Member Poem

New Order

Trouble is brewing under the sidewalk.
Creeping cracks herald its approach.
The city sways; a mild nausea rolls in
like the surf.

Melanie does not believe it at first,
even when the glass paperweight
slides across her desk and out the window;
she shuts her eyes and turns up the music.

She sends Ed to the cellar for some wine;
he does not return,
but his simulacrum does.
She knows something is wrong:
he's brought a Chardonnay.

All around the city,
golems clamber out of the sewers
bearing inappropriate gifts,
skyscrapers rock,
and the town's mundane inhabitants scream,
or flee, or ignore the evidence of their senses.

Melanie pedals hard
the stars shift

An unusually high tide
washes over the docks
and onto the western streets,
bearing with it the flotsam of a million years.
Shepherding the tide comes a great creature walking,
its cranial tentacles thrashing the water as it comes.