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I go through major phases where I flirt with poetry. In the last few years, that’s mostly been expressed as haiku, a form I appear to be having a serious love affair with, but I’ve worked with all kinds of different forms and lengths.

A few years ago, I set out to compose an epic poem using the title of this post. It was going to be grand, sweeping, heroic, and tell a tale in iambic tetrameter. It began like so:

In late July, the summer breeze

Stirring gently through the trees,

Brings the scent of last bloomed rose

And grass crushed ‘tween unclad toes.

High above, in sky so blue,

Flash lights of some unearthly hue.

A silver disk, artist drawn,

Sets down softly on my lawn.

A greenish beam lights up my chair

Floats me gently through the air.

A window opens as a gate.

A voice requests I sit and wait.

Down below, a rumbled flush,

My insides feel they’ve turned to mush.

My lungs let loose a strangled cry,

Outside I see the moon pass by

Heart beats harder, breath unsteady,

Whatever comes, I am not ready.

I sit and wait, my mind ablaze

With thoughts I’ve reached the end of days.

When suddenly a door appears

So quick it costs my life ten years.

Into the room stepped three small guys

With bulbous heads and bulging eyes,

Holes for ears, pinpricks at best,

Heads no higher than my chest

Pale white skin, no scrap of hair

Long flowing robes with arms laid bare…

And there, for some reason, it left off. I set it down to do something – I don’t actually remember the specific day I started writing this, only that it was a day off – and when I came back to it, the inspiration was gone. All I remember for certain is that the objective was to eventually use the quatrain:

Damn you, you interstellar toad!

I will resist your anal probe!”

“Now cut that out, you are quite silly.

The worst you’ll get? A quick Wet Willy.”

But I never got there and I’ll probably never get it back.

Be well, everyone.

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