Orbiting the oxygen-rich blue-green planet,
We peer through gun sights, trying to read it.
Are the humans warlike? Be they tigers or sheep,
Either way, the fact is: Their planet, we need it.
Know your enemy and know yourself – Sun Tzu.
To learn about the humans we’ll capture one,
Test his strength, his courage and his mettle.
Find out what they’re made of; that will be fun!
We hover over the city, looking for one alone,
There’s our prey, walking though a cemetery!
God! He fights like a demon! Eight of us fall.
But we tie him up and to our ship we do carry,
The human as he writhes in our grasp. An ell!
Muscles bulging, he strains against his binds,
Blood pours out as the cords dig into his wrists,
But he pulls even harder. His teeth he grinds.
We bring him to the CAT scan machine,
An advanced version that can read minds,
It looks for thoughts of surrender, of fear;
But hatred, fury and rage are all that it finds.
Snapping his binds he leaps free of the CAT scan,
Striking in every direction he lays ten of us low,
Our spaceship is splattered with blood and gore!
Stealing a shuttle, he returns to the planet below.
Half of our crew dead, we abandon the planet,
The humans are too fierce! They can keep it.
Our species has conquered many planets before,
But not this one; to our home world we beat it.
The sun is rising as he races across the cemetery,
He had wanted to stay and kill the rest of the crew,
But, being a vampire, he had to return to his grave,
The aliens didn’t know it, but Earth has its monsters too.
Author notes
I spent all afternoon yesterday reading the "dark" section of All Poetry. I guess I was just in a dark mood! But, inspired, I decided to write a dark poem of my own.
In a list
A contest entry
- Amaranthine Lover's Getting Rid of Some Points! by amaranthine lover.
1750 points, ended April 22, 33 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - The Best Prewrites on Ap by Night Terrors.
400 points, ended May 25, 50 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 15 of 15
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Excellent
This was magnificent to read, what were the chances of finding a vampire in our world. Likewise, what are our chances of capturing aliens in their world? I am not surprised that this won Gold; it floors me when good writers are in hiding. I bookmarked it. Thanks for sharing this, I'm always so busy and love to read.
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Thanks!
Alien abduction is a staple of modern fiction (Jeff Foxworthy even has a joke that you might be a redneck if someone in your immediate family has been abducted by aliens), but the aliens always snatch the person without a hitch. I thought it would be an interesting twist on the theme if things didn't go exactly as planned. Kidnapping is, after all, a risky business - even if you're a hyperintelligent alien!
In fact, things not going exactly as planned is kind of a theme for me. I have a list of poems on this subject: Underestimating the Opposition - Poetry List
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Orbiting the oxygen-rich blue-green planet,
We peer through gun sights, trying to read it.
Are the humans warlike? Be they tigers or sheep,
Either way, the fact is: Their planet, we need it.
i absolutely loved your beginning. and the pace of this piece kept me interested all the way through. the fact that they found him in a cemetary made the story suspenceful. i kept wondering why he was there. i kept thinking maybe he was mourning the loss of a loved one and therefore was filled with anger and lacked concern for his own life. definitely didn't see the vampire part coming.
anyway - neat read!
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Thanks!
I purposefully skimmed over the fact that he was in a cemetary as quickly as I could to maintain the suspense. I wanted the reader to be surprised by the ending and suddenly realize the importance of that fact.
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18.3/25
Quite comical! -
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Thanks.
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That was amazing!!!!! Very dark and creative It was just plain cool I am so glad you entered this one it is one of your absolute best.
The Positives:
Great imagery and some wonderfully dark you have a great bit of poetry here
The Negatives:
Nothing that I see great job
My Favorite Part:
We hover over the city, looking for one alone,
There’s our prey, walking though a cemetery!
God! He fights like a demon! Eight of us fall.
But we tie him up and to our ship we do carry,
The human as he writhes in our grasp. An ell!
Muscles bulging, he strains against his binds,
Blood pours out as the cords dig into his wrists,
But he pulls even harder. His teeth he grinds
This part is deffinatly my fav you did so great on this!!!!!!!!!
Overall:
I give this an 10/10 you did great. I hope to see you in my future contests thanks so much for entering. I'll add you to the finalist list!
~*~Apathetic Poison~*~ -
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Thanks, Apathetic Poison!
I was just reading about Tiyet in your story "Neco."
She is a bit like the protagonist in my story - we kind of think along the same lines.
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I really like the use of the title in the first stanza, and the way you describe earth. It poses questions straight away I find myself asking why do the aliens need the planet?
The second stanza rings true of common society, those who believe that they have been abducted by aliens say (generally) that they have undergone testing. I like the view of the aliens that it will be fun.
The third stanza makes me wonder by the use of the simile like a deamon, if the human they're fighting is actually a deamon hiding in the cemetary? They seem not to realise his strength and struggle to fullfil their task, they don't worry about fallen comrades, this sets them apart from humans, i like it.
I like the rhyme in the next stanza, it sets the atmosphere off and helps the flow and pace of the poem, the description of hatred, fury and rage push me further toward the deamon though.
His extraordinary strength and ability to pilot a shuttle he has never seen reaffirms this aswell, the aliens seem to struggle as they have picked the wrong subject, unknown to them that all humans are different. The fact that they flee on the premise of one shows this.
the metaphor of monsters in the last line is great, i have a poem about vampires but its currently in for marking by my university tutor and until it has been marked its against university policy to publish the piece, i should have it back in a couple of weeks, will post it then x
i really enjoyed this poem xx
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Thanks Nudul!
I'm looking forward to reading your vampire poem! -
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unfortuantely i cant send it until its been marked
as I could fail the entire course and its a module out of my degree
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Well that was creepy. Creepy but good. I could totally picture myself as this human. It was odd, but the imagery I got was intense... nevermind the twist ending? Vampire, I was thinking the terminator. It caught me totally off guard, not really my thing, however, Great write!!
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Thanks, wwfrocks14
I was trying to catch people off guard with the ending.
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Ooh I liked this, and you did a good job on a dark poem. I love it =)
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You're eleven???
I checked out your poetry, Audrey. It's really good! If you hadn't said your age, I'd have guessed 19. You do act bunchies older!
Thank you for commenting on my first dark poem. I just wrote another and this one is REALLY dark: "Ode to a Ka-Bar Knife." Let me know what you think!
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