Ridley Scott’s Alien with Moth (Benjamin Dodds)

Ridley Scott’s
Alien
with Moth
ride                                                 arrowhead
        slide across massive faces
   and hideous       limbs
           preen on white            upholstered
                             bulkheads
disappear                            into
                                                  measureless space
                                                  during widescreen
                                                  establishing shots
 
     noiseless    grey    invader
observe         this late 1970s future
     in which astronaut miners
    foul rare air
  with absurd cigarettes
          (we patiently await
     NASA’s smoking phase)
 
give in to unassailable     attraction
  hold fast to strobing brightness
           and ride roughshod
over bright smothering nightmare
               until slow credits
trigger                                  houselight-rise


Benjamin Dodds is the author of Regulator (Puncher & Wattmann Poetry, 2014). His work has appeared in Best Australian Poems 2014, Antipodes: Poetic ResponsesStars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, and on Radio National’s Poetica program.