All The Little People Are Aliens Now: Poems
(Constellation #2)
I’ll tell you what I see
from my station in the sky:
Way up here,
I can see that
all the little people
are aliens now.
The Abduction
It went quick,
like heat lightning.
It was softer than I thought,
to be taken away
from the things
I had grown to know.
The abduction
changed the way of it
for all of us.
The abduction
had us all
going mad as
spaceships,
mad as flight.
The abduction
changed the shape
of the earth
in my brain.
The abduction
has us all so
afraid of the night.
You Are Not The Only Life (Or Are You?)
You are driving down an endless road
in a teeny, tiny highway town.
It feels like you might be
the only thing here not dead.
The only radio station in range
plays jazz, but you don’t much mind;
it’s music full of life.
You drive and try to imagine
that behind the walls
of the little brown houses,
on the other side of the domino doors,
there is life and candlelight,
and women in long dresses,
and incense burning,
and someone making pasta,
feeling steam on their face.
And under the rickety roofs
there is singing and storytelling,
and teenagers in bedrooms,
and spices in cabinets,
and cats sleeping on refrigerators,
and someone planning someone else’s birthday.
If you look close enough,
you can almost see the windows
flickering with television light.
If you listen near enough
you can hear humming,
rocking on a porch,
a mother calling dinnertime.
It’s all in your head,
but it’s better than
the dead feeling
of a night, unimagined.
Sometimes, is it all imagined?
You drive the endless road
all the way to the end,
and your car radio,
desperately hangs to it’s signal.
Speaking of Stars
Speaking of stars,
(because when are we not
speaking of them?)
I made a mad wish the other night
that I would become one of them
or nothing at all,
and when I looked down at my palms,
the creases in them were glowing,
and when I looked all around
I saw nothing but ink and gold,
and milky streaks of cosmic color.
And when I looked back
from where I came, I saw
my sneakers just dangling
there in wild space
and massive night.
The Strange of Life
The strange of life
is setting in now.
I had all but forgotten
this twist in my chest.
People from the past,
people who’ll know
the ghost of you
when you come back.
Coincidence and
dread in gut and
graves in real life and
seers on boardwalks.
This time, I’m going to
worship by the window.
This time, I’m going to
leave it up, wide,
for the wind.
This time,
I’m going to lay back
against the sill
and look up at
the tops of the trees.
This time, when it rains,
I’ll be the first who feels it fall,
so strangely, to the ground
and on the roof of the house.
If rain is strange,
I, too, am strange,
and if it is not, too,
I am strange for
how strange I find it.
The strange of life
is setting in again.
Oh, how I’ve missed
hearing things in the wind.
The Mystery
Think about all the parts
where life comes together.
It’s like this —
No matter how hard we
try not to be,
we are a community;
the farmers feed the scientists
so the scientists can report
back to them from the stars.
Think about the mystery,
you know which one.
The mystery is what makes us,
and if we ever find the answer,
I think we won’t last.
Imagine if we had no questions.
How would we know
the feeling of finding out?
If there is a God,
we can be sure
that this great investigation
is all for naught
until They finish with us
and the end of the world.
No, I don’t think
it will be fire
or ice,
I think
it will be
epiphany.
All The Little People Are Aliens Now
Careful, now, travelers;
it’s windy in the galaxy tonight,
and you might nearly blow away.
It’s well past the changing hour,
so watch out because
they’re calling for record gusts
out there in the cosmos.
There’s a bit of traffic
on Milky Way South but we’ll be here
all night to keep you company
on your trip back down.
For any folks missing the trees
I’ve queued up some songs
that might remind you
of branches and leaves.
I hope the stars are out
wherever you are floating this evening.
Hope you all find your way
to the ground soon.
Alright — just in case your view isn’t as good as mine,
I’ll tell you what I see from my station in the sky:
Way up here,
you can see that
all the little people
are aliens now.
All the little people
don’t remember how to
recognize themselves
in someone else, anymore.
All the little people look,
alone, to the sky.
I see them all down there
trying to remember
how to recognize themselves
in each other again.
If you are sitting down there
on your roof, waiting
to watch the great comet
go on by,
please hold tight
to caps and your knees.
Careful, now, travelers;
it’s windy in the galaxy tonight.
You might nearly blow away,
little alien.
I’m your eyes in the sky
and this is Galactic Public Radio,
here’s, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Home
You have been home all this time.
What is it you’re looking for?
I know you,
because I know myself.
I can tell when a person
is without.
I can see you
because you look like me a little,
under the fluorescents
and in the dust of the mirror.
I see your strange
and ask you dancing anyway.
We all look
a little the same in the night.
The shapes of our bodies
blur together, like light
But I know you,
and I’d know you anywhere,
right on sight.
I know you,
and see you,
and of course I know,
to you,
this never did feel like a home.
Sometimes, Is It All imagined?
I don’t know,
but I think that if,
sometimes, It is,
it only means that
you imagined up the sea,
you imagined up the space between the trees,
you imagined up the man on T.V.
and your mother,
and this poem,
and me.
Sometimes,
is it all imagined?
I don’t know,
I suppose it could be.
Thanks for Reading!
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