The Complete History of the Moon in Sixteen and a Half Verses

Last night, I made my second ever spoken word appearance at Utter! Space in King’s Cross, reading The Complete History of the Moon in Sixteen and a Half Verses. Considering my first appearance was half naked at a FemDom club, I think I’m making progress.

You can hear the poem in all its educational glory by pressing play on the player below.

https://davidcharles.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/History-of-the-Moon-clean.mp3?_=1

Please note: this may be less THE history of the moon and more A history of the moon… But at least I didn’t go for any cheap Michael Jackson gags.

BONUS MATERIAL YOU NEITHER ASKED FOR, NOR WANTED!

The process of writing a poem involves much scribblings and almost as much crossings out. Here are some of the verses that didn’t make the final 16.5, mainly because they weren’t about the history of the moon:

The moon goes round the earth,
Which goes round the sun, in ellipse.
When all three are in a line,
That’s a total eclipse.

There is a word for this celestial alignment,
But it’s testing my poetical wizardry,
Because there isn’t any rhyme in my dictionary
For syzygy.

I don’t know if you’ve heard
of The Man in the Moon.
It’s another crap pub,
from JD Wetherspoon.

It looks nothing like a man,
It’s more like a foetus.
Or maybe a panda,
If you’ve drunk a few litres.

But of course we all know
that is total bullshit.
The Moon is really an
abandoned alien spaceship.

You might have heard of mooning,
Where you pull down my pants.
And then I’ll pull down yours,
Just like they do in France (pron: “Frants”).

The author, David Charles, is available galaxy-wide for lunar lectures and astronomical addresses.

Photo Credit: Beth Granville

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David

David Charles is co-writer of BBC radio sitcom Foiled. He also writes for The Bike Project, Thighs of Steel, and the Elevate Festival. He blogs at davidcharles.info.

3 thoughts on “The Complete History of the Moon in Sixteen and a Half Verses”

    1. Thank you! I was going to close the poem by howling at the moon, but then Nurse Ratched came in and I had to take my medicine.

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