Poem: January 12, 2026

Allegory of the Cave

You open the door, and an alien

is standing there, probably backlit, 

as those guys usually are– big head,

long, pointy fingers. The kind

of eyes that reveal worlds.

And because this is an alien and, 

presumably, technologically advanced,

he can speak to you in your own language.

And he says, You’ve got it all wrong.

What you think is real– your bathrobe

and your cup of coffee, the bare

limbs of the sugar maple in winter,

the warm waves of the space heater,

even the alien in your doorway, are

a misconception, a miscommunication of

your senses and the particular, meaty

circumstances of life on planet Earth.

But fortunately for you, the alien is here

to fix that for you, to lift you upward

(in a manner of speaking) into his awaiting

transdimensional, cerebral habitat,

for which you have no prior conception,

so that you can know what really is,

so that you can be rid of all this human

foolishness, so that you can rip away

all of the filters that limit you to

oatmeal and bicycles and Argyle socks.

Will this be painful? Of course, this will

be painful. Will there be a probe?

There will always be a probe. But 

imagine the scintillating emergence!

Imagine the electric and prismatic you!