Saucerer

I was walking warmly, happily on an orange-purple-sky evening,

With the low sun looking through clouds hauntingly like an incredible, reddish saucer.

Speaking of saucer, or rather thinking, for I was thinking at the time

That the sun was reddishly sinking, when another type of saucer landed

In the field on my right.

Somehow nobody else noticed, though it was all in plain sight.

And of course, you know, I did not remember any of this like it was real,

Though I know it was real because of the way that I see it.

It came back to me like it had been a dream,

After I was hypnotized and philosophized in Scream,

Long after I had reported it all to the police and the Air Force

And people who pay attention to these things.

I said that I had been invited in -- the saucer, that is --

By a very friendly purple-gray, pencil-thin person

Of both or neither sex.

I remember thinking he (she, it) looked as

Though he-she-it had not eaten for months.

But, gently patting me on the head,

It guided me into the ship.

And in a second we were over Africa, then Asia.

Over the moon, over Jupiter, over the galaxy.

Momentarily, he-she-it chatted to me in a

Cozy, gossipy, neighborly sort of way

-- As though it were just another day --

Pointing out cheerfully the successes

And failures of the universe.

"This species is good; that one, perverse.

This one goes forward; that one, reverse."

And on and on he (she, it) went checking off numerous numberless

Cumberless, wonderlust planets, as though I were a visiting a cousin

Being shown around town.

Every planet it tended to talk on evidently had water to walk on.

And suddenly I was let down.

Right back there (or here) on earth, right back where I had started

On that same road next to the same field,

Looking at the same sun so incredibly reddish.

(I thought I had had the radish.)

Of course, no one believed me.

Then when I was hypnotized a second time,

They told me (later) that I said I had spoken to that purple-gray

Pencil tour guide and asked him (her, it)

Why they (the failures) failed.

And he (she, it) answered ( I dream or hypno-recalled):

"Because they do not understand."

"But that is not their fault!" I said.

"Of course not," the purple pencil smiled,

"And it is not our fault either. Everyone gets a warning."

It was then that the ship suddenly slipped back to earth.

I got thorped out onto the ground like a cherry pit spat.

Imagine that.

Then it rose in a sensuous hush, in a shimmery, wavery rush.

While I was torn between gladness and mourning,

It whispered again, "Everyone gets a warning."