“I Want To Feel All There Is To Feel, He Thought. Let Me Feel Tired, Now, Let Me Feel Tired. I Mustn’t

*Originally published under the title "The World the Children Made"

Happy 100th birthday, Ray Bradbury (b. 22 August 1920) 

                                            Thrown out of Eden                                       Now we headlong humans                                          Sinners sinned against                                                      Return.                                      Tossed from the central sun                                  We with our own concentric fires                                                 Blaze and burn.                                      Once at the hub of wakening                                               And vast starwheel,                              For centuries long-lost, and made to feel                                       Unwanted, orphaned, mindless,                                    Driven forth to grassless gardens,                                             Dead and desert sea,                          We were shut out by comet grooms like Kepler                                                   Galileo Galilei                                Whose short-sight probing light-years                                                  Upped and said:                                               The Hub’s not here!                                      So shot man through the head                         And worse, each starblind prophet killed a part,                                           Snugged shut our souls,                                          Chopped short our reach,                                         Entombed our living heart.                                    But now we bastard sons of time                                         Pronounce ourselves anew                                        And strike fire-hammer blows                          To change tomorrow’s clime, its meteor snows.                                         Our rocket selfhood grows                            To give dull facts a shake, break data down                       To climb the Empire State and thundercry the town                                         But more! reach up and strike                                             And claim from Heaven                                    The Garden we were shunted from,                                               For now, space-driven                                            We fit, fix, force and fuse,                                            Re-hub the systems vast                                                 Respoke starwheel                                             And at the spiraled core                                             Plant foot, full fire-shod                                               And thus saints feel                                          Our yeast like flesh of God.                                         We march back to Olympus,                                      Our plain-bread flesh burns gold!                                        We clothe ourselves in flame                                         And trade new myths for old.                                         The Greek gods christen us                                        With ghosts of comet swords;                                       God smiles and names us thus:                                          "Arise! Run! Fly, my Lords!“

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We March Back To Olympus

Ray Bradbury  1920-2012

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Graphic - Daniel Maidman  (B.1975)

comic adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Fog Horn

Advert for the film version of Fahrenheit 451 on a tram at St. Stephen’s Boulevard, Budapest, 1969. From the Budapest municipal photography company archive.

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”  - Ray Bradbury

"The monster shrieked closer, half through the forest now, thrashing and plunging, crushing the wildflowers, frightening rabbits and clouds of birds that rose screaming to the stars."

- Ray Bradbury, Death Is a Lonely Business (1985)

Ray Bradbury, the lake

“So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.”

— Ray Bradbury, “Zen in the Art of Writing”

October Country by Ray Bradbury Cover by Joe Mugnaini