My new poem “Save Earth” appears in the latest issue of the Raintown Review, which also contains a review of my spoken word album Elegies & Laments, alongside many fine poems by Kevin O’Shea, Susan Spear, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, Jee Leong Koh, Austin MacRae, Susan Millar DuMars, Maryann Corbett, Matthew Buckley-Smith, Jenna Le, Robert Griffith, James M. Wilson, Christine Potter, Chris Childers, John Whitworth, and Wendy Sloan.

We thought they came from distant moons.
We couldn’t tell at first if they had eyes,
But we learned they have mouths. Big ones. Good God!
A storm of great worms squirms across the skies.
We wondered if they were loosed by ancient runes
Or slithered through some blurry dimensional door.
Then we thought maybe earth, that they had clawed
From a blistering crack in the seafloor.
Now we know they were planted eons ago,
Right here, and come to claim their rightful place.
They pour into our wrecked cities and grow.
They smash bridges, dams, and soon this very base.
They’ve neutralized our weapons, but we’re one
Step from being saved! Behold, Mr. President,
One of these will save us. Just one, and they’re done.
We’re ready. We need only your permission
To deploy, and drive these things away,
But we have to do it now, now, before they . . .

Original appearance in The Raintown Review.