Lycanthropy (poem written in 2014)

This full blue moon feels bright and spicy,
as of different shades of beckoning. Icy
clouds of conversation rise, unravel,
cloak the night with shapes like sudden travel,
by my wracking reckoning. Dicey
bends, encounters, forks fan out and linger
like a wreath of new air in my time shape,
like a figure in a surveillance tape.

5A (poem about harvesting the magnetosphere originally published in Landfall 225)

The distant tether of the 5-Australis
Birkeland Aerostat Array, 5A
for short, was like a boy with 18 balloons,
breath puffing from his mouth in rich volcanic,
locomotive plumes of CO2;
or even like Medusa, snake mouths lunging
into the magnetosphere to sip
a million amps or so like butterflies
alighting on a wild celestial orchid.

[Note in Oct. 2017: One was not aware of Ignatius Donnelly's novel <<Caesar's Column>> when writing this poem; apparently the novel features a city powered by the aurora borealis, so it is on my summer reading list. Certainly one wondered and still wonders if one might possibly have read the novel before, making 5A an example of cryptomnesia, but I don't think that I even heard about it until a year or so ago when I began looking into proto-SF novels more.

Two Months (poem originally published in PNZ 43 and written in 2009)

July: Industrial production peaks
at Horsetail Base. A riot breaks out in
St. Favonini Square, where dissidents
denounce the Oligarchs of Horsetail Base,
known as the Halswell Syndicate. Police
in riot gear arrived. No massacre
occurred, twelve brutal beatings having been
sufficient. August: Weeks of rioting
begin. Police unable to control
the escalating situation. Films
not entertaining People anymore.
‘The People’ throng the streets, dissatisfied
with Crooks... & newly enamoured with Hooks.

Uchronie (poem originally published in PNZ 43)

(written in 2009)

‘...The thirty Emperors of New Zealand
after the collapse of its Republic in 2095
extended their domain’s possessions
to include Tasmania, New Guinea,
parts of balkanized Australia &...’
‘The institution of “protectorates”
(involving annexation & alliance,
this latter in some cases genuine)
by Emperor Murray VI marked the imposition
of that order from without
which far-flung Australian city-states
& small, unstable leagues thereof --
harassed by raiders
from the Javan Caliphate & crippling droughts
domestically -- so sorely needed...’
‘...Aching teleology or lack thereof of history...
most regrettable... the Brisbane massacre....
my sphere of axis shudders....
hacked-off-breast phenomenon, albeit cultural...’

Impressions of the Caliphate: The Archipelagan Herald November 3rd, 2067

(steampunk poem originally published in PNZ 43)

Cargo dirigibles may be a common
sight for residents of Auckland, Melbourne,
Brisbane, Sydney or Christchurch, but the airship
might as well have been a flying jinn
to most Djakarta, Java residents
on Friday when a delegation from
the Australasian Common Area --
gawking right back at them -- climbed rope ladders
down into negotiation mode with
waiting priyayi. Humidity streamed
down tanned faces, moistened Dundee hats, &
often wiped the etchasketch of thought
like regularly beating gongs. ‘The Caliph
peace be upon him would like an airship’
‘...preferential trading...’ ‘Yes...’ ‘Moluccan
spices...’ ‘...in exchange for which the Caliph
peace be upon him will build trendy teal mosques
all over your countries...’ ‘Up yours, mate’... &
so, like compost, inconclusive talks
proceeded for twelve awkward, throbbing hours...

White Smoke (Fukushima-Daiichi disaster poem originally published in PNZ 46)

(written in 2011, modified from "gods" to "God" in 2016)

Fukushima plant is leaking coolant -
white smoke - burning concrete - the reactor
may be melting - fallout map - "set back the
industry for decades" - hydrogen sparked
HWUMPH explosion - Fukushima plant "the
next Chernobyl" - scientists declare quakes
'Unrelated' as tectonic plates as
Japanese authorities distribute
iodine to counter thyroid damage -
Quake, tsunami, radiation, fallout...
Yes the gang's all here - O God*, pluck out Man's
technocratic, cybernetic hubris!
Smash Man back into the stone age! Save Man...!

Men prove themselves unworthy to wield stars.

Oneiric (Christchurch earthquake poem originally published in PNZ 46)

(written in 2011)

Catwalk dangling from a rippling blackness
by a metal chain... with men in hardhats,
six or more of them, unable to stand
straight & sliding into one another,
just like helicopters moving girders
into place so swiftly that the girder
tilts & rocks... towed by obsidian flat
ovoid rippling oil-slick stormy blackness.

Eremite Hawk Secretary Jesuit Yoruban (beginning of "B.C." cycle))

     I see amanitas almost every
     Day on Tinakori Hill. Of reindeer
Red
Black
     Think I then. No time have I to rate us
     Well. I trundle up the Monty Python Hill.
Teal
Tell
     Above stark lows and grays abide blue
     Levels! memories! like saucers gliding
Aqua
Wintry
     On a field or sea, a plane contrasting
     With tall monticule.
Teal
Bed
     Small mandibles of insect scorpions
     Trace patterns as of missing spider webs,
Ray
Clouds
     A dove's mobility regarding time
     For two years, he just said, a human hid
Roads
Hay
     Transfigured, fire before the flesher's sea,
     A bow above my level four of cloud
Wind
Womb
     Which heralds not a drench of monsoon but
     Small mandibles of insect scorpions
Red
Bends
     Make us fill out forms.
     But I return, and so does he again,
And when?
And then?
     As we evade, thus far, our shrieking whims.
     The ravaged Caeser of a cabbage leaf
Cool
Colors
     Falls off my head past glasses in thereon.
     Our savaged sand lives, smoke and dust consoled.