In the Astronaut Asylum

Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson

 

Read by Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson

              “I gave my life to guesswork
               on the ambiguous hope
               the stars could be real”
                                   From “Asylum for Astronauts”
                                   By Bruce Boston & Marge Simon


     I.  The Saturday Night Dance

Come all ye to Bedlam Town
When sun come up the stars go down
When stars go down beneath our feet
Then ’tis a merry time to meet

In the Astronaut Asylum
Events sometimes transpire
As if on the second planet out
From Aldebaran  

Ex-Astronauts are madmen
They dream of decaying orbits
And the passionate embrace 
Of isomorphic aliens

The doors of the asylum 
Are like airlock doors
Aboard a starship
Or perhaps like wheeled hatches
Between pressurized chambers
In a submarine

In the Astronaut Asylum
Even the doctors and the staff
Often believe they are on Mars
Inhabiting sheltered underground corridors
And cabins
Or strapped in shipboard limbo
Somewhere between the stars

Two or three moons
(Or four or more)
Often orbit
Above the asylum
(Or below)

The astronauts are falling, falling
Into agonized writhing
Within the sweat-soaked sheets
And stiff cotton straight-jackets
Of Interstellar Nightmares

(& Yes, we perceive the weak ones
On the far side of the bars;
Sometimes they come for interviews
During visiting hours)

Some of the Astronauts
Refuse to remove their spacesuits
Even for the Saturday Night Dance
& Oft-times when Earth’s moons align
They dance upon Asylum ceilings


     II.  The Asylum’s History

I asked of one mad Cosmonaut:
What is your wish? What do you want?
“To travel faster than light speed
Upon my sturdy Bedlam steed”

Once upon a time
In France, a hilltop monastery 
Remodeled
During the early 1900’s
Into an observatory

The 21st century asylum retains
The three distinctive domes
Refurbished
Minus telescopes

The central dome is pressurized
With an exotic atmosphere
The star-farer who resides therein 
The only one who might survive inside—
I know
Because the other patients 
Told me so


     III.  Theories of Madness

Come, let’s go to Bedlam Street
Star-faring ladies for to meet
Who stare transfixed upon the glow
Of Earthly seas above, below 

During Thursday’s group therapy session
One of the west-wing Astronauts
Advances her innovative theory:

Here is the secret (don’t flinch
While I whisper in your ear; you know,
Despite that pinched lip, that glazed look
You carefully cultivate, pretending that 
None of this has any, 
Anything to do with you), here ’tis—

All go mad, not just the far-travelers,
Not just those surfers of light-speed,
Not merely those who’ve dared the wormholes,
No—
All.

Somewhere out past the orbit of the moon
Madness comes—
Slow, mind, for those who think they travel safe,
Travel sane and measured—
Sometimes they die before the disease rooted deep
Within them hatches, 
Like an alien egg
Unleashing what into our minds?
What fungus grows about our eyes
Before we succumb?
Live long enough, and it comes to this.

The Cosmonauts in the East Wing
Offer contradictory explanations
Maintaining the human body
Is like a SETI antenna 
Receiving messages
From diverse alien civilizations
Strewn throughout our Milky Way
Galaxy, and beyond

They fashion crinkled aluminum foil helmets
To ward off the signals
Shielding themselves
From interstellar insanity
And the maddening music 
Of the spheres


     IV. A Conversation 
                     With Your Uncle-Astronaut

On Bedlam Row, in madman’s mire
We orbit swift, a dizzy gyre
Or bask in dying stars’ dim glow
And dream of things you’ll never know

Or maybe you are the Astronaut-Uncle,
Visiting on the landscaped grounds
At a picnic table
In sunlight 
Out past the triple dome shadows
During a moment so real 
(despite taking place within 
Asylum gates)
You perceive each leaf of grass,
Every blade-shadow

As one of you turns toward the other
And says: “Listen—
After the last Apollo Mission 
I felt concerned
Mankind had forgotten how to walk
Upon the Moon—”

One of you pauses, 
Contemplative of a cloud
And the unseen daylit stars beyond.
“Now, after being stranded on Ceres,
After penetrating the surfaces 
Of Jovian moons
And dancing upon Asylum ceilings, 
I feel confident
One might step anywhere.”
 

     V.  The Youngest Cosmonaut

Come with me to Bedlam Row
And see the mad go to and fro
These Astronauts who only trust
Their phantom bags of lunar dust

One of the cosmonauts
Is only 6 years old
On the cusp
Of becoming five
Suffering from reverse entropy
Ever since his final re-entry

This is either gospel truth
Or perhaps the staff 
Has confused him 
With someone else

One of the orderlies
Recently lamented:
“Communication is impossible
We record his words
& Run the tapes backwards

“But no one can recall:
Precisely what was it he said
In his reverse Russian
When he last spoke to us
Tomorrow?”


     VI.  Epilog

Three Cosmonauts 
Inexplicably disappeared
During the recent solar eclipse

& No one could explain
The staff’s panic attacks

Slip Bedlam’s locks, 
Hide Bedlam’s Keys;
We’ll drown beneath
These star-filled seas
 
On nights when the moon is full
The Astronauts stride
Thru sparkling lunar dust
Traipsing asylum corridor floors all aglow
Leaving luminous footprints to follow 

 

 

“In the Astronaut Asylum” and accompanying illustration first appeared in Mythic Delirium, Issue 20, Winter/Spring 2009. “In the Astronaut Asylum” copyright © 2009 by Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson; Illustration by Don Eaves and Terrence Mollendor, copyright © 2009. Voice recording by Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson, © 2010; all rights reserved. This poem and illustration may not be reproduced in any form without the authors’ and artists’ express written permission.