THE MOON


LUV - Ah, the moon. The thing about contemplating the moon is it don’t half make you feel all poetical and that…


(Feel free to insert your own magical-funk arty wibbly transitional effect at this point. Maybe you could hold your laptop up near a fan heater and read through the resultant haze, but mind your glistening forehead doesn’t do a sensual drip onto your keyboard and short it with pure sex appeal. Or perhaps huff a load of glue until you half-lose your sight)


O, moon! You big old pearly squire!
For all the beauty you inspire
A list in verse we may require.
Why do we LUV you, moon?


Tidal force at your command!
Without you there’d be no sand
And no HORROR FACE/HAND. 
Thanks for that one, moon!


Zowie Bowie loved your face,
Made Sam Rockwell mad in space 
I’D TAKE HIM TO MY MOON BASE.
Christ! I’m sorry, moon.


What lurks upon your darkened rear?
Pink Floyd gave us their prog idea,
Where that bird’s shrieks gave us the fear.
We still adore you, moon.


Thanks to your Lycanthropic wits,
A cool film scared us all to bits!
Also, Jenny Agutter’s tits.
You goddamn hero, moon.


Just a few of your pale charms.
If I had Mr Tickle arms
I’d streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch them out so that they were much too long to fit into a thus far perfectly scanning poem-arrrrms
And pinch your bumcheeks, moon.


Though I haven’t forgiven you for that whole Toploader thing, so don’t get too cocky, you alabaster globule.


FIN


Too Pam Ayres for your sophisticat tastes, reader? Try this abridged version: 


There’s one thing at night that’s a boon;
The transforming light of the moon.
Cos then when I’m pissed
The vagrants I kissed
Are ringers for Orlando Bloom.
- Julia Blyth .


HAT - ”It’s not a planet, it’s a satellite.” That’s what they say, the Moon-people, the people who think the Moon is the best. It’s one of many quasi-romantic notions about this big piece of dust-sprinkled gravel in the sky that needs skewering.


So, let us skewer: it is not a satellite. It does not have cool little reflective metal arms coming out of it, or blip-blip lights anywhere about its person; it does not send back any useful information to us about aliens or potential new dimensions we might be able to pack up and move to; and it is not called something like Intrepid Galactic Forager, like proper satellites always are.


It’s a ball of tightly-compacted dust and rock, and if you went there it would play havoc with your allergies. So stop liking it, stop writing poems about it and stop dancing in its barely-existent light. The best story anyone ever told about the Moon was that it was made of cheese - and that was a lie. People have to make stuff up about the Moon to make it appear less galactically shit.


Look pal, the Moon has got the stupidest name in the universe. All the other spacey places have monikers like “Adyunong 12” or “The Stakuleth Nebulatum”. “The Moon” sounds like a pathetic, wide-faced little character from a translated eastern European cartoon. Look at it, frowning like a cratered sap, crying out for attention even though it doesn’t deserve any. I want to slap The Moon right upside its axis, but I can’t reach. That’s why I howl at it.


It’s not enough for The Moon to just sit there, dripping its puny “moonlight” onto one leaf on one tree each night. The Moon has to dick about with the sea, as well. The sea is about a million times more useful than a floating pebble in the sky, and it offers us food, transport and free, freshly-washed contraceptives.


The Moon, being a lonely, sinisterly glowing outcast, sees all this and decides to mess around with the tides. Our fucking tides! “WEYYYY,” it goes, making our water go all weird. Why? I don’t know why - go and ask the useless, holey cretin. Maybe it got drunk on the power bestowed upon it by the wooden-brained crusties who rut on Stonehenge any time the Moon does anything, ever.


Whatever the reason, the Moon is like the huge, dumb arsehole on the beach who can’t articulate himself using language, so decides to stomp all over your sand-fort to express himself. God, the Moon would fuck up your sandy battlements with nary a thought. You don’t even have a brain to think with, Moon! You massive, craggedy twat! Hahaha! HEY MOON, HOW DO YOU SPELL ‘MOON’?? I HATE YOU AND I HATE YOU AND I HATE YOU FOR NOT BEING EVEN ABLE TO SPELL YOUR OWN NAME, MOON.


In short, sending man to the Moon may have been a magnificent achievement; but failing to blow the desperate, attention-seeking space-biscuit apart with a nuclear bomb after departing was a missed opportunity we should still be ruing the shit out of to this day.
- Stuart Waterman