Ode to Yuggoth

by Shaun Lawton

for Adam Bolivar & John Shirley

                                    





Our classical depiction of humans
And how we must appear to be today
Through an exquisite metamorphosis
Find ourselves in a transitional phase
As we must propagate our dna
To infiltrate our very own substrate
With age old unintended pollutants
And intoxicants our antibodies 

Struggle with, white blood cells proliferate
Against and agents within our micro-
Biome collaborate with and adapt
To while we all mutate and procreate
So that all the various living aspects
Which shape us variegate and rearrange

At the micro level encoding new
Bits into our molecular program
Taking advantage of ongoing change
Until fungi in our mycobiomes 
Alter themselves in a new direction
To which our fate is so gradually
Still being forged we don't even notice
The scintillating changes in our eyes

Retinal striations gaze upon us
From the mirror each day we brush our teeth
Until one new dawn beyond tomorrow's
Horizon something else would be staring
Back at us from our own dark reflections
Except by that time we'll have done away 

With the need for bathrooms, mirrors and homes
Because by then all the fruiting bodies
Will have recombined into fresh new modes
Bacteria and fungi will arise 
The dominant form replaces that part
Of us we consider human today
The surface of this very same planet
Will ripple with odd configurations

Of fungal formations whose shapes may hold
Dim impressions of the old human style
Except twisted and split in half so that
A shelf of fungus along canyon rims
Perched beneath the shade of towering pines
May resemble a fragment of rib cage

While other forms of broken off fungi
May take the shape of elegant femurs
Bent to the haunted whispering darkness
Gathered under overhung moss gardens
Tending themselves along the sunken rims
Of cratered ponds reflecting the still disc
Of the perfect full moon continuing
Its silent orbiting halo about 

The crowning Earth's mutated stage amid 
Lightning storms and pure sonic ablutions
Constantly upgrading preparation
For this mutating phase of unfolding
Susurrations whispering in shadows
For the next solar hymnal to the wind

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All Hallow's Eve

by Marge Simon