The Sunday Poem: “Fly Me To The Moon” by Chuck Sweetman

January 21st, 2024

The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.

Chuck Sweetman reads his poem at its conclusion.

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Fly Me to the Moon (Alternate Take)

Take tonight, for instance.
I can’t ask you for the moon
the way Sinatra commands it
with his first-class confidence.
Let alone Jupiter or Mars.

Sure, I still get my kicks
mooning about you.
And, of course, Frank’s
baritone—backed by big band
brass remains the perfect
soundtrack for the montages
of would-be kings of hills,
tops of heaps, and any
and all that jazz.

But just now I’m not up
for being spirited away,
weaving my royal flush ego
in and out of the stars
on an illusionary bender.

In other words, take me up
to the patio, our plastic all-weather
table for two, Russell Gunn’s
muted trumpet humming
from the outdoor speakers.
Let me know what life is like
in St. Louis on a breezy
Saturday evening with nothing
better to do.

Through the oaks we can toast
the man up there
on the crescent moon
in his tuxedo with his girl,
spinning a universe around
the sun of his colossal desire.

Listen to Chuck Sweetman read his poem

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Chuck Sweetman’s career in jazz lasted for six weeks of lessons on the sax, but jazz remains a key source of inspiration. He is senior editor for december magazine. His essays, stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in such places as Verse Daily, River Styx, Poet Lore, Black Warrior Review, and Notre Dame Review. His chapbook of poems, Incorporated, won the 2007 Dream Horse Press Chapbook Prize and was consolidated into the book Enterprise, Inc. (2008)

Rhonda R. Dorsett is a Portland, Oregon-based photographer, videographer, writer, and teacher who has worked in the visual world for over 40 years. Click here to visit her website.

Listen to the 1994 recording of trumpeter Russel Gunn playing “Fly Me to the Moon,” with John Hicks (piano); Sam Newsome (tenor saxophone); Peter Washington (bass); Cecil Brooks III (drums). [Savoy]