In a Burst of Recycled Electrons

by James Thomas Fletcher

From the author of Poems from Terra and Cairn. More poetry plus short stories and plays.

Explore these short samples for a glimpse into In a Burst of Recycled Electrons:


PSST! SCRIPT
I left the typo in the last message
for your pleasure, the connotations
for your rumination.
I simply sat down with fragments
of your notes and the missive flowed.
Perhaps you and I have no typos.
Thxy'rx nxvxr likx this.
Ours always make sense.

Yours, the quixotic, pixilated,
former mixologist, Jxm


LOVE
You soar far into the blue
Sailing in bright light,
over the heads of man.
Suddenly someone tosses a faded rosebud
Into the spear of the wind,
a missile that should never reach you
And down to the ground you drop.


ZERO DEGREES HAIKU
it's the time when air
breaks like glass and stars crack out
of the sky: winter


DARKNESS DESCENDS
The lights are out in Skylab tonight.
The lights, the computers, all of them.
The monitors, the servers, the switches,
The hubs, are all dormant and dead.
The fans are off. The projectors powerless.
Every plug pulled. Even the coffee pot.
The refrigerators mute,
Their doors hang open, lifeless.
Control panels and their former twinkling lights
Invisible now in the black night.
Heating units cold as a tomb.
Practice for the future I guess.

Genres: Poetry

152 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 6, 2017

About the author

James Thomas Fletcher is native to Oklahoma. After a brief stint in college, he left the state to see if the rest of the world existed. Along the way, he picked cotton, made fiberglass and, in hazmat suit, cleaned filters inside a nuclear laundry. He was an M-60 machine gunner in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, company clerk at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, (NATO\SHAPE) in Belgium, bartender in South Carolina, bricklayer in Oklahoma, oil field chainhand in Louisiana, roustabout in the Gulf of Mexico, English instructor in North Carolina, and Director of Computer-Aided Instruction at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Academically, he holds Master’s of Arts in English degrees in Creative Writing and Composition & Rhetoric, has been honored for outstanding teaching, and presented at national and international conferences on the subject of computer pedagogy. In addition, he has earned Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Advanced Certified Novell Administrator computer certifications.

Now retired, his motorcycle and hang glider long since sold. His pilot's license expired. He no longer restores pinball machines, skydives, scubas, sails, or paints. He has forgotten how to play the bagpipe. His didgeridoo sits idle. He was once removed by the director from a part in his own stage play, but that has not discouraged him from continuing to write. He has written short stories, plays, and screenplays, but favors poetry.

He lives on the side of a volcano in the Republic of Panamá