Commander Scorn on Urban Camping

[As Commander in charge of exploring deep space
  (and of late as our focus it’s the human race),
  I report now to Star Staff, whatever it’s worth,
  a strange fad now in vogue in the place they call Earth.]

It is called Urban Camping with little pretense
but from my point of view it engenders no sense.
In the heart of great cities, steel-tower homesteads,
they use canvas and cardboard to shelter their heads.

When we hovered in stealth by a cumulous cloud,
right below us Metropolis garnered a crowd
like the wee infusoria in water drops
or the birthing of stars we see in cosmic stops.

But among all the populous in to and fro,
this new fad to camp urban is not apropos.
O I know sometimes here on Centauri we cheat
when the Alpha Waves come and we feign to compete.

Yet I haven’t an ounce of let live on demand
when I see urban campsites by structures so grand.
It is like a new warp drive without fusion’s core
or the stone knives and bearskins employed in days yore.

As my chief engineer repaired a thruster jet,
my first officer suggested their Internet
and because I have faith in the ken of the crew
we achieved interface with search engine Yahoo.

This one city we observed was hardly alone;
there were more cities besieged with mindsets of stone.
“Lookie there!”  So I quipped to the crew with a glint,
seeing more campers in neon lights striking flint.

I carped, “This is but smoke and the stirring of dread;”
“Fads are common on Earth,” my first officer said.
So we scoped a few cities to study this fad
and in our data banks it was listed as bad.

We saw fires that burned in downtown parking lot
(from on high in our ship black of smoke marked the spot).
And from New York, Chicago, L.A., Phoenix lights,
as we soared coast to coast we saw many campsites.

I was tempted to talk with a camper one day;
alas, there are some rules we must strictly obey.
We could not interfere--no, not even a hi;
so we pulled up our stakes and let sleeping bags lie.

40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
August 10, 2013