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Excited to show you the cover of my forthcoming full-length collection of dark speculative poetry, Some Disassembly Required, featuring many previously unpublished poems.



Some Disassembly Required had me at “Bah Bah Black Goat”….Providing both tongue-in-fungoid-cheek and real scares, Kopaska-Merkel’s poetry just about covers it with his use of free verse and formalist verse (Great Old One haibun, uh-huh), funny and scary verse, Sfnal and fantastical verse.

When you read some of these poems, you’ll recognize places you’ve been...even if only in your dreams and nightmares. Kinda nice to have some validation for those night gaunt sightings, eh?

Only reality is scarier than some of these poems.

--Denise Dumars, author of Paranormal Romance: Poems Romancing the Paranormal.

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David Kopaska-Merkel... uses precise language and twisted speculation to forge a...nuanced world-view….His works here, from poems about post-apocalyptic mutations to pieces dealing with shapeshifters and space travelers, are filled with creatures who are not so much extremes, or bigger than life, but are instead totally accessible because of the ordinariness of their cruelties, the normality of their mistakes and desires, and the pettiness of their wide-spread destruction. These are the small beings who do huge damage, the powerful divinities who act out of their small-mindedness, greed, and ignorance. Then, mixed in among the fantastic and the alien, almost to the point where the reader can no longer tell one type of being from another, are humans. If we created gods and demons in our own image, to be worshiped, feared and reviled, David Kopaska-Merkel's sf-nal creations have likewise used humans in the same way. This book...is a dark, gritty, almost horrifically strange one. But, with some disassembly, the reader can start to see bright patches, sympathetic and approachable. Of course, those only serve to make...the horrors more relatable. --Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Editor, Spaceports & Spidersilk, author of Midnight Comes Early.

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pregnant with my father

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Prof. Lopez
exits the time machine
rope snare

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the last human I dance for my life

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Rigellian sex lander shakes

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needle ships
sowed death pole to pole
antiseptic

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Some Disassembly Required My next poetry collection Contents: Broken Bones In the Wabe Bah, Bah, Black Goat “a great eye blinks” “we burst forth” A Visitor from Yuggoth Wind Walker Innsmouth Girl Klarkash Ton and the Prophet of Doom Host A Deity Goes Too Far The Imperishable Awakens Quite An Impression The Higher Dimensions Matters of Scale Divine Intervention Lights Over the Midnight Desert Diplomatic Incident Woman Delivers Ex-Husband’s Illegitimate Babies Maybe It Was Just As Well Pumping Up the Local Economy “we use scales and all” “the Altairian’s fridge” “diplomatic party served” Space Opera We Are The Oysters Some Disassembly Required Absolute The Laws of Robotics With Benefits Instar My Girl’s Got Everything Future Fossils What Happened To Intelligent Design? Leviathan “left my late father’s” “Captain dead planetside” “coughing starts after” Mars Colony 1 Under Attack Neptune’s Journey “Emy’s doll” “first-gen hybrid” “guests admiring” A Virus Takes the Mike Something Wakes Content Adult Female, Deceased Réanimation Medicale Stirrings Korean Fuel Train Disaster of 2004 Subterranean Hungers Conversion Therapy Changeling “a full moon rising” “Beast never learned” “anniversary” “breaking through the lid” Ghost Coming Back False Economy The Young Teacher Gets Her Nails Done Dating Has Its Hazards An Ill Wind The Werewolf Explanation That’s Dr. Vampire To You The Mummy Needs Work Swamped Sling Shot I’m A Stranger Here Myself Person of Interest Flesh Eating Alien Vampire Sex On The Moon The Mind Eater Host Always “kept all his late wives” Pattern of Response “the late prince” Irreconcilable Differences The Bad Sister Smart Homes The Hungry Void Lacertilia Regina Amoeba Girl As Teen Boa Boy Sends His Regrets Corn Boy The Brown-Paper Princess Second Skin A Song For You, Ophidia Trip Trap The Successful Suitor Will… Medusa’s Tale Persephone Makes Her Move Beats the Alternative Marooned

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Dreams and Nightmares 118 is ready to go to the printer. I think this is one of the best issues yet. I am now reading for #120. I am caught up on submissions; I've only got four awaiting a decision. If you want to check the magazine out, you can get a PDF of any issue for $1; PayPal to jopnquog@gmail.com.

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Last week I missed about three days. If I had Covid, it was a very mild case. Given my track record, it could have just as easily been the common cold, because I don't usually have mild cases of anything. I am back on track with Dreams and Nightmares and I think I will more or less eliminate the backlog of submissions today.

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I am in in the process of responding to all but the most recent submissions to Dreams and Nightmares. At this point, the next two issues are full, and I am working on the January 2022 issue. As a consequence, I will have to be more selective than usual. I still do want to see your work, and I will respond to it as quickly as usual (within a couple of weeks, unless it makes the short list).

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native creatures
with spanking new Latin names
they won't be minutes

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Dreams and Nightmares update. I didn't get subscriber copies of 117 mailed last week as I hoped, but they are ready to go out.

I am reading submissions today and will get it down to no more than a handful by the end of the day. I am reading for 119, which is due out in September of this year. 118 is full of poetry, though I could use a few more filler illustrations. 119 is almost full already.

Print copies are five dollars each, $25 for a six-issue subscription. PDF copies are one dollar each, and I have almost every single issue back to the beginning. If you want all of those, a lifetime PDF subscription including all back issues is $39. A lifetime subscription to the print copies is normally $90, but it's on sale this month for $75. That includes all available back issues, which is roughly a dozen, and it also includes a PDF subscription and back issues. All of these things can be had by sending money via PayPal to jopnquog@gmail.com. If you would rather write a check, make it out to me and mail it to 1300 Kicker Rd., Tuscaloosa, AL 35404. 

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Dreams and Nightmares 117 is ready to be sent out to PDF subscribers. I think I will have time to do that today. If you don't subscribe, and you want a PDF copy, just send me one dollar via PayPal to jopnquog@gmail.com. Search this blog for the table of contents for that issue.

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DN slushpile down to 8 submissions; reading for Sept. issue. Come on down!

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Holding a galactic empire together without FTL travel is like herding cats.

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How many colony ships, crewed by the durable remnants of their crew and passengers, coast silently through the dark among the stars?

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passing between

the two suns heat shimmer

baking in the dome

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how many species

burned their worlds to the ground

one, for sure

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Seating the Teratornis delegation proved problematic, what with their 12-foot wingspans and Catholic appetites.

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New Madrid's latest

bark wakes the neigborhood

San Andreas howls