by Mark Pirie
higher to the warmer
mists where the mirror
77
beckoned where what
seemed to be love waited
with partly opened lips
where he disappeared
78
Fleur Adcock
from Gas
2
It was gas, we think.
Insects and reptiles survived it
and most of the birds;
also the larger mammals – grown
cattle, a few sheep,
horses, the landlord’s Alsatian
(I shall miss the cats)
and, in this village, about a
fi fth of the people.
It culled scientifi cally
within a fi xed range,
sparing the insignifi cant
and the chosen strong.
It let us sleep for fourteen hours
and wake, not caring
whether we woke or not, in a
soft antiseptic
silence. There was a faint odour
of furniture-wax.
We know now, of course, more or less
what happened, but then
it was rather puzzling: to wake
from a thick dark sleep
lying on the carpeted fl oor
in the saloon bar
of the Coach and Horses; to sense
others lying near,
very still; and nearest to me
this new second self.
79
5
It is the sixth day
now, and nothing much has happened.
Those of us who are
double (all the living ones) go
about our business.
The two Mrs Hudsons bake bread
in the pub kitchen
and contrive meals from what is left –
few shops are open.
The two Patricks serve in the bar
(Bill Hudson is dead).
I and my new sister stay here –
it seems easiest –
and help with the housework; sometimes
we go for walks, or
play darts or chess, fi nding ourselves
not as evenly
matched as we might have expected:
our capacity
is equal, but our moods vary.
These things occupy
the nights – none of us needs sleep now.
Only the dead sleep
laid out in all the beds upstairs.
They do not decay,
(some effect of the gas) and this
seemed a practical
and not irreverent means of
dealing with them. My
dead friend from London
and a housemaid from the hotel
lie in the bedroom
where we two go to change our clothes.
This evening when we
had done our hair before dinner
we combed and arranged
theirs too.
80
6
Saturday night in the bar; eight couples
fi ll it well enough: twin schoolteachers, two
of the young man from the garage, four girls
from the shop next door, some lads from the farms.
These woodenly try to chat up the girls,
but without heart. There is no sex now, when
each has his undeniable partner,
and no eyes or hands for any other.
Division, not union, is the way we
must reproduce now. Nor can one think with
desire or even curiosity
of one’s identical other. How lust
for what is utterly familiar?
How place an auto-erotic hand on
a thigh which matches one’s own? So we chat
about local events: the twin calves born,
it seems, on every farm; the corpse
in a well, and the water quite unspoiled;
the Post Offi ce reopened, but with no
telephone links to places further than
the next town – just as there are no programmes
on television or radio, and
the single newspaper that we have seen
(a local one) contained only poems.
No one cares much for communication
outside this circle. I am forgetting
my work in London, my old concerns (we
laugh about the unpaid rent, the offi ce
unmanned, the overdue library books).
They did a good job, whoever they were.
81
8
This is becoming ridiculous:
the gas visits us regularly,
dealing out death or duplication.
I am eight people now – and four dead
(these propped up against the trees in the
gardens, by the gravel walk). We eight
have inherited the pub, and shall,
if we continue to display our
qualities of durability,
inherit the village, God help us.
I see my image everywhere –
feeding the hens, hoeing the spinach,
peeling the potatoes, devising
a clever dish with cabbage and eggs.
I am responsible with and for
all. If B (we go by letters now)
forgets to light the fi re, I likewise
have forgotten. If C breaks a cup
we all broke it. I am eight people,
a kind of octopus or spider,
and I cannot say it pleases me.
Sitting through our long sleepless nights, we
no longer play chess or poker (eight
identical hands, in which only
the cards are different). Now, instead,
we plan our death. Not quite suicide,
but a childish game: when the gas comes
(we can predict the time within a
margin of two days) we shall take care
to be in dangerous places. I can
see us all, wading in the river
for hours, taking long baths, fi nding
ladders and climbing to paint windows
on the third storey. It will be fun –
something, at last, to entertain us.
82
9
Winter. The village is silent –
no lights in the windows, and
a corpse in every snowdrift.
