(Not to be confused with other people named Jay Scott.)
| Poems Home All 165 Poems Variously Arranged Latest Additions Most-Viewed Newest First One at a Time Some Notes The Texts Density Analysis Poetic Form Bitslice Rhyme Sculpted Meter Links Indexes Titles First Lines Topics Forms Allusions Parodies Rhythms Languages |
Latest addition: Stow the Sneer, added 20 July 2026. Read my best poems or look to the blue bar on the left. Most of these were originally written for the Daily Whale, my daily joke, epigram, or satirical tidbit. All are short; most are funny; all are formalist (no free verse, other than the odd parody), though some of the forms are alien to tradition.
On August 21, 1969, a spacecraft arrived in Earth orbit
from interstellar space. The world’s attention was captured by the
opportunity, and programs were quickly instituted to attempt
communication with the extraterrestrial visitor.
By 1977, progress was sufficient for the visitor to explain its purpose in traveling the stars. Its practice, it said, was to search alone for developing civilizations. It stayed with each until it could contribute something of its own which that civilization understood. Twenty-three further years passed before the visitor announced the achievement of its goal. It shortly departed Earth, leaving this poem. If you know what you can see, August 1983
|
I also wrote a poetry program, Authorial Intent.