Excerpt From An Airship Race

Once I wrote a Steampunk Rock Opera. There was an Airship Race. The Mayor and the Gallant Captain had a plan.


The mad scientist Dr. Antikythera had other plans. This little snippet was called “Into The Blue / Into The Black”. Why I thought it was okay to sneak Neil Young references into Steampunk, I don’t know, but I’m not taking it back now.


NARRATOR/MAYOR: At last, the race!


MAYOR:

Into the blue! Into the blue!

How godly their ascent

Surely for stretching heavenword

The hands of Man are meant


We tame the very skies above

We own this element

As to the will of Man the sapphire

Firmament is bent


Into the blue! The naked blue!


Into the blue, into the blue

Stretching over space

As each barrier to commerce

We brilliantly erase


In five or ten or twenty years

This will be commonplace

Each wonder will be more mundane–

That’s the hallmark of our race


ANTIKYTHERA:


Crave pardon, but I must raise

A slightly dissenting voice

Not everything is easy.

Not everything’s your choice.


I’ve fed the winds a potion sweet

They listen now to me

I’ll take your ships; and your crews perish

In the etheric sea


Into the dark! Into the dark!

How human your ascent!

You had some tools, and never thought

To see what they all meant


You looked not high enough

Saw the heavens as a tent

Now all your hopes and plans are

In a thousand pieces, rent


Into the black! The ever-hungry black!


~Jeff Mach



 


My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.


I write books. You should read them!


 


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Published on June 16, 2020 21:11
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