Blackout – Montauk # 37 - 202

Late November
Two hours past sunset
Ditch Plains
Montauk
Walking from a Joel’s house party
A black out
Power down
All lights out
Cold
No man light at all___
The stars above illuminate the Shagmoor bluff
30 degrees cold
A slight wind through the trees
THe rustle of bare branches
To the south below the bluff
Waves crash on the beach___
Overhead the Orion Nebula
1344 light years distance
From Earth___
My boots crunch on the path
Eyes adjust to starlight
Deers sneak through the undergrowth
Silent
Orion rising over the eastern horizon
Once I knew the names of the stars
I’ve been lost in too many cities
I've spent too many years in cities of bright lights

Blinded by the lights at night
I have lost my way
Through the stars
I am not a spaceman
But once I came close___
Summer 1962
A suburb south of Boston
A ten year-old boy
Behind a split-level ranch house
Painted pink
Past midnight
My family deep asleep
Every house in the neighborhood asleep
Dead quiet___
Out onto the back lawn
Naked
I lay on cut grass
Eyes straight up to the eternal night sky
Staring Bbeyond the bats
Hunting not orbiting Soviet satellites
But UFOs
Waiting for Aliens to abduct a naked boy
Ready
Willing
Able
To escape Earth and roam to the stars
With aliens from Space
To leave behind my shitty suburb
Forever
To wander the galaxy
With Aliens
As an Alien to all of them__
They never came that night or any night
And I cursed the stars and the suburbs and ET
Why didn’t you take me?
I want leave home____
To voyage to Orion and Betelgeuse and Rigel
The Brightest stars amongst countless stars overhead
Ah, the Cosmos___
Tonight in Montauk andlike then
I am alone
No UFOs
Only jets from JFK Europe Bound
West of Montauk
No extraterrestrials in the sky
Only millions of stars in a blackout
Boots crunch on the dirt
Waves crash on the beach
And___
Orion rules the stars
Partnered with Gemini and Taurus
In the winter sky
I’m happy to be here
Ditch Plains
On a path lit by starlight
Stuck on Earth
Ablue bright orb
In the quiet of Space
And south of me
The waves crash on the beach___