043017c

your infection spreads
to every part of me
Y becomes X


Prev. in Scifaikuest

043017b

Every Dog Its Day


every tortoise has its week
the hare, 5 minutes or less
this oak?
so last year

043017

sunflower
greets a humid brightening
the finches' gift
summer is coming
door open to late spring breeze

042917b

Persephone paces

phosphorescent fungi sprout

with every step

042917

I'm late posting this. I've been responding to submissions. I'm up to 2 weeks ago, except for a few I'm holding for further consideration. Also been weeding the garden, to the extent I can, which is mostly limited to snapping the growing tips off of aggressive vines.

And there's this

Lady Godiva’s horse

the boys want to ride and ride

on the girls her point is not lost

but the boys

what can be done with them?


P.S.: DN 106 available now. PDF $1; Print $5. paypal to jopnquog At gmail dot com.

Thing 2

Stratigraphy of Alabama

Every state has a geologic map. The geology of Alabama is complicated and there are hundreds of different units indicated on the map. The map is accompanied by a slim book called Stratigraphy of Alabama, which has a brief description of each of those units. The Geological Survey of Alabama is revising this book, and I get to be a part of it. The revised book will, I think, have a couple of pages about each unit and will be a lot more useful than the old one. It will also be a lot more work, and I'm excited to be able to help. We only started recently, and I have no idea when we will be finished, but I will be sure to let you know.

042817b

America needs
the Wall like
goldfish need lead  boots

042817

Maybe the geckos will appreciate it

Deep in a distant swirl

of stars and dust,

call it a galaxy,

a star exploded the day you were born.

Its light

will reach Earth

a billion years after the last

human dies.

042717

domestic cats
keep the mockingbirds busy
heavy toll

042617b

on a planet with
seven moons
this poem's too short



A lune.

042617

The Lady Banks rose is still blooming, after at least two months. Two weeks is more typical for it. Not that I am complaining. It also doesn't usually start blooming in February. We have white and red gladioli blooming, and irises and lilies are blooming still. The blueberry bush is bigger than a shoebox this year and has at least a half a cup of blueberries on it. All in all, an auspicious start.



flowers draw us in
we are trained to provide
food and water
in exchange for the lives
of their unborn children
which we display like trophies
in glass and ceramic receptacles
for reasons they cannot fathom

042517b

high on rare earths
bacteria eat your phone
more importantly
they learn to like plastic
cleaning the oceans
but detroying
80% of modern devices
7.2 billion people
become humus
right after they learn how to converse again

042517

moving out

from a plastic-choked sea

merfolk buy swampland

from gill-less con artists
use humidifiers 24/7

022417b

I like it here but
I miss limes
Key Potato Pie

042417

$3 Time machine

1. Cheap hard plastic seat.
2. Control panel labeled in Engrish.
3. Analog dial for destination date.
4. Time-space map keeps reverting to blue cube of death.
5. Giant roaches? Must be in the Pennsylvanian.
6. Cheap respirator and high oxygen levels: FAIL.
7. Biodegradable hull flammable.
8. And tasty.
9. Fire extinguisher expired in the Pleistocene.
10. Date dial came off.

Prev publ. Brushfires, 2010

Here's another Rhysling nominee

Luminous Decay
 

Clues to their shadowy residency
Are numerous on the overgrown estate
Broken plaster on the upper floors
Edged with the stab marks of pencils
Toothbrushes frozen upright
In glass jars of hardened paint
Aligned by the west entrance
Also down in the sunken lands
Fishing lines tied to hammers
Then strung into reed-choked ponds
 
#
 
The feral young speak a jungle patois
Born of happenstance
French plus aristocratic Spanish
Plus made-up words or sounds
That they all understand
Punctuated by panther calls
The girls dress up from moldy trunks
Left in the staff quarters below
Then discard their fashion at will
Make togas of their bed sheets
The boys mimic schooling in a study
Papered with simple portraits
Of what they once called
The Vast Governess Parade
 
#
The old Portuguese cook soldiers on
For them with great affection
She raids the wall safes
Stocks up the house larder
Feeds the young with stews
Porridges fragrant breads jams
These are left in white bowls
On the landings of the grand staircase
By the cook’s mute son
Whom the girls tease mercilessly
Before they use him roughly
To discover gambling or sex
He must also tend to Her Ladyship
Who is bed-ridden but lucid
In her demands and her sorrows

Sometimes a traveler materializes
Usually scared off by the burned ruin
Of much of the east wing
Those few that brave the front entrance
Are feted in the dining room
With teas and bright talk
Of the decline of the great families
Or the wild mutations outside their home
This is the one room kept tidy
And polished by everyone but the mute
Who keeps to his unending chores
And the whims of women

