Tony Lopez, p.5



It’s the most selfish act. Struck by a laser beam
The second and fourth lines of each stanza
Opt for income drawdown. A verbatim replay
Emerged in Syracuse but fails to reach
The rest of the body. Don’t underestimate
Your gut feeling. More radiant with every use,
The backward glance, the fragile equilibrium.
Are you sleep deficient? We seek no discount
But actual acquaintances of the poet
In waves of electrical excitation.
Knowledge of transgenic breeding is useful
As non-humans are not able to do this
For themselves. He draws on his aerospace background
For the reality of mud and trailer camps.

If the wave breaks apart, strict repetition
Saves exhausted and contaminated paper
On the Etruscan ridges. They never knew
What they were working on. It was simple
Competing for space on oestrogen receptors:
Silicon is the normal base. We’ll call her
Princess DNA. The actual words
Reappear in the previous paragraph.
Hundreds of captives transported to Persia.
A man around whom complications gather
At the end of a long bull market. Camilla
Was a Volscian nursed by a wild mare
And with her shaft of pine she ran him through.
Tiny rings of DNA are killing us all.