From: Phil Trieb
Date: November 1998 

ASTRONOMIC FAILURES, or . . .
IT'S ALL IN THE STARS

An astronomer I could have been
But it wasn't in the deck
Of cards that fate has played for me
My dreams were left a wreck

For I have always loved the night
And all the sights to see
But whenever something great came by
It rarely came to me

Mostly clouds got in the way
But sometimes city lights
These the things that kept me from
Wondrous celestial sights

It began in 1965
With a comet Japanese
Ikeya-Seki was the name
It never showed to please

Was it clouds or city lights
I simply can't recall
But a budding sky watching career
Did start on its downfall

Kohoutek, oh, was that a dud!
Way back in '73
The first comet of which the hype
Was far too much for me

The only thing that I had seen
Was not up in the sky
But on the T-shirts sold with it
The prices horrify

But the biggest of the biggest duds
As far as I'm concerned
Was Halley's back in '86
Its merits never earned

I froze myself in futile search
Throughout the wintry sky
Halley's, Halley's how to say?
While hope on that one died

Hale-Bopp it did deliver
And Comet Bennett, too
But those are all in a long list
Which I would think too few

Hale-Bopp's not planned to come again
For 40 cent'ries yet
I do not plan to be around
So on it I'll not fret

But meteor showers are regular
Like clockwork they appear
And sometimes they get bigger
And then get small, for years

The Leonids are famous,
For a phenom'nal show
In '66 I saw a few
Though 'twas almost a no-go

As I had waited up that night
For overcast quite thick
To clear up and reveal the sky
It didn't, I was sick.

And so I crawled into my bed
With sad heart in my throat
Until my dad, in dawning light
Cried:  "Up, and grab your coat!"

And so I did, though nearly dawn
The sky was getting light
But there, through clouds a'breaking
Was a heart-grabbing sight

The meteors they fell like rain
Some splitting once, then twice
That is something I've not seen
Before or since, in life

But that display was too short-lived
With daylight soon too strong
But still it seems like yesterday
Where memories belong

And now in 1998
Those Leonids came back
But on the nights they were to shine
The sky was a dark sack

No stars, no moon, no meteors
Could cut through that deep gloom
And though I checked quite often
I moped inside a room

And within my experience
Such disappointments rule
An astronomer I ne'er became
Just a stargazing fool.