Once I wrote a Steampunk Rock Opera. There was an Airship Race. The Mayor and the Gallant Captain had a plan.
The mad scientist Dr. Antikythera had other plans. This little snippet was called “Into The Blue / Into The Black”. Why I thought it was okay to sneak Neil Young references into Steampunk, I don’t know, but I’m not taking it back now.
NARRATOR/MAYOR: At last, the race!
MAYOR:
Into the blue! Into the blue!
How godly their ascent
Surely for stretching heavenword
The hands of Man are meant
We tame the very skies above
We own this element
As to the will of Man the sapphire
Firmament is bent
Into the blue! The naked blue!
Into the blue, into the blue
Stretching over space
As each barrier to commerce
We brilliantly erase
In five or ten or twenty years
This will be commonplace
Each wonder will be more mundane–
That’s the hallmark of our race
ANTIKYTHERA:
Crave pardon, but I must raise
A slightly dissenting voice
Not everything is easy.
Not everything’s your choice.
I’ve fed the winds a potion sweet
They listen now to me
I’ll take your ships; and your crews perish
In the etheric sea
Into the dark! Into the dark!
How human your ascent!
You had some tools, and never thought
To see what they all meant
You looked not high enough
Saw the heavens as a tent
Now all your hopes and plans are
In a thousand pieces, rent
Into the black! The ever-hungry black!
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.
I write books. You should read them!
