110217b

Obviously, humans are not immigrants from off world. We are genetically too much like most other life on this planet to come to any other rational conclusion. But our ancestors were: Fred Hoyle was right. Life does begin on a planet when it arrives via meteor or simply floating in space. Where and when did the ur-life of this universe originate? Who wants to know?

030117

The wild roads worm into the heartland
surrounding villages
isolating dark and tangled woods
bringing strange beasts
unearthly colors, spine-chilling sounds
new towers in gut-wrenching hues rise overnight
toadstools of imperishable metal
beaming thoughts and unthoughts
to the huddled masses
the roads, meanwhile
on they writhe
switchbacks on the plains
cutting through empty villages
farms furred with new growth
and fruit from the stars

022017b

Spiral's Heart

I chose this place

because the massy stars

fill the sky from horizon to zenith

to horizon

I chose this place

despite the hard

radiation, which necessitates

shielding from its glory

I chose this place

so close to the galaxy's

black and deadly heart

for its bright beauty

I chose this place

092616b

Centauran punk
blasting from his implant
red sun; blue trees
it's a trial for a human
puberty here lasts decades

082216b

It took the bacteria
generations to colonize the graham cracker
looking into the abyss
the pioneers saw another graham cracker
looking back at them

091816

Life Goes On
 

Hydroponics have gone Precambrian,

olive green cyanobacteria

coat the trays where tomatoes

and beans once grew,

and there's something ediacaran

about the thin flat worms

peristaltically climbing

the pitted walls.

Blue Star by morning,

red star at dusk,

the ship's new ecology,

metazoan free,

eats the controls,

and does not wonder.

081116

Terran nanomachines
burn Titan's seas
floating cities' drain-swirl deaths
will power human lights

071916c

Fitting In


Human optics are maladaptive in this place
something crawls my arm:
the bloody pinpricks in pentadactyl clusters
develop like a photographic print
the native plants, invisible to us
entwine our beans and squash
crush the life from fragile stems
a brute-force competition
in which only kudzu can prevail
among terrestrial transplants.

I'm getting used to kudzu soup
but last night I dreamt my dead wife
I awoke alone, struggling for air
bruises welling on my limbs.
Now something I can't see
is knitting booties and night shirts
I am building a crib
but for all I know I need two or three