The poets I read are really aliens
reporting from distant worlds
all they see through bulbous eyes:
beachheads by lakes of fire
while overhead the sky ignites
with the light of twin moons rising
oceans of liquid methane
churned by the tidal pull
from ring-wound gas giants
gravity lenses that bend light
and draw a heart’s beat
to the span of a frozen lifetime
creatures with skin of silicon
who feed on sand and scuttle
over ancient beds of lava rock
Manhattan-sized filament beings
who dance on solar winds, mating
in the starlit lea of pale moons
crater-dwelling sauropods
whose songs pierce the vacuum
and enchant distant worlds
bog-stricken empaths who suckle
from the anus and nightly evacuate
their young as they drift into sleep.
These are the memoranda of poets
lost to the kitchen-table scratchings
and keyboard peckings – tap, tap tap –
of duller souls like yours and mine.
Of this simpler world, what deserves
their notice? Dishwashers?
Mugs ranged on the shelf? A radio
blaring from the other room? A baby
squawking? Fan at the open window?
Stray kibbles in the dog dish?
Soiled laundry heaped on the landing?
The poets I read are really aliens.