Sequence in twenty-six parts, after Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, with illustrations by Dominic Evans.
Available from Sidekick Books.
“A truly fanciful poetic adaptation encompassing some of the most famous characters in paleontological history.”
– Dr. Lowell Dingus (American Museum of Natural History), author of Hell Creek, Montana: America’s Key to the Prehistoric Past
Six poems at 3AM Magazine.
Paronychodon Explanatus
Your attention, Tyrannosaurus rex, president of the hoard;
Ugrosaurus, editor of the Argus;
Lambeosaurus, pastor of the leading church;
Albertosaurus, several times Mayor of Hell Creek;
And finally, all of you, members of the Social Purity Club—
Your attention to Baryonyx’s dying roar,
Standing with the heroic remnant
Of Eotyrannus’s guard on Mont Barremian
At the battle field of Wessex,
When Rhabdodon, the Ornithopod, called to them:
“Surrender, brave Theropods!”—
There at close of day, with the battle hopelessly lost,
And pack of bulls no longer the army
Of the great Eotyrannus
Streamed from the field like ragged strips
Of thunder clouds in the storm.
Well, what Baryonyx roared to Rhabdodon
Ere the Ornithopod fury made smooth the brow of the hill
Against the sinking light of day
Roar I to you, and all of you,
And to you, O planet.
And I charge you to scratch it
Upon my stone.
J.T. Welsch 