Awash with the monochrome glow

Of Saturday television

I would watch cardboard rocket ships on strings

Wobble into polystyrene cities

Buck and Flash and James T. Kirk

Would wrassle to the ground

All manner of humanoids with strange features

Made of mud or rock or wood

Each one succumbing to the earthling’s righteousness

With a boff and a thud

 

And that was great

 

On these far-flung planets of the outer galaxies

Men had wings or jet-fuelled rocket packs

Pistols shot white lights that exploded like fireworks

On Andurian New Year

Justice prevailed, the underdog won

And evil was vanquished

Until next Saturday morn

 

And that was great too

 

But each time Kirk or Gordon

Would find themselves locked in an interstellar embrace

(Red lips pressed against green

The milky-way swirling in her eyes

A triumvirate of tits tightly wrapped up in tin-foil

Pistols cocked and set to stun)

This was when I knew that I simply had to be

The galactic hero

Kissing the alien

Beneath the twin moons of Castillion 3

 

Forty now

And my disbelief has been permanently suspended

I know Leia loves Han

Just as much as he does

Flash would still save the Earth if he only a teabreak to do it in

And Dale would love him, regardless

Even Lucas’s betrayal has lost its impact

There is no green-screen to stand in front of

And imagine a better world; full of fun

 

And I still haven’t kissed the alien

In the yellowy haze of the setting suns