Well, I had a thought, until I realized too late that the lower word limit was 100 and it really wouldn't expand well (or at least I have too many other things to do tonight to push it up into triptych range or whatever). Whoops.

So you'll just get my current draft of it in the thread as a lagniappe. :-)

Desertion and Ranging

Power surges; I wake to screech
Radiation, sine waves with reach
Over spectrum, sharp beacon tone
Singing signal; who hears? Unknown.
Intermission, pause long and still
Glowing timer ticks down to nil
Nothing's inbound; I sleep alone.

>>Light_Striker
Like it a lot. Seems to fit the theme going on in this one while sounding good.

Kind of a limerick format but without the regular meter and tight rhymes. In the end, I'm not sure what happened. Chin thought he could buy Chud's love but got the door slammed in his face, and now he's at least glad he's not out the money? On the surface, that's fine, but there's not enough context to see how it all applies to these two characters specifically. I need a rooting interest in Chin before I care what happens to him. Unless it's more of an aesop thing, but even then it's fairly vague as a moral.

Regular syllable count, but irregular rhythm. Rhymes are good.

I'm not sure what this one is saying either. Through the first two stanzas, it seemed to be using the inability of a radio broadcast to reach its intended recipient as a metaphor for people failing to communicate. But in the third, it seemed more like... I don't know. A machine trying to convince people it was intelligent? An experiment to put an AI in an organic body? I like the construction of it, but I'm afraid it might be going over my head.

If I'm reading this correctly, it's the other side of "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret." It's not a book I've read, but I remember a bunch of kids in my class reading it about the time I was in 2nd grade. I don't have the context of what's in the book, but I'm not sure any is needed. Maybe you've borrowed some thematic material from it (if indeed that's actually the reference), but either way, this still stands alone well. It's a nice way to put perspective on all the astronomical things that had to happen for one girl named Margaret to exist. I think the "you don't know me" line is pretty striking. Again, maybe that draws from some context in the book, but it seems to imply Margaret doesn't believe in God. Or maybe it's just saying that while she's aware of God, He's beyond her comprehension? I'm not sure if it was intended, but it's a little bit of a dark turn. Nicely done, though. I enjoyed the atmosphere of this one.