This Moon Wasn't Blue: A space epic au gratin
by Sam Friedman


I. Before the Beginning

The moon was NASA’s golden falcon
a modern grail, a golden fleece,
the source of Boeing's billions.

They stepped upon this loony world,
their steps stirred minds,
their steps stirred dust,
that lay upon the moon-rind;
they saw the moon as though through dust,
they missed the prize sublime.

II. The Homesteaders

The next to come were engineers
with plots and plans and wrenches,
to build tall domes upon the dust,
upon the fruitless plain.

And with these modern pioneers,
as with Columbus long ago,
and with the 49ers,
boon companions hitchhiked unknown:
      rats and mice upon the moon,
      as high as fabled dish and spoon,
      mice and rats, digging, hungry,
      through the dust upon the moon,
      down beneath its flaking rind.

Under every wall-girt crater,
under every mountain,
and under waveless dust-seas,
rats and mice uncovered treasure,
mice and rats in orgies blissful,
on a world of ripe green cheese!

III. Bids

Who would get the great concession?
who would mine this hoard of cheese?
NASA called a mighty auction,
Beatrice Foods and Mitsubishi,
USX and staid Pirelli,
hundreds more from 40 countries,
wrote proposals,
bribed and lied,
avid for monopoly.

IV. The Great Cheese Rush

Like all the plans of men and mice
these corporate hopes went moldy;
they crumbled like a Cheshire cheese,
or haunting grins of Cheshire cats,
as hordes and hordes of Greeners avid,
minds agog with dreams of cheescake,
pawned their homes, and sold their kids,
and sublet their Jacuzzis,
to buy a ride on a cheese-mobile
to shoot through air and soar through space,
to . . . go . . . for . . . the . . . green
of a cheesy stake
inside the corporate boardrooms.

So while the ritzy restaurants
and Burger Kings and Denny's
planned gourmet meals of cheese delights
like Luna-bits with green moon cheese
and rocket fuel for dressing,
the space between the earth and moon –
that lotus-land for lovers –
was filled with rocket-crates emblazoned
with slogans of more modest hopes:

      "moonport or bust"

      "to brie or not to brie"

      "our cheese is vacuum packed"

and

      "What's cheese but a second-hand emulsion?"

V. Cheese Wars

While the Greeners swarmed through cheesy craters,
and rats and mice engorged their lusts,
corporate lawyers gnawed in frenzy,
at their fingernails . . . and at their Brie.
They brought a thousand thousand lawsuits,
and pled for war and vengeful justice,
against these cheesy Greener pirates.

The unions tried to woo the Greeners,
promised aid in giant chunks,
but split apart like rotten Cheshire
over who would get the dues.

So then the Greeners held a conference,
with Labor Notes really helpful,
a meeting of the rank and file,
and rats and mice as well.
They denounced the corporate barons,
and NASA’s corporate welfare,
beseeched for help against new plagues
of green-cheese-world infections,
against Green Fungus in their armpits,
and Parmesan Mold in Greener Pricks,
which made one's nether parts swell rigid
to rods erect like string cheese rampant
and oozing feta-balls expanding
with streaks like Stilton, blue and green.

And so the Lunar Wars began,
with corporate raids and flying cheeses,
with deaths from molds and fondue fires,
and knaves and heroes, big and small.
A giant strike of all the workers,
with Moonstruck months in cheese-cave worksites,
with workers nibbling at their places,
month on month, no other pay.

The Cheese Wars end in Gouda glory,
a feast of celebration,
cheese on cheese of gourmet story,
with a proclamation holy
of a cheese-Green Moon for all the workers,
as their new-elected leader,
Squeaker-for-All, Havarti Hunter,
head of Human-Rodent nation,
swore his troth to workers’ power
to the tunes of their new anthem,
a moonish air in lunar vacuum,
"Limburger Lifetimes of Lunacy Green."