an illo from the Edible Zoo

The edible zoo is all about who, or what, is on the menu. This ain't yer dog-eat-dog world no more.

http://sdpbookstore.com/poetrybooks.htm#ediblezoo

layers

these onion folk
more to them under the skin
than you might think

My New Book!

http://sdpbookstore.com/poetrybooks.htm#ediblezoo

The Edible Zoo is here!

053112

vines swell and tighten
the abandoned shed spills
its fertilizer

053012

I'm leaving town for a week
So for alla u D&N geek
If this pome don't kill u
Or make u say "We're thru"
I'll see the survivors next week

052912

no time
for haiku, just hai
yes I think so

thew eakin' re: few

Yesterday it was 22C when I rose (>70F), which meant we could only cool the house with open doors for a short time. One measure of real summer in Alabama is that, at 6:30 in the morning, it's already hotter outside than you want to be inside. This morning it was 23° C. And so it goes. The air is relatively dry, for these parts, which meant that when the sun dipped below the horizon last evening it instantly felt much cooler. We savored it by discussing right-wing politics with our carpenter. He seems to actively enjoy survivalist and tea party rants by neighbors and other people he encounters in the community. Lucky him!

What did I do yesterday. I don't really know. I did work on a short story that is now, at 4200 words, one of the longest I have ever written. No end in sight. It began as a straightforward Lovecraftian piece. I became unsatisfied with the original goal of the story, but I don't have a better one to replace it with yet. Uh-oh.

I am reading Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link. This is one of the seven or eight books that [spouse] bought at ICFA in Orlando this past March. I didn't buy any books there, but so far I have enjoyed everything she bought. This one is a short story collection, which is unusual. She generally prefers novels. Before that I read Fair Game by Patricia Briggs. This is the latest in her series about werewolves. A good read, but it was obvious from a point early in the story who the bad guy was. In between I read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. A YA novel about fighting back against “the man” in a high-tech near future dystopia. Very well done, although I think he explained more than he really needed to. Also, I think the bad guys were unrealistically competent. I think. So that's my reading for the past week or so.

Too busy for social media at work. Busy at work because I have now spent two weeks working on a poster that I will present in one week in Houston. Making graphics seems to take forever, and that's mostly what I have been doing. Tomorrow I better start putting the poster together so I can find out what I still need to make. It is about a fossil mound, which is like a reef without the rigid framework. The mound was built by sponges and microbes in relatively shallow water in North Alabama about 325 million years ago. It is in a formation that has multiple examples of a quite different sort of mound in Kentucky, but nothing at all similar has been found in Alabama. So that's kind of cool.

Already 27C as I post this.

052812

what IS behind
the monitor I can't see past
the tarp knows

052712

22C
when I rise
sun god glares

052612

in the Archean
the mad scientist head-scratched
which algae to kill --

--

the home world
reconstructed to scale
few tourists

What strange verse is this?

What strange lark is this
wherein the dice are homeless
Champagne bubbles and a kiss
cardboard shoes and plastic dress

These empty houses serve no use
Testament to bank abuse

"Sylvia" by Nicole Hollander is dead

Do yourself a favor if you like feminist humor or cats. Buy the books & read them.

052412

the veggies stir
and whistle pick me pick me
organics crudest

freakin me out

The same drops of nectar are still there. Crystallized? I can't reach them. Some things man is not meant to know.



wrist weights say nothing
but hold fast to unread mail
eyes first

052212

nectar hangs still
from each blossom scar
6 drops

052112

The Brevity comic today is v witty! Just FYI.

alas this poem
suffers by comparison
self-reference tho

052012

bare dirt holds weed seeds
now the flowers are gone
precious compost

compost pile as mass grave

what kind of fool weeds everything out of a flowerbed w/out even being asked?

