strumming to cloud and moon by likhain $5.00 spring 2018

Strumming to Cloud and Moon by Likhain

$5.00Spring 201841.2

Star*Line 2 Spring 2018

03 Dragons & Rayguns • Vince Gotera 19 From the Small Press • Herb Kauderer07 SFPA Announcements 25 Stealth SF: Flying Blind • Denise Dumars13 President’s Message • Bryan Thao Worra 42 XenoPoetry: Japanese Scifaiku and Tanka •

Shouko Izuo (translated by Natsumi Ando)Poetry03 [spewing] • Roxanne Barbour • [spray of rocks] • Roxanne Barbour04 Workshop Exercise 21/08/2337: My Earliest Memories • David Jalajel06 UFO • David Barber • [multiple moons] • David J Kelly • [life sentence] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel •

[their drone ship came to Earth] • Lauren McBride09 The Fallen Angel’s Ace of Wands • Mindy Watson 10 Why aliens shun India • Arjun Rajendran • [huckster moon] • Greer Woodward • Never Trust a

Vampiress • James Dorr • [that] David C. Kopaska-Merkel11 It’s Universal • Marsheila Rockwell • Transported by Song • Herb Kauderer • [easy mole removal?] •

F. J. Bergmann • A Cinephile Steps On-Screen • Alberto Sveum12 Symbiosis • Chris Galford • [Striped gaiters, breather] • Denise Dumars • Stone Clutched to Chest •

Laura Madeline Wiseman and Andrea Blythe14 The Holy Firmament of Venus • Mary Soon Lee • Measure • Banks Miller • [alien worm—] • Susan

Burch • Widening Gyroscope • F. J. Bergmann15 [rising] • Roxanne Barbour • Cost-Benefits Analysis of Being a Zombie • James Reinebold16 Till Death Do Us Part • Kathleen A. Lawrence • [a GoFundMe account] • Beth Cato • If Only I

Could Sleep • G. O. Clark17 Hermes • Jonel Abellanosa • Friends of Traitors • Matthew Wilson • [bottle trees on Mars] • Sandra

J. Lindow18 When Semi-Benevolent Aliens Conquer Earth • R. Mac Jones • Cosmic Roshambo • John Richard

Trtek • [we’re leaving] • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Oh No She Didn’t? • James Dorr • [revealing] • Roxanne Barbour • Archaeopteryx • Robert Borski • [Terrans scooping gravel] • Lauren McBride

22 Wolf Moon • Susan McLean • [FTL propulsion achieved] • Lauren McBride and Jacob McBride • [cosmology] • Katrina Archer

23 Flight of Fantasy • crystalwizard • [no need] • Susan Burch • [we buried] • ayaz daryl nielsen • alien sea beams • David J Kelly

24 A Leaf Fairy Feels Under-Appreciated • Sharon Cote • The Return • Ken Poyner • The Cold Spot • Kimberly Nugent • From the Zombie Hunters Field Guide: Tracking the Zombie • James Dorr

28 [summer waits for him] • Holly Lyn Walrath • [vampire job fair] • William Landis29 Data Value • Patricia Gomes • [close encounter] • Susan Burch• [Irresistible panhandling] • F. J.

Bergmann • From Antartican Vibranium Tankas • Eileen R. Tabios30 Ghazal • Joshua Gage • Elixir Stores Open for Business! • Ronald A. Busse31 [the sound of black holes] • Alzo David-West • Lost in the House of Hair • John W. Sexton • [end of

the road] • Greg Schwartz32 The Music of the Spheres • Mikal Trimm • Come Embrace Space • Lauren McBride • E pur si

muove • Deborah L. Davitt • [nothing’s so beautiful] • Alzo David-West33 [red shift] • David J Kelly • [alien pool shark] • F. J. Bergmann • Second Life • Davian Aw •

[eruption] • Roxanne Barbour • [for sale: sweet cottage] • F. J. Bergmann34 Illiteracy • Scott E. Green and Herb Kauderer • [outside the greenhouse] • Greg Schwartz • The

Young Transylvanian’s Guide to Dating: Taking Your Date Home • James Dorr35 [alien teenagers] • Susan Burch • [prohibited] • Roxanne Barbour • The Ghost Diet • Robert Borski 36 Everything started with the Big Bang, they say • Juanjo Bazán • [held to my ear] • F. J. Bergmann37 Red in the Morning • James B. Nicola • [the prospect recedes] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • [heat

death of a universe] • F. J. Bergmann39 Missouri City, Texas, in a Far Tomorrow • José Chapa • Intruders • Cindy O’Quinn • [Looking at

each star] • William Landis • The Plague • Matthew Wilson41 Mermaid Warrior • Darrell Lindsey • [star party] • Lauren McBride • [Stiff with chill] • Denise

Dumars • Exfil • WC Roberts • [class four body dies] • Holly Lyn Walrath • [guys on a float trip] • William Landis

43 Shapeshifter Taxonomy • A. C. Spahn

ArtFront Strumming to Cloud and Moon • Likhain 09 Low Rounders • Denny E. Marshall 05 First Time on a Swing • Christina Sng 29 Squirm • Denny E. Marshall

Table of Contents


Greetings, specpo people! It’s April, which makes it National Poetry Month in the US and actually in many star systems in the quadrant. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the HAY(NA)KU, a poetic form invented by Filipino American poet Eileen R. Tabios: a tercet with one word in the first line, two in the second, and three in the third. Eileen wanted to call it the Philippine Haiku, but I suggested “hay(na)ku,” a pun on the Filipino expression hay naku—untranslatable directly but meaning something on the order of oh my gosh in surprise or exasperation—and haiku, with na (meaning “already” in Filipino) splitting the hay and ku. Variants of the hay(na)ku include the reverse hay(na)ku (3-2-1), chained hay(na)ku (longer poems constructed of hay(na)ku stanzas), and my own invention, the hay(na)ku sonnet (5 hay(na)ku stanzas with the last compressed into a couplet of 3 words per line in order to total 14 lines). Apropos for us here on Planet Star*Line is the SF hay(na)ku called a sci(na)ku. You’ll find several sci(na)ku as well as fantasy and horror hay(na)ku in this issue by Kathleen A. Lawrence, Katrina Archer, Lauren McBride (even one co-authored with her son Jacob McBride), and Roxanne Barbour. In fact, Roxanne has just invented a new variant, the hay(na)ku tanka, with 5 lines of 1 word, 2 words, 3, 2, then 1. Of course—because specpo—she gives us sci(na)ku tanka, two examples of which are below; the poem on the right is even a reverse one! (5 lines of 3 words, 2 words, then 1, 2, 3.) I hope you enjoy these sci(na)ku / hay(na)ku poems. The poems here also include a list poem by Arjun Rajendran, a fib and cheritas by David C. Kopaska-Merkel, a ghazal by Joshua Gage, and another rondeau redoublé by Mindy Watson. Eileen R. Tabios is also here with a robot tanka. We’re happy to honor Asian American Heritage Month (May in the US) with cover art by Likhain, continuing Star*Line’s 40th SFPA anniversary celebration with art by poets. She gives us a genderbending re-vision of Heinlein’s blind poet Rhysling and a space dog for the Chinese Year of the Dog. Now go write some sci(na)ku!

