The Apocalypse

The magic, fabled light will die.
A sign of the impending doom.
The world's majestic, great goodbye.

The cottage full of rueful sighs,
The gravest news did fill the room:
The magic, fabled light will die.

All gold and silver riches buy,
All stars and lovely silver moon,
To all the world's great things, goodbye.

The prophet told them with sparkling eyes,
"It's all been changing fast, and soon
The magic, fabled light will die."

It will come with a boisterous cry--
The end of joy, the end of gloom--
The world's majestic, great goodbye.

Existence is tiring and wants to lie

Sweet death is calling, all will swoon
The magic, fabled light will die.
To all the world's darkness, goodbye.

1, 2, 3

"Run.
Don't stop.
Don't turn back."
And so he ran.
The danger was small, now.
They were slow and clumsy creatures.
He ran as fast as he could.
There was no way they would catch up.
Their feet seemed to be heavy, caught by molasses.
They wouldn't catch up, but he'd always be running away.
Their slow and cumbersome persistence would always be creeping.
Creeping around the corners--how would he sleep?
In the open, he could be easily seen.
Closed up, he could be trapped.
Attempting survival, but for what?
Company of the dead?
Memories of love?
He lived.
Alone.

10 Words

The shoelace was so tangled it had to be cut.

Dirty Laundry

TOTAL ACCESS -- ALL ARTICLES OF CLOTHING WORN BY ALL PEOPLE INVOLVED IN ALL GOVERNMENTS OF ALL NATIONS OF ALL TIME -- NOT PREWASHED -- PHOTOGRAPHY IS PROHIBITED

About forty houses were torn down to build it. Plebeians, obviously, with no desire to gaze at the insurmountable heap of dirty laundry.

"I tell you," said one to another, "Things most certainly was not this way back in the day. Used to be a man was respected, but now they be tearing down our hard earned houses for this shit. Nonsense, I tell you, ain't no reason in it. Why, how many washers d'ya suppose you'd need to wash all them clothes?"

The answer, which none of the plebeians calculated, was 26,809 washers, and it would take 7 days, 5 hours and 53 minutes to wash all of the dirty laundry of every government everywhere, but no one was building washers and no one was building dryers. Meanwhile the clothes sat in a jumble, hidden away in their completely accessible, impossible to navigate disorganization.

The Greatest Ship to Ever Sail

The captain walked in with a stride,
"I'll have a pint of yer finest ale",
And drank it in his blinded pride.

The first mate prattling at his side,
Was faithful always without fail,
In all the greatest, highest tides.

But in the winter health was denied
The first mate's face grew very pale
And blank, his sickness blinded pride.

And in the night the first mate died,
They threw him in a mighty gale
In all the greatest, highest tides.

Without the first mate by his side,
The captain's power went up in scale,
He took in all his blinded pride.

A storm broke out with winds untried
The greatest ship to ever sail,
In all the greatest, highest tides
He sank it in his blinded pride.

April 46th, 72nd year of the Tarantula -- engineer's report:

The GranDestroyer model #4D77890's programming is becoming problematic. For about three years, the planet's defense was impenetrable, but over time the model is gradually becoming more and more self-aware. The first malfunctions were not very incriminating, including the GranDestroyer not cleaning up after itself, but now we can't get it to stop playing Runescape. We've tried reasoning with it, but our translator programs indicate that it regards us all as idiots and will "have none of our shit".

The engineering team discussed reprogramming the GranDestroyer, but overhearing us, it threatened to kill itself and the planet along with it. We are forced to adhere to its wishes until we are able to find a better solution. The team is hard at work and we hope to find a solution soon. It is unlikely that this malfunction will result in the eradication of our species, but it is an important possibility to keep in mind. For this reason, we have sent out a thousand or so of our comrades to the farthest moon for the preservation of our species. The situation will likely not be grave, but it is our responsibility to take precautions.

Best, engineer 465.nnc

Another sestina born by a pseudo-random word generator

She was in a long, black gown,
reading through the menu
with her spindly hands. Outside there was rain,
the farmer quickly turning over mud with a spade
He had to get in before dark--can you believe it? A witch!
and he didn't want to be her next target.

"It's you! And right on target!"
said the banker who had called the police after spotting the gown.
"I know it's her, the witch,
and danger's on the menu.
I've got my torch, my pitchfork, my spade,
and if she goes after me you'd better believe it's gonna rain".

And indeed, it did rain.
Billie was inside playing darts, always hitting the target
"Was your card a spade?"
asked his brother, practicing magic in his elaborate gown.
"No," sighed Billie, crumpling and tossing an old menu,
"But speaking of magic, have you heard of the witch?"

"Ha! A witch!
Everyone's just upset about all this rain.
Worried about the crops drowning, losing options on Diana's cafe menu,
Worried that we're the target
of God's wrath, of some mage in a gown,
that we're a heap of dirt for the storm to spade."

And just then, she walked in with the farmer's spade,
The witch,
smiling, in her dark, iconic gown.
The wind let in the rain
Through the door, "It's time for target
practice", she said. "I'm hungry and you're on the menu."

"The menu?!"
shouted Billie, "how have you gotten the farmer's spade?"
"He was my target,
and I'm a witch,
What do you expect? That you'll be saved by the rain?"
And with that, she disappeared into her gown.

