072219

sweet sweet cucumbers
under leafy parasols
come to me darlings

110518b

Jason's catered lunch
six sandwich choices
and mine was good

011418b

potluck food
and swapping stories
priceless

062917

Hold the Mayo

There was the ham sandwich again. It had been following me for days. Shit. It lay on my open book, covering most of the last page of the story by HB Clonekraft entitled “Salami over Hismouth.” There was too much mayonnaise and it was staining the book. I sure hoped the librarians didn't riffle through the pages when I returned it. I picked up the book and gingerly tilted it so the sandwich slid into the trashcan. I hate mayonnaise on a ham sandwich. I hate the French, because they invented mayonnaise. I hate eggs because, well, I don't hate eggs, but if I did, you know why it would be. I should have put the book away last night when I quit reading, but I'd been so tired. I looked at the clock, slammed the book shut, and left it on the table as I ran out the door. I was late, as usual.

A bus was just pulling away from the stop. A light drizzle fell. The billboard on the corner advertised the new ham and mayonnaise combo at Moe's Deli. I have always hated Moe, but never more than I did right then. That was when I noticed the drizzle wasn't water. The drops were white. I touched one that had fallen on the newspaper box and sucked my finger. Mayonnaise. I looked up, saw a lightly toasted rectangle 60 feet across floating in air. Shaved ham was visible around the edges and mayonnaise was oozing from several holes in the toast.

I stepped into a doorway to get out of the mayorain. The sandwich didn't move, but the mayo was falling harder. I got a few white splashes on my shoes and jeans. Disgusting! Finally the bus pulled up. I was about to make a run for it, but just then the toast ripped in half. A glob of mayo as big as a Smart Car nailed the front of the bus. I turned away just in time; I could feel splatters machinegunning my back. The barrage subsided and I turned around. The bus seemed intact. I had just reached the curb when the ham let go, and that's the last thing I remember.

--

The doctor was a young man, pink cheeked ... I zeroed in on his name tag: "Dr. Prosciutto."

"You have a severe concussion," he said. "You may find yourself hallucinating." Behind him, packets of mustard clustered menacingly in the doorway.

Publ. Daily Cabal, 2010

041217b

chill morning air
warm sunbeams promise
lunch in the park

040517b

unquiet water

feathers above, scales below

It is lunchtime duck!

022417b

Sold a poem to Polu Texni, an unassuming zine with consistently good poetry.

The Science Fiction Poetry Association is now missing permission from only 4 poets whose work received Rhysling nominations.

And, thanks to anthropogenic climate change, spring is in full swing. 80F today in Tuscaloosa! It's like Christmas in Miami (although less humid).

Shout out to Tina's mother, who made some excellent chili (of which I got some leftovers), and who almost certainly does not read this blog.

A feathered dinosaur tail

The BBC reports on a feathered dinosaur tail discovered in amber from Myanmar. It appears that the sparrow-sized dinosaur might have been alive when it was trapped. The article suggests the critter died because it couldn't get loose. There are other possibilities.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38224564

A shrew-like creature scuttles up the tree
pine bark spalls
pulled loose by sharp claws
sharper teeth worry a tiny overlord
feathered cousin of tyrannosaurs
and sauropods that shake the land
the proto-rat makes short work
of the head and torso
spitting out feathers
that soon litter the needled ground
the gummed tail is out of reach
not much meat on it
anyway



That's probably what really happened

060516b

Hyperspace is Tricky


Emerge relativistically
and how do you slow down?
there might be a billion trillion ships,
remnants of vanished empires,
whizzing around the cosmos,
at near light speeds.
Some supernovas are ends of these;
most will see the end of all things,
before lunch,
from their perspectives.