Ufo Songs (alien Hymns)

UFO Songs (Alien Hymns)

The Leaf-Keyed Craft

Forest columns Spray the sky With rattling canopies That make the leaf-rings echo In the heat bubbles Of the air. The leaf-keyed rings Hover overhead. The oak spray Never reaches them, But fountains endlessly As the forest stands. The golden rings, Blurred with haze, Slowly move Toward the hills To land.

The Hare

Owl snowballs, In search of a limping hare, Orbited a frozen hill, But the hare crept inside the hill And died from its woundsOrbiting white angels Took its spirit To a tranquil glen Where, instead of hawks and wolves, Puppies chased it about; Where bees tended its garden And cherubs kept its home: But the hare never noticed, It wept alone.

The Silver Sphere

Silver sand stretched endlessly, Enough to make a sphere With a one mile radius When piled up and melted down. Magma-air rose endlessly From the scalding sands, Enough to buoy the sphere And float it around the earth. Fireflies glimmered endlessly Enough to be the lamps Of an elfin city Shadowed by the passing sphere. Oceans glowed beneath the sphereBeguiled fish in procession Followed the slow radiance Until it reached the shore. Then billowing woodland tracts Tinted the silver sphere With an autumn flourish While the sun blushed it red.

Snow Capped Mountains

Oh, Snow-Capped Mountain, From the earth’s snapped foundation; Spear, hurled by the warrior In the world’s core Through the air-earth And into the breast of the sky! Resume your trajectory So that I may mount you and fly.

The Concealed Dearth

The circling scout craft Drop suddenly When they see A rare minkSnagging it in Talons And dragging it off And away, Over wavy hills And mysterious bogs To a speckled glen With a concealed dearth. They drop suddenly again, Unclasp their talons And release the mink To inhabit the glen.

Stellar Warrior

To my left, suspended droplets, To my right, orbiting pebblesTranslucent stillness And tumbling gravel. Yes my bow is strong And my rings are true, With their spectral ribbons And mineral hue. I fire my bow And toss my ringsThe mist chants And Saturn sings. The rings fly With such gyrations. The bow quivers In every striation.

The Two Hills

Weathered hill, You half-buried snowball dyed green, The frosted orb twirling above Waits for you. Glacier-gouged hill, You half-buried emerald, The diamond twirling above Courts you. Weathered hill, You frosted bulb tinted green, Who only glows When the sun filters through mist, Join the ball of frost spinning overhead. And glacier-gouged hill, You once half-buried diamond, But now emerald Because of a garden’s tint, Join the beam-needled diamond whirring overhead.

Brown Flecks

Brown flecks Are organized by the wind Around the new devices: They are man’s flecks, And they each, a small bit, Channel the immense force Of the ruling hands That spin odd gestures and designs To drive the immense, energetic wind.

Shifting Games

A blue slab, A yellow ball And a cloud Play shifting games overhead Turning fields from stadiums to tombs When the cloud covers the ball Turning despair to hope When the slab absorbs the cloud The slab darkens at night The ball bounces over each day But the fractal cloud ensures That nothing will be the same.

Fairy Spaceflight

Gallop, gallop, gallop straight across the land As level as an arrow, flatter than the sand; Then climb, climb, climb straight up the corded height, Into the silver sphere that journeys in the night; Then arc, arc, arc around the misty earth To intercept a queen and settle on her girth; Then canter ever-canter across the gleaming moon A strong horse beneath, behind the frigid gloom While far below the pixies await your coming backWaiting for the planets to launch you with a whack, To sail sail sail back to the world below, And after a gentle landing, to kiss the elfin meadow.

The White Mug

The white mug flew Off the table And fell Into the heavenly Flecks of the floor, Sharding the sky With fragmented flowers, Orb-shell splinters, And modern sculptures.

The Plum Tree

A plum tree dashes to 10,000 feet And flashes its fruit like a UFO, Like antiaircraft flak, Like bubbles popping, Then returns. A tulip flits to 10,000 feet And fans its petals like a peacock, Spins like a pinwheel, Then returns. The cherry blossom flits to 25,000 feet, Spark-showers its petals, Spins like a motor, Then returns. Each tree takes a trip, Each shines queerly, Each returns. Each creature finds a perch And follows closely The trees as they burn.

Ticking

A fat guy And pillow stuffed stud Must look for a bomb planted To blow the city up. A flying go-cart they need And the Empire State Lance To smote at a rushing spaceship Faster than a glance.

Paul Roe