To Infinity And Preston, a poem by Andy Bates at Spillwords.com

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To Infinity And Preston

Andy Bates·November 6, 2025

Poetry English

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To Infinity And Preston

written by: Andy Bates

Out of inky black silence, trouble flares
Signalled by blinking bulbs and beeps
A growing – creeping – sense of doom
Wakes them from their floating sleep

With the situation looking solemn
Shaking fingers scramble for comms
“Houston we’ve had a problem”
But only silence – no response

They plummet and pierce the stratosphere
Tearing through tarnished clouds
One cries – one screams – one’s fighting
As the windows fill with the ground

The captain breaks the bonds of fate
Exceeding the limits of his profession
But things have gone from bad to worse
He’s landed it in Preston

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

The writer harbours great respect for the people of Preston, who continue to go about their lives with quiet dignity, despite everything.

About
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Andy Bates

Andy Bates is a Warrington based poet writing grounded, character-driven poems with dark humour, working-class grit and sharp observational storytelling. His work explores everyday absurdity, emotional dead ends and the chaos of ordinary lives gone slightly sideways. He believes poetry should be accessible, honest and occasionally inappropriate.

Jim Bartlett

After a long career tinkering in telecommunications, Jim Bartlett switched to tinkering with writing fiction, both requiring a stretch of the imagination. In the course of putting his fingers to the keyboard, he's been fortunate to have quite a number of his stories featured both in print and online in several wonderful publications, including a story selected for "The Best of Fiction on the Web, 1996 – 2017" anthology. While mentally he strolls along a warm California beach with his wife and golden retriever (shhh, she doesn't know she's a dog), physically they reside on a special little island in the Pacific Northwest.

Reaper by Sharon Frame Gay

As an orphaned son of an orphan, I always see the glass as half empty. I picture the water murky and lukewarm, a waterline etched below the rim. Maybe with an ash or two floating at the bottom, because that’s what I do for a living. I deal with ashes. The remains of the deceased. No matter how those who pass away see their glass, meager or full, they eventually end up in a satchel carried on my shoulder.
My business card reads “Morton Stark Transport.” I’m called upon to disperse the ashes of the dearly departed and honor their final wishes. People hire me to escort the remains throughout the world ...

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