By Les Wicks

I saw my UFO, 1969.

Gurus, revolution. Racial & sexual equality

stop the damned wars while we played with that love-stuff.

Angry in a pretty way then.

Silver discs were on the News

alongside burning children.

A cynic even then

I had to believe like inhaling & dreams

one just did.

Never got probed or spoken to,

just that one night the impossible sky-streak

that stopped like that, zig-zagged

then straight up into black

past Apollo 11 & weather balloons

past shiny 747s on their inaugural flights

beyond doubt & logic.

Perhaps for those extra-terrestrials Woodstock was boring,

shook their knobbly heads at the presumptions of Charlie Manson

who never could carry a tune.

At the airport for the first time with mum to pick up dad

I saw Maggie Tabberer AND Russell Morris.

Still adored why — its promise & energy,

the way it picked at each atrocity.

Some were said to be cigar shaped

which was just plain silly.

Others had rings of light, a showy

over-accessorising from outer space.

We never hear of them anymore…

were these visitors there for an event?

That blast of possibility, beacons of perhaps.

A changing world that over years

somehow failed to change

is enough to tear one’s antennae out in frustration.

Maybe they gave up

how long could they be expected to hang around?

It’s been 50 years…

equality? (surprise surprise)

& children still burn on the News.