Neil Gaiman (National Poetry Month)

I got to spend my last birthday listening to Neil Gaiman read this poem. It was the first time I was introduced to it despite having possessed the book (Fragile Things) it can be found in since publication. One thing I've learned about books is that they come to you best when you need them the most. As Neil Gaiman says in the introduction of the book, talking about this poem, it really does work when read to an audience. Now it is one of my absolute favorites. I hope you enjoy.



The Day the Saucers Came

That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and
    stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed, to find what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn't notice because

That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because

On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
A ship built of dead-men's nails, a serpent, a wolf,
All bigger than the mind could hold,
     and the cameraman could
Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
But you did not see them coming because

On the saucer-zombie-battling-gods
     day the floodgates broke
And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
And charm and cleverness and true
     brave hearts and pots of gold
While giants fefofummed across
     the land, and killer bees,
But you had no idea of any of this because

That day, the saucer day the zombie day
The Ragnarok and fairies day, the
     day the great winds came
And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day
All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
Computers turned, the screens telling
     us we would obey, the day
Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
And all the bells of London were sounded, the day
Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
The fluttering capes and arrival of
     the Time Machine day,
You didn't notice any of this because
you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not even reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,
wondering if I was going to call.