This exercise we will write from a picture. The idea is to use our sensory language and draw inspiration from the image. The image is of the SLS rocket in the Vehicle Assembly Building being processed for the Artemis I mission.
There are no syllable counts. Maybe try keeping a rhyme scheme of:
X
A
X
A
X
B
X
B
The “X”s do not need to rhyme.
Twisted, spindly spires
The needle overtakes the steel haystack
Ammonia and oil moan
Warnings blare on repeated playback
Each bolt holds aspiration
Platforms sway and form constellations
Solids strapped to liquid core
Excited for the next stage of exploration
A single story building
Humanity with one story to tell
To stars hiding behind the moon
Fully loaded, finalizing farewells
She stands bravely, tall and stern
Her hair groomed a final time
Her shining head looks proudly up
To far beyond the sky
Check every inch of metal
Each calculation assured
Tighten every nut and bolt
So that every pane is secured
Each and every rivet
Is essential for this thing to drive
The ocean is made of droplets
Each bee is crucial to the hive
Golden towers of past lifes dream
Standing tall, beckoning awe
To go to places beyond this world
Beyond reality and more
Revered by some, feared by others
A product of parsons dreams
Pushing forever to the skies
but not buckling at its seams
both yours and @jamie are great! It’s a tough one to make a still picture of something so metal and lifeless come alive and spark imagination even using the tiniest things (the rivets and warning blares). Good job guys!
The personification works well. I like that it makes me think of a woman at a beauty parlor getting her hair done. That is a great allusion. The checking over for processing and securing and tightening of everything is also really cool sensory imagery and allows us to ease into the hardware after seeing it as a woman previously, while still hanging onto that beauty parlor type of mentality. The conclusion of everything working together toward becoming something bigger is a really nice way of bringing in the hope. Since space exploration is about hope, that really sums it up. Well done!
The first sentence is really neat. I am not sure how much you know about it, but the VAB was also used for Apollo and Space Shuttle missions. So the past life’s dream is a great way to start. The “feared by others” is also a great call to history since so much of space exploration technology came from war/missile heritage. I love the pushing to the skies and not buckling. That really calls to mind when the rocket hits Max Q and has to throttle down. Really well done!
And yes, I agree that trying to take a still picture and write from it is pretty tough. But it also allows us so much room for creation of sensory perception. The cool thing is to see where we all diverge and have different points of focus and exploration.
I know nothing about space travel or rockets hahaha, though I did listen to a podcast about Jack parsons hence the product of parsons dream
Jack Parsons was an interesting guy. He had a brilliant mind and some… unique… ideas 
Why did you delete? I came to try to review
i particularly didnt like it—but please do, i appreciate it:
the golden shaft glows in the afternoon dark
with parking garage fluorescent white
floors spiral like threads on a screw
cars like small ants crawling in the night
rocket thrusters huff and puff
the gold paint like dragon scales
the warmth when sat around a fire, humid as oceanside air
the burning fuel chars the pearly white, leaving a chem trail
sound barrier pops like high altitude in a plane
the fizzy ginger ale, the stewardess offers with a growling timbre
i swallow and the spit knot in my throat tightens
rumbling cabin like i feel the sonic breaking craft of amber
Your first three lines are really cool, great at building tension. The pulling in many directions (glow/dark/fluorescent, golden/white) is a really good way to build interest while capturing sensory language. The floors spiraling adds a neat contrast because we usually think of floors as flat, so this, too, creates a kind of off-balance to the reader. The fourth line is a little cliche, but definitely sticks the massive size of the rocket.
For the second stanza, nice visual and tactile imagery throughout, and the tension of dragon/burning->oceanside/warmth/pearly. Again, playing with that “dangerous” imagery and then going right into “cozy” words is a wonderful tool. Since you used gold in the stanza before, maybe consider using something different here. Also, I was not sure if you meant contrail at the last, or if you wanted to use chem-trail (implying something potentially sinister).
The third stanza captures the “in-motion” sense really well. The popping in the ears, the bubbles in the gingerale, the tightness in the throat, and the rumbling that you feel when loud noises occur. Really nice stuff. Those types of internal senses are difficult, but I think you did really well here.