Billy's New Dog

Billy's new dog



Billy had the biggest dog you ever saw. Usually kids say their dog's so big their kid sister could ride on it. Me'n Billy both could ride Mammoth all day long. Billy named him after a kind of dead elephant. I said "Why didn't you just name him Elephant?" Billy said that would be a dumb name for a dog. He had a point. Besides, Mammoth was shaggy, and regular elephants hardly have any fur at all. Billy said mammoths were very shaggy.

One day, I went over to Billy's house. It was summer, and we didn't have anything to do. Billy said we should take Mammoth over to the old quarry. Maybe there would be some older kids skinny-dipping. Maybe some of them would be girls. Well, it could happen. If it didn't, we could throw stones off the cliff into the lake and stuff like that.

So we were walking through the woods, looking out for anything interesting, like insect galls or walking stick insects, or money that bank robbers might have dropped. You never know. Mammoth ran ahead, like dogs usually do. All of a sudden we heard him barking, then growling. Then we heard something else. We didn't know what it was. It sounded like a big truck engine revving. We ran up the path and around a bend and there was Mammoth. Facing him was this... Thing. It was growling, that's what we'd heard. It looked like a dog, but its back was higher than my head, a lot higher. Its fur stood up all along its back and it had huge teeth that stuck out of its mouth, curling up and around on each side. I would have thought it was a wild pig, but it didn't have a pig snout. Besides, whoever heard of a pig 7 feet tall? So this monster growled at Mammoth again, and made a little rush at him, like it was charging, but it stopped. Mammoth turned tail and ran. He ran right by us. He didn't slow down to say goodbye, and I didn't blame him. We would have been running too, but we couldn't move.

The monster slowly walked up to us. It sniffed all around me. It was loud, and when it sniffed my face it almost sucked me into its nose. I guess I should have been afraid, but I couldn't even think. When it got done with me it turned and did the same thing to Billy. Then it licked his face. Tongue was bigger than his head. It was awesome! When it got done, Billy was soaked to his waist.

"I think it likes you," I said.

"Yeah," he said weakly. "I hope I can keep it."

Well it turns out Monster don't need dog food. I don't know what he eats, but he finds it in the woods. Mammoth never came back, and Billy told his parents he was so sad Mammoth ran off he didn't want another dog yet. They don't know about Monster. He stays out somewhere in back of Billy's house and keeps out of sight until Billy whistles. We've kept quiet until now, but you've been talking up your dog somethin' fierce, and the time has come to see what's what. You put up your 10 bucks and you're gonna see Billy's new dog. I bet he can beat your dog.


End

tanka

the bell tinkles
in the watchman's hut
he trudges into night
Pharaoh still thinks
he was buried alive

051912

so much food
we eat again
in a good way

Shelly Bryant interviews me

http://shellybryant.hubpages.com/hub/Interview-David-Kopaska-Merkel-Speculative-Poet

Me reading my own work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ZHQnmW0eM&feature=share

Shelly Bryant put this together.

051812

paraffin people
colonized Mercury's twilight
teens crack or burn

051712

who decided
this tree was trash
hardy and tall

051612

each paper pile
doth itself divide
and under petrophysic notes
an unpaid bill may hide

051512

the pang
of won't be here again
must do more!

trilobite with a dinky

spine, several of them, but so small. Field of view only ~1/2 mm wide. Surface would have felt rough.

bor-ing!

This echinoderm fragment is soooo bored!

clams is teh awesome

Part of a clam, or a close relative, diagonally across the middle. The green is not Jello, but glauconite, a very pretty mineral that forms sometimes in seafloor sediments. From an ancient continental slope, now in western Alabama.

Easter Island heads have bodies!

http://www.thethinkbox.ca/2012/05/10/easter-island-heads-have-bodies/

051412

crushed by the force
of Terran gravity
the gossamer spaceship
was lost with all hands
in Farmer Brown's cornfield

051312

Friday the 13th falls on Mother's Day this month.

in months
without no R in them
get thee under cover

Eye To The Telescope needs you!

