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
22 Jul 2024

By: Mónika Rusvai
Translated by: Vivien Urban
Jadwiga is the city. Her body dissolves in the walls, her consciousness seeps into the cracks, her memory merges with the memories of buildings.
Jadwiga a város. Teste felszívódik a falakban, tudata behálózza a repedéseket, emlékezete összekeveredik az épületek emlékezetével.
Aqui jaz a rainha, gigante e imóvel, cada um de seus seis braços caídos e abertos, curvados, tomados de leves espasmos, como se esquecesse de que não estava mais viva.
By: Sourav Roy
Translated by: Carol D'Souza
I said sky/ and with a stainless-steel plate covered/ the rotis going stale 
मैंने कहा आकाश/ और स्टेनलेस स्टील की थाली से ढक दिया/ बासी पड़ रही रोटियों को
By: H. Pueyo
Translated by: H. Pueyo
Here lies the queen, giant and still, each of her six arms sprawled, open, curved, twitching like she forgot she no longer breathed.
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