Space Shuttle Launch

Canaveral, sits tiled bird on pitted launching pad,
Sleek silhouette caressed by towers, heavy cable clad,
Huge rocket boosters piggyback a cargo laden crew,
Ready for a raucous ride to an atmosphere breakthrough.
Check the weather, avoid all lightning strikes.
Check all the systems for safety, or the likes.
Check the astronauts are set and locked into their seats.
Check checklist items as the preparation task completes.
Now is the time, when the countdown starts, as the planning phase is done,
Where the switch is pushed, and the engines roar, while counting: three, two, one.

Once those fettered dreams of man slip the bonds of Earth,
The cosmic journey then began revealing worth.

The crew absorbs G-forces at the summit of their soul,
As systems interact to bring the whole thing in control.
The bird then rolls, with pitch and yaw, as it locates its path,
Expending one half million gallons fuel in aftermath.
Blow the boosters now, T minus seconds.
Ignite the orbiter, to coast at thousands
Of miles above the Earth, beyond its basic atmosphere,
Where window views of the vast heavens, suddenly come clear.
Then the hearts of the men in the capsule slow, to a normal pace,
As they bask in the pride of accomplishments by the Human Race

Once those fettered dreams of man slip the bonds of Earth,
The cosmic journey then began revealing worth.

Dreams forever to fly, to fly so high,
With shuttle flights to space, we try, we try!
We slip the bonds, the fettered bonds of Earth,
In cosmic journey, for our pride, our worth.


Author Notes:

Just trying to poetically describe a launch of the space shuttle. The company that I worked for had many control systems used on the program, both on the shuttle itself, and in much of the control center. I had some friends who worked on the shuttle program, though I never did. It was a sad day when they shut the program down in 2011. The Space Shuttle system is composed of an orbiter launched with two reusable solid rocket boosters and a disposable external fuel tank usually carried up to eight astronauts and up to 50,000 lb (23,000 kg) of payload into low Earth orbit. Space Shuttle missions have included:
Spacelab missions.
Crystal growth
Space physics
Construction of the International Space Station (ISS)
Crew rotation and servicing of Mir
Servicing missions, such as to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and orbiting satellites
Manned experiments in low Earth orbit (LEO)
Carried to low Earth orbit (LEO):
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
Supplies in Spacehab modules or Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules
The Long Duration Exposure Facility
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite
The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite
The Mir Shuttle Docking Node

This poem is a Tambour.
The Tambour was created by Fanstorian RGstar. A Tambor is a very complex format that uses rhyme and different types of lines to provide pace and rhythm.
”Tambour” = French for drum.

The reason for the title is the fact that the rhythm of the parade drum is incorporated in the poem. If one can visualize a parade walking by and the sound of the drums as they march through. The poetry is set to mimic the sound and roll of the drums.
It uses 3 line types to gain this effect.
1) ‘PACE’ LINE= offers speed and an injection of emotion, intense or soft.
2) ‘COMMAND’ LINE = directs an order or a wish for a special action, strong or soft.
3) ‘DRUM ROLL’ LINE = creates that special rhythm in answer or in influence to the line before.
As far as I could surmise, these three aspects occur within the 10 line stanzas.

These are fundamental to the ”Tambour” and without using them it is nearly impossible to create it.
The basic form has three different stanza types. The first has ten long lines containing in-line rhyming on most (but not all) lines, and aabb end-line rhyming , followed by short rhyming couplets, until the last stanza, which has 4 lines that echo the earlier couplets.
Pace lines and the short syllable (Command lines) break up the rhythm of your base, or normal, lines .. followed directly by a long syllable ( Drum roll line) in answer to it or influenced by it. Without these , the Tambour would not be a Tambour.

The PACE lines throughout the poem are very important, because not only do they offer a break of rhythm, but what they contain or what they say are equally as important as syllables and rhythms they make.

There is no fixed meter, just the drum beats and rolls.
So here is an attempt at one. I hope I got it right.

This picture is from Yahoo images.


Synergy of Poetry and Verse. Author, Poet, Photographer

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