Friday, January 7, 2011

Poetry: "Carthage: Reflections of a Martian" by Frank Herbert

Best known for his monumental six-book Dune saga, Frank Herbert also wrote an obscure poem titled "Carthage: Reflections of a Martian," which was published first in the anthology Mars, We Love You: Tales of Mars, Men and Martians (1971) and later in Songs of Muad’Dib: The Poetry of Frank Herbert (1992). Here are the first five stanza’s of Herbert's "Carthage: Reflections of a Martian," which is comprised of about 450 lines:
  Thy expected alien
  Am I.
  Weird of shade
  And doomfire face:
  All thy senses
  Cry to my
  Mourning mysteries
  Which yesterday
  Were commonplace.

  We sit at Sunday breakfast
  And I smell the dust of Carthage.
  It drowns the spang
  Of our automatic toaster.

  That strange woman across from me
  Smiles, butters two slices.
  Her smile arouses a multitude in me!
  Her smile . . .
  Frightens us.
For the full text of "Carthage: Reflections of a Martian" and the editor’s introduction to it from Mars, We Love You: Tales of Mars, Men and Martians, check out CaveofBirds.com, a website devoted to Frank Herbert.

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