Lori R. Lopez is an offbeat hat-wearing speculative author, illustrator, poet, and songwriter residing in Southern California.  Her prose and verse have been published in a number of anthologies and magazines including California Screamin’ (the Foreword Poem), Dead Harvest, Impspired, The Sirens Call, The Horror Zine, Weirdbook, Spectral Realms, Space & Time, JOURN-E, Dreams & Nightmares, Altered Realities, Bewildering Stories, Aphelion, Oddball Magazine, multiple Rhysling Anthologies and H.W.A. Poetry Showcases.  Book titles include The Dark Mister Snark, Leery Lane, An Ill Wind Blows, The Fairy Fly, and Darkverse:  The Shadow Hours (nominated for an Elgin Award).  Seven of her poems have been nominated for Rhysling Awards.  A member of the Horror Writers Association, Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and Lewis Carroll Society of North America, Lori co-owns Fairy Fly Entertainment with two talented sons.  They’ve formed a Folk Band called The Fairyflies to release original music.

Daggers Drawn

First reactions toward
A cherry-red new moon fired like a ball
Across Earth’s geometric sky

Viewed differently by all
From flat or philosophical “Right” Angles
With acute daggers drawn

The world’s quadrangles
Hungering; avid to inspect, prospect
Dissect — pass keen judgement

Eager to taste uncharted pie!

out of the Sea

There is much we cannot imagine, far below.
As Cosmic Space expands so vast it fails to begin
or cease, everything that ever was will never be again.
And yet, out of the Sea, from a liquid womb
or tomb, possibilities burst forth.  An atom’s dying
gasp.  A star’s fading furious final glow . . .

Shards of lights cascading, fallen toward bites of
cusps in fluid motion, taking a gander high above.

The Sea on a single fabulous world reaches
lower than peaks are tall, wider than Earth is long.
In her ample depths bloom an array of inklings,
a miasmic volume of creations that somehow fit
and find a balance however alien or preposterous;
that deny the Universe’s cold stark isolated glares,
and the improbable Life Lessons it teaches.

In a murky soup, rapt eclectic multitudes peer
and mirror the vibrant evolving revolving surges
of diversity on land.  Neath a churning surface
where no seasons change, no birds share musical notes.
Only a discordant clamor of mingled resonance
conducts a symphony of writhing acidic-septic-toxic
waves atop the vapid flap of lips and tongue;
the silent roar of goggle-eyed shark-jawed enmity
that could chop off a head!  Chew on an ear!

Inside a fishbowl wonderland of the exotic strange,
of luminous bizarrely-assembled puppetesque forms,
resides a Water Witch whose sheer proportions
verge on legendary and could be lethal, dealt
with tiny raw doses like so many rare shy beings
consumed upon consumed in a constant of change.

She and the Ocean are united though unjoined,
for she reigns over its realm — an aquatic mercurial
Femme Fatale of utter grace and clarity, inhabiting
a den at the base of a cliff on a submerged isle charted
by no map, guarding the cryptic-most secrets hoarded
like pirate treasures curated, coveted, purloined.

Within mysterious black-emerald fathoms where
a lustrous solitary Queen of The Deep flaunts her might
and magnificence, conjuring silver-opalescent
bubblestreams to enchant, more enticing than Siren
songs , , , dare not swim too near should you behold
any glimpse of the dazzling radiance down there.

Syrreen is all we cannot hope to prove or comprehend;
an eldritch goddess we must neither disturb nor daunt —
ill-dreamt by feeble hearts at our coldest hours of quaking.
What mortal humans must take every ounce of pains
to avoid.  Not upset, not unsettle, not provoke to anger,
for she is the wrath in the gut of every mother!  A viral
venom at the bellies of the worst unleashed Krakens.
She is Nature’s cruelest daughter, a latent volcanic core;
piercing as Poseidon’s Trident, wicked to the end . . .

Shimmering and sleek from a Tidepool risen anew . . .
a revolution of Eve in the ghostly pall of Moonlight’s
dance o’er a rolling surface that seldom rests, she could
visit our shores!  But if we trespass, sip an abundance
of Brine Wine and sink to a calmer midst — lie ever so
still as a rock and pray she won’t find you, mind you!

The Water Witch listens, drinking Green Algae Tea.
Abiding.  Ready to plummet.  Or step out of the Sea.

No telling what else may emerge after us beasts,
who developed brains enough to invent not prevent
our own annihilation, and maim every living thing!
Will the Queen halt this senseless destructive spree —
observe bemused, not amused, the selfish greed —
building up an appetite for a grim age of feasts?

The Purple People-Eating Rain

On Esmeralda’s street an oily rain arrived to pour
thicker than soup upon inhabitants who didn’t heed
the tinny unintelligible messages to remain inside —
warning them not to emerge without a sturdy umbrella!
Most folks failed to listen.  Many didn’t comprehend . . .

Popping out of doors in states of sheer bewilderment
to question “Eh?” or “What? while others peeped from
curtains to see what someone else would do — observing
neighbors doused by Grape Juice showers, soaked by spills;
wondering was it Climate or a Lane Change to blame?

Striving to determine a cause and if possible to pause
the catastrophe.  Frowning, Esme uttered “Some sort of
industrial disaster.  An accidental phenomenon.”  Guesses
a bit off.  As were Officials arriving by Train to examine
the “sitchyation”  (a technical term for anything odd).

Staring dismally in gray Foul-Weather Gear neath shiny
black domes on silver stems, drummed by a relentless
deluge of dye, they concluded it was out of their jurisdiction
and clattered away aboard the next Choo-Choo.  Except it
wasn’t actual ink, as Test Results of samples later revealed.

Too late.  Journalists and gawkers lined both sides in avid
contemplation, pure speculation, expecting the puzzler soon
solved.  Scientists and Internet Bloggers, Armchair Gumshoes
waded gutters yet identified no clues to the uncanny source,
since no explanation could exist — at least on this planet.

None were bold enough to taste the wet syrup, inclement
sauce.  Purely by chance poor Esme did, face drenched for
sticking her head from the window.  A bit goopy, slimy,
blimey; a tad chewy.  But wait, it was her being chewed:
inside-out by infested grape Jellybean-shaped raindrops!

Gobbled up’n gone, like a baffling still-mysterious cloud.
Folks living on Mayhem Lane, their skin permanently
purpled, were affectionately called Berries.  Curiosities
at first, then revered or ostracized.  Declared a new Race
or branded as Freaks.  Eventually they expired like overripe
fruit (a Times Headline).  Today there’s a statue of Esme.