—Vince Gotera, Star*Line editor

Dragons & Rayguns

spewinglunar dustunderground caverns uncoveredblueprints revealedpathways

—Roxanne Barbour

spray of rocksicy eruptionsglaciologyAntarctic historyalien dumpsite uncovered

—Roxanne Barbour


Workshop Exercise 21/08/2337: My Earliest Memories

Day 1:

I drift on a softness that dresses existencein billowing sheets of soft shadow and colour; a large-enough world that beleaguers those farthest,remotest preserves where my feet must preside.

I’ve not seen my feet, but I know they are out there obscured in the distance where dimly a glimmer of beams—tall and vertical bars that encompassthis wilderness—blooms at the brim of the sky.

They stretch way above where astride their far summitsa parallel wedge interweaves and bisects them—beyond which a vastness of varnished lights flicker and drape over shadows that elsewhere withdraw.

Beyond where those bars meet the brightness and shadow go effortless footfalls that echo below where I drift on a softness that dresses existencein billowing sheets of soft colour and shade.

Day 2:

Secret hands open a smooth white door high up . . .

It is interesting how for so many years I would not know them,only hearing about them in snatches . . .

. . . and place me inside a small, cold room with silver, bumpy objects littering a smooth white floor . . .

They were a person of many concerns, many tempers,of infidelities and deep passions . . .

. . . with smooth white walls flowing seamlessly into an equally smooth white ceiling. The door closes . . .


I can see how it could never have worked out between us,how the fight was inevitable, how their last gesturemade sense in an unthinking sort of way . . .

. . . and this room falls into utter darkness . . .

They have probably forgotten all about it. It wasso long ago, such a little thing— No harm done.

. . . to be opened again so other hands—my MOTHER’s hands!— can take me out.

Day 3:

Her reflection

stares from my mirror,applies her cheap lipstick, driesmy automatic hair, sighs,brushes wisps of static.

Lipstick streaks her mirror.

Greasy scrawls scraping the glasscry against my glares.

Day 4:

Bipedal locomotion—what a thrilling new power.I walk through the twin curtains of shining beads that conceal the kitchen from the lounge suite in the flatlet where we live.

The curtains clatter behind me. The world in front of meslants a 45-degree angle. (I grant, that is how I look on it now). I do not at all feel like I am

leaning to one side. I am alone—unafraid but . . .disturbed. I walk back through the beaded portal and the world around my retreating steps trips and rights itself again.

—David Jalajel

First Time on a Swing by Christina Sng


UFO

It starts with lights in the sky and the engineof a truck dying one night on an empty road, Country Radio drowned in static, then silence

before the sense of something looming.Soon pilots are twisting their necks at fleetingshapes in the clouds that can stop on a dime

like hockey players, in sprays of strange physics.Whatever goes wrong keeps them coming back, goaded by the need to confess. It might be

an old couple startled from sleep in the half-light,or a state trooper cruising a desert highway who is seized upon and made to listen

to regrets for the mistakes that were made, or from our perspective, are about to be made.The FLT drive that brought them here

also allows them to visit the past,although for the sake of causality memories of their words must be erased,

and despite what it does to those who wakesprawled on the asphalt, fearful and alone, still, they insist that we must forgive them.

—David Barber

life sentence

forgot, eventuallywhat he was in for labored for eternitybut that rock kept a-rollin’famous for it

—David C. Kopaska-Merkel

their drone ship came to Earthonly robots on boardsix legs, four wings, two antennaekept asking to seeour queen

—Lauren McBride

multiple moonsdifferent states of eclipseTannhäuser gate

—David J Kelly


SFPA Demographics Project

Following on with our push to determine the demographics of our membership and in celebration of the SFPA’s international membership and diversity, we’re polling our members for information on their racial & ethnic identities. Multiracial? Tell us about it. Please remember that diversity means EVERYONE. There is no default race or ethnicity, so, if you care to share, please include your information by emailing our membership chair, Diane Severson Mori at [email protected] or by post to our Secretary: Renee Ya, P.O. Box 2074, San Mateo, CA 94568 USA. If you have not yet responded to our previous call (we’d like to hear from all our members), please include as much of the following information as you feel comfortable sharing:

Gender / preferred pronouns / racial identity / ethnic identity

Also, please indicate whether we may share your contact details (email address) with other members in your area. Thank you.

SFPA Positions

We are seeking candidates for Treasurer. The role requires some financial experience and participation in monthly officers’ meetings and frequent email discussions. Interested? Please contact SFPA Secretary Renee Ya at [email protected]. Josh Brown is returning as our 2018 Elgin Awards Chair. A writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Josh Brown is a graduate of the University of Minnesota–Duluth with a degree in English literature and has spent the past 15 years in the publishing industry working for and with award-winning publishers and best-selling authors. Josh’s work can be found in numerous anthologies as well as in Star*Line, Scifaikuest, Mithila Review, Fantasy Scroll Magazine, and more. His essay “Poems and Songs of The Hobbit” was recently featured in Critical Insights: The Hobbit (Salem Press). He served as editor for issue 20 of Eye to the Telescope, the online journal of the SFPA. This year’s Dwarf Stars Editor will be Deborah P Kolodji. Former president of the SFPA, Deborah P Kolodji is a member of the Haiku Poets of Northern California, the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society, Haiku Canada, and the California State Poetry Society. She is the author of four chapbooks of poetry, and her first full-length book of haiku and senryu is Highway of

SFPA Announcements

mailto:[email protected]




Sleeping Towns (Shabda Press). She has published more than 900 haiku in publications such as Frogpond, Modern Haiku, the Heron’s Nest, Bottle Rockets, A Hundred Gourds, Acorn, Rattle, and Mayfly, as well as speculative poetry in Strange Horizons, Star*Line, Grievous Angel, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Tales of the Unanticipated, Tales of the Talisman, and Dreams and Nightmares. Holly Lyn Walrath will be the 2018 Contest Chair. A writer of poetry and short fiction, Holly Lyn Walrath has had work appear in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Liminality, and the SFPA’s journals Star*Line and Eye to the Telescope. She is a freelance editor and volunteer with Writespace Writing Center in Houston, Texas. She edited issue 23 of Eye to the Telescope, on the theme of Time. Find her on Twitter @HollyLynWalrath or on the web at www.hlwalrath.com.

