FIRE IN THE SKY
By:
October 6, 2025
A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.
You exaggerate, saying how beautiful life is,
Like a blossom newly picked from a branch.
On it there gallops your spiritual and
imaginative light
That paints one dream after another
dream.
Perhaps you, it may be said, simply don’t
understand:
Dark clouds note the pent-up feelings in
the sky.
Listlessly the schools of dragonflies fly.
What kind of omen does that portend?
A young girl cannot sell enough for a meal,
As human flesh and pork both come into
the market.
These facts are truly shocking, and fresh,
Yet you only cover your eyes and say you
saw nothing.
I know that you are familiar with
everything,
And of what you pretend to be unaware.
You place one hand over the facts, and say
To the others, “There is nothing at all.”
When people get a bit restless
You behead them, labeling them criminals.
Everybody sees what this means; clearly
You wish to force a spark out of dead
ashes.
But when that time arrives you’ll have to
die,
The world already is no longer yours.
At that time flames will burn bright on the
plain,
And you surely will exclaim, “Such strange
fires in the sky!”
— 1932, in The Brand. Found in translation in Twentieth Century Chinese poetry: An Anthology (1963), by Kai-yu Hsu (translator and editor).
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.