The SFPA's quarterly webzine Eye to the Telescope is seeking speculative (SF/fantasy/horror) poetry with a LGBT theme for its next issue.

Pay is .03 a word/$25 max. The deadline is June 15th.

From the editor: I am looking for LGBT as well as gender-neutral and intersexual themed speculative poems for Issue #5 of Eye to the Telescope. As this can be a touchy subject matter for some, I’m not interested in poetry that is either overtly didactic or—this should go without saying—that perpetuates stereotypes (and although sensual poetry is fine, pure erotica will be a hard sell). That said, I am open to dark humor and poetry that provokes (I’ll trust the poets to figure out the fine line between didactic and provocative and between sensual and erotic).

I would prefer that the LGBT aspect of the poetry be subtle and organic to the poem. As I'd love to highlight as diverse a variety of poetry possible, I’m open to everything from formal/classical forms (haiku, sonnets, etc.) to concrete, Dadaism, abstract, postmodernism, avant-garde, surrealism, bizzaro, or whatever else you have to offer, just as long as the poem is speculative (see definition below) and includes the LGBT theme in some way.

For complete guidelines and where to submit, visit Eye to the Telescope: http://eyetothetelescope.com/submit.html

weak scone buy

May 12, 2012

Late last night I got in e-mail the proof of my children's poetry book, “The Edible Zoo,” which is profusely illustrated by Valerie Bodell. Valerie and I have both looked at it. There are a few minor problems, but it should be published (by Sams Dot) later this month.

I have more or less cleaned off my desk and am keeping up with e-mail. I have several manuscripts that have been given to me for review and I hope to have time for at least one of those this weekend. There won't be much time for my own writing, but I've been putting off looking at my friends' manuscripts longer than I want to already. And I did write a poem this week, beyond the short daily poems I try to always write, so that's something.

We have gotten quite a bit of rain in the last week or so, probably more than 3 inches in total, and it threatens to rain today. I hope it doesn't, because [long-time friend=contractor] is here working on our greenhouse. He's actually not working on the greenhouse. He hurt his leg and is on crutches. He brought a young man named K. with him, somebody I don't know, but [ltf=c] is going to supervise and Kevin is going to saw and nail and things like that. B. also came over to mow and do whatever yard work he has time for. We need the work done.

[Spouse] is very close to the end of the semester and excited about that. A lot more excited about planting things in the garden. She bought a few more little plants today, and is trying to put them in the ground, plus the two or three remaining from the last couple of plant-shopping expeditions. Then there is the weeding and all that other garden stuff.

The local art teachers are putting on a show and she is planning to contribute five pieces. Three of these are not yet finished, so that's going to keep her busy too!

Last but not least, [daughter#2] and [puppy] are visiting for a week. Of course d2 is also visiting her boyfriend, but puppy is just visiting us. And all the other dogs who go to the dog park!

DN 92

The zine is at the printer now!

051212

blue tarp wallpaper
seems homey after a year
hang pictures

fossil coin

Not really. A discoid segment of a crinoid stem, one of a stack of calcium-carbonate "coins" made by an animal known as a sea lily. This is a small one, only about 1 mm across.

051112

holy mackerel
water world's God raised fin
and there was phytoplankton

marriage equality

Letting the President's announcement sink in. I went from "About time!" to "Yes, this is important." Epochal. And the personal effect on family & friends is big. No matter what happens on that Tuesday in November, this public statement by a sitting President will remain.