The electricity failed
months ago. We have chopped down half
the orchard for fi rewood,
and live on the apples we picked
in autumn. (That was a fi ne
harvest-day: three of us fell down
from high trees when the gas came.)
One way and another, in fact,
we are reduced now to two –
it can never be one alone,
for the survivor always
wakes with a twin.
We have great hopes
of the snow. At this moment
she is standing outside in it
like Socrates. We work shifts,
two hours each. But this evening
when gas-time will be closer
we are going to take blankets
and make up beds in the snow –
as if we were still capable
of sleep. And indeed, it may
come to us there: our only sleep.
83
10
Come, gentle gas
I lie and look at the night.
The stars look normal enough –
it has nothing to do with them –
and no new satellite
or comet has shown itself.
There is nothing up there to blame.
Come from wherever
She is quiet by my side.
I cannot see her breath
in the frost-purifi ed air.
if so natural a death
were possible now, here.
Come with what death there is
You have killed almost a score
of the bodies you made
from my basic design.
I offer you two more.
Let the mould be destroyed:
it is no longer mine.
Come, then, secret scented double-dealing gas.
We are cold: come and warm us.
We are tired: come and lull us.
Complete us.
Come. Please.
84
ET
Vivienne Plumb
Signs of Activity
Prepare for contact. The Alien Abduction Survival Guide advises us to watch for elliptical, fuselage, or ovoid-shaped craft. Or watch out for little people. They could be pale blue in colour, gold, bright purple or even red with yellow wig-like hair.
Betty W. described being abducted while under regression therapy.
Millions of people have had encounters with alien beings without realising it. Have you ever woken with a start? Have you any strange scars in the roof of your mouth or behind your ears?
One night we thought we heard a UFO take off outside. Larry was in bed. So I told Larry to get up quick and take a good look.
But he wouldn’t. I said to Larry, it’s a sad day when we miss meeting the aliens because you couldn’t be bothered getting out of bed.
87
Michael Morrissey
UFOs in Autumn
Among fi xed stars one moving
rather than shooting it appears to knock
against other pinboard lights
a clever Japanese game that two
can play I push/you pull
& the Galaxy lights up
but Herr Einstein is frowning
no celestial dice for Albert
no miracles of rare device
it’s the hidden technology of sunsets
the UFO we’ve been
sciencefi ctionally prepared for
how cheekily you dance
– as though clipped from an angel’s wing
you were swimming in heaven’s light
space invader you win the world
tonight I grant you sovereignty
over space ship earth
no weightier than a shadow
you’ll land at my feet
the beautiful pilot speaking the language
of my choice
a mind to mind affair
favourably affecting my IQ
88
but you fl y on overhead
like a brave thought-balloon
cut loose from the comic book brain
of its maker
89
Andrew Fagan
A Spaceship Has Landed Near Nuhaka
A magnifi cent cheese
Inviting fi eld mice to nibble
In unsuspecting ignorance
A new breed roam the land
New faces for afternoon tea,
Best biscuits, best crockery
A chance to wear that dress from Gisborne
Tea stained pamphlets on the toilet fl oor
Bewilderment
A space ship has landed near Nuhaka
90
Dana Bryce
Dreams of Alien Love
I hope when I reach out
this time, I will feel a different skin.
Not coarse like the dark boy of yesterday or
pale and blue-veined fragile of the girl of last week,
but truly different.
A slow oozing of foreign musk,
a slickness from an organ with no terrestrial name,
a feeling of warmth that might kill a human lover.
Oh, I will take my chance with you,
for a new touch, a new taste of skin
acid, or sweet like primrose. To touch you
behind the third knee, under something I cannot see,
to clasp you as you die.
(I pray for beauty, but even if you
be like Caliban, I will love you)
To show you a human body,
to teach you to retract your claws like a loving cat;
I wait for you to whisper words with no meaning,
with a tongue I cannot hear.
91
Tracie McBride
Contact
Once,
the idea of sex with aliens
might have appealed.
But,
having encountered
your loathsome race,
I am cured
of my deviancy.
