V. 2, #159: September 4, 2013

A tinker built a magical machine
out of some copper pots and bits of wire
connected to a crystal, glowing green,
he picked out of the ashes of some fire.

(The fire's cause, a falling meteorite
from far across the galaxy, he could
not know a thing about. But that's all right:
he used it, same as any tinker would.)

Just how he knew where to connect the nodes
and how to set the power source just so
to unlock all those secret, alien codes,
we can't, and maybe shouldn't, ever know.

But now we all live subject to the whim
of Gnarthan Warlords--all because of him.

V. 2, #129, August 4, 2013

He's old now, all his research prizes lined
on shelves beside the model of the brain
he made, books annotated to explain
his methodologies--how he refined

and altered DNA from donor cells,
nurtured them in a dish until the two
pink crenelated domes emerged and grew,
then joined to build the temple wherein dwells

that mystery, the Mind. Since then his fame
has grown much faster than a germ could sprout
on agar in a lab. The hulking brute
he planted that brain in, which bears his name
(mistakenly) he doesn't talk about.
Since it's most likely dead, the point is moot.

V. 2, #121: July 27, 2013

We don't know how he did it, but it seems
the radiation set these powers free:
gigantic size, ocular laser beams--
a hell of a mutation, you'll agree.

What's more, the creature--Phil--seems strangely drawn
toward that from which his powers take their source.
He'll cross the northern border before dawn.
We're locking the reactors down, of course.

We're hoping Dr. Smith might calm him down--
she worked with Phil in Research, Biotech.
She's outside, in a low-cut evening gown.
Word is he's sweet on her, so what the heck.

And if that doesn't work, I guess we'll fight.
Get comfy, boys. We're in for one long night.

V. 2, #60: May 27, 2013

When she was just a child, there on the floor
amidst her building bricks and bits of string,
she learned what many kids had learned before:
with the right parts, you can make anything.

And so through school and university
she studied what things fit, and where, and how;
she struggled on through all adversity
and failed experiments (Bug-Dog; Cat-Cow).

Till finally she saw it in a dream--
amino acids lined like Lego blocks!
She woke and wrote it down--then, gaining steam,
accomplished it, breaking all Nature's locks.

Now Jaguar-Eagle hybrids rule the skies,
and she smiles, polishing her Nobel Prize.

V. 2, #52: May 19, 2013

Benny was only seventeen years old
the night he disappeared. An average kid
who did no worse than anybody did
at school, nor better neither, truth be told.

They say he climbed the city's water tower
on some fool-hearted dare. He danced atop
its dome--the girls were begging to stop,
the boys just egged him on. And then a flower

of bright kaleidoscopic brilliance flashed
above his head like some magician's act.
There was a sound like falling, broken glass.
The kids all gaped, waiting for it to pass.
It did. They found Ben's clothes, folded, intact,
right where he'd stood, beside a pile of ash.

 

V. 2, #48: May 15, 2013

I was a Monster for the FBI
back in my younger days. The scientists
fused to my back the arms of octopi,
and gave me a gorilla's arms and fists.

For watchfulness while in the field, my eyes
were deemed too weak, so half a dozen more
were grafted on--eagles' and dragonflies'.
For fearsomeness, a lion's teeth and roar.

I'd rustle gangsters, sting spies with my tail,
and cripple crooked cops, given the chance.
Those were the days! You should have seen them wail
in terror, drop their loot and shit their pants!

Now I'm retired, and glory days are done.
Except for Halloween--that's always fun.

 

V. 2, #2: March 29, 2013

The aliens aint' comin'. If they was,
I figure they'd of been in touch by now.
No circled crops, no mutilated cow,
no colored lights at night, nor eerie buzz.

The lines I chalked out back, straight as a rail,
to help them land their ships, done blown away.
And if them E.T.'s got something to say,
my dish ain't picked it up. The grade is "fail."

I thought they'd come. I scrimped and saved and planned
for when they'd liberate me from this dirt,
where everything is hate, and fear, and hurt,
and nothing good can be allowed to stand.

But now I know I'm stuck here, just like you.
I don't know what in hell I'm gonna do.