051012

pert bilobed seedlings
must be something you planted
not in the path

050912

40 days of rain
like this wouldn't even fill
the Grand Canyon of Alabama
(not its real name)

050812

the aliens
too closely resembled axe handles
diplomatic faux pas

more than a grain of truth
to rumors of xenophobia

in the land of fear
the fearmonger sets the price
last contact

050712

in book six
of my annual pigrimage
Fafhrd & Gray Mouser

Dreams & Nightmares 92 Contents

Dreams & Nightmares 92
May, 2012

CONTENTS

Randy Moore, cover
From the Brain Stem
Denny Marshall, illo
CEE, Field Goal of Time, Space and Dimension (Super Bowl XXV, January 27, 1991)
Robert Frazier, Of Zebra Fish and Alan Turing
Bruce Boston, In Line at the Shadow City Pharmacy
Robert Borski, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (The Latter Years)
Wendy Rathbone, Come to ...
Gloundan Smorpian, Pull
Robert Borski, Hills Like White Mastodons
Chris Friend, illo
Helen Patrice, Urgent Message From Mars
Richard Fay, illo
Helen Patrice, Mandelbrot Universe
Shelly Bryant, alone with you on HD69830c
Jennifer Crow, Tabula Rasa
Brock Marie Moore, Warclad is the Sky
Stephen D. Rogers, Perversity
Deborah Walker, Grave Thieves
David C. Kopaska-Merkel, The Egg Show
W. C. Roberts, Portrait of Der Angriff
M. Frost, Ariadne’s Thread

DN 92

Checking 1 thing b4 it goes to the printer. First issue for which I sent out authors' proofs; a few errors were caught. I have a little filler art for #93, but I could use more.

050612

rolodex glares
at yellow and red bowl
y u get business cards?

der weakened rev U

May 5, 2012

Another action-packed week chez Kopaska-Merkel!

Which is to say, not much has happened. The mother-in-law tongue is blooming. It only does this after a period of physical abuse. In this case, failure to water or to repot. Followed by remembering to water. The plant evidently thinks this is its last chance to reproduce. Of course, plants have short memories. This same plant has been in the same position several times in the past. And it's not dead yet. I am enjoying looking at the bud-covered flower stalks.

Outside it has been warm, but not too warm. 70S and 80s on the Fahrenheit scale. We got about 2.5 inches of rain on Thursday. That was just in time for the garden, which is responding vigorously. I couldn't list everything that's blooming now, which is indicative of something. Our ordinary orange daylilies, which I have always liked, are blooming all over the yard. We probably have more than 50 open flowers today. The big gardenia is blooming so vigorously that, for the first time, I can smell it 20 feet away. My sense of smell isn't all that acute. There are even three cherry tomatoes on the tiny little cherry tomato plant.The pecan tree seems to have given its all to the next generation, and the backyard is carpeted with the result. Maybe there will be a correspondingly large number of ripe nuts in the fall.

So today was the day that we were supposed to connect the dots about climate change by coming together in groups where disaster is coming or has already happened (as in the case of Tuscaloosa) and taking pictures. I was 10 minutes late to our rendezvous and didn't see anyone there, so I hope it happened. I drew a big.I'm a piece of paper and everything, and then I wasted energy resources and generated greenhouse gases in a futile attempt to be in the photo.

Even though Sheila has about three dozen little plants of one sort or another that are crying out to be put in the ground, this morning she is over at a friend's house designing a garden. The little plants, mostly flowers, will probably have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.

Last night we decided to go out to eat. This is graduation weekend at the University of Alabama, and we feared that popular places would be full. Maybe they were. We wouldn't know, because in a preemptive move to avoid the crowds we went to the little Turkish restaurant (Yakamoz). You could have counted the patrons there when we arrived on the thumbs of 1 foot. The employees, some of whom might be co-owners (?), were all out front drinking and smoking and waiting for customers. So we got our pick of the tables, which is good, because only one of them is suitable. All the rest are booths and I wouldn't be able to get very close to the tables. We looked over the menu, but both of us went with our favorite dish, which is Adana kebab. In fact, we ordered exactly the same things, except the designated driver had a glass of wine. Fortunately for ethnic food diversity in Tuscaloosa, seven more customers arrived while we were there. I don't understand why the place is still open, but I'm glad. Besides the main dish, we both had hot Turkish tea and later hot Turkish coffee. We shared baba ganouj (I don't think I spelled that right). This was my first time eating that, by the way. I think theirs is particularly good, but I found it edible.

