A Sickening Wind

seen from the surface
our stars are starting to dim
the cold is coming

a sickening wind
blows north from the old city
where the millions died

Passing Through

From the journal of Ben Jackson:
"Passing through Eta-Signus, a star system with a habitable planet orbiting it, there were some radio signals coming from the second planet, and from its moon, but nothing left alive. So I kept on, without stopping. I do have a long way to go. One more year to Ursae, then three and a half more on the way back. I can't be stopping for every dead civilization on the way."

a reflective cloud
of quiet, astral waste is
all that's left of them

the twisting, dancing
broken archeology
drifting to nowhere

remnants of battles
and corpses orbit this star
nothing left to see

Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

Don’t weep, insects
Lovers, stars themselves
Must part

-Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

Murder, Fate, Earwigs, and The Void

a cloud of skin cells,
a smell, and a fading hum
after the beam struck

the feather is just
riding non-deterministic
waves of connection

memes and small earwigs
enter our brains and start to
hijack our culture

the chaoskampf is
alpha, omega
the heat death of god

Home

my muscles all ache
from the pull of gravity
during the landing

my return from space
met with radio silence
the cities are dead

Dance Master

A Glorious Dawn

The Nauplii of Enceladus

beneath the ice sheets
weird nematodes luminesce
around the core vents

there is a peaceful
slowness in the benthic zone
deep with the tube worms

the hyperbenthos
of Enceladus digest
anything they can

The bugs in the forest where I live

these queer beasts look quite
like Malaysian Jungle Nymphs
though they speak English

Rainbow-Faced Bloodflies
hover, detecting my breath
as I sit cross-legged

among the Daypods
and sap covered Trees, there is
a melodic hum

a chorus of deep
and forceful buzzing, as the
Leaftigers seek mates

The Eternal Flesh

the man with the card
which read "Eternal Flesh, Inc"
said she'd be the same

my replacement wife
nuzzles my neck like she used
to, before she died

the clear, eternal
flesh of my replacement wife
will never wrinkle

her belly hums with
wires, where before it would growl
where I laid my head

this beautiful girl
is an image or echo
of the truth she was