the poem round the refrains like a jigsaw, and also very satisfying to read, I think!
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