This November I’m celebrating five years of sobriety with daily Trekphrastik posts throughout the month. Unfortunately, I’m already behind. Here are the poems I should have sent out on November 1 and 2. You aren’t allowed to be angry at me, this is free art and I’m disabled.

In honor of my Shakespearean roots I’ve decided to focus on sonnets, but reserve the right to change my mind. Oh, also, since the episodes are randomly selected, not very many of these are going to be about sobriety. But don’t worry, they’ll all be inspired by the second-greatest TV show of all time - Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Time’s Arrow is the two-part cliffhanger which ended TNG’s fifth season and ushered in its sixth. There is an excitable quantity of time travel, a dash of Shakespeare, a squawking Mark Twain impersonator, and Dr. Crusher serving this 19th century look that would make an android’s severed head grow back.

Given the relative levity of the two episodes, I wrote two poems about death. Enjoy!

Time’s Arrow Part I

Did you think you were immortal before
they found your head below San Francisco?
That no 'pponent could defeat you but Lore
(and even he'd struggle making it so.)

Evaporation points of the Tarzak
aperitif, less fragile than human
life; your mortality under attack
- protect your positronic acumen.

One watch went forward, one went to the past
and five risked their lives to bring just you back.
Because android lives are worth holding fast --
batteries and souls -- they both fade to black.

Whose watch would you rather be wound down first?
You -- would you ride in, or follow, the hearse?
                    

Time’s Arrow Part II

Do not name me an ophidian nor
insult me by denying what I saw;
you were eavesdropping by the parlor door,
you enjoy witnessing -- your fatal flaw.

Your closeted claim is "utmost respect"
then listen now to save human lives,
for this humble plan is with failure flecked,
vulnerable to a Colt 45.

As history needs must fulfill itself,
I beg you hold this well worn wisdom dear,
you must author the books on your shelf
-- to have died without living is the fear.

Find risk in all, yet here you have no choice.
You risk it all, when you won't raise your voice.