At night the young haunt
The garden pathways in games
That sport a savage jungle logic
Then feed the old wolfhound
From tins and laugh sweetly
As they toss him a stick
Cut from the Lord’s favorite cane

By morning they scatter
To their favorite dens or follies
Throughout the mapless grounds
 
Soon they will straighten their posture
Comb out their dreadlocks
Find respectable gear to wear
Pilfer the silver money box
Kiss Her Ladyship on the ring
Venture out to their scattered lives
 
Of course they will all return here
Busted by the travails of knowledge
They will bury each other’s bones
Until the mute stands alone
Silent in the night rains

As the rooms are cleared of debris
The long lost inheritors of the estate
Will find his yellowed journals
Feverishly scribed
In an indecipherable language
Illustrated with countless line drawings
And vibrant watercolors
Of ethereal grace
 

Robert Frazier
 

Reprinted with author's permission from DN 103.

042317b

coming out of hyperspace

we find pocked stones and dirty ice
orbiting a dull red star

042317

Happy Birthday, Mom


Pretend I'm lighting 4,500,000,000 candles
one day in a year
Earth gets a cake, candle, present
She gives us 365
everything in those days
save for a bit of cosmic debris
brings us in, takes us out
takes us back, too
Earth Day isn't for Her
what harm can we do Her?
pollution, exploitation
we hurt each other
not rock, soil, etc
we hurt ourselves

042217b

Time to send DN 106 to the printer. Wish I could still help w the yard work. Weeds already growing several inches/day, and those are the slow ones! Spouse planting flowers, yanking weeds, trimming shaggy excrescences.

042217

God coughs up one more black hole

042117b

It started in amongst the giant sand dunes. Well, really it started when the giant ants moved in from South Texas. Bullets wouldn't stop them. Their powerful jaws snapped apart the tanks the Army sent against them. That's when the huge pits appeared in between the sand dunes. What can stop a 50 foot and? An 80 foot ant lion. Pity they didn't stop with the ants.

042117

chest-high spider wort
fills the garden next door
death flower

042017

the foot doctor
ankle protrudes from collar
googly eyes blinking

Sonic Assassins

"Over the Top" now on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpsrY6emUng

One of Hawkwind's children.

041917c

By the time the advance guard of cones had dragged their shells to the Plaza, there was no one left to sting. The cephalopods had been driven off; all that remained was a distant black cloud that quickly dispersed in the high-altitude current.

041917b

But We Have a Pretty Ring


We used to have seven moons
colonies on all of them
no survivors made it
to the remaining five

041917

many baby plants
still in tiny pots
rain rain rain

041817c

Every now and then I have an auditory hallucination. It is almost always just one word in the voice of someone I know well, often my name. I think it is a sort of semi-waking dream, which is odd, because I rarely encounter people I know in actual dreams. The brain is a weird thing.

041817b

041817

in every world he

made this choice

all the lost futures

041717b

basil growing fast
on the back 40
plant more pasta

041717

Dateline San Diego

We chordates,
furry, scaly,
endoskeletal all,
are we extinct?
Marooned by a cheap
imported switch,

time-machine buggering

plastic crap
that I fear
cannot be duplicated here.
This world, hotter,
a place of insects,
strange societies,
gossamer buildings
patinaed in shimmer
sand refraction,
grand vistas from
the top of this tower
swaying in the Santa Ana:
after sundown
a myriad dim glows
flying, mating,
spelling out incantations
in an alphabet of arthropods.
My chemical greeting
delivered,
but what now to say?

First publ. in Big Pulp

Science Fiction Poetry Association Grand Master

I did NOT expect to win. But I am now the 7th Grand Master named by the SFPA. The first-named is Bruce Boston, elevated, if that's the word, in 1999. The award is voted on by the members of the SFPA, and is awarded on the basis of a sort of speculative-poetry gestalt: skill, accomplishment, and service. Here's a link for more info: http://sfpoetry.com/grandmasters.html

I am honored. Basking in the glow.

Thank you!

041617b

spiderwort rises
above the mass of weeds
blue eyes open

041617

The Black Hole of Coffee

does one own a thing

that owns itself?

the thingamajig purred,

emitting a pleasing tone,

pleased, too, if I can judge

such things, as out popped

cubes that smelled like coffee,

Earth’s most complex, alluring odor,

but they shone like the sun and, like

the sun, pulled all things to them till only

things nailed down, and me, withstood

their mighty pull; the table round them wrapped,

my chair too (I fell), and I had to duck as knives and such

flew in and in till all suddenly shrank unto a mote, was gone

Powered by prompts.

