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event horizon

looms in its smear of stars 

bright white sky

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flash in the pain

Peekaboo Cluster

unfurls

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at the core supernova chain reaction




at the core
three-year tour
of nearby systems





camping out
at Sagittarius-A
bright nights

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these are the turns of our disk

coupled across light years

I move – you move

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galactic core
bamboo grows a foot a day
and each night

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when we were
stationary the sky turned
red queen running

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How I Spent my Summer Vacation At the Galactic Core

We went to the black hole at the center of the galaxy last summer? And it was sooooo boring. The windows, excuse me, view screens, were opaque because of a “flare.” The food was yuck, and they didn’t have Squirt Jelly. This is supposed to be the center of the galaxy, millions of civilizations, and they don’t even have Squirt Jelly!?

Okay, I’m getting to the educational part. You’re gonna love it.

There was this girl… cat… lizard… thing and she was as bored as me. We started hanging together. I had some games she’d never heard of. So we talked and played games and got lost on purpose so we wouldn’t have to listen to any more brain-killing lectures. Turns out she is a little older than we are. I’m not sure how old, but if a Lakhtia is like a year I guess she’s about 200. We’d be old enough to do everything if we were 200, and they don’t let her do anything. Anyway, she is working on this genetic engineering project for school and she actually hadn’t started and it was due the day she got back. So she decided to take some of my genetic material. I won’t tell you how she got it! Okay, okay. I will, but I better wait until after class. She’s going to combine mine with some of hers to make a new organism. She figured she’d get top marks, because no one else would have human genetic material where she comes from. And, like, her parent is a Planetary Security Administrator and keeps her locked up. This trip was the first time she had gotten to leave her home planet since she was, like, a baby. That was more than 150 years ago. He, or it, or whatever only let her go this time because it was required for graduation. And she has to marry this old cat-lizard that’s over a thousand years old. That’s why she is never allowed to go anywhere by herself. And when they found us there was a big argument. Some of the cat-lizards were pointing stuff at me and she looked scared and stood in front of me, like they were going to shoot me. Right. And cause an interstellar incident! Finally they took her away. We were there two more days, but it was really boring.

Chad, that is very rude. I did not interrupt your presentation about the steel whales, which didn’t even make sense, by the way. Anyway, I don’t care if the sky is turning purple, you can wait until I



Publ. Daily Cabal, 2011

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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