Work, and a few odds and ends. Late Friday afternoon I finally got the thin sections (of rock) that I have to describe in order to make a poster that I will present in Houston Monday, June 4. I couldn't look at them Friday, because we had to Dr. them a little bit. I have done almost everything I could do before I looked at the thin sections, so I guess it was a good time for them to arrive. Only a month late. Because the people who made them screwed up the first time and they had to be redone from scratch. Doing career day at middle school this coming Tuesday. Finished the Minkin site guidebook about a week ago and got reimbursed for it yesterday. My boss is retiring and will probably disappear sometime in November. I can't imagine what they will do about replacing him. I don't want the job! I wrote a bunch of poems and submitted them for publication. I got some rejections and resubmitted those items to new places. It's about time for me to send the next issue of Dreams and Nightmares to the printer. I am in the process of catching up on submissions. I read a novel and several periodicals. And so it goes.

050512

avocados
and corn cheap and bought
all I need

chicken w pear salsa recipe

Orange basil chicken with fruit salsa

Ingredients

One chicken breast, about 3 pounds, 1.4 kg
one orange, thinly sliced
12 fresh basil leaves
1 cup, 240 ml, fat-free chicken broth
one orange, sectioned and diced
one pear, diced
one shallot, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
dash of ground red pepper
1 teaspoon dry sherry

Directions

Lift the chicken skin and slide the orange slices and 10 basil leaves under it. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and heat over high heat. Add the chicken and cook until nicely browned, turning occasionally, 10 to 12 minutes. Place in the crockery pot. Pour one half cup of the broth into the same skillet and cook, stirring and scraping, for two minutes to deglaze the skillet. Pour into the crockery pot and add the remaining half cup broth. Cover and cook on low until the chicken is cooked throughout, its juices run clear, and a meat thermometer registers 170°F, seven to nine hours.

Meanwhile, mince the remaining two basil leaves. In a small bowl, combine the diced orange, pear, shallot, oil, vinegar, red pepper, sherry, and minced basil. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Divide the chicken into thirds; freeze two thirds for later use. Slice the remaining chicken, discarding the skin, oranges, and basil. Serve immediately with the orange-pear mixture.

Serves four

050412

octokraken
considers sailors
spoil appetite for dinner?

050312

the new salt rain gauge
a week after the drunken spill
drought tolerance

050212

You know I post short poems & nanofic on twitter. Follow @DavidKM if u want to see them.


pile of books melts
as I open unsolicited ARCs
bestseller?! Pfaugh.

quadriplegia and professional employment

I just sent this letter to one of the organizers of a conference that I will attend next month. I believe that people planning conferences simply don't think about accessibility or don't understand what it involves. They deserve to be chastised, perhaps, but I prefer to enlighten.

I am well aware that the hotel connected to the conference center would be the most convenient for access to the meeting. I would stay there if I could. Unfortunately, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires accessible rooms without defining them very carefully. Most hotels that have accessible rooms have rooms that are accessible to paraplegics, people who can get in and out of their wheelchairs without assistance. Only some hotels (the Microtel chain is one good example; most of their motels qualify) have rooms that are accessible to a quadriplegic. I basically need two features, in addition to a sufficient amount of space. I need a shower with no lip, so that a wheelchair can roll into it, and a bed that is up on legs instead of a pedestal (box). This allows my portable lift to roll right up to the bed where I can be swung into or out of bed safely. This may be a lot more information than you wanted. However, if you are ever involved in the decision about a conference hotel, this should be a consideration. Improved emergency room and rehab technology over the past couple of decades means that more and more people are surviving with severe injuries. Many of these people are still able to function in the workplace and therefore attend conferences.

050112

on int'l workers day
u should buy something from its maker
or pay cash for services
to support the gray economy
or lobby for
higher minimum wages
or protest someone
who doesn't pay them