040321b

 

lobes

extruded from my flesh

all the faces

082220c

 

Limeaid: in defense of citrus! 

almost any citrus species

will breed with any other

which brings us navel limes

with little limes inside 'em

041620c

new people
grow organs like weeds
my roommate's spare head

103119c

It wasn't so much how many mutated rodents broke out of the abandoned lab, but their size. Or its size. It had apparently eaten all of the others. Really, it wasn't even so much the size, but bullets wouldn't stop it. At first, the authorities were reluctant to call in a nuclear strike in an urban area. Then, of course, it was too late.

102919d

Sometimes, you get the fish, and sometimes the hook is actually caught in the corner of the mouth of a giant mutated radioactive lizard, vaguely like a cross between Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, that is planning to vent its fury at your assault by burning and crushing just about everything on your puny little island.

101218d

so, on Founders Day we all open our presents
this year, I asked for a baby brother
and that's what I got!
Twins, actually
and the little one had a few horns
sort of like Triceratops
the big one has a few pairs of wings
but he can't fly
I'm sure he'll be able to when he gets bigger.
As usual,
I gave my parent… Me!
She was very happy
as she always is
it made her put the scary face away
all the rest of the afternoon

042718d

genius, they said

a chimera of snail and dragonfly
the last few humans

042518c

under the covers
a strange ecology grew
morning's child looked familiar

040218d

If Only


We had not armed the bunnies
to help them in their losing war against coyotes
who knew they wouldn't stop with coyotes?

We had not dumped mutagenic dreck
into the Mississippi River
I am sure we've learned our lesson now

None of the mutants
had been viable
they weren't supposed to be

Mother nature
or whatever that 900 foot woman was
hadn't been quite so pissed

In a way
my favorites were the vampire daisies
purely on aesthetic grounds
but the way things turned out
I am on the hunt for a radioactive spider
or snake
or even a bunny

012918

brine time

The sun bakes the collectors,

Feeding the high-rises to the south.

Trickle-down electronics feed the locals power too,

Bleeding a few watts to each plastic shanty.

Living on brine shrimp

mutated to catfish size

(when we say jumbo we mean it)

And halophytic vegetation,

The power's used to run lights and pump brine

for a little passive cooling.

At certain times and tides,

The shrimp boil purple, green, and gold,

Explode upon our minds,

Affect our vision heart and soul.

I see cities trees and countryside,

Gargantuan groves of plastic gone

That now the sun imbibe, and hide,

And strangler fig-like cables bulge on every one.

081717c

When the giant ants moved in, the survivors were so hungry they didn't even cook them before setting to.

051017b

moon
beam
dancing
or are you
doing some web work
toe spinnerets are just the thing
limber spiderfolk, bit by radioactive peo-
ple, they have the best of both worlds
this web says "Eat Me!"
meaning some-
thing op-
-po-
site

032517

I Knew There Was Something

the daisies on her wallpaper

evolved through the night

by morning they had thorns and

an unsettling look

on what now seemed like faces

but it was the prehensile tendrils

that gave them away

the rest of us kept our distance

after we saw what happened

when Chee tried to water them

032017

Only the White Meat

If sharks flew they avoided the mutant forest, where phage-ridden former humans vied with giant pitcher plants for the few morsels that entered there. Out of the forest the river ran red with blood, always, and sometimes you could fish out humanovegetal larvae, drowned and spinose. Yes, the country deteriorated rapidly after the gene factory was hit by free-something terrorists during the early days of the Collapse. Things are better now, and you hardly ever see blood in the river. No one enters the forest still, but aeronautical sharks (if they ever existed) are gone. It’s good they’re gone, and it’s good the humans are gone.

No, I don’t call what lives in the forest human. It’s sessile, for one thing, and reproduces by budding. Not human at all. Me? Why I’m no more human than you. Little hardwood sap in my veins maybe, and the rest pure Felis domesticus. No, they’re all gone, or if they’re not, they as good as are.

What happened to the dogs now, I like that too. It’s fitting that they should now be small, shelled, and six-legged. Eight would be better (more to pull off) but I’m not greedy. If there was a god, that god would be a cat. And that cat would be me.




reprint

012417b

On this planet,
every cell has four chromosomes
evolution: extraordinarily rapid
but inaccurate
hoo boy!
One time, a baby was born
with only two arms and legs!

122116b

night of the tongue
giant frogs thunder along
shattering highways
mutagens dumped in wetlands
wait till you see the gators

121116b

anniversary

Katie knew what she had to do: the red spoon was dirty -- again. Several gobbets of flesh had escaped their notice. As she scrubbed, a thin, white hand crept out of the hole in the baseboard. Reaching up, it make a secret mark on the back of her right calf and withdrew as silently as it had come. She did not precisely feel this intrusion, but Katie knew something was wrong. Later she said: "I felt that the cabinet door was not entirely shut"

Before everything changed she might have watched a little television. She knew better, though, and donned her outdoor gear--its bulk obscuring her worn features moments after she disrobed.

The stairs were difficult despite the bannister's disappearance the previous winter but outside the suit hampered her but little as she cleaned the goblins from the intake ducts. Not the goblins of fairy tale and Hollywood, perhaps, but the lumpy creatures resembled the repulsive creatures of legend far more than they did their own parents.

"Always trying to get back in," she thought. "It comes of lax discipline," she added firmly.

The mark must have been apprehended somehow through the impervious fabric of the suit. A small creature burst out of the undergrowth where the hedge had been. She had never seen a live goblin when the sun was up, and they scarcely ever approached people, despite their incessant efforts to enter buildings. Flames curled from its ears as it crumpled at her feet, gabbling at her for a few seconds and pawing at her feet.

"I couldn't make out what it was saying," she mused wistfully, "But I almost thought it called to me."

"Nonsense. They don't speak. They can't." Willard hoisted himself out of the hammock and began to lurch back and forth, scissoring his tusks. "Next time, carry a stick to keep them off." He ruffled his dorsal plates. "And stop that hole!"

That night, Katie left a saucer of milk out on the kitchen floor, but Willard found it and dumped it out before he went to bed with the others.

Results of a preliminary investigation of the electrochemical properties of some organic matrices , Eraserhead Press, 1999

091616b

That chemical waste dump, always knew it would be trouble. When the giant armored pill bugs rolled out of the humus and onto the highway, people laughed. They swerved to squish them on purpose. Turned out only the juveniles migrate. Who knew that the parents would care about their offspring? But then, who knew that 15 foot pill bugs with metal-impregnated shells would be rolling down I 70, heading straight for Kansas City?