Carry On Tuesday asks us to continue with a famous first line but to create our own work.
This weeks' line was "Is there anybody there?" from Walter de la Mare's poem, The Listeners.
Is there anybody there?
Is there anybody there? we ask,
A question thrown out into the void.
The need to know if we are alone
Keeps astronomers well employed.
But the search for extra-terrestrial life,
While quite cute, is seriously misguided.
When the quest for intelligence here
On Earth is open and yet to be decided.
We have pointless wars, we fight, we bicker.
We thrive on quite irrational beliefs.
We have homeopathy, astrology and tarot cards,
We have religions that just magnify out grief.
We believe that we can keep polluting
This bottle garden we live in now,
And it will magically regenerate itself
But we are really not sure how.
The Universe is quite seriously large
With many fine stars they can visit.
Should there be intelligent life somewhere,
This isn’t sort of place they’d come,
Is it?
.
A question thrown out into the void.
The need to know if we are alone
Keeps astronomers well employed.
But the search for extra-terrestrial life,
While quite cute, is seriously misguided.
When the quest for intelligence here
On Earth is open and yet to be decided.
We have pointless wars, we fight, we bicker.
We thrive on quite irrational beliefs.
We have homeopathy, astrology and tarot cards,
We have religions that just magnify out grief.
We believe that we can keep polluting
This bottle garden we live in now,
And it will magically regenerate itself
But we are really not sure how.
The Universe is quite seriously large
With many fine stars they can visit.
Should there be intelligent life somewhere,
This isn’t sort of place they’d come,
Is it?
.
---
© 2012 J Cosmo Newbery
---
Print this post
Yes, I'm sure if I was from another planet and looking down on what was going on here, I'd be stunned xx
ReplyDeleteI think they are too smart to bother with us, if they're there in the first place.
ReplyDeleteYour limerick on Mad Kane was frickin' great.
ReplyDeleteExcellent poem. Great message, well delivered.
ReplyDeleteThis made me smile. Yes, surely this would not be the first planet those aliens would choose!
ReplyDeletebravo !
ReplyDeleteAnd we have only ourselves to blame. Excellent poem, and I love the rhyme in the last stanza.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting thought to pose in a poem ... yes we humans are a rather small-minded and puny lot when looked on from afar, but we each have the capacity for transcendence, and we love. How to explain that ??
ReplyDeletexxx
ps. Any blogger that uses 'frickin' in a comment is a blogger I want to know :) LOL
ReplyDeletexxx
Seen Prometheus movie?? Perhaps we don't want the 'unexpected' visit...? x
ReplyDeleteHardly a good place to come to for an interspace holiday!
ReplyDeletereally liked the whole idea..subtle comment on each one of us.. and a truth so nicely put! amazing work!
ReplyDeleteI like the scope and sly humour in this.
ReplyDelete