041517b

a clear path for my
wheelchair through every room
that's all I ask

041517

Seethe

invading aliens run

fall and writhe

scream in their native tongue

Beta Vampiris colony falls silent

last transmission not released

to the media

primitive vessel in orbit

artificial brain yields

homeworld coordinates

041417c

if you knew you were
killing Earth
why didn't you stop?


Letter from your great-great-grandchildren. A brief response to Matthew Olzmann.

041417b

icemaker back from the dead
small miracles
thanks to the Winter Queen

041417

Alien Signal Detected!

Our expanding radio wave front,
a big "hello!" signal that we're here,
hasn't reached their star;
it won't, for millennia, by which time
we may well have killed ourselves off,
so this mega-flashlight we've detected
out Sagittarius way; it's not aimed at us,
they can't know we're here,
so who are they calling?
Did they receive messages from
a dinosaurian civilization far more sophisticated
than we are, one that burned itself out
right before the Chicxulub hammer fell?

Or are they maintaining a long-distance relationship
with somebody living so far in the other direction
visiting is not an option?
But what the heck, SETI: answer them!

041317

To Luna, Quickly
 

we're all flying to the moon
the swifts arrive first, obv
but even the slugs go
piggy-backing on the bats
and between the toes of owls
the water there is frozen
and the air is thin
but after the 6-minute war
it's clear they can't stay on Earth

seeds arrive tucked into cheek pouches
of rodents and rabbits on the backs of eagles
who will need something to hunt, after all
no one knows how the elephants did it
but there they are

the forests of the moon are underground
naturally
air is trapped in the caverns
rich in oxygen
light is reflected from crystal formations
deep into the moon
the pale leaves remember the sun

there are no humans
no H. pigstyense
God forbid!




Inspired by a poem by Jane Yolen

Friday the 13th falls on a Thursday this month!

Coreopsis blooms
by the car
dew speckled petals

041217d

A lune

Jimmy Swaggert's pants
dropped again
hypocrisy at least



Listening to Zappa, as it happens, why do you ask?

041217c

Well, the water's rising and crazy people want to kill everybody, but spring is here. Flowers are blooming everywhere, and basil plants are growing quickly. I can hear the pesto calling!

Thing 2 041217

Thing two, April 12, 2017. Not much is happening, but these are succulents. I'm sure it will really kick off the traces any day now!

041217b

chill morning air
warm sunbeams promise
lunch in the park

041217

Gov. Bentley
serial philanderer
paid $600 and had to resign
what about misused state funds?
the rich are treated differently
but at least
our ptisons aren't filled
with overweight white men

Dreams and Nightmares 106 Contents

Dreams and Nightmares 106

May, 2017

Contents

Denny Marshall, Counter Clockwise, cover
Herb Kauderer, The Great Lakes of Mars
Bradley R. Strahan, Invisible City
Wade German, Prophecy of the Green Death
Ken Poyner, Mars Mission
Robert Borski, The Blob
A. J. Odasso, Origin Story
Geoffrey Landis, Sunday, Monday, Doomsday
Chris Friend, illo
F. J. Bergmann, Kindred Spirit
Herb Kauderer, A Twisted Certainty
Chris Friend, illo
Alan Catlin, Last Supper for Eight, in the shrine of the heart shaped chair
Vanessa, Just a Dent in Spacetime
Hanan Muzafar, Lost in Wind
Carie Juettner, Night Walk
Christina Sng, untitled
Roger Dutcher, Baseball on Mars
Neal Wilgus, Stay Tuned
John Francis Haines, Voices

PDF: $1, Print: $5, paypal to jopnquog At gmail dot com.

041117b

English ivy
forces its way under the siding
succulents in pots
are its first victims

041117

let's get serious
about our nascent summer
spiderwort everywhere

Happy Anniversary, Morrisville, AL

A whole week for each citizen sounds great, but how will the babies fill up their weeks?

041017b

The robot armadillos
are so cute:
trying to jump high enough
to reach the hover-car grills
scrabbling at the green glass
trying to make holes
chasing the last few flesh armadillos
hoping to score

041017

And they'd been getting along so well


Yeah, the teeth
whirling, hypnotic eyes
inhuman virility
pale pale skin
nocturnal habits
oh, and his
preference for beef sushi.
But Eloise knew you
didn't see the room full of
papery skins and
survive for long unscathed.
Thank God for the
stake knife in its holster
on her inner thigh.

040917b

dog panting in shade
and clouds like popped corn
summer's here

040917

The Blue Fairy Makes a Habit of It

Were I still a golem

swimming would be impossible

I couldn't wash my face

especially my forehead

broken crockery would remind me

of my mortality

putting on makeup

would require a kiln

so I thank you, Dear Lady, every day

for making me a real girl

040817c

DCAF '17

Saw Tony Tavis, colleague turned folk artist. His work has gotten funkier. Bought this.

