PHASER

To Rare and Exotic's sales director,
Upon a planet called by you the Earth,
From Transgalactica, the largest store.
You've ordered a phaser and asked its worth.

With worlds as numerous as drops at sea,
Races as wise as yours as grains of sand,
With each possessing goods on every hand,
Our products number near infinity.

We'll gladly send an item which you name,
But please inform us what your phasers do.
The words a tongue produce are far too few.
So many things we have sound just the same.

A Zoron puts one right beneath its teeth,
Inhaling fragrant scents of creeper wreath,
Its parasitic molars start to shake.
And music delectable start to make.

To hunt a varc one needs a kind of lure
Vibrating very fast and casting sure
Particles of element one sixteen,
With trailing tail a parsec long and green.

There is a certain nob that you rotate
To guide your vec in dimensions and space,
But there's a lever in another place
Whose use ensures arrivals never late.

On Algol IV they play a game with light
That never swerved in interstellar flight,
Nor struck an atom of the atmosphere.
A phaser judges photons foul or clear.

On Pelvidar the wisest race resides
In rising rain, drops of liquid methane.
This antigrav abode a weathervane
Also foretells shifting trilunar tides.

On Nube the wealthy clouds some weight delete
By buying metal artificial feet
Which leech pollutants, clear the optic nerve
And an electrostatic state preserve.

We've many more. This could become prolix.
I hope by now your racing human mind
Perceives the omission you must now fix
To tell us which phaser you'd have us find.

I'm sure by now you've learned a name's not all.
So, make it clear precisely what you need,
Lest you receive some diving dragon seed
When you require an anti-matter wall.

Indeed on Gorn responses instructive
To questions worthless and idiotic,
Replies witty, humorous and rhythmic,
Are called phasers, and these we freely give.

This was written by Michael McKenny on May 10-11, 1985 as his
contribution to a Lyngarde assignment.

 
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