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The Song on Planet Plu
Martin Elster

At dawn we sang on Planet Plu

a song the cosmos deemed taboo

as cobalt blue gave way to pink

and a finch-bat blinked a sleepy blink,

suspended in upended slumber.

 

While vole-grouse rushed in boundless number

to unlit holes in sunlit hills

and all the owl-whippoorwills

broke off their chorus round the planet,

we crooned a tune — and war began. It

 

floated like a bloated moon

one afternoon, a bronze balloon

that, as we watched it, detonated.

 

(We should have been annihilated;

instead, their malice made us chortle

thanks to the fact that we’re immortal.)

 

Then when the sky cleared up at last,

we blessed those brutes that brought the blast.

They left us then to sing in peace

what they well knew would never cease.

 

Yet these days others come — with missile,

musket, laser-gun — yell, “This’ll

teach you crackpots not to chant

such sacrilege. You shan’t! You shan’t!”

They come and leave us, leave us vexed

and, being vexed, we holler, “Next!”

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And every dawn, as cobalt blue

turns pink, all animated Plu

trills out a dulcet, silvery song

the cosmos deems profoundly wrong.

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Previously published in The Kleksograph, issue 17, May 2025

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Fliss: Welcome, Martin, and well met again! Many thanks for returning this month and agreeing to discuss this recently published poem. Hearty congrats are in order! I hadn’t heard of The Kleksograph before, but I really enjoyed reading the issue, in which you have three poems. A fine achievement, muchly deserved.

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Martin: Thanks so much, Fliss, for inviting me again to participate in this month’s issue of WM. I’m honored and grateful!

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I’m glad you enjoyed reading the current issue of The Kleksograph. I discovered that journal a couple of years ago. It’s a wonderful venue for some of the kinds of poems I write. Here’s an excerpt from the magazine’s manifesto: “Surely every work of art is informed by the subconscious? True, but most artists would contend that their work is mainly the result of conscious, rational decisions. Some writers though, draw their ideas from dreams. Franz Kafka, for example. The Klecksograph seeks to explore and celebrate art where the membrane between it and the subconscious is at its thinnest. Consequently the works in this magazine can’t be termed realistic.”

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F: That’s an intriguing manifesto, Martin. I’d planned to ask you about the genre of your poem and I’d jotted down ‘sci-fi surreal’, but I think that suggests a more rational approach than writing inspired by a dream. How did the poem come to you?

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M: ‘Sci-fi surreal‘ seems an apt description. As far as what inspired the poem, I was musing about myself as an unconventional person and asked myself that magic question: “What if?” What if there was a planet whose inhabitants sang songs so unconventional or nonconformist that they vexed societies throughout the whole universe. My musical background may have inspired the idea of the ‘Pluans‘ singing their strange songs. The poem developed organically as I wrote. I tried to convey the uniqueness of Planet Plu by sprinkling in hybrid animals, as well as making the Pluans immortal.

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F: Well, I certainly noticed the hybrid animals! They might just be my favourite element of the poem. It’s interesting that your musings on yourself-as-unconventional led to the thought of a planet-as-unconventional, capable of vexing other societies to this extent. And the name is similar to Pluto, I see. When I think of peace in connection with the planets, I tend to arrive at Venus, thanks in no small part to Gustav Holst. But in the poem it seems every planet other than Plu is rather set on war, that war has become the norm of the cosmos. Does that sound about right, as a reading?

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M: It’s great to hear that you like the hybrid animals! Also that you like The Planets by Gustav Holst, one of my favorite pieces of music. I’ve played it many times with the HSO [Hartford Symphony Orchestra]. Venus, of course, is actually a hellish place. You can cook a pizza in under ten seconds on the surface! In Roman mythology, however, it’s the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. equivalent to the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Holst was primarily inspired by the astrological, rather than the astronomical, significance of the planets.

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Regarding war and peace in the poem, I wanted the unconventional beings to win, so I gave them immortality. They have no fear of those who hate them and want them gone. They themselves, however, are a peaceful people. I like your reading of the poem, Fliss. I should point out, though, that perhaps not all the inhabitants of the universe are warring or are out to get the Pluans. But plenty sure are!

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F: War just seems to be everywhere on Earth at the moment, Martin, so I’m not surprised it’s happening on other planets too. I think I read ‘cosmos’ in your poem as indicating the entire universe, but if the Pluans are set on peace within the order it’s possible others are too, perhaps equally unharmed by the bronze balloon. Thanks for the information about Venus, which might be of interest to readers unfamiliar with the mythology. Well, this seems a fitting time to turn to metrical matters! This is tetrameter, I think, mostly iambic but with the occasional dactyl, anapaest, feminine ending. I stopped on ‘owl’ for a moment; to use the well-known Word-Bird notation, is ‘owl-whippoorwills’ to be heard as O - O o O, maybe?

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M: Yes, iambic tetrameter with the occasional substitution. The W.-B. notation is excellent! And your scansion of owl-whippoorwills is just as I intended, owl being stretched across two syllables: OW-ul. You’re right about the cosmos (in the first and last stanzas) representing the whole universe. So perhaps (in the poem) all, or at least most, civilizations do, indeed, deem the Pluans’ song unfitting or unseemly for whatever reason, and war may be the norm. Are the Pluans the only immortal beings in the cosmos? That’s an open question. Hopefully, the humorous touches in the poem come across, namely the almost mocking defiance of the Pluans to all threats.

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F: Well, there’s certainly humour here, Martin. I’m sure that, if I were an immortal Pluan, I’d be less inclined to concern myself with war. Just out of interest, might you compose the song itself? I’m quite intrigued by the ‘dulcet’ and ‘silvery’ sound of it, and perhaps it could incorporate sounds from the hybrid beings?

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M: I’m happy you enjoyed the comical aspects. What a cool idea about composing a song! I’m pleased the ’dulcet’ and ’silvery’ sounds roused your curiosity, and those hybrid beings might very well make their own kind of quirky music. Fun to imagine! I’m delighted that you’ve gotten so much out of this little poem, Fliss.

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F: Well, there’s a lot to it, Martin, I think. The soundscape, the life-forms, the notion of being left to sing in peace, all very appealing!

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M: Thanks, Fliss! And thanks again for inviting me to participate in WM! I enjoyed our conversation very much.

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F: No problem!​

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Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra (now retired). Aside from playing and composing music, he finds contentment in long walks in the woods or the city and, most of all, writing poetry, often alluding to the creatures and plants he encounters. His career in music has influenced his fondness for writing metrical verse, which has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the US and abroad. His honors include Rhymezone’s poetry contest (2016) co-winner, the Thomas Gray Anniversary Poetry Competition (2014) winner, the 2022 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest winner, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s poetry contest (2015) third place, a Best of the Net nomination, and five Pushcart nominations. A full-length collection, Celestial Euphony, was published by Plum White Press in 2019.

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