Poem of the Day: “Lacertilia Regina” by David Kopaska-Merkel

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “Lacertilia Regina” by David Kopaska-Merkel.  Mr. Kopaska-Merkel has written myriads of poems and stories since the 70s. He won the Rhysling award for best long poem in 2006 for a collaboration with Kendall Evans. He has written twenty-three books, of which the latest, a chapbook of speculative poetry, is SETI Hits Paydirt from Popcorn Press, http://www.popcornpress.com/seti-hits-paydirt/. Kopaska-Merkel has edited Dreams & Nightmares magazine since 1986 http://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/. Follow him on Twitter @DavidKM.

Lacertilia Regina

David Kopaska-Merkel

Her raddled face; honeyed lisps

rain scales with every sibilation,

stirring coigned dust devils

and reflected winks in that dark case,

carved by them as worshiped

the Lizard Queen.

Weather patterns shift, a coverlet of mold

greens & softens cities,

sinkholes suck markers into muck,

their inscriptions elide and flow

in the water-plunked caverns of the Newt,

vanish beneath draperies of crystal stone.

Papa's got a new god,

Newt glistens in the halls of veneration,

sticky blinks pass sentence

on transgressors, the monster's

four-toed manus descends

oh so heavily upon wrong-doers.

Mama doesn't make that scene,

she's moved to a higher plain;

in a cool dry windswept temple

Lacertilia is reborn;

slit-pupil serenity

speaks with forked tongue,

obsidian knives drink, remember,

chants wake the moon,

sand snakes sidle; we are called.

Poet's Notes:  I recently completed a non-fiction book about a 300-million-year-old fossil site most noted for abundant reptile and amphibian footprints http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1371. I was thinking about the differences, and the tales of reptilian gods, and thought: amphibians deserve their turn.

Editor’s Note:  I love the sibilance in this one and had to look up fewer words than usual for one of Mr. Kopaska-Merkel’s poems.