111220b

 
Emerging a bit too close
to the hole that is eating the galaxy
just time to regret
skipping lunch

011419c

ship emerged from the
back end of the wormhole
what a mess

122718c

Chemical elements don't vary among the planets. So, barring extreme differences of pressure and temperature,  no new minerals should be found  on other planets.. Perhaps a few variants that we have never seen before, but that is all we can reasonably hope for.  No dilithium,, alas. Ice 9 is far more likely.

122318b

solar sails
won't take you to nearby stars
galactic wind




http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/G/Galactic+Winds

121218d

ramscoop fails to brake arrival at the home world

112918

ship’s

air

system

on the fritz

humidity up

alien mascot gives off spores

turns out the juveniles are tasty when sliced and fried

111018c

This ramscoop ship
traveling near light speed
if it strikes any object
hydrogen atom
mote of dust
planet, star
it travels all the faster
we can never go home
if we did
we would find it a frozen cinder
and would swallow it in an instant

110418b

"I love you, Mama"
sent a century ago
red-shifted goodbye

113017b

teleportation

only way to do it, really

light is just too slow

suddenly a new world

field of blue-glass flowers

or a lake of argent fire

070117c

543 million years later

and they're still kicking,

under a few kilometers of water

and up to their endopodites in mud,

blind as a bat and stupid as dirt,

but what the hey.

it's a living.

I meant to write sooner, but anyway,

I think of you a lot,

out there in yesterday's tomorrow,

sailing an A.U. in an augenblick,

closer and closer to the ultimate velocity,

and the terminal gulfs between galaxies.

I saw your mother last weekend,

told her the yen for science skips generations,

she told me you're an engineer

but I knew that.

By the time you get this message it'll be

years from now and the end of an eon.

They found some trilobites down in the trenches.

Maybe that'll make it into the digest they

send you this year,

but just in case.

Think about it!

All those millennia of millennia,

burrowing blindly in ooze, down there

where the crust does a perfect 10.0 into the mantle.

The sea floor itself is a spring chicken compared to them.

Heck, they don't look so different from the bugs I used to study,

back in the Middle Cambrian.

Now we finally know what their bellies look like.

I'm kinda hoping that cryosleep thing will work out,

and soon, cos my time is running short.

It would be nice to see some great grandchildren,

In a billenium or two,

when you get home.

I hope you're still writing music;

your mom was pretty good, you know, had a flair for it

before she got too busy,

and I was happy that you'd taken it up.

As you know, I can't tuna fish.

And speaking of fish,

I remember when I read about the coelacanth,

that ancient model of our own Carboniferous ancestors,

caught right before they ventured onto land.

Of course the modern coelacanths can't take that step themselves-

They live down deep, safe

from rapacious upstart cousins.

But face it, we are cousins,

and what's a couple hundred million years

if it's all in the family?

Things aren't going so well since that trouble out in Kansas;

they probably didn't tell you about that.

Maybe the idea of freezing myself is a dead end.

I mean, who's going to tend the freezers

for all that time?

And good old American know how sure

won't keep them going without maintenance.

Maybe I should just leave a note with the coelacanths,

they'll still be around when you return.

The trilobites, now, they're hardly relatives at all.

We parted company a good 543,000,000 years ago,

never looked back,

don't owe them a thing.

But you've got to hand it to them:

If we blow ourselves up they'll still be down there;

with all that water to protect them,

they should outlast the roaches too.

050316

The Natives Here


Celebrate the season by crushing rocks
with their heads

Joyfully welcome their sun by slingshotting themselves to-
wards it

Somberly dirge separting winter withbonfires
and roasted cake frosting

Used to ring mushrooms at this time
but now blow crumpets all night long

Live far underground: seasons? what is that?

041216b

Sun's a cinder

time's up for the Boat

of a Million Years

Ra sails toward the nearest star

ferries the last, frozen souls

040316b

emerging from subspace
having at last repaired the engine
where are the stars? the galaxies? where is anything?
so much time has passed
in the cool dark, our ship a beacon
what chill hunger changes course?

022816

In One System

three worlds had been occupied
by a wide, squat species,
four-armed; articulations
most peculiar;
in a desiccated one-room structure:
a Paddington bear

022216b

FTL travel

No relativistic effects
I'll return from Vega
jetlagged
in time for the weekend
I'm bringing back a side of megashrimp
for the barbie

my grandmother
her generation ship
arrives at its destination
in another 16,000 years
she'll be young
ready to learn whatever
tongue they're speaking