Rhysling Award Voting

The 2018 Rhysling Anthology PDF was sent out via our MailChimp list; if you did not receive it, contact [email protected]. The print anthology is being mailed with this issue of Star*Line. All candidates are listed at sfpoetry.com/ra/rhyscand.html. Rhysling Award voting is now open; current members may vote online at bit.ly/SFPARhysling2018 or via post to the SFPA secretary: Renee Ya, P.O. Box 2074, San Mateo, CA 94568 USA. Deadline: June 15.

Elgin Award Nominations

Nominations are open until May 15: please send title, author and publisher of nominated speculative poetry books (40+ pages of poetry) and chapbooks (10–39 pages) to Elgin Chair Josh Brown at [email protected]. Only members may nominate; no limit, but may not nominate their own work. Nominated books are listed at sfpoetry.com/el/elgcand.html. Members without email can request a list of nominated books. The voting deadline is September 1, to allow plenty of reading time!

Dwarf Stars Nominations

Submissions are now open for the 2018 Dwarf Stars anthology, edited by Deborah P. Kolodji, from which the best short-short speculative poem published in 2017 will be selected. Anyone may submit their own poems or those of others; no limit to how many poems you may submit for the anthology, but only current SFPA members may vote for the award. Poems must be no more than 10 lines (or 100 words for prose poems) not including title or stanza breaks; include publication credit. Editors are welcome to submit entire issues. Email submissions to [email protected]. Deadline: May 15.

http://www.hlwalrath.com


http://sfpoetry.com/ra/rhyscand.html

bit.ly/SFPARhysling2018


http://sfpoetry.com/el/elgcand.html



The Fallen Angel’s Ace of Wands (a rondeau redoublé)

My consort principality, do youRecall the card you dealt that day I vowed, Divining under Father’s verdant yew, To journey far beyond His Gates? How proud

I’d been, despite your reprimands, to shroud In wool my six celestial wings! In lieu Of grace, I brandished will and disavowed My consort. Principality, do you

Still wish to tend a fallen seraph who Now walks this isle’s remote terrain endowedWith serpent’s fiery breath and sins to rue? Recall the card you dealt that day I vowed

To flee, embracing all He disallowed—And deal once more. This Ace of Wands you drewReminds me I was once a rod, head bowedDivining under Father’s verdant yew.

But this depicted rod embodies trueLucidity. The way it splits that cloudIn two assures me I was simply dueTo journey far beyond His Gates. How proud

He’d been to craft the burnished bars that cowed Us into servitude. Let’s rendezvous,My faithful fiend. We’ll bid the wingèd crowdBreak free. We’ll forge for them a new worldview, My consort principality.

—Mindy Watson

Low Rounders by Denny E. Marshall


Why aliens shun India

1. The erotic sculptures in Khajuraho temples give ’em a complex about their sexual mettle

2. Distressed the ancients could travel faster than light speed even without spliffing weed

3. Addiction to Indo-Pak cricket matches threaten to disrupt plans of intergalactic conquest

4. The realization that trying to understand Indian politics is like teaching a black hole about tax benefits

5. Inability to comprehend how a cosmic-package-trip costs less than a wedding/lehenga outfit

6. The impossibility of maneuvering saucers through the air traffic of a zillion mythologies

7. The religious/caste/astrological barriers against copulating with extraterrestrial sojourners

8. Alien docs fear a spike in diabetes owing to grocers who barter change for candies

9. The inedible grief of crash-landing in a Bollywood script, after attaining nirvana through Stanley Kubrick

—Arjun Rajendran

Never Trust a Vampiress

Sometimes,when the vampire huntersgot too close,she’d wear her fur coatand get away claimingshe was a werewolf.

—James Dorrthathotvampirechick bit allthe guys in Grandpa’s metal band; they’ll rock 4evera groupie a night—most agree—a small price to pay —David C. Kopaska-Merkel

huckster moonthe impact cratersare fake

—Greer Woodward


Transported by Song

Livia dreamed her songs would free her from the misery of life indenturedto a thaumaturge.

She sang as sheworked the herb garden,tended the unorthodox livestock, cleaned his dingy workspace,polishing his infernal machines.

The thaumaturge, for his part,never knew what happened to Livia. Never knew thatall his studies in time travelwere close to success,that they lacked onlythe key catalyst of song.

Sometime far in the futureLivia sings with joy,and doesn’t look back.

—Herb KaudererA Cinephile Steps On-Screen(a curtal sonnet)

His lungs hit the brakes, his left arm goes numb NPR’s droning dies, he only hears the shrieking tires, the guard rail tumble, crash.

From every slasher film he kept his stubs, saw his own death scene, fantasized for years of the blade flash, a man clad in skin mask.

But he never saw himself suspended by a seat belt, his heart quaking in fear, as an undead butcher trudged toward the dash,

stainless steel staring at his throat like thread, ready to be slashed.

—Alberto Sveum

It’s Universal

Midnight abductionsFlattened circles in the cornAlien love notesIt’s not only humans whoCan’t take no for an answer

—Marsheila Rockwell

easy mole removal?arm your garden gnomeswith spears and tridents

—F. J. Bergmann


Stone Clutched to Chest

Held still among crags above the beating shore, bodies surround us. The dark blankets with comfort. I hold him to my chest, stroke his cobbled head, then pat his matted fur. He doesn’t know the right shape to be. Why have I forgotten the way? He burbles, coos. His hands flail, red and startled—if they are hands, for already the claws scratch. He runts for a long pull at my emptied teats, but I first feed him congealed blood, thick from the crooks of skulls. Then I crouch over him, sway my six breasts, offer the nipples, waiting for that deep tug of womb to breast, child to cord. Together we curl. Men somewhere pursue us, bearing heavy mail and pride. Waves and wind carry them on laden wood ships, push their flesh and stink toward us. Their songs, drunken melodies of brag or terror, sweep into these caves with promise and threat. I will bare my teeth, then scrape the hearts from their chests to feed the still-hot meat to the only one left. For the rest of my children are stones. Once they rose, hunted in the woods, pulled fish from the waters, held berries, bringing that summer sweetness to their lips. Now they have all gone quiet or still. But I feel the thud of my little Grendel’s heart, hear his churlish call and its rock-ridden echo. I will not let him join them or leave me to myself. There are moments in this darkness lit by the fire and reflections of gold, when his eyes flutter. The rictus of his mouth widens as if he already knows, the memory of hunt surfacing behind his eyes. I sing to him then the old songs as he quivers. His limbs twitching a hobbled, jerky dance.

