Size / / /

Seemed like a good place

for the stolen mind

it needs to stay cool

and hidden

so we dug a room inside

an icy moonlet

and, well, we thought she was

comatose but maybe

she was simply exhausted

how else to explain

the haunting voices

her voices, that we hear

in every cable, every laser,

everything that passes through that moon

Who knew the switching station on one side

and the dormant mind on the other

could shake hands,

but they did

Now she's transmitting

copies of herself everywhere

netdogs have caught them all

so far but it's just a matter of time

we had to do something before,

you know, she found us

so it wasn't hard to steal enough explosives

to nudge the moonlet

In a few days

you'll need to duck

expect unusual weather:

a myriad hailstones

infected with her name


Kopaska-Merkel squints at rocks most of the day, which may help explain his poetry. Winters in Alabama are warm, but not warm enough, which also may be a factor. Anyway, fiction and poetry have cropped up like toadstools since the early 1980s, and 16 small books have been loosed upon the world. David's blog is located at dreamnnightmare.livejournal.com.



David C. Kopaska-Merkel won the 2006 Rhysling Award for a collaboration with Kendall Evans, edits Dreams & Nightmares magazine, and has edited Star*Line and several Rhysling anthologies. His poems have appeared in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. A collection, Some Disassembly Required, winner of the 2023 Elgin Award, is available from him at jopnquog@gmail.com.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Load More