John Foster

“Make Believe

When I wake up in the morning
Not all is what it seems
I drift through a world of make believe
Between my real life and my dreams.

Strange Adventures from the space book
That I read the night before
Crowd in upon on my drowsiness
Through imagination's door.

Between sleeping and waking
The alarm clock's jangalang cry
Becomes the roaring fire-railed rocket
That hurls me through the sky.

My bed's a silver spacecraft
Which I pilot all alone
Whisp'ring through endless stratospheres
Towards planets still unknown.

Outside through the mists of morning
The spinning lights of cars
In my make-believe space voyage
Become eternities of stars.

Is that my mother calling something
That my dreams can't understand?
Or can it be crackling instructions
From far off Mission Command?

Gareth Owen”
― John Foster

“The Tenth Planet

There was this buoyant blue balloon
That felt a little spare.
It had been given life on Earth,
Was puffed with human air.

It bumped into a telescope
And glanced at outer space;
It thought it saw some more balloons
Each with a friendly face.

It gazed on all the planets
That lay beyond the moon:
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune.

And further out was Pluto.
A cold and distant sphere;
That had to be the target,
The lonliest by far.

So the balloon floated upwards,
Sneaked through the Earth's thick clouds;
Saw stars above get closer
And, down below, the crowds.

The Earth itself got smaller,
A mottled ball of blue;
It too was balloon-like
From a certain point of view.

Out, out into the darkness
The balloon kept to its course.
It kept away from comets
Speeding among the stars.

Mars was red and arid,
Jupiter was gas,
Saturn's rings were brilliant,
Uranus a great mass.

Neptune was a freezeup
And - furthest out of all -
Pluto, the ninth planet,
A revolving snowball.

Past Pluto was a dark spot
Where a planet ought to be
The balloon took its position
To orbit endlessly.

Back on Earth astronomers
Studied evidence of a new, 10th planet
And called it Providence.

They say they'll send a spaceprobe
To Providence quite soon;
They'll either find some sign of life
Or burst their own balloon.

Alan Bold”
― John Foster