Snuffle Sardanapalus

As a goodwill jester,
invite the invaders
to your slumber party.

Play Twister, Twisted
Sister, and Risk.

Catch Bacchus,
Bacillus Cereus,
and up on old times.

Make up with the Avon lady,
marry Kay, sell Stockholm.
Trade syndromes,
buy derivatives.

Park your spaceship
in a bubble before
it bursts into siege engines,
crossing the dried-up water bed.

Zeit Heist

Here’s a fact you never knew:
Icarus did not die. He swam to shore,

and continued his passion for life.
First, he plunged into weapons training,

then fought alongside Alaric I,
Ptolemy Lagides, and Scipio Africanus. 

He took a hiatus from warfare
to ghostwrite for Shakespeare,

but became unsettled and entered World War I
as a gunner for an Armstrong Whitworth FK.8.

After the treaty, he moved to the United States,
and worked for George Remus as a bootlegger.

Decades later he was drafted into the Vietnam War,
accruing the most confirmed kills in the Mekong Delta.

Once discharged with honors he wrote a book called
Hope in a Scope and formed a biker gang in Lancaster,

named Demigods on Hogs. They disbanded due to FBI
infiltration and getting beaten-up by their old ladies.

Icarus learned guitar and formed a freedom rock band.
They played Woodstock and toured the world.

After that event, there’s a gap in the timeline.
Some say he suffered a bad acid trip,

and lived in Guam for several decades.
Others say he became a CIA operative.

But Icarus was sighted the other week
above Damascus, Palmyra, and then Raqqa.

He was shot down,
landing somewhere in the city.

Carbon 14 Dating Sites

Cain met Lucy
on a really wide web
but escaped before
Shelob returned

from there they exchanged
smoke signals
and etched love notes
on cave walls

their first date was at
a diner named
Amber Gardens
located near a tar pit
east of Eden

he gave her a bouquet
of Strychnos Electri
they both ordered
a mammoth leg
fern salad
and moth flavored
glacier cream cones

shortly after
Cain clubbed Lucy
on the head
she gave birth
naming him
Atrahasis

one day while
riding his pet trilobite
little Atrahasis felt
a drop of water
      then another
            and another

So he asked
— daddy why does water fall from sky

Cain replied
— I don’t know son but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about

The Mathematician Mortician

she collects body parts for future tests
to dissect, analyze cell senescence
reverse the process, finding a function
that governs our domain, an answer for
life’s variable, our relationship
to the constantly boisterous network
which she works tirelessly to unravel
before her world equals zero just like
a parabola, quadratic theorem
we are simply laws of chemicals, math
switched alight with hope, electricity

“Snuffle Sardanapalus” was originally published by TreeHouse Arts, March 22, 2017, “Zeit Heist” was originally published by Picaroon Poetry, Issue 10 and Panoplyzine, Issue 7, “Carbon 14 Dating Sites” was originally published by Landfill Journal, Dec. 22, 2016, and “The Mathematician Mortician” was originally published by Z Publishing, Pennsylvania’s Best Emerging Poets Anthology, 2017.

Nick Romeo is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and writer. His work has been published by the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, Peach Velvet Magazine, Panoplyzine, Rune, Degenerate Literature, Quail Bell Magazine, Basement Outpost, and others. Nick lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife, Noell, and cat, Megatron.