Planet Woebegone Poem by Stan Petrovich

In some galaxy (we call The Sombrero) ,
On a planet soon to be swallowed whole
By its red giant sun,
A huge rock formation,
A caricature of a human face,
Lay.
Its brow, eyes and mouth
Were not carved by the typical forces
Of rain and wind and sand;
The were extruded by the organic might
Of deeply embedded molecules.

After a thousand centuries the brows bent down;
Another thousand and the eyes lit up;
Finally, from the mouth, a deep cadence,
A fugue of sorts
Joined its newest neighbors
That encircled the planet, top-to-bottom,
Or side-to-side.
They all sang a chorus of woe,
So, at one nearby time,
By an alien race
The planet was dubbed 'Woebegone'
And avoided like a plague.

I was exiled to Woebegone
For being an 'unbeliever'.
They put me in a reinforced aluminum jail,
I heard the faces wail,
Each telling a version of my tale.