102720d

 

We did not begin our existence as food creatures manufactured by primitive autochthons that had not even learned to master space or time! Could we?

022420

spoons gently teased
from the primordial kitchen
another spork

100519

Humanity

Has been an unmitigated disaster

for planet Earth.

Too bad

whoever built this biosphere

didn’t look after it.

In order to deal, to mitigate,

we set processes in motion:

to cure cancer;

to relocate non-hominid primates

to a much better planet,

so far away,

it cannot be seen from Sol,

just in case the whole Order’s tainted;

to make sure no more humans are born

to trouble an unhappy world;

to ruthlessly suppress

any tendency for other animals

to be the kinds of jerks

that humans were,

when they existed.

090519c

malachite skies
mean death for DNA-based life
new creation

083117c

God tosses one more

failed cosmos behind His barn

life crawls out

073017b

Mr. Smith Makes A Complaint

"I want to make a complaint."

The being behind the counter, white robed, wingéd, and possessed of an unearthly beauty, looked puzzled. It cleared its throat. "I don't think I've ever gotten one of those."

I rolled my eyes. "You must be new here." Very new, I silently added.

The celestial being looked around, perhaps hoping to find someone else to deal with me, but no one was there. "May I help you?" it asked. "Mr....?"

"Smith. I think entropy has come to the afterlife."

"Entropy? But that implies progressive, irreversible degradation. It's just not possible here, what with this place existing outside of time and all." It smiled reassuringly. Immaculate wings fluttered and a couple of disarranged feathers settled back into place.

I scratched my head. "That's what I thought. I've been here a while (not sure exactly how long) and at first stasis seemed to prevail."

"Go on," it encouraged.

I had been standing in line at the celestial cafeteria, trying to decide between heavenly ham and a simple fried egg, when I suddenly wondered why there was a line at all. I mean, every other time I went to eat, I encountered only those people I wanted to meet, and we never had to wait. But this morning, the line had stretched from the heavenly serving area, through a lobby of unparalleled symmetry, and out doors of surpassing loveliness into a meadow of unmatched beauty. A murmur had arisen, and as I craned my neck to see what was going on up ahead, I saw many others doing the same. In the end, I had to settle for cold pizza, which makes an excellent breakfast, but wasn't what I wanted.

I later heard that no one had shown up to serve, which was why only leftovers were available. Not the level of competence I had come to expect, frankly. Which was why I decided to register a complaint.

After I finished the story the attendant did not respond. I waved my hand in front of its face, cleared my throat loudly several times. Nothing. Finally, I reached forward and lightly tapped it on the shoulder. It toppled over backward and plummeted through the cloud like a brick through rice pudding.

"Aaaaa!!"

I jumped back, tripped, and almost fell myself. Maybe all this time I'd been wrong about where I'd ended up. Maybe today's events were the next step in an extraordinarily subtle form of torment. Wherever this was, I needed to get out.

Publ. Daily Cabal

072317

shuffling the worlds again and again
she could never find Grandma's recipe
for sentience; reconstructing
it from memory got her nothing more
than carbon-based murder+suicide
or helium-based escape artists
she eventually stashed it in a box in the attic
where strange chemistries built a daughter she could love

072117c

Marcie's Day

Only the bulkhead now between Marcie and what remained of the rest of the crew, which had expanded to fill three quarters of the ship, and it oozing under doors, through vents, and through the tiniest holes.

Seventeen people she'd worked with for months, amalgamated as a malignant mass, a composite entity retaining no visible trace of humanity, its exterior a palimpsest of colors that shifted and transformed ceaselessly: vermilion, gold, a myriad shades of green and blue.

Why had Lon drunk the liquid they'd found in the stoppered flask? Yes, the characters they'd decoded had referred to a miracle cure, yes, he was facing a painful death from the infection he'd picked up on the abandoned station and yes, Federation medicine could do nothing for him, so perhaps he'd thought he had nothing to lose. Well.

