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Eve: a poem
by The Real David Rogers
EVE
Originally Posted by Davidrogersbooks September 12, 2020Posted
Adam and Eve created the world in six days
five really because Adam took most of Saturday
to recover from his Friday celebration
during which he’d dreamed up pharaohs floods
pyramids
the stock market
a lot of other bad ideas
that he tried to write down
but most of what he scratched
on the wet clay tablet
looked like Eve in high heels
and nothing else
a notion she scoffed
at because heels
and other instruments of sado-
masochistic fashion
had not yet been invented
and anyhow it was way too cold
to indulge Adam’s male fantasies
Eve pulled her mammoth-wool
robe tighter
The young planet
still wobbled wildly on its axis
so days and nights
were unpredictably hot or cold
She decided
the last thing they should create
when Adam woke up
ought to be a god
or goddess
Then Adam could invent a religion
and play high priest
It would be a good hobby for him
keep him out of trouble
while she did something useful
maybe plant a garden
get started on that orchard
–pub’d in Third Wednesday, Summer 2020
Two Poems
by me!
“Lake” and “If”
First posted by Davidrogersbooks September 10, 2020
IF
If he knew he’d be dead by dark
Tolstoy supposedly said he’d keep
plowing which proves either
he really liked to plow or else
he was a bit off that day and I think
it must be the latter because
no sane human likes to plow that much
unless you mean the Shakespearean
metaphorical kind of plowing
but Ell Tee was way too uptight
for that sort of language
and not that imaginative
but if I were cursed with knowledge
of my own imminent demise
I’d find a hot metaphor
and have a wild time and get
a revolver to defend
myself just in case I’m slated to die
at the hands of a jealous lover
whose girlfriend I’ve never met
much less flirted with or cultivated
in any way and I know I’d probably
end up being shot with my own
weapon because as the Greeks
figured out a long time ago
that’s how these things usually end
nobody escapes irony
but still I say it’s best
to go down fighting or
polishing your weapon or being
metaphorical or doing anything
that counts as honest rebellion
–David Rogers
Lake
Large bodies of water attract you
because their immensity confirms suspicions
regarding your own relative size: horizons
are never straight
since time is round
and space is not flat, lying as it must
on the uneven bottom of that great lake
whose coastline has never been accurately
mapped: the fractal nature of the coast itself
is partly responsible, though by my calculation
a map at least twice as big as the lake
and filled with simulated water is necessary
to approximate the pattern pebbles make
on sand: such a map will fit only in
the basement of the museum where in winter
the curator will skate on the frozen
simulation, ostensibly to measure
effects of tidal forces on simulated ice
but really to hear how skates sound
and breezes flutter her skirt and brandy
makes her toes warm: humanity has gotten
things wrong at every turn: the world is not flat
nor quite round nor at the center of whatever
universe it happens to be in at this moment:
god never existed: dinosaurs upstairs glance
at a sky that always just now begins to rain fire
Wings
A David Rogers story found nowhere but here!
Wings–a DavidRogersBooks.com exclusive
Posted byBy Davidrogersbooks February 7, 2022
1200 words
by David Rogers
“Legend says the ship was originally headed for Kepler 62f, which seemed, at the time, likely to be the closest truly habitable planet.” Professor Mobius paused, took a drink of water, fluffed her feathers and smoothed her wings down her back, and went on, “Of course, ‘closest’ is misleading. Nearly a thousand light-years away is not really close, just the least far.” She looked out the porthole at stars so distant they appeared to stand still. The nearest, a bloated red giant, seemed to inch past, if the watcher looked long enough.
“Whose brilliant idea was it to go there, then?” asked Maria, one of the more precocious students.
“It was our many-times-great grandparents’ plan. The first ship-born generation did a good job of hammering the idea into their kids’ heads–the only chance for humanity to survive lay in completing the heroic journey. The second generation, as the stories go, went along with the plan. They may not have been quite as enthusiastic as their parents, but they did what they had been trained to do. Kept heading for other stars, away from Earth and into the cold dark of deep space. The third generation, however–they had different ideas. While they themselves were dedicated to the notion of Human Destiny, as it was known, they were not very effective at indoctrinating their kids. Or brainwashing them, as some no doubt saw it, into thinking they were somehow bound to carry out a plan conceived before they were born, by people they never met.
“So the fourth generation fell in love with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy,’ and ‘self-determination.’ Spending their whole lives on the ship, just to carry out their ancestors’ crazy plan, and dooming their children and children’s children to do the same? Nope, not for us, they said. They rebelled, and when they took over the ship, they voted three to one in favor of turning back to Earth. Some scholars say the transition of power was peaceful, while others argue it was a violent, bloody revolution. Regardless, the ship turned back toward Earth.
“Apparently many of that generation believed the stories–fairy tales, it turned out–of blue skies, wide-open plains, and forests that went on for miles. Places you could find clean air and water, and not another human being to be seen. And cities, shining islands of civilization where night was banished, and there was always light. Cities of artists and libraries and museums and restaurants and grocery stores and shopping malls and tall buildings. . . .” The professor trailed off wistfully.
“If Earth was so great, why did anyone ever want to leave?” Maria asked. Several other students nodded approval of the inquiry.
“That’s a good question,” Professor Mobius said. “One for which they should have demanded better answers before they turned back.