—Laura Madeline Wiseman and Andrea Blythe

Symbiosis

Symbiosis, they said,was watching the dance of fire and treethe rebirth that spreads from a hundred streamsof ash on the wind.Symbiosis, I found,latched to Steve’s helmet one night,a thousand tendrils of alien thought convergedas many remade the one.

—Chris Galford Striped gaiters, breather,reticule, goggles, and gloves—Oh, for an airship!

—Denise Dumars


President’s MessageWelcome to the Spring issue of Star*Line! We’re continuing to celebrate our 40th Anniversary of the SFPA with members attending events such as AWP in Tampa, Florida and Marscon recently. We’ll soon be at upcoming events and conventions across the US such as Comicpalooza, CONvergence, Diversicon, G-Fest and more. The SFPA thanks everyone who’s been working so hard to make these events possible. We’re excited to hold an official SFPA reading on June 12th in San Francisco. It’s been a very successful quarter for many of our members who’ve been sharing news of their readings and recent publications with us. We’re really looking forward to all of your votes for our 40th Anniversary Rhyslings. Your participation and consideration makes a big difference in building the greater community of speculative poetry around the globe and how we understand what science fiction and fantasy poetry is and can be. For several global literary traditions, this is still somewhat uncharted territory. As readers and writers, I’m honored by the work you’ve done to show others there can be value in deeply imaginative verse, memory, and dreams, and sharing it with others. Sometimes, in the modern world it can take a lot of effort to bring poetry back into our daily lives, but at the same time, poetry is needed now, more than ever. I hope many of you will feel encouraged by the official readings, gatherings and conversations of the SFPA to organize your own. If you’re interested, the SFPA can provide technical assistance and support in many places to help you organize and promote a reading. Sometimes the amount of poetry our members can produce and get out there in the world can seem overwhelming, but bear in mind that on a planet of 7 billion people we ultimately still have a finite number of poems produced in a given year, and of those shared with the world, how many are speculative? Let’s encourage one another to never take that for granted. Let’s keep inspiring each other to reach for the best in ourselves.

—Bryan Thao Worra, SFPA President

Eye to the Telescope, the SFPA’s quarterly online journal of speculative poetry, may be read at eyetothetelescope.org. The newest issue’s theme is Time, edited by Holly Lyn Walrath. Next up will be Found Poems, which can be submitted by June 15 for the next issue, to be edited by E. Kristin Anderson. Guidelines: eyetothetelescope.org/submit.html. Interested in editing an issue? See eyetothetelescope.org/editettt.html.

http://eyetothetelescope.org

http://eyetothetelescope.org/submit.html

http://eyetothetelescope.org/editettt.html


The Holy Firmament of Venus

From the distant dimness of the Kuiper beltto the inmost perisolar stations,a dissolute diaspora.

Debased descendants of Adamdespoil the dwarf planets,carve colonies into comets,creep beneath the Mercurian crust,string rings of spinning habitatsaround our home world.

Deviant creatures,no longer human,who sold their birthrightfor fur, wings, scales,cyberskins, silicon substrates,genetic corruption, nano infiltration.

Only one refuge remainsfor those who choosethe pure and perfect path,men and women formed in God’s image,afloat in the aerostatic sanctuaries of Venus,thirty miles above its scorched surface.

Alone against abomination.

—Mary Soon Lee

Widening Gyroscope

The songs coiled and multiplied in the shallowsas we walked through layers of sensation.We had left our cast-off feet sitting pretty.

Lack of reserves, not a cent, indicates purity;the indigent heart, or was it indignant art.My life’s work: the breathtaking, perfect fresco

encrusted in blood, more tactile than pastelson paper, more carnal than mute colorway. Intense.Different. Beautiful, though. A bit too too. Red.

alien worm—out of nowhereI’m swallowed wholeby my feelingsfor you

—Susan Burch

Measure

feet treading the vacuum,spacesuited arms’ wingbeats:falling twenty metersin Deimos’ feeble pull,plenty of time to dance.

—Banks Miller


Come-hither eyes whose caramel influence could nothave brought us low gazing through a mask of hands.Keep your distance. It had taken increased ability

just to be owned or given. Closer to the sea of space,the cornerstone of the morning is about to move.Why do they always leave these things unguarded?

The stardrive had simple controls and comfortinglyfamiliar accessories: fuel reserve indicators, flesh(someone’s)-colored plastic, white rose in a bud vase,

emanating longing. Your immense life passesin a reddened hour on board, a hundred yearsblue-shifted into the increasing, unreturnable past.

They will hold you close no matterhow many silvery arms they have.

—F. J. Bergmann

Cost-Benefits Analysis of Being a Zombie

Being a zombie means no more haircuts.Being a zombie means no more greeting cards.Being a zombie means lots of repetition.Being a zombie means not minding so much.

No more sleep, but no insomnia either.No lines to remember, no toothpaste, no shaving.

Lots of walking, lots of groaning, lots of time in the mall.Clear life goals and plenty of company.

Being a zombie means no more fast food.Being a zombie means no more puns.Being a zombie means no more depression.Being a zombie means no more poetry.

—James Reinebold

risingradiation levelsspace habitat moduleMartian poolantidote

—Roxanne Barbour


Till Death Do Us Part

He walked slowlytoward the stones

She waited calmlyacross the bog

Onelove joinedin ghostly haze

They lay togetherin their grave.

—Kathleen A. Lawrence

If Only I Could Sleep

He’s working on a sign again across the way, his unsyncopated tapping disturbing my nap.

Hammer, chisel, redwoodboards, the true believer stillat it after eighty-plus years, despite the apocalypse.

Our homes are closetogether here, carports wideopen, no sounds confined as in those private shelters.

His signs once stated,The End Is Here, backedup with homilies and scripturepassages as proof.

New times, new signs,the end come and gone, the detritus of the past drenchedby irradiated rain.

His signs are nowdirectional or cautionary; This Way To Salvation Town, Beware Of Poison Water.

