031518d

binary talk
from a galaxy
a billion light-years off
orphaned AIs looking for love
voices of the dead

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!

062116b

breathe

I wonder if here

tattered fragments of

ancient lore come together

in a sundered book

rebound in blood-warm leather

that rises like a tide.

--

From my most recent chapbook of speculative poetry, SETI Hits Paydirt, from Popcorn Press. Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/SETI-Hits-Paydirt-David-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/1502836750/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465174829&sr=1-1&keywords=SETI+Hits+Paydirt

Did I happen to mention?

My latest SF poetry chapbook, SETI Hits Paydirt, is now an ebook:

http://www.drivethrufiction.com/product/161767/SETI-Hits-Paydirt?site=&

SETI Hits Paydirt

Here is the title poem from my latest collection, SETI Hits Paydirt, published by Popcorn Press.

You can get the chapbook here

http://www.popcornpress.com/product/seti-hits-paydirt/

or here

http://www.amazon.com/SETI-Hits-Paydirt-David-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/1502836750/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1421587796&sr=8-9&keywords=david+c.+kopaska-merkel


SETI Hits Paydirt

(preliminary transcription)


Please to be thanking for you
this person who transmission [is] pleasing
transfer of goods/services
into your benevolent selves.

We have come, gods be spoken
between packing and material (?)
no artificial combustibles
essential data well repeated.

Stocked in sensitized protection
beside the open door of personal house,
transmitted century-years waiting
[of] your private benefit riches.

Instructions included in solitary
tug (push?) format easy engulfed
simply put in calculation device
activate and rejoice.

Teach secrets of sweat corn
its growth and nutrition
rejoice within you our
untrammeled selves.


The end


Originally published in Strange Horizons, Jan. 9, 2006

10% off titles at Popcorn Press

here's a coupon code - 3Hekehef - worth 10% off every order you place at www.popcornpress.com between now and Nov. 30.

Includes my new SF poetry chapbook SETI Hits Paydirt

My new book is out!

SETI Hits Paydirt, a small book of speculative poems, is out from Popcorn Press:

http://www.popcornpress.com/

I'm happy with this one, & I really love the cover. If nothing else, follow the link to see it. I'll tell you a secret: I chose it myself!