Uncle Sam is afraid of aliens,
\nwants to keep them out of his backyard
\nso he builds a great fence
\nas big and tall as his domestic fears
\nto stop their insidious invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last thing that Uncle Sam wants
\nis to see a steady stream of aliens
\nwalking down the Extraterrestrial Highway
\nto Dreamland, US.A.
\nin search of a better future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To prevent this
\nhe pours unspecified amounts of money
\ninto Black Ops programs
\nto keep the black ones out,
\nand the brown ones out,
\nand the yellow and red ones out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uncle Sam will not tolerate
\na bunch of UFO\u2019s
\nor, unidentified fleeing others
\npenetrating his airspace,
\nsea space, land space, or even outer space
\nin their quest to overrun him
\nand subjugate Americans
\nto their foreign agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No
\nnot under his watch,
\nnot while he can still hoist
\nthe red, white, and blue
\nover Fortress Free World
\nand salute her stars and stripes.
\nDamn the aliens!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And God bless Uncle Sam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we keep going like this
\nremaining on the same trajectory,
\nsooner, rather than later
\nwe\u2019ll hit rock bottom,
\nonly there will be no rock
\nno stone, no earth
\nno nothing beneath us,
\njust a disembodied memory
\nof the gravity of being,
\nof what it was like
\nto inhabit something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Glaciers calve,
\nforests burn,
\nthermometers keep on sweating;
\nthe planet pleads for
\na great turning,
\na metamorphosis of heart and mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a future without dreams,
\nfraught with uncertainty,
\nthere are no guarantees
\nthe sun will rise
\nfor succeeding generations,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or that the wind will remember
\nour song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Satisfied with his image
\nin a Grecian stream,
\nNarcissus left his reflection behind,
\ntaking with him only
\nhis vanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a Starbucks caf\u00e9 on College Street
\nhe sits down at a computer
\nand Googles his name,
\nnever once getting tired of himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, he discovers social media
\ngets hooked and
\nopens a Facebook account,
\nexpecting everyone to
\ninstantly like him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That night, he composed his first tweet
\nI\u2019m beautiful, therefore I am;
\nbuys a smartphone and takes a selfie
\nbefore posting it on Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If his ego doesn\u2019t give way
\nto exhaustion,
\nhe\u2019ll turn on a nightlight
\nstrike a pose
\nand by morning,
\nPin himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I once met an old man in a bar
\nsmoking a cheap, Cuban cigar
\nwith lips like a puffer fish
\nwho said to me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Son, don\u2019t concern yourself
\nwith the problems of the world,
\nfor they will weigh you down
\ninto a bottomless black hole
\nfrom which not even your imagination
\ncan escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We spoke for a while
\nand two Jack Daniels later,
\nhe flashed a greasy grin
\nand coughed up this advice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you want to truly understand
\nthe crux of the matter,
\ndon\u2019t waste your time
\nwith Newtonian laws
\nor Einstein\u2019s physics;
\njust ask any middle aged woman
\nand she will tell you
\nin a sinking tone
\nthat nothing makes her confidence sag
\nquite like
\ng
\nr
\na
\nv
\ni
\nt
\ny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alien Invasion Uncle Sam is afraid of aliens, wants to keep them out of his backyard so he builds a great fence as big and tall as his domestic fears to stop their insidious invasion. The last thing that Uncle Sam wants is to see a steady stream of aliens walking down the Extraterrestrial Highway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4994"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5534,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4994\/revisions\/5534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}