You,
with your putrid salty stench,
your pore-pitted skin
oozing at the mere
mention of heat.
You,
with appendages
upon appendages
dangling from your
spongy carapace.
You,
with your tiny globular eyes,
your chaotic, misfi ring brain,
and that blind pink parasite
squirming inside your mouth.
It’s enough to turn
all three
of my stomachs.
92
Cliff Fell
In Truth or Consequences
Police car sirens howling in the night –
I came down from the mountains to the big river
past rundown shacks and alleyways
to the Riverbed Hot Springs Trailer Camp
and into UFO country –
on a terrace of moonlit pools
Old Spirit Walking pulled me aside
claiming he was a spook in ‘Nam
with high security clearance – Ultra 5…
Yuh goin’ to Roswell? –
Needless to say he knew it all
Everything seeded by the Roswell machine –
fi bre optics silicon chip the Pezio effect
his fi ngertips gripped tighter on my arm
eyelids blinking as in a trance
It’s all at Wright Paterson, man, Ohio
There’s a clean area
A hangar where everything ET goes
Yuh seen them Piggly Wiggly trucks on I-40?
Delivering stuff to 51
Onto 99 at Loughlin, or King City, man
And the dirt road from there –
That’s all I can say
But you’re from down Australia way, man – so you should know
There’s an Area 42 there
93
the moon made a halo of his head
the river shone like a long white bone
and Old Turtle Mountain showed in silhouette
– where Billy the Kid holed up for days
out on the edge of Dead Man’s Journey –
a coyote yipped in the cold river wind
a muskrat went splashing through the reeds
his wife like a shadow appeared at his side
to lead him slowly away
94
Nelson Wattie
The Art of Translation
In a language spoken
On another planet
Interweaving
A distant double star
Far, far from here,
A beautiful poet wrote
Of a hairy, determined fl ower
Yearning out
From a deep crevasse
Towards the purple light.
Its desperation was overcome,
At least in part,
By its spirit,
And differently by the cold
Sand and burning
Light that tortured
Its twisted body.
When I came to translate
The beautiful poet’s distant verse
Into my local Chinese,
So grounded on continent and village,
I sang, stilly and fi nely,
Of a wounded ox
Pulling my overfi lled cart
Slowly, painfully,
Through a clogging
Mud-baked fi eld
To save the children I love
From pitiful starvation.
95
Phil Kawana
This machine kills aliens
I kill aliens
from the safety of my
capsule
They explode in bloodless
supernova
While I sit in safety
at my little console
Self-contained
Self-confi dent
and self-appointed
Guardian of The Sky
Lion of Terra
The Silent Death
History’s fi rst
Ergonomic Samurai
From humble beginnings
I have arisen
Like a fi ery phoenix…
From mild-mannered clerk
to the Upholder of Truth
Justice
and longer coffee breaks
(all to enable more
killing of aliens, of course)
96
But beware,
for the aliens are coming
they may be among us
RIGHT NOW!
Posing as one of us
Trying to be part of the group
I will not shirk my sworn duty
I shall not rest (any more than is necessary)
For I kill aliens
Remember,
Watch the skies…
97
Michael Morrissey
Are the Andromedans Like Us
or are they ghostly as nebulae
at the bottom of a banana milkshake
do the Andromedans go to church on sunday
mow their lawns on saturday
go on crash diets
do the Andromedans
open accounts on cosmic credit cards
which their inadequate Andromedan assets
cannot possibly cope with
are the Andromedans
strange undulations through methane seas
do Andromedan poets stare up at the sky
and wonder
if we are a thought in the mind
of the Milky Way
do the Andromedans copulate for thousands of years
in order to produce intergalactic twins
who cannot utter a single word
do millions of Andromedans have to hold hands
or other organs
to make a single Andromedan child
are the Andromedans closer to God
are they fi rsting the cosmic race
to make their own universe
I don’t know
God doesn’t know
and neither do the Andromedans
98
Mark Pirie
Dan and His Amazing Cat
Hi, I don’t really know how to go about this
but I have an idea for a poem
that you might like to consider.
