Eumolpus
Eumolpus
Jul 08, 2019

First Contact

We dream of flying saucers
with grand sci-fi hyperboles
of take me to your leader
Or humanity is good to eat.

Somewhere a planet orbits a star
where the gene pool went berserk,
but that speck is absurdly far, far
away, a grain of dust in the dirt.

What could come of this reunion?
Time will always be a mystery
in the solitude of imagination-
But let Voyager cruise the galaxies

where purple-headed aliens
find the rock ‘n roll outrageous
and cross the infinite subterranean
to greet us in Las Vegas.

Perhaps they’ll cure us of savagery
or rid the world of fleas,
while we offer them a bible
and some good cheap wine
to praise our bearded God divine.

About This Poem

Last Few Words: On the lighter side. The poem was prompted by an article that revealed that the brightest lights seen on the Earth at night from space are in Las Vegas, notably the Luxor Hotel, with it's glass pyramid and halogen light. So if "they" come , that's where they will land. In such a case they'll probably look around and go home! What a place to meet humanity! Voyager 1 and 2 are satellites launched in 1977 which have now reached interstellar space. They contain thousands of hours of recorded music and sounds, ending with Chuck Berry. So the common cartoon of 3 headed aliens sending back a message- "send more Rock and Roll!". The bearded God? well we believe god created man in his image.... As much as I may want to believe that life MUST exist somewhere, between the distances of space and the aspect of the brief time life has existed on earth, (and will continue to exist) makes the possibility of contact incalculably small- like one in a trillion trillion.

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Country/Region: Washington DC

Favorite Poets: D.Thomas

More from this author

Comments

Race_9togo

Good cadence and subject matter, it fairly flows along.
Just one point...
They wouldn't land IN Las Vegas,
They would land an asteroid ON Las Vegas!
:)

Geezer

the cadence isn't so good. Work on the 2nd verse, and the last. I don't see the lines as working smoothly. I would get rid of the line about offering Bibles or make the line work better with the wine. I agree that if aliens were to come here, they would consider us crazy enough to quarantine the Earth and make it a no-fly zone! ~ Geezer.
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Eumolpus

and agree about the second stanza, just one word can set it off. In the last stanza I followed the suggestion in the chapter "Metrical Variations" in the classic study by Paul Fussell, "Poetic Meter &
Poetic Form". Here the author sites the success of breaking the meter, or even to introduce a non rhyme line in a rhymed stanza can change the tension and accent the effect. I used my instinct that that was the right move here.

Geezer

If the objective is to get some attention for that stanza; it did the trick. ~ Geezer.
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