I won’t be announcing all my accepted work, but on occasion, I will link or discuss something that might interest you.
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- March 30_Butterfly Effect
- March 29_Red Radiation Diaries No. 3
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- March 1_Event Horizon poem
John C. Mannone: The Art of Poetry 
Trying to read the poem called “Butterfly Effext” where can I find it?
Thanks for your interest in Butterfly Effect. It was originally published in Tupelo Press 30/30 Project in March 2014. It remained in their archives until the summer of 2015. It has been reprinted in the 2015 Rhysling Anthology (from the Science Fiction Poetry Association) which is an anthology of speculative poetry published in the preceding year that was nominated (in this case, for the long poem category…it is the longest poem I have ever written at over 900 words). However, I will post it here. The poem is long enough to work with both my lyrical voice and the (necessary) conversational one. I hope you enjoy it:
Butterfly Effect
For Vidya
If prayers are as the pleasant
scent of flowers, then butterflies
must drift with their nectar, lifting
it up to Him.
A friend asked me about prayer.
Told me how it didn’t work for her
and that even the null hypothesis
worked better. She said,
forget faith, just pray.
But to whom, I mused, the Fates?
I suppose, Hollywood would
agree with that mythology.
Horrible things happen
to good people, while louses
revel in injustices. I know.
After I was robbed
so many times, I wondered
if my God was out
to lunch when I called on Him
to protect me and my home.
I had faith, but was it waning
as a pale moth?
Just about the time
I was about to give up,
I heard a loud rap, rap, rap
on my door. I jumped
out of bed… another bad dream:
punks with bats and guns.
#
A preacher on the radio
started teaching about Job.
Yeh, yeh, yeh, I said, I know.
That poor schmuck
lost everything and got sick
as hell on top of that.
His “friends” said Job didn’t
have faith or that maybe he pissed
God off. He believed them,
until God showed up—
a voice in a whirlwind,
but at first he might have thought
the whoosh was from his own
labored susurrations. You’d think
God would’ve told him
why. Instead, He talked
about the awesome
truth of nature, His creation,
and who controls it. It wasn’t
Job; he remained speechless.
God didn’t tell him about
the deal with the devil, or how
that scoundrel challenged God
to test his loyal servant.
But in the end, Job was restored
and where his sores had been
butterflies landed.
#
Once my plane iced up flying into
unforecast icing conditions: had to
make an emergency instrument approach.
It was below minimums.
Yet He cleared a path at the last second,
at my last prayer.
Before I knew The Christ,
I had faith—I believed in the Father.
And He reminded me of it. I have faith,
but is it fading? No, it is not,
I have metamorphosed into
a monarch.
#
Pray with the innocence
of a child. Do not worry
about the wicked people
for they will be changed
as the fat dripping into flames,
only wisps of soot remain.
Don’t worry
about the healing of your body,
it is done the moment you ask,
whether on this side of heaven
or the other.
If you ask Him for something,
how do you know that prayer
doesn’t bump into another
someone else had asked?
We are all connected,
like the wind, and our prayer
gossamers the air. A butterfly
on a solitary lily flutters for just
one impatient moment.
How could it know
that later, in the next
season, across the sea,
it might have stirred
a funnel wind?
So too with prayers.
Some are unanswered now, perhaps
to avoid a conflict of interest,
or chaos others might have to endure.
How would we ever know?
Perhaps the answer to our prayer
should best be delayed.
#
The purple Twilight hoped
the night wouldn’t come,
prayed the Daylight to stay. But
Darkness drifted in anyway.
The stars glistened as tears
which it couldn’t even wipe.
Why? Why didn’t you stay,
it asked. And the Day said,
I must bring the light to your
brother, for he is in darkness.
Yet I will return, I promise.
Enjoy the luna-moth moon
in the meantime.
Then Twilight’s sister, Dawn,
brought the hope of Day.
And, as if it had forgotten,
Twilight would soon pray
again.
But one day, there will be
Light all around, and Dark
will have to flee forever.
#
Almost 3000 years ago,
because of their faith,
three young Jews were thrown
into a fiery furnace
with a fire seven times hotter
than hell. And they prayed while
rejoicing in their resignation,
but the Lord saved them.
Almost 30 days ago,
a prisoner on Death Row
found Jesus, even in the privacy of his
own hell. Before the execution,
he prayed as Daniel did the night
before. He had painted placid lions
on the wall. When asked what if
he wouldn’t be saved from death,
he pointed to another wall
he painted: Elijah in his fiery chariot
meeting the Lord in the clouds,
he said, “just in case my ride
is with the needle.”
Yes, they pushed it into his vein.
You could tell that he was not alone
by the shimmer the doctor later saw
in his eyes—a glitter of gold light
like a myriad of miniature butterflies
fluttering their metal wings in the sun,
a light that must have been at the end
of the tunnel where He was waiting:
the One who’s already prayed
for us all, the One who suffered
the turbulence of our sins.
Does this help me understand
why that child in the news
—kidnapped/murdered—
must have suffered that evil
and why his mother must
anguish the loss of her child?
Does it comfort me to know
my Lord had suffered a greater
grief? I do not understand
so many things.
What good can come of tragedy?
A small rabbit scampers
carelessly under rolling tires.
Yet even scavengers seem to give
thanks as they fold their wings
over the still warm flesh. The trees
continue to wave their branches
in the wind and the earth doesn’t sing
a eulogy. But no sparrow falls unnoticed.
#
My eyes lift up
the crimson light peels
the clouds. Silhouettes
of herons recede, scissoring
horizon’s edge ragged
with a million butterflies, prayers
nested in their wings.