His tapping continues,old hands true to the craft, and I need to nap, the screamsat night negating sleep.

—G. O. Clark

a GoFundMe accountraising fundsto buy a unicorn horn

—Beth Cato


Friends of Traitors

For sale; enchanted mirrorcracked admirer of Snow White.

—Matthew Wilson

Hermes

Zeus demanded I return my winged footwear:Yellow shape-shifter with a mind of its own—Xanthic rubber shoes, or aureate sandalWhen rain made leather reflect light; today aVersion of cunning and precision, tomorrowUnpredictable as the storm. It’s now a metaphor:Thought’s swiftness and changeability.

Since then I’ve been savoring this human freedom,Redeemed from heraldic duties that made meQuicker than the wild quail as emissary, cloakedProtector of herdsmen. I still dabble in poetry andOratory, athletics and inventions, trade to me stillNuminous as the afterlife. I recall others calling meMercury, by which name I protected commerce.

Learning is like the magic herb Odysseus chew,Knowledge like incense from my hearth in Akhaia. Jeepney rides for the study of rhythms, for reaching In time the destinations. I go with travelers, from Home to horizons. I was rumored to be aGod of trickeries, sighing at such ignorance,Firm in tolerance, committed to free speech.

Enduring my godly infamy as a man. IDrove believers to become the best in theirCrafts, to excel in their fields. As guide IBrought the willingness to learn to zeniths, Artistries soaring to be among the stars

—Jonel Abellanosa Note: The oracle of Hermes (Hermes Agoraios) was in Akhaia

bottle trees on Mars red silicon most common black loam humus none the first greenhouse hops harvestempties growing bottle trees

—Sandra J. Lindow


we’re leavingover the eddy of the skyeach parturition in the cloud covera herringbone scarfwarming you for our dipunder the moonand out

who was it saidmadeand curledour route

the geometry of your smilethe geometry of the plasmaspherewhipping us under the neutrino ripples in blue

I’ve written down your nameso I’ll remember it when I arrive

—Robin Wyatt Dunn

When Semi-Benevolent Aliens Conquer Earth

So many humans.What to do with them?Don’t want to makeThe same mistakeThey did. Don’t want Extinction on our tentacles. Could be pets, but vet bills.Oh, bother, would be so much easier,If they could just take care of each other.

—R. Mac Jones

Oh No She Didn’t?

mermaid vampiress—wounded shark askswhere’s the love?

—James Dorr

Archaeopteryx

ghost bird mired in fossil sky—wingprints in Jurassic ink

—Robert Borski

Terrans scooping gravelfrom a lifeless carbon planetthose diamonds back on Earthworth millionsat first

—Lauren McBride

revealingwormhole starburstannual starship race

—Roxanne Barbour

Cosmic Roshambo

Any mass curls space,Curled space makes for gravity,Gravity yanks mass.

—John Richard Trtek


Debudaderrah by Robin Wyatt Dunn. John Ott, 2018, 153p. Paper, $10.00. eBook $3.00.

The publisher is a one-man outfit from California with at least eighteen volumes previously published, and this book was released as an ebook at the same time as the trade paperback. Debudaderrah is a long book of primarily prose poems. On Kobo, the short form blurb for the plot of the book relates that a far-off colony of Earth is visited by “a sentient robot from some Earth which does not yet exist. The robot has orders to eliminate all life it finds but the robot is also human, and has a troubled conscience.”

My name is Debudaderrah. I am 347,000 years old. I am in love with a sun. I am in love with you, my father. I am in love with killing. (94)

Debudaderrah uses multiple viewpoints and takes a concrete hard science future and layers it with myth and spirits and other core elements of humanity; those symbolic leaps that separate us from cool logic machines.

They kept the god-robot in the freezer (10)

When a poem asks

Do you remember? . . . What part of me was erased? (63)

every one of us can feel the pull of the diminishing past that anchors us with shadows that pull at us too hard, that will not leave us free, and the knowledge that on one level the past exists as no more than an absence of light obscuring the fascism of historians.

Everything I was is gone but new mes keep popping up; it is identity that is the pain, in whatever form, they must keep emerging, like weather patterns (43)

This book is mythmaking in a concrete hard science future, and creates a tapestry which includes threads of Picasso, Los Angeles, distant space colonies, killer robots, ancient spirits, unwanted voices in the head, dialogue, diatribe, diary, Gilgamesh, Uruk, and more. This is SF poetry with a sense of mystery, of actions unseen like dark planets whose gravitational pulls warp motives in actions unseen, but whose reality and orbits must be deduced without firsthand observation.

I small god, metal agent of my interlocutor my misdirector my home; I small metal man embrace thee with all my heart (54-55)

From the Small Press


An overlooked component of the scientific method is that experiments are encouraged to provoke more research and more experiments. This book provokes readers to create their own myths. When they read of “the last scout,” “The launching of the Great Missile,” and the “two lovers, Hiroshi and Sarai . . . nestled beneath the sand of Debudaderrah,” the desire to grant each myth its own book is likely to push readers into fits of reverie. This the author encourages, writing:

Here, please imagine your part of the story (96)

Imagine that the chapters of this book are a disorganized line of saké cups filled randomly with plum wine or sweet grape juice. And just when you find a proper altitude within which to navigate the astral plane, the next cup is full of single-malt scotch, the kind that’s supposed to burn.

You imagine parts in order, but for me they happen all at once (1)

If you are looking for linear narrative verse, or constant lucidity, you are in the wrong place. That the title of the book could easily belong to the Dadaist movement should have tipped you off. Properly you should get whiplash from reading this due to having your reality so frequently recreated. If you like that sort of thing (and I do) this book might be for you.

—Herb Kauderer

Crossing Paths at Midnight by Alan Katerinsky. CWP Collective Press, 2017, 25p. Paper, $5.00.

