space station

[eclipse]

The earth was like a swan as it moved through space,
the debris surrounding it-like disconnected thoughts.
This was Jack Johnson's fiftieth night in space aboard
the space station Argonaut. Jack had recently been 
hallucinating, mistakenly seen a spider's web, he
had been connecting stars searching for the index of
creation.

Jack was surprised at how black space appeared 
during the daytime  and how incongruous death was with
what Jack was experiencing in space.There were
fifty two computers on the space station and twelve 
kilometers of electrical wiring but very little intellectual
stimulation.

Jack had been a Buddhist for twenty years and was starting
to have doubts about reincarnation, the space station
seemed so sterile it was was made up of a number of
pressurized modules that served as scientific laboratories
Jack saw sixteen sunrises daily, the sun was taunting him,
flashing his previous incarnations before him, reminding
Jack that it's life would continue long after he had gone and
reincarnation was not guaranteed. Light from stars was
like echoes of previous lives he was sure he had lived.

Jack compared his weightlessness with the increasingly
heavy thoughts he was starting to experience, the vastness
of space amplified Jack's despair, the earth was like a wheel
of prayer he could not reach, Jack seemed to exist in some
form on earth and on the space station and in an another
universe also, space station crew members were like ghosts.

Jack had his wedding picture with him and wondered if the universe
was like a camera with an unknown intelligence filming itself,
Jack existed in another dimension filming himself . Jack had 
a dream that night about a circle of mirrors containing his reflection
without an external presence-this was akin to several universes
existing but not being able to communicate.

[Tinker]

Hi Barry,  This is quite a tale.   The first 2 lines are awesome.  The story flows fluidly and a bit bizarre but it sort of makes sense too.   This is one I will have to come back to.  Very unique and interesting.

~~Tink
 

[David W. Parsley]

I can't help but like this one, Barry.  Count me among those who admire the first two lines.  The whole thing has a quasi-Ecclesiastes  feel to it, with the whole sun-also-rises theme accelerated by a factor of sixteen, with attendant acceleration of disillusionment.  "What happens to the wise?  The same as happens to the fool.  All is vanity and grasping in the wind!"  A more concrete rendering of some common themes that recur in your work, at least in the late part of the poem: ghosts and empty reflections (but no moon, which is appropriate).

- Dave