[stylist] Poem -

[William L Houts]

HI Bards and Poets,

Been away for some time, I guess.  Finally surfacing after solving some 
unusual access problems.  Anyway, hope all here are well and productive, 
assuming you want to be.

As for me, the past few months have been extremely productive. Below is 
one of my favorites.  It's gone through some revision since I wrote it 
this summer, and I think this is the vest version so far.  Also, my work 
over the summer has, by design, been aimed at being somewhat less 
"literary" in my approach. Comments welcome, as always.


--Bill




---

  


*Alien*

In the dream, I stood at an

uncountable remove, in some canyon

of red and earthlike rock.

Before me, at twelve unblurred feet

were a couple.They were

not remotely human, and yet

I sensed their minds or something deeper.

they'd neither hands nor heads, and the female

in her had a kind of hollow

into which her mate would go, a pen or roost.

They were boxlike, somehow, with short fur.

And here's the great reveal:

they knew I was there, and didn't mind.

They were peaceful and decent in the most ordinary way:

not saints, yetsacred, earnest folk,

bearing gravity's grip without complaint.

I might go or remain, they seemed to say,

and all would be well. They were light years

away, I think, and suppose they were real enough,

convincing as thunder or suns.

How could you know such things, you say.Poetry's fine,

but we dwell on a rock among rocks

in the black unhomely cold.

Yet maybe the cosmos dreams us to each other

I venture, across the stellar gulfs

that we might abide for dreaming seconds

in the presence of friends both strange

and utterly dear; neighbors or kin like us:

adrift on rocklike rafts in a dark and motherlike sea.


WLH
8/14