The Visitor

Originally Appeared Here

Listen- Benny Sisko has come unstuck in time(1)
And me, I'm just left standing here too dumbstruck to rhyme
About what happened to my captain right in front of my eyes
What was a routine expedition ended in a rude surprise
*     *     *
So with out dad's mediation the Alpha quadrant situation
Undergoes deterioration and I have to leave the station
Where we're visited by the dead like we were orbiting Solaris(2)
'Cause it's so swarming with Klingons it would stun Mr. Baris(3)
And in one instant I see the futility of resistance(4)
And I'm left watching DS9 diminish in the distance
*     *     *
Once the Klingons claim the station by the right of artillery
I'm sure that we'll get over it, as Norgay said to Hillary(5)
And when I finally feel that I've put the past behind
Dad shows up behind the sofa and it come crashing back to mind
Then he's gone again, but the afterimage lingers
And the more I tighten my grip the more he slips between my fingers(6)
*     *     *
So now I'm dropping english and picking up some science(7)
Call in some favors to the crew and see if the Defiant's
Up to stopping dad slipping in and out of this phenomenon(8)
Moving back and forth in time like an electron and a positron
I figured out we're tied together in a chrono-synclastic infundibulum(9)
And sometimes that elastic snaps back toward equilibrium
Periodically like Halley's comet, reconverging like the Twain(10,11)
And I've figured out when from subspace he's emerging once again
*     *     *
We're reunited in supspace as father and son,
But dad seems upset with everthing that I've done
He thinks something stinks about my change of profession
Like a dikironium cloud that reeks of Captain Kirk's "Obsession"(12,13)
Cared for what I lost more than the joy a wife could bring
Says if I ain't a got Korena, life don't mean a thing(14)
*     *     *
One last time for everything, glad I had the opportunity
To tell one last story, now that I have you with me
Come tromping through the bayou in the middle of the night
Try to crack the riddle of how little I did write.
She's leavin' and I'm grieven over ties I have to sever
Wait until it's at its tightest, and then I cut the tether

*     *     *
I can spare those years of pain from a kid already lost his mom
I'm gone like tears in the rain(15) and dad comes home like Major Tom(16)
'Cause I didn't only do it for the sake of my dear dad
But also for the Jake I was to live the life I never had

1. A reference to the first sentence of the second chapter in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
2. In Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, (and the 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky film of the same name) an astronaut on a station orbiting the planet Solaris is contact by an alien intelligence in the form of his dead wife.
3. In "The Trouble With Tribbles", Nilz Baris of Station K-7 complains to Kirk that his station is "swarming with Klingons"
4. A reference to the Borg's repeated line, "Resistance is futile"
5. Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary were the first two people to summit Mount Everest.
6. A reference to Star Wars: A New Hope, where Princess Leia tells Governor Tarkin, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
7. In N.W.A.'s "Express Yourself", Dr. Dre raps, "Some drop science, but I'm dropping english"
8. A reference to Liquid Liquid's "Cavern", most famous as the basis for Grandmaster Melle Mel's "White Lines (Don't Do It)"
9. From Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, where Winston Niles Rumfoord encounters such a phenomena and has his wave function spread across the solar system. He appears and disappears at his old home much as Captain Sisko does.
10. Mark Twain was born during and died immediately after a visit to earth by the comet. He makes mention of it when brought onboard the Enterprise-D in "Time's Arrow".
11. A reference to Thomas Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain"
12. In the TOS episode "Obsession", Kirk tries to destroy an energy cloud (characterized by a 'sickly sweet' smell) that killed his crewmates on the U.S.S. Farragut twelve years prior.
13. A reference to the fragrance Calvin Klein's Obsession
14. From Bob Dylan's "Corrina, Corrina"
15. A reference to Roy Batty's final speech in Blade Runner before he dies
16. Character from David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and Peter Schilling's later sequel-song "Major Tom (Coming Home)"