E.T.MAIL
We assumed it was the case
that in a place as big as space
we’d find some trace of other races
with our scientific bases.
When a signal was detected
it was not what we expected.
In the subject line it pleaded,
PLEASE REPLY–ASSISTENCE NEEDED
SALUTATIONS TO YOUR HEALTH.
PLEASE HELP ME TRANSFER ALL MY WEALTH
INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT ON EARTH–
ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS WORTH.
I NEED YOUR ANSWER RIGHT AWAY.
PLEASE SEND A LETTER BACK TODAY
(ALONG WITH FIFTY DOLLARS, PLEASE,
TO PAY THE MONEY TRANSFER FEES).
We gasped–a message from the stars!
And then another came from Mars:
NEED BIGGER, YELLOWER ANTENNAE?
HAVE TO FEW OR HAVE TOO MANY?
LOSS OF VIGOR? LOUSY SLEEPER?
OUR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE CHEAPER!!!
We were noticing a pattern,
when a bunch arrived from Saturn–
FANCY WATCHES! CLICK AND SEE!
and GET YOUR HYPERSCHOOL DEGREE.
At SINGLES IN YOUR SECTOR!!!
we disabled our detector.
Then we emptied out the cache
and dragged the letters to the trash.
So that’s the fact we had to face:
there’s no intelligence in space.
But that’s okay–for what it’s worth,
there isn’t much of it on Earth.
Copyright 2008 Adam Rex
From Frankenstein Takes the Cake
So I wrote this a few years ago, and always thought its natural habitat was the internet. Of course I control the rights to this poem–there's a copyright notice and everything following the verse. But I am curious to see if people like it enough to share it, and if so how long it takes before it's forwarded to me or someone I know. I also understand that all creative writing on the internet eventually gets attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, so we'll see how long that takes.
