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| Bright lights over the evening sky near Lebanon, N.J., this month. Federal officials have said that most such sightings were airplanes, helicopters, stars or drones being flown legally. Credit: Trisha Bushey/Trisha Bushey, via Associated Press via The New York Times, December 24, 2024 |
In a way, I write for the drones.
Those asterisks in the sky—blown about
Over the heads of Americans craning upward,
Awakening from their electronic sleep.
Maybe this poem is a little drone, buzzing
Over the armpits of the city, shadows blending
Like metaphors and allusions pending.
Oh Triborough night! Sophisticated stars,
Billboards tolling silently like clocks signifying
The end of another lifetime. No one knows
What they are, these drones, and at the same time
Anyone can purchase them online. But we like to say
We don’t know what they are more than the fact
That we know them as our own. Drone,
The very word conjures up a verse simulacrum,
A swarm of contiguous phraseology, eyes
Like microphones sensing each ironic property.
I’d like to see a drone fly into a cathedral,
Buzz the altar, leaving a trail of alien scripture,
Then blend into the largest fresco, a smudge
In the faded sky, like a wet smooshed cockroach
The size of a large pizza box. But for now,
Let’s be content to observe these melancholic
Visitors, pointing at their axis, the X and the Y,
Their orange lights bifurcating the moon, each
Triangulated monster pulsing into the distance,
That otherworldly strangeness we crave.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