CWP Collective Press is an energetic new publisher in Western New York that has dipped into specpo a time or two. At least a third of this book is not formally speculative, yet many poems that are not overtly genre still touch on genre tropes and vocabulary. Consider the first stanza of “Success Parameters”:

Although I have warrior dreamsand a poet’s heart,I am, after all,a paper-pushing functionaryin a bureaucratic position. (25)

Within that quote, the schism between devotees of the speculative and slaves of the literal is outlined and branded into the brains of those of us who have worked at mindless jobs while dreaming of grander worlds. To go farther with the book’s fusionist trend, I suggest that one strange element of the collection is that non-genre poems often seem genre, and


genre poems sometimes feel non-. For example, Katerinsky’s meditation on “The Value of Science Fiction,” which first appeared in the genre magazine FrostFire Worlds, is formally speculative only in the sense that it posits

Science Fiction is the religionof the second half of the twentieth century. (17)

It also uses the language of specpo:

It is not that we prepare for the destruction of society,the old society has been destroyed,we are forging a new worldout [of] the shards of the old. (17)

And yet, within the poem there is no literal use of impossibility, no reliance on science or horror, no magic realism. This begs the question: Is poetry about science fiction inherently speculative? After reading this, I say yes. The other side of the equation, when genre sounds non, is exemplified by “Seven Deadly Friends.” There is a certain brilliance in writing a poem of eight stanzas of 5/7/5 syllable counts based on this premise—

Sissyphus sits by having a smoke break amidstthe eternal flames (4)

—and having it sound so natural that it could be someone at the bus stop harping about work. This is the work of an older, and sometimes crankier, writer and it shows at times. The book opens with “Zip Up Young Man!” and contains advice and regret that accrues with the decades such as “Progress”:

The great teacher painfreely confers her wisdom.See how much I’ve learned? (14)

Over the last three years Katerinsky’s poems have slowly trickled into Star*Line, Scifaikuest, and other familiar places. This is the poet’s first collection, and having a whole book full of his poems at once is a treasure for me. I’ll be wishing for more.

—Herb Kauderer


Wolf Moon

for Ursula K. Le Guin, October 21, 1929–January 22, 2018

The Wolf Moon took her, and the blood moon mourned her.O moon that pulled my tides, o little mother,I loved how in your novels you switched genderas one might toss off one dress for another.And then you altered further: to my wonder,you wrote The king was pregnant to uncoverthe way language itself colludes to severfemale from male, the human from the other.How can a world exist where one’s not lesser?You showed me. But utopia means nowhere.And then you changed again, yinward and lunar,acknowledging that gender isn’t minoror a handicap to suffer, but one factorof many used to dictate who has powerand who does not. Nusuth, your Taoist answer,it doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean surrenderto how things are. Rather, it means endeavorto find your way from here. No one could stop her.And yet she’s gone. Nusuth. It doesn’t matter.

—Susan McLean cosmology Stephen Hawking once again stardust

—Katrina Archer

Eye to the Telescopecongratulates our 2018 Rhysling nominees

Christina Loraine • “The Tree Builder” • Issue 25Holly Lyn Walrath • “Dear Shotgun City” • 25

Kathleen A. Lawrence • “Just Rosie” • 23R. Gene Turchin • “Quantum Socks” • 25

Rohinton Daruwala • “The Android Who Gave Herself Away” • 23

eyetothetelescope.org • eyetothetelescope.org/submit.html

FTL propulsion achievedsuddenly spaceavailable

—Lauren McBride and Jacob McBride

http://eyetothetelescope.otg

http://eyetothetelescope.org/submit.html


Flight of Fantasy

Stars glimmer in the abyss high, infinitely high, above.

Like tiny laser lights winking in alien code.

They flicker, flash, grow dim,then brighten.

The scientists, those with their feet firmly planted on the ground,insist it’s just a trick of the atmosphere.

But I know better.

I’ve seen the gossamer shipsas they flutter through the sky trailing streamers of soft, silky strands—bits of ethereal cloud falling from transparent engines.

I’ve spoken in riddles and tongues to those that sail the solar winds, dancing through moonlight and starlighton eons-long journeys.

I favor the talking head (the one hosting a documentary about unknown mysteries in space)with a thin smile—then bend over the paper, pen in hand,and take flight.

The universe opens once more in my mindand I write.

—crystalwizard

no need for alien abductionstodaywe send our DNAto ancestry.com

—Susan Burch

alien sea beamsthe liquid methaneboiling into space

—David J Kelly

we buried each arma few feeteither sideof his grave

he had alwaysasked forplentyof elbow room

—ayaz daryl nielsen


A Leaf Fairy Feels Under-Appreciated

Yes it matters This wash and wearOf seasonsA dab of color A crisp brown edgeA breath of mist

Look closelyThis is artAnd we artistsLiving insideOur work Always working

Ever hereWings tuckedChameleon shadesSkimming by lily pads Why don’t youSee us sometimes?

—Sharon Cote

The Return

We traveled so longWe no longer knew we wereA colony.

We thought we were the first people.

After that, we forgot evenThat we were not native.We became part of the planet.

You are here to tell us otherwise.

Your journey of many generationsWore the wonder out of your souls,As it did ours.

How do you know we did not send you?

—Ken Poyner

The Cold Spot

There is always a cold spot in an old housethat the dog growls at in the night.One that smells like candy when you are young.One that smells like your dead grandmother’s perfume.It soothes your senses.But it never feels right.Because there is always a cold spot in an old housethat the dog growls at in the night.

—Kimberly Nugent

From the Zombie Hunters Field Guide: Tracking the Zombie

Pieces of fingers, pieces of toes,follow the zombie wherever he goes.

—James Dorr


Flying Blind Denise Dumars

It seems that I’ve lost my hearing at a most inconvenient point in history. Audio books, podcasts, and Internet radio are all the rage. But they hold no pleasure for me, since, even with my hearing aid, I have to strain to understand the words. Talking on a cellphone is torture; that’s one of the reasons I keep a landline. Reading is one of my life’s greatest pleasures, and I always have the subtitles on when I watch TV. Movie theatres are not a problem because they have the soundtracks blasting so loudly that dead people in the next county can hear them—even so, theatres with subtitles will be coming to a multiplex near you soon, they say, so I guess I’m not alone. I will say that the thought of losing my eyesight now that I’ve lost much of my hearing scares me far more than it did in the past. I’ve been spared cataracts and macular degeneration so far (knock on wood). But I have worn bifocals for some time now, and use separate computer glasses. Scully was making fun of Mulder on The X-Files the other night for his progressive lenses. Even our idols need a bit of help at times, so no shame in that. But I do know that poetry predates written language, and we must remember this. So the next time you see me in the audience at a poetry reading, kids, please ENUNCIATE! Be that as it may, for an editor to read submissions “blind” is often a good thing, though there are those who would disagree. The reason many people appreciate it is that there is no bias in the editor, pro or con, in terms of who wrote it—the poem is judged solely on its own merits. Although many of us who are widely published do like submitting to editors who know our names and like our stuff, I must admit that there are times when a “blind” reading is a good thing. I’m sure some of you remember the ruckus a while back when Sherman Alexie (my formerly favorite Native American author is under a cloud again, this time for sexual harassment allegations) admitted to giving preference to poems by authors with non-European sounding names when he edited The Best American Poetry in 2015. People seemed angrier at the white guy, Michael Derrick Hudson, who couldn’t get his poem published under his own name, but sold the poem easily when he adopted a high school classmate’s Asian name, than they were at a bias that Alexie has admitted to. Now, I do not condone what Hudson did—not at all. But if the poem was not only good but also one of the best poems of 2015, why wouldn’t anyone publish it? Because the author’s name was “Hudson”? Hudson had submitted the poem FORTY TIMES before it was accepted under a name that was not his own. Perhaps The Best American Poetry series should be read blind. What do you think?

