I know, another post so soon! This time I really am trying to clear out the poems sitting on my hard drive. Crossposted to IG.

Written 1.16.25. Channeling Nikki Giovanni vibes, especially her love of space and Mars, after reading Chasing Utopia. The flowers line is a reference to her poem about flowers there.

One of the greats, she passed in December. I love Nikki’s talks, and her music albums (scroll to see her other albums on Bandcamp). If you’re new to her, I highly recommend the documentary about her, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. If your library has Kanopy, you can watch it there for free.

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I am going to Jupiter / favorite planet of mine, storm spun rings, where thunder sparks, and I’ll see by lightning, and tell time by the seconds between claps. / it’ll be a long journey, so I’ll take with me my recharageable wand; my grandmama’s crocheted blanket; and books of course, because so far flung, the arts become even more valuable. / for you, Nikki, I’ll take some flowers, orchids of course, and a music collection to shake the stars and boogey on down with them. / surely they’ll want to know what came after Voyagers 1 and 2 and all the other satellite children we sent on up here. / maybe me and New Horizons will meet up and we can sing happy birthday to each other. I’ll even bake a cake and enjoy it enough for the both of us. / when I’m gone, launch me into Jupiter’s oceans and find me making storms with the mermaids. man in the moon won’t have nothing on us.