“The problems their grandparents tried to run away from had not solved themselves. In fact, they had multiplied a thousandfold. Records from that era are incomplete, but it seems clear that the humans on Earth–the few who still survived–were barely human at all. Well over 99 percent of the population had been wiped out. Disease, radiation from the nuclear wars and exploded power plants, drought, wildfires, brutally hot summers and unbelievably cold winters, starvation, inbreeding among the small tribes who clung to life–all these had the predictable effect. Cities lay in ruins. The air was toxic, water undrinkable, and the land did not produce enough food for survivors to do more than subsist. The humans looked more like the caricatures of Cro-Magnons in our grade-school books than like us.
“Our ancestors bundled themselves and their kids back in the landers and took off in a hurry, back up to the ship. Back home. Because, they realized this ship had become their home. As it is our home now. Humans have always been explorers. And that is our real destiny. Our only destiny.
“Fortunately, the landers had been well maintained. Every person who had left the ship made it safely back to orbit.”
“Why didn’t they just land the ship?” Maria asked.
“It is far too massive. It was built in orbit because it would never have escaped Earth’s gravity. Nor could it have landed and remained intact. Any such attempt would have shattered it to pieces. Our photon sails can withstand gradual accelerations from the light drive, but they are not made to tolerate reentry into an atmosphere. The parabolic collectors that gather starlight and focus it on the photoelectric cells wouldn’t have survived a landing, either.”
“I thought you were going to tell us why some humans have wings now,” said Phillip, who spent nearly all of his free time in the arboretum and was usually bored with history and folklore.
“Well, that is simple enough,” the professor said. “Life in microgravity has certain physiological effects, one of which is to cause the human skeletal structure to grow lighter. With no need to climb, walk, or jump around in an intense gravitational field, human bones became hollow, like our avian and dinosaur ancestors’ bones. A long-dormant gene in some of us, a bit of code once dismissed as ‘junk DNA,’ found its chance to become active. It turned out to be the gene for wings.”
“I guess you’re just genetically inferior, then,” Phillip said to Maria, who had no wings.
“Oh, yeah. Why don’t you go back to your nest, birdboy? At least I don’t spend all day hiding in trees,” Maria said. “If we ever find a planet like Earth, I’ll be able to run a lot faster than you. I’ll be able to climb trees and jump over boulders. All you’ll do is sit on your branch and go tweet, tweet.”
“That’s enough, both of you,” Professor Mobius said sharply. “Genetic diversity is a key to our survival. That means no one is born better than anyone else, just different. We need the differences. We have to maintain diversity in order to go on. It takes all of us to make it work. Whatever’s out there–”she gestured with a feathery hand at the porthole and the glittering stars beyond layers of plastic and glass–”that is humanity’s destiny. There’s no going back to Earth. No other Earthlike planet has ever been found, and it is foolish to assume one will be found. We cannot go back to the past. The future is all that exists.”
“The future, and the memories,” Maria said. “But this is all folklore, right? How do we know Earth was really so messed up? Maybe they just weren’t welcome anymore. Life on Earth had gone on without them.”
“Our ancestors left Earth for the second time for some reason,” the professor said. “It must have been bad. If you forget or deny the past, you relive its nightmares. You all have to know these stories, and tell them to your children. And their children. We are all that is left of humanity.”
“I’ll bet it’s better, now, on Earth. Some day we’ll go back,” Maria said. “We’ll go home. Or our descendants will. And when they get there”–she glared at Phillip–”my wingless Cro-Magnon kids will kick your fancy-boy bird-bone descendants all over the planet.” She stared at him, daring him to challenge her prediction.
Professor Mobius sighed. The young always had so much to learn.
END
Virtual Math
by me!
My tribute to Borges
Hazards of Faster–Than–Light Travel
by me
10 minute listen
Sparrow in “Storms of the Revolution”
Storms of The Revolution is on sale now at https://shop.harvard.com/book/9798988038504
Check out “Sparrow,” my story in Storms of the Revolution, published by After the Storm magazine. If “Sparrow” grabs your attention, get ready for my novel The Delphi, which answers many questions raised by “Sparrow” (and will keep you turning pages to find out where it could all possibly be headed!). Coming this spring from Ellipsis Imprints.
From Stansburyforum.com: “And always the question: can a choice to resist be made when too many others are retreating? Isolation is seen on the other side of the class divide in David P. Rogers’ “Sparrow.” In a system where every relationship is transactional those at the top may become invisible to people around them, a mirror of their fundamental irrelevance. So too, how someone “looks” tells us how they will be treated – and being treated differently, living differently, can lead to a new way to see the world. All this, in the story, is a byproduct of actions taken by those seeking to change the system, to stop the harm done by a system that never “sees” the human beings impacted by decisions made in the interests of profits.”
tors of the Revolution is available from https://shop.harvard.com/book/9798988038504
Easy Money: A Poem by The Real David Paul Rogers
EASY MONEY
Capitalism takes the easy
way out
Why do it yourself when
you can pay someone else
minimum wage
because workers
are minimum people
Why buy the land
the tree the road the river
when all you have to do
Is smash and grab
take it
use it
leave the mess
for minimums to clean up
They will build a wall
to keep themselves out
But you should be a little worried
or a lot
Who understands walls
better than ones who labor
in their shadows
How long til they see how easy
it is to take the easy way in
Synchronicity
Check out one of my recent stories! http://www.fabulaargentea.com/index.php