040817b

reading till 1:30
I could finish this book
by dawn

040817

Hungry Hungry Hippos


The hippo in the grass
leaves a track like a boa a thousand yards long,
hippo speak with forked tongue,
tasting the damp air,
hippo crushes its food,
swallows it whole,
don't let your cows run out to play;
toddlers are at risk
only of becoming smears,
they are not its intended prey.

When the mighty hippo rears up,
inflates its wattles,
pray you are not its target,
it can spit venom 50 yards.
Some folks don't like
their cold and clammy skin,

their basilisk-like stare.

I had one in a terrarium,
when it grew too large
I flushed it down the toilet;
sanitation workers are disappearing;
but it’s not my fault,
it's really not.



Inspired by a Jane Yolen poem about snakes

040717

what kids wear
southern climate changed winter
what winter

040617c

the lemon tree comes
inside in its big gray pot
two more cold nights

040617b

west wind streams branches
leaf sacrifice to the dawn

040617

Kentucky keeps sending that asshole back to the Senate, almost as if they LIKE assholes. We knew Trump would stack the Court with extremists, but people voted for that. Thet say that's not the part they voted for, but you vote for the whole pumpkin, not just its pretty face.

040517c

Sold a rengay to Scifaikuest, and a scifaiku about a week ago. Interview next month in Polu Texni. Sold a couple to Star*line. Submitted a description of the lune poetic form to Scifaikuest. Almost ready to announce a new chapbook collab. w Kendall Evans.

040517b

unquiet water

feathers above, scales below

It is lunchtime duck!

040517

stroboscopic lightning
bright enough to read by
bucket list check

Read this Rhysling nominee

Quack

It walks like a duck

but that's only because

it's loaded down

with sashes and ribbons

and medals of honor

and symbols of patriotism

and religious iconisms.

The thing about these things

from starsystem Squawk

is that they're immortals,

or at least they claim they are

or believe they are

and some around here

really believe it too

and want to get in line.

It's too soon to tell,

but one reason for skepticism

is that, as presently understood,

our universe will continue

to expand forever

and eventually anyone left

on Earth (or anywhere else)

will be totally alone

with nary a star to shine

in the dark, dark sky.

You can call that immortality

but you might as well be dead.

Neal Wilgus

Reprinted w permission from DN 104

Mars lecture canceled

The speaker scheduled for April 20 was unable to make it, and no replacement could be found, so the lecture has been, regretfully, canceled.

Thing 2

Reach for the sky, little brothers!

040417c

Bug and Snail

Bending his eye stalks posteroventrally he peered into his mouth. Where had the critter gone?

040417b

A Paleontologist Stares out the Window


Describing a mass of tiny tubes
left behind by critters 300 million years ago
they grew in a barrier inlet
that had no name
with sea lilies and more fantastic things
but who were they
and why do we find them
nowhere else?

Awesome AUUction

040417

vine turns back toward the sun
long desk-march ends

040317b

We (the geological survey) have been getting donations of fossils and rocks from an amateur collector, on and off, for two decades. Most of these are small things, intended for children. Others are intended for teachers, and some are intended for our fossil collection (e.g., fossil fish). All of these are in plastic bags with colored index cards stapled to them with the name of the fossil, the locality information, and the date collected, all handwritten on the index cards with a sharpie or in some cases, a pen. I haven't counted them, but I know that over the years we have received more than 100 such boxes. Right now we have 15 or 20 still full of things* to be given away. And today, after a hiatus of a couple of years, we got another one.

He is still alive [relief],

was followed immediately by,

we need to get busy and give more stuff away!

He has done SO MUCH for us, and we're grateful. It also keeps us working, getting the fossils to folks who will appreciate them. So, keep 'em coming, Don!


*dinosaur bone fragments, brachiopods, shark teeth, pieces of crinoid stem, etc.

040317

Noah Wasn't Enough

40 days start now
mudslides and lightning
the seas don't overflow
there's not enough water
but that old hydrologic cycle
she's speeding up 1000-fold
flinging seawater everywhere
haddock in Halifax
crabs in Cleveland
squid in Skaneateles
and whales in Waco
as if that town hasn't suffered enough already

040217

So, a scientist trained a neural network to write recipe titles, by feeding it cookbooks. The results are surreal. Product warning: I couldn't breathe while reading them.

http://www.someecards.com/life/tech/computer-cookbook-recipes/



Today's poem


I Call This One...


lifting the cover, hesitating
what's on this plate?
something the AI whipped up
I think you'll like the way
it used every bit of the snails
and most of the gophers

040117

river of jobs
flowing south across the border
Trump card