011321b

 

sky closes in

on domed undersea city 

sediment slump

091220b

 

Hurricane Zeb

barrels toward New Orleans

Katrina who?

062920b

Converging Lines

 

Smoke boils up

From the street shimmer,

Your house,

I think I can make it out,

I could’ve danced across

On the roofs of cars, but now,

Only a few antennae protrude

From the steaming muck.

Your house collapses,

Burns; now it’s gone.

You know,

We could’ve really

Been something together,

With your aplomb,

And my brilliance,

I almost asked you out once,

But your expression gave me pause.

The moment was gone.

Oh well, I almost regret

Pushing the red button

On that mysterious machine

In the secret room in the attic,

Skull and crossbones

Taped to its side.

It was left

By my crazy inventor uncle;

He was nearly as brilliant as I,

But vanished one hot summer day,

Testing his giant magnifier hat.

052620b

great glass wave
off New York City
actually a liquid

041320d

fresh erosion
under the tracks
two blocks from my house
counting the chlorine cars
in each freight train

091118

a smog-mantled Earth
sightless gaze
at the now-green moon

041018c

this hollow moon
glass soap bubble
so unfortunate

the shuttle pilot
miscalculated
at least we have
a decorative ring

040318d

super kangaroo
learning to jump and bringing
down aircraft

012118

Calcite-Fu

Mutant snails, eating all the concrete to grow their ever-larger and more elaborate shells, caused more loss of life than the 2054 Flea Flu.

012018

Click ‘Em Together Again

The river tears its bank a new one,

smiting fields and towns alike,

shoving everything aside

in its eagerness to suicide

into the sea.

Call it the water cycle if you will,

but remember when you hit the water

from high enough above,

it's like cement to you,

call it the cement cycle.

No, because water is nothing like cement,

the tsunami that hit Japan a few years ago,

was a bulldozer 100 miles wide,

God's drain backed up,

with fish instead of sewage.

Our globe: no place to raise a family,

if there was any alternative

I'd have my bags packed in an hour;

"No place like home,"

more threat than promise.

052417b

How many backups does it take
to make sure you have a copy preserved
no matter what
and how many does it take
to make sure that you edit the wrong version
and delete the best one
no matter what?

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

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

013117

every week
the ants flee flooded homes
watering day

031416c

Wind

parsing the daffodils

beside the vanished house

the single concrete step

and the branchless oak