The bulkhead creaked, forcing her back to the present, as a voice vibrated through the decking, calling her name.

*

She wrung her hands, stared wildly around the hold. Spacesuits: no; escape pod: ditto. She had nothing to work with, nothing, nada, zilch, etc. Suddenly her eye was drawn to the probability generator. How could she have forgotten? Dangerous, yes, but she'd nothing to lose either. She raced to the machine, removed the lock they had bolted down over the control panel. The bulkhead screamed and polychromatic gel flowed out around it and dripped in globs onto the floor. The scent of lemons mingled with chocolate (or was it burnt roast?). She grabbed the probability dial and gave it a strong twist. Wheels spun and clacked, lights flashed, and peripheral vision overwhelmed her sight. It was more distracting than being blind. She couldn't actually see anything, but she couldn't ignore anything either.

A moment later she could see again. She could see, but for some reason, she could not take a step. She looked down, then, at the glistening multicolored sausage that had been her legs; at the squirming polyps that were ballooning from her flesh like chewing gum bubbles, separating, and drifting away, tendrils waving au revoir, on the stiffening breeze; and at the roots that her fused limbs were sending out through the quivering ground at ever-increasing speed. She shook her head, smiled, and extended her arms, which burst into bud. She stood at the center of a rapidly Marcifying plain. It was going to be a good day.

Publ. Daily Cabal 2007

070617

Kansas City Time

"Look here." His stubby finger poked the map on her knee. "This is old KC. There's the shuttlecock. One of these buildings must be the Nelson."

She blew stray hairs out of her face and gazed doubtfully at the crumbling ruins. "We have a problem Bil. KC wasn't wrecked till the teens. In the city we're looking for, the Nelson hadn't even been built. Your numbers were wrong." At this rate, they'd blow through their grant money and find nothing worth a dissertation. No degree, no tenure.

"Well, let's try again," Natale said. "Use my coordinates. Your numbers seem to be off by at least a century." Bil keyed in their destination and pushed "go." Everything outside dissolved into a sparkling mist.

-----

Something was vibrating her rhythmically, like a giant heartbeat. "Ohhh." Natale hurt all over, especially the small of her back, where Bil's head had apparently ended up. They had not landed well. She sat up and looked outside. A low marsh fronted a quiet sea. "Crap! I'll never get my Ph.D. now."

"We have more things to worry about. For instance, lunch."

"Your lunch?! We're sinking into Jurassic mud!"

"Cretaceous. I'm not worried about eating lunch." The time machine was shaking harder now and a huge carnosaur, all teeth from this perspective, was bearing down on them at a dead run. Bil scrambled to the controls, punched go. Outside, the monster dissolved in mist.

-----

"What coordinates?" Natale asked. "We've been heading the wrong way -- deeper into the past."

"I didn't have time to set any. We were about to be eaten."

"Sh*t, Bil!" She opened her mouth, closed it. Only thing to do now was wait—would they reenter spacetime at all? With no endpoint set, their battered vessel hurtled back to time's beginning. When next the mist cleared they appeared to be floating in space, with one brilliant "star" so close it showed a disk. Nothing else could be seen. Air whistled out through cracks the time machine had picked up on its journey.

"Where are we?" Natale asked fearfully. "Where is the Earth?"

Bill was trembling. "If my guess is right, it's right there." He nodded at the "star." "We need to get out of here." He started entering the coordinates for their initial point of departure. Before he finished, the "star" underwent a sudden transition.

Bang.

Publ. Daily Cabal, 2008

070417

Jana's World


When 

Jana made the world she used her grandmother's favorite bowl.

Carson unlocked his office door he knew right away something was wrong.

Some of the mixture slopped onto the floor, Jana wiped it up with a rag.

Carson saw the mixing bowl he noticed right away that it was dirty.

She put the pan in the oven Jana saw the dishrag burning with an enduring flame.

Carson touched the bowl he heard a symphony of dissonance.  He saw it too.  And smelt it.

Jana emptied the trash she put the can out by the curb. 

