Hard Row by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
narrated by Diane Severson
Illustration by Sue Babcock
This winter the bones of gods,
impregnated with chalcedony,
penetrated by the gold of fools,
frost heaves the jagged field,
Ragnarocking a tussocked down
under a spackled sky, fast moving, hieroglyphed,
good-word spreading to a mortal world.
This spring we bush hog the lower 40,
this year steel teeth stumble
on imperishable Tibias,
spatang off in divinely inspired trajectories,
cloud chamber trailing infinity.
My God, I worshiped
at Your empty tomb so long,
Your fragments, assembled,
a mighty God would make,
severed cervically, acephalic,
despite celestial sieving,
Your inspiration directionless,
but therefore ultramundane,
inerrant,
unquestionable,
unanswerable,
transcendent,
rising up with the sap,
blooming in summer's eyes,
swelling like young fruit.
We were warned to not take sup
Chez You, to never look back,
afraid over Who might be following,
or What, warned to not give ear,
for Your sake, to any crawling thing,
you can’t unlearn this knowledge,
can’t go Home, ever;
ignorance was bliss but now,
now grace’s a fleeting dream,
life a cup of sorrows,
till the harvestman counts your coup.
An aether compactor by trade, David Kopaska-Merkel began writing poetry after witnessing the Ascension of Tim. Kopaska-Merkel has written myriads of poems and stories since the 70s. He won the Rhysling award (Science Fiction Poetry Association) for best long poem in 2006 for a collaboration with Kendall Evans. He has written 23 books, of which the latest is SETI Hits Paydirt from Popcorn Press, http://www.popcornpress.com/seti-hits-paydirt/. Kopaska-Merkel has edited Dreams & Nightmares magazine since 1986. DN website http://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/. @DavidKM on twitter.