Title poem by BW Derge from "Mars Jazz" (2016) - a poem about Fermi's Paradox written in 2014
Mars Jazz
By the power of some storm
That rests in me tonight,
I will let the energy smoothly brew
And grow to tremendous depths-
What do you know of me?
As Fermi gently asked-
“Where are they?”
It must take some vanity
And it must take some balls
To look at the vastness of the universe
And then glance at life on Earth
And proclaim ’That is all.’
There must be someone out there
Even if we are the first to adapt
To the point of technological intelligence-
There must still be something out there
And there have been suppositions
About probes that guided evolution
And perhaps we are the aliens
Who traveled light-years
To our hospitable Earth
Just to forget we came from another star-
Look at that sun burn!
A good, common sun
Like a car engine,
It is common
But spectacular
In the way it lets us live-
Let us drive,
Sweet humanity,
Let us live.
There is some holy storm
Resting peacefully in me tonight
And I will let the energy stew
And I will calmly let this energy brew
Into a hurricane
Into insanity-
Love will reign
For nothing at all-
For no meaning at all-
This brain shoots electricity
In throughout this skull-
For nothing at all
For no meaning apparent
How dare we claim
We are the only species
In the universe with a brain
So affluent in memory and language
And music-
Can you imagine?
The jazz past Mars must truly be
A sound so great to behold-
What am I?
What be this rock I ride upon?
What magic lay before thee?
These are questions with no answers-
You could write an essay
Or you can write a book
But there won’t be enough space
To truly explain the magic of life-
Do we exaggerate the commonality
Of a mind that birthed sight?
Of a mind that birthed an eye?
What could it be?
Any resolution will please me
Except that stubborn reply-
“We are alone.”
No!
This will not do!
There must be something else
Out there-
Onward we stumble
Through addiction,
Through sleepiness,
Through insufficiency-
We stumble and crawl,
And endure suffering all-
For what?
For no reason at all?
Where are they?!
Fermi scolded the probability
Dancing wildly in his head-
Where the Fuck Are They?!
The aliens,
Are we so unique?
Or do we underestimate
The cold distances of space?
The universe is too vast
For us to be just nonesuch-
Just to be nonesuch-
A single rare thing
That will never exist again
For if this is the case…
We fucked up.
We became but a virus.
Nothing else.
Down with Earth,
Either way…
Down with my beautiful blue orb-
For one must sometimes question
If the Earth only appears a circle
Because of the pupil which views
Bears the same shape-
Is reality nothing more
Than the perception which receives it?
Is there truly nothing more?
Where are they?
Where are you?
If aliens are not out there
Then God isn’t, too-
Just to let you know.
We are alone
On a little rock
Circling a common sun
And we will kill ourselves
And then we’ll be done.
Victims of perception-
Victims of the fourth dimension-
We will fade into nothing.
No God.
No aliens.
Just a single anomaly
In cold dead space
Despite the probability-
Consciousness-
Consciousness-
The repetition of energy-
Throw in a little water
And devoid of urgency-
From where this life came
To land inside of thee-
And my consciousness-
Are we so rare?
Or is it that our understanding
Of the cosmos
Is grossly immature- ?
There must be something else
Who is out there-
Who is out there?
Where are they?
But even if they are there
And they rest but
A thousand light years away
A single radio message
Would take a thousand years
To travel the vacancy of space
Just to find its way
Into the ear of another life
So ever far away…
What is the point?
This life must go on-
Consciousness.
Consciousness-
Reproduction and endlessness
Like a Bracewell probe
Endlessly reproduce
Throughout the universe-
Onward we stumble-
Onward we go-
The cosmic dance of existence
Never seems to get old
As onward we go-
Into the cold…
Into cold dead space alone.
by BW Derge, written in 2014
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