Carson wiped his hands on his sweater he felt light-headed.

Jana heard the timer go off she was on the phone.

Carson started typing he seemed to be all thumbs.

Jana took the pan out the world was a little crispy around the edges. 

Carson looked out the window everything seemed to be getting dark.  Except at the horizon, where it was even darker.

Jana turned the world onto a board she set it out to cool.

Carson looked up from the computer he smelled a peculiar odor.  

Jana looked around she could not find the mixing bowl.  

Carson made to leave he wondered what was for supper.  And whether it had been burned.

Jana saw the time she ordered takeout.  

Carson got home his dinner was waiting, made just the way he liked it.  


After supper

Jana remembered the world.

A crow had snatched it from the window sill.

Carson was disappointed there was no dessert.

Publ. Daily Cabal 2008

062617

Fly away, now

The ladybug leaned against the window frame and crossed its lower right leg over its lower left. It took a drag from a nearly microscopic cigar and blew an even smaller smoke ring.

"Yep, this is all mine. I made the whole shebang," it added, by way of explanation, seeing John's look of confusion.

John had written about talking pigs, etc., but never a talking insect. Was one kind of talking animal more or less improbable than another? Somehow it seemed that talking mammals were more plausible than bugs.

"Hello! Anybody in there?" The ladybug pointed at John with the cigar.

"What? All what? The whole shebang of what?" John clicked save, though he'd written so little that losing the file wouldn't matter much.

"Everything. The universe. Didn't even take a week." If an insect ever looked smug, this one did.

John shook his head vigorously to clear his mind. "Ha ha. It almost sounded like you said you created the universe. But you know, we already know who did that. There's a book about it, maybe you've heard of it." Having come to the conclusion that he was hallucinating, John had decided to play along.

Mistake.

"You think I'm stupid? Of course I know about the book, I wrote it. Surely you don't think your primitive ancestors were equipped to handle the information that they had been invented by a bug. You don't seem to be doing too well with it yourself." The ladybug stubbed the cigar out on the window sill and tossed the butt out the window. John winced. He hated litterbugs.

"You know, that's bad for you. Bad for the environment too. North Carolina and Virginia should never have gotten started cultivating tobacco in the first place. And, what's up with evolution? Is it real? Are birds really dinosaurs? And, if you're a benevolent God, why do bad things happen to good people? Is it really so we can have free will? Because, you know, I don't think that's a legitimate justification."

The ladybug seemed to sigh. "I don't think you've been paying attention. That benevolent god crap was something humans made up because they can't handle the truth. Who said I was benevolent? Why should I be? Arthropods are "r" strategists. Have enough kids and some are bound to survive. Benevolence is neither necessary nor desirable. And it's not like you're real. All I have to do is snap my --"

SLAMBO!!

John scraped the bug guts off on the edge of the sill and tossed the book down on his desk. It was time for a drink.

Publ. Apr. 15, 2010, www.dailycabal.com

052617d

Even this tiny snail's perfect fossil shell

Who put these reefs

shouldering out from road-side cliffs

dripping with corals

not seen alive for 300 million years

put them there to fool us

trick us into thinking

the world is an old old place?

The very same person

who built the whole shebang

from nothing, nothing at all

and loves us dearly

though, never speaking to us

or showing his face

is a funny way to show it

030617c

http://www.polutexni.com/

My latest poem, which features both dogs and evolution. Polu Texni is one of my favorite low-tech online zines

I read this poem to my local writing group while I was working on it. They liked it better than they have liked any of my other poems.

071816

In Flower's world,
Herbivores were a product of Weed,
Flower created carnivores,
But the damage was done.

Orchids and irisses preached
The evils of herbivory,
Ambiguous microbes proactively
Evolved into mad-cow disease.

Art from mundanity

http://blog.castleintheair.biz/

Nicole Hollander posted this link to wondrous permutations.

071913

a fresh ground
rich in carbon chains
microspheres assemble
she wants fur
I can't wait for flowers