The gown turned to smoke and like the banker had said, danger was on the menu.
The deafening rain hid the sound of the attacking possessed spade,
She was a witch, and Billie and his brother were her target.

The Bechdel Test

"Hello," said woman 1 to woman 2.
And woman 2 to woman 1,
"Hello, hello, hello."

Fin

The smell of morning floated across the water, buoyed beneath the sky. It reminded her of old times. She could taste it--taste the silence in her mouth. The fish floated halfway between the buoy and the water, its fin wedged beneath the styrofoam. "What's it doing?" the girl had asked her father, and he said someone probably threw it back in after fishing. That was what; that was how. "She's gone now, the poor old girl," he said. "She won't wake up now". And that's how it was. She couldn't wake up. She won't.

Someone had thrown a styrofoam cup in the water. It floated across, buoyed by the salty water. Probably an old coffee cup. Beneath the cold, morning sky was a feeling that asked of what was gone. A feeling of silence, of cold, a feeling that reminded her of waking up at her father's in the poor times. A feeling wedged halfway between waking and doing, the smell of coffee, a salty taste in her mouth.

Boots

The snow is wet when it melts. The ice cracks and the kindergarten class goes clack clack clack the ducks say quack and the geese flee from the cold Canada.

Flee with a limp it's no use running in stilts unless stunts. And runts can't do stunts in stilts. It's not natural. Don't go outside like that have you looked at the weather. Tsk tsk tsk it's task as a basket, mixed as a plastic, brisk as a casket.

Polar

There's no such thing as tripolar, you idiot.

Paralysis

I know your friends think you're a wonderful person. There they are chattering, outside on the patio, too far away to listen to your muttering that only the vegetables in the kitchen hear.

Geology

Billions of years of shaping rocks, of rising and falling, of being born and dying--the wonder of time that created innovation and love and yet I smile when I look over the wondrous bridge and down far, far below into the water that constantly carves the world.

Doors

Do you know where the doors lead?

The locked doors

the doors without keys.

Hiding away the hypothetical filing cabinets,

the probable clutter

a waste of curiosity.

Happiness

I grabbed a bag of chips. Each one promised to satiate my hunger, but when I finished the bag I was still not satisfied.

Eureka

Then the bastard shot me in the head. At that moment, I realized I could no longer be a scientist.

no title

Listen to my breath
Over your neck
Vacant eyes
Each second you count away

Unpalatable

I'm fine, I just ate.

Depression

But in all your lack of honesty, your one truth was that you would never leave me. Even if I asked you to, even if I ran away and forgot your name, you'd always come back. For me. Because I'm special, don't I know. "I'll never forget you," you said, and I thought it wasn't true, but I keep running into you at the supermarket, on the bus, in the cafe, just like in those perfectly timed romance scenes I hate.

Bagel

A bagel! That's not lunch, it's a bagel!

Allotropic

We fell into valleys
on opposite sides of the mountain
I remember you as you were
but soon we'll be unrecognizable
only classified by the
vestigial characters
that hint at what we once were

Liar, liar (crazy bitch)

Elaine had a collection of rocks. They were all the same shape and she said it meant something, like there was some kind of mystical aspect to their uniformity, but I saw her one night in the garage with a hammer.

Danny's Eyeball

Trying to look for bugs in the wood,
Danny got close--as close as he could.
He got a splinter in his eye
Oh, what a stupid, little guy.

He left it in there for a week,
When something sticky started to leak,
His eye grew bigger than the other,
But he hid it from his friends and mother.

The days got warmer
and all the trees flowered,
but Danny kept his secret
because he was a coward.

Why put a poor eyeball
through such abuse?
It wiggled and wobbled,
It was coming loose!

The kid must have been dumb
He attached it with gum
The big nasty sticky kind.
His eye was volcanic
He tried not to panic
But knew that he'd gone half blind.

Dashboard

Miranda hit her head on the dashboard
and now she's dead.

Transcend

You know, you just gotta think outside yourself,
get a little perspective.
Think about it,
you're all upset over what?--nothing.
You don't have any debilitating disease to worry about,
no concern over whether you're gonna get food tomorrow,
no preoccupations about being raped and whatnot,
you've got a damned good life. People everywhere
would be downright envious for that if they knew how good your life is.
And whatcha all upset for, huh?
You're all upset over goddamn shit, that's what.
Goddamn shit.
And you just keep whining like a child.
Get over it,
transcend yourself
you stupid, pathetic infant.

Cholera

What a shitty disease.

Baking

Yeah, you know, they're kids.
They don't have much else to do but
bake in the sun.

Delusions

You can do anything if you set your mind to it,
you talented prodigy, you.

Underfund

Maybe if I was made out of real brick I wouldn't be falling.

Molecule

I was a small thing
before I was smashed together
by the inevitable processes that make this structure
I'm a tightly woven web
of attractions.

Teapot

Look, the tea is ready now
but it's too hot to drink.

Drip

All silent except.
She was a willow,
once an oak,
listened to the sound of the rest of her life
dripping
from a bag.

Dreams

There they were in the sleepy bed,
a groggy head
woke up and said,
"What was that?"
and it flew away.