Stealth SFFINDING SPECULATIVE POETRY IN NON-GENRE MAGAZINES


The markets in this offering of Stealth SF ARE read blind, which sounds like an oxymoron and I’m sure I’ll get complaints about everything I’ve said up until right now as being insensitive in some way. So let’s look at the markets in which editors read poems without knowing the authors’ names and see how well they fit with our SFnal needs. In Spry Literary Journal Issue #09 I liked the magical realism of Rita Feinstein’s prose poem “The Black Bull’s Bride,” but I’ll quote from “Ark for the Axolotl,” by Nadia Wolnitsy; I won’t ruin the surprise but the ending of the poem is amazingly deep. Here’s the beginning:

Remember the axolotl and her anxiety,because when Noah got to Mexico,with his wife, and kids, and net,Noah saw her front paw budding anew with bloodand thought just one will work when it’s time.

The Perch is something different—it is published by Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, and although the poems and stories do, of course, relate to those topics, I found them all unique and riveting. I’ll share a few lines from Issue #3, May 2016, from the poem “Phantom” by Ashleigh Barker:

I inked “enough” inmy arm to keepthe knifeawaybut I still look downwithphantom limbwondering whose armthat is . . .

POUi: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing, comes to us from Barbados, but you don’t have to live in the Caribbean to submit. Issue XVII from 2017 has a section called “Magic, Mystery” (there’s also one called “Gods and Spirits”), and there is so much that I love about this issue! Here are some lines from Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming’s “Anti-Matter Soucouyant”:

She was off voyaginggallivanting in black holeswith all sorts of unsavory mattermaking ructionlike in a Jouvert morningchipping in a steel bandlike a sailor man no matter

when the cock crow


The Matador Review calls itself A Quarterly Missive of Alternative Concern. They have nominated some of their published works for the Shirley Jackson Awards, something many of us would want to aspire to win, no doubt. From “Slaughter and Ritual Knife” by C. T. Salazar come these lines in the current Winter 2018 issue:

Your coat was too soft

for us. I learned to look into the wound: how the window to holinesstears itself wider and we reach saying here, take our hooves.

Toyon Literary Magazine is a “multilingual” journal from Humboldt State. While I’m not clear on whether it is truly “multilingual” or simply bilingual in English and Spanish, it does take both English-language work and translations. Readings of the work are done in both languages, which is something rather cool, I think. While I didn’t find any examples of SFnal poetry that I wanted to share, and unlike the other markets featured this time this one seemed more typical of student-level work than any of the others mentioned here, I still think it may be a good market, especially for beginning writers, and I don’t think they’d be at all averse to fantastical elements in poetry. Many of these publications also include audio files of the poems, ahem, and one I did not mention which is both a science fiction market and a podcast is Escape Pod, which publishes fiction, both in prose and as podcast. While it is a fiction and not a poetry market, it does feature fiction by SF poets such as Samantha Henderson, so those of you who also write fiction or prose poetry might give it a try. Maybe I’ll tune in and read along while the works are being spoken. There are lots of other journals and magazines that read submissions blind; if you feel that this would help you get published, or if any of the markets mentioned here tickle your fancy (consensually, of course) then by all means try blind submissions of poetry and/or fiction to some of the markets below. To find other editors that read blind, my best advice is actually that you find a magazine you’d like to submit to, then check guidelines. Most places that read blind will state it prominently in their guidelines, and I find that markets that use Submittable are slightly more likely to read blind than those that don’t. Also, some submissions that are read blind are read by committee, so these might take longer to respond than markets that have just one editor.

Works CitedFuller, Bonnie. “‘The X-Files’: No One Lives Forever Unless They Have

Some Bloody, Gory Help.” Hollywood Life, 14 March 2018. hollywoodlife.com/2018/03/14/the-x-files-episode-9-recap-blood-organs-barbara-beaumont-cult/.


Kaplan, Sarah. “A White Guy Couldn’t Get his Poem Published. Then He Became Yi-Fen Chou.” Washington Post, 8 September 2015. www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/08/a-white-guy-named-michael-couldnt-get-his-poem-published-then-he-became-yi-fen-chou/.

Schilling, Vincent. “Women Go Public Regarding Sherman Alexie Sexual Harassment Allegations.” Navajo-Hopi Observer, 13 March 2018. www.nhonews.com/news/2018/mar/13/women-go-public-regarding-sherman-alexie-sexual-ha/.

MarketsEscape Pod. escapepod.org.The Matador Review: A Quarterly Missive of Alternative Concern.

matadorreview.com.The Perch. medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/prch/the_perch.POUi: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing. cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/LLL/

poui/home.aspx.Spry Literary Journal. sprylit.com.Toyon Literary Magazine. toyonliterarymagazine.org.

Star*Line congratulates our 2018 Rhysling Award nominees!

SHORT Alan Ira Gordon • “Some Things Never Change” • 40.1POEM Alison Rumfitt • “Vaginoplasticine” • 40.4 Amelia Gorman • “Midwest Wonder Expo” • 40.4 Beth Cato • “Wayfaring King” • 40.4 Greer Woodward • “scent of blackened” • 40.1 John W. Sexton • “The Talking River” • 40.2 Kathleen A. Lawrence • “Vampirette” • 40.4 Margarita Tenser • “End-Times Tables” • 40.1 Marge Simon • “Egress” • 40.4 Mary Soon Lee • “Advice to a Six-Year-Old” • 40.2 William Shaw • “Flowers for Asimov” • 40.4LONGPOEM Cassandra Rose Clarke • “For Preserves” • 40.4

vampire job fairunder experience he putphlebotomy —William Landis

summer waits for himshadows longing for partingcold ushers the reaper

—Holly Lyn Walrath


Data Value

I love watching self-designated UFO expertson TV, particularly the men with flowing white hair.They wear chambray shirtsunder safari vests, faded jeans, and the battle scars of sun-damage.They remind me of Colorado sheriffs,and I picture them walking bow-legged over the dusty plains of Mars.This one, right now: shows us camouflaged installationsconstructed in rocky formations the color of New Mexico clay.His hair is camera-ready, corralled by a strip of rawhide.He speaks slowlyin the low, rumbly tone of a life-long smokercraving his morning cigarette;he would smell of newly cut pineand the winds of Neptune,and oh, the stars! The starsdance and spin in his laughing eyestelling campfire and ice-ring storiesof Dasha, the lusty cosmonaut,his lady love, left behindin the Ghost of Jupiter. You melt,wishing it was you.

