I met an alien today,
Insect-organic, viscous-metallic,
Whose discourse, in a digital way,
Proposed that humanity,
Was doing OK,
And very few cerebral species,
Scattered amongst the silent stars,
Where time ends and nothing begins,
Have mastered the art of being.
“Out there,
Held in their own death grip,
Terrified into a radical solution,
An internal revolution,
A self-inflicted evolution,
Moon dancers have drifted away,
Have all gone,
That a few lost minds might stay.
“You on the other hand, raving,
Are only half mad,
With orange hair and dirty habits,
A running imbalance of gritty aggravation,
Eating the very rock of ingenuity,
Hurling yourself beyond the range of your own imprecations,
Standing in awe at the revelation of the dawn sky,
Streaked with passion,
Lost in your own unfolding,
Layer beyond layer, a petal mouth yielding
To the sweetness of communion.”
My own particularity
(A monkey’s probing finger extracting the yoke from a broken egg)
Eyed this creature’s angles and projections and speculated on the profit of
the species interface,
Or might he take me back with him away from all this,
All this constraining
And weapon training
“Is that not wrong,
Is what you long for not
To be in song with an angel,
Shouting your exultation from a balcony of triumph,
To be in contemplation with stones and spring water,
Silent, on the brink of a story,
Every word poised with unanticipated tensile strength,
To be a conductor for the voltage of a grand passion,
To be a symphony of inspiration,
A mirror of the miraculous ?
“Not this,
Pieces of silver and a traitor’s kiss,
Not dark incantation,
But a more lofty orientation.
“Like a walk on the broad moor wake,
Well paced unless you stray,
Become mired in the cold mud,
Or caught by cracked thorn.”
I reflected that such paths are hard
(A goat climbing the boulder-strewn mountain-side)
While the broad downhill route is otherwise,
Full of fighting and conniving
And temptations of the flesh.
Oh, those sweet temptations of the flesh,
Soft-scented women, wine and forgetfulness.
“Humans,
Build on the work of your own wise men and women,
Be glad of the pillars and precepts,
You have been given.
“Know your own unique confusion
Is the happiest conclusion
Of my brief intrusion.”
It’s all true.
It all happened,
Exactly as I’ve told you.
