To the Hyper-Englightened Aliens of a Certain Class of Science Fiction*

i have wandered your pristine wonderlands
and i have marveled at your innocence.
and i have stood with my various protagonists,
shuffling our feet like underpaid public defendants,
and tried to tell you why our kind
has created sticks that throw death
and explain the mystical properties
of those little green bits of paper.

but pardon me if i seem underawed,
but i have walked the gossamer bridges
of conscience and of law.
and i have bent my shoulders
and done my daily duty, day by day.
and i have whistled in the dark-
miracles that your heavenly utopia
will never glimpse nor guess.


*C'mon, you know the kind. Stranger In a Strange Land. Out of a Silent Planet. Heck, the horse-people of Gulliver's Travels.