How To Be A Spaceman

By Ben Brinkburn

When space was still more of a dream than a conundrum...when an adventure on a booster rocket was more of an ambition than to master the ability to manipulate Forex spread sheets...when the urge to find new worlds fired the imagination more than obtaining a mortgage at favourable rates...

For grown-up space cadets everywhere, this collection of poetry and prose is for you.

Inspired by the pulp science fiction of a bygone, more innocent age when spaceships were dependably rocket shaped, aliens looked like proper tentacled monsters and laser guns solved most immediate problems, this collection of poems takes you to the final frontier...and beyond. On your journey meet DANA the love-struck ship computer, spacewalk and meet Neil Armstrong and Elvis Presley, eventually planet fall and, after various clonings, discover your true human nature.

The poetry and prose in this collection vary in length from short to not so short to the brink of epic and back again. The style is contemporary with some cosmic humour deep in the galactic pulse. An ideal accompaniment to a Latte and Galaxy chocolate muffin in any coffee shop of your choice or whilst sat on a train, dreaming of more pioneering travel or just sat anywhere, musing on the dangerous glamour of being a space traveller...

Ben Brinkburn is a British writer and poet and this is one of three poetry collections currently available. Find out more about the him on his Author page where there are also links to his website and blog.

Happy spacewalking....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Brinkburn
• Release date: May 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310661471

Ben Brinkburn

BRINKERS....the lowdownBemused poet, dog-eared liberal, aspiring literary critic, azalea cultivator, duck whisperer, old before young, young despite being old, age as a state of mind, State of Mind: unstable. Pie eater lemonade drinker erudite talker impatient listener deep space viewer aspirant spaceman...Ben is a writer, poet and artist originally from the North East of England but after much traipsing across this and another continent he is now based in Lancashire, between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester.Ben currently has three poetry collections available. An omnibus printed edition collecting all three volumes in one neat and tidy place will also soon be available.In 2009 Ben’s novel ‘Do Not Fear The World, Fear Yourself’ was shortlisted for Liverpool’s Writing On The Wall Pulp Fiction prize. His work has featured recently in ‘Tales from a New Town’ [Beacon Press] and his poem ‘Subbie’ won the ‘Skelmersdale: Fifty Years as a New Town’ competition in 2012.Ben is also working on a couple of novels and a set of pulp thrillers which will emerge later this year. Find out more about Ben if you dare, in the Smashwords interview below!

Book preview

When space was still more of a dream than a conundrum...when an adventure on a booster rocket was more of an ambition than to master the ability to manipulate Forex spread sheets...when the urge to find new worlds fired the imagination more than obtaining a mortgage at favourable rates...

For space cadets everywhere, this collection of poetry and prose is for you.

Find out more and see sample poems at

howtobeaspaceman.benbrinkburn.com

Find out more about the author and his other works at the end of this book.

other books by the author currently available

Kitchen Conversations

Mythopoetic

Brinkverse the printed compendium of this and the two eBooks above, is also available.

Happy spacewalking...

The Blarney Stone [somewhere near Ursa Minor]

Are we earthbound

chained by stars

or more like stars

taking time out

bumming around

falling between atoms

tumbling over particles

gathering up photons

cultivating them then seed seed

seed

reap and sow

a framework of chaos

harvesting the inner turmoil

and

All The Trials of Man

don’t mean nothing

nothing at all

they mean everything

everything

as we

grow ever more complex and keep

filling in the detail

of a paint-by-numbers-universe

you really don’t need to understand

anything more complex in

the sphere of ideas

than the simplicated complexity

of all this

and that.

When It Was Discovered That Martians Are Probably Related To Dolphins

Aero Schmearo

the long lost astronaut

losing touch

remembering his fingering of

Martian ruins

cut red rock yellow shards of

exotic alien mineral

solarised polymer-like fragments

a denial of the intraoral heart

melted as if vitrified

across imperial plains

cuboid atomic blasted

verification as a process

of muted truth

straddling the crater

Earth: a distant bright light alien messages

indecipherable

alien message? a mind meld? or mere notification?

a poster of intent or perhaps nothing more than

an advertisement

The red planet: a deadly habit

playing games of ancient splash

and Helmut said:

trying to understand Martian is like

trying to get a dolphin’s world view downloaded

onto a digital recording device of any nature

and this I can understand for a smidgen of time

as if for a neutrino’s spin I was Aero again

rock knockers to the left of me

space rangers to the right

a fool in my head

dolphin wave patterns an alien cry

etched on the underside of my cranium

impossible to itch that itch

in a suit lined with pseudo-lead.

Fluster Muster

‘Fluster muster’

Comes over the comm

The gantry glows in the glare of a naked sun

No grime here no filter of phosphates

No ozone blanket

No dust on the hot shiny space craft plate

Metal skin

Irate prospects just an illusion a sham

Here high above the globe sheathed in space

And it is supposed to be dark here but

Really

It is so light

Space is full of light eyeball burning bright

The safety line tight

I have to get this right

But my gloves are too big

Spacewalk as a goon

Spinning cartwheeling life as a speck

Satellites damaged

Aliens laughing

The sun

Sighing

When I lose my grip

And another spanner is lost spinning out

Into space a tool lost

Like a carelessly shot arrow

Trying to shoot non-existent creatures out of the sky

Spied a comet

Made a wish

Pisces has disintegrated

There is no lodestar

You can’t cut an orange in half

And make a pear

Golden laughter

Radiation giggling and tapping you on the shoulder

Perhaps some alien craft will find the spanner and wonder

And then eat it

Well I hope the alloy balance proves to be

To their satisfaction

Therapy Sunshine

You can take the weather out of the planet

but you can’t take the planet out of the weather

Move in a craft through outer space

take the sunshine with you

In small bulbs and banks of switches

floodlights

That