—Patricia Gomes

Irresistible panhandling:“Space ship broke down. Need money for parts.”

—F. J. Bergmann

close encounter—the doctor on my phonesounds so convincingthat I almost cut offmy nipple

—Susan Burch

Squirm by Denny E. Marshall

From Antarctican Vibranium Tankas

He sports the bulletHole like a lover’s tattoo“Mark me more!” he laughs

His steel body keeps movingI aim anew with desire.

—Eileen R. Tabios


Elixir Stores Open for Business!

The conversion has been completed. All businesses that carried the legal name “Liquor Store” will henceforth be legally known as “Elixir Store.” Weekly visits and Elixir treatments are a requirement for all.

Daily patrons—including but not limited to all Elixir Store proprietors and employees—shall be known as elixiholics. Unlike alcoholics, elixiholics are heralded by all, in no need of help as the liver and other vital organs remain unharmed. And we need you to remain unharmed.

You will experience no side effects, no hangovers, no headaches. Your dependency on alcohol will vanish, replaced by an elated stupefaction that grows with each Elixir treatment.

Those who don’t drink alcohol must also visit the Elixir Store’s metallic glass chamber—filled with our thick, syrupy mist that absorbs through the skin’s pores—on a weekly basis. Your first treatment will be an extra-strong 100-proof shot of mist to kill your sobriety.

Ghazal

Robed in black, they mark their fellowship on our coffins.What is that putrid ichor that they sip on our coffins?

Do you feel the weight of demons? Do you hearthe clatter of their hooves as they skip on our coffins?

Prophets say our paths to Hell squirm, undimmedwith shadows cast by crimson tapers that drip on our coffins.

A weathered hag meanders through the cemetery.She swathes her hide in cerements ripped from our coffins.

The relics of the Pilgrim burn with one more songand smoke as pall bearers lose their searing grip on his coffin.

—Joshua Gage


Lost in the House of Hair

So, the strange woman with the three teeth and the azure stare, she said to the poet, “Young man, young man, you’ll grow your hair!”

And grow it he did, to the west, to the east, and down to the ground, till it anchored his feet and the birds of the air gathered round;

and they wove on his head a table, and they wove on his head a chair, and they set in his beard a fine solid door.

And then mice gathered tresses for windows, and then mice laid hair as a floor; and locked in his basement of curls and waves he could move no more.

So, the strange woman with the three teeth and the azure stare moved in and settled for many a yearin that house of hair.

—John W. Sexton

Rehab centers and 12-step A.A. chapters everywhere are hereby shut down, with their patients and members required to absorbdouble shots of Elixir daily. These specimens will become part ofour special project.

In three months we will escort each of you one-by-one onto an ascending escalator; through silvery clouds, past colorful comets, to our sublime planet—by which time you shall be fully sweet and ripened.

—Ronald A. Bussethe sound of black holescolliding in outer space,little birds chirping

—Alzo David-West

end of the roadthe zombie hobokeeps going

—Greg Schwartz


The Music Of The Spheres

The rings of SaturnChime a zephyr’s tuneAs Jupiter shakesIts moons contrapuntallyWhile Mars thrumsIts war drums, a steady bassline

Mercury runs arpeggiosWith quicksilver graceAnd Venus countersWith an ethereal glissando—Pluto adds a hauntingWhisper, a slow dirge of mourning

Neptune modulates the soundWith muted washes of star-bleached notesFor Uranus the maestroTo orchestrate into the symphonyWhile Gaea, now voiceless,Yearns to hear again the long-lost

Story in the musicOffered by a host of sad musiciansTo one who has forgotten the words.

—Mikal Trimm E pur si muove

“And yet it moves.” —Galileo Galilei

We like to think that our lives are stable,that one day is much like the last,but we weren’t here yesterday,or even the day before—oh, we were here; we existed, but here wasn’t here—

and not because the silver riverat our feet is no longer the same river,

nothing’s so beautifulas the flutteringof robot butterflies

—Alzo David-West

Come Embrace Space —a sci(na)ku sonnet

Hurry,astronaut wannabes,vacationers in zero-g!

Book your out-of-this-world experience and getaway

today by calling “Affordable Space Vacations.”

Weightlesswhile still safely on Earth.

Free trial includedwith package deals.

—Lauren McBride


having new water, new fish, fresh-carvedchannels, and less silt.

And not just because the Earth swings around the Sun like a hand around a clock—else,like a stopped clock is right twice a day,we’d be where we wereat least once a year,and yet there isn’t there,here isn’t here,

because the Sun, too, moves, pulled by time and tides,swinging on the face of the galaxy,and the galaxy slides through cosmic foam,like a speck of dirt across a great plate,and we’re never quite where we were,the universe moving under our feet:here isn’t where we thought it was,and we never stand in the same place twice—here can never be here again,nor should we expect it to be.

—Deborah L. Davitt second life

at death, you rememberyou made it all up

like waking from a dreaminto the old darkness

pod cover unyieldingto your broken fingers

the stillnessof sleeping crew

oblivious clockcounting down millennia

throat stuffed with tubesunable to scream

—Davian Aw

red shift . . . lengthening pausesin conversation

—David J Kelly

alien pool sharknow our planetsorbit other suns —F. J. Bergmann

for sale: sweet cottagewooded lot, gingerbread trimlarge rustic oven

—F. J. Bergmann

eruptionflood plainsurrounds and drownsemerging towerspaceport

—Roxanne Barbour


Illiteracy

The invading alien paints himself in ashesthinking to render himself invisible to the olfactory senses of the Terransunclear on human reliance on vision and machines. Warriors laugh at the ease with which they apprehendeda race from beyond our solar systemand reputed to be advanced beyond human ken.

Interrogation experts go to work trying to pry out the alien’s secrets,linguists parse his spoken languageunaware that most of the meaning is in odors.

From behind steel prison wallsthe alien sings of its civilization’s greatnessand it could thrill our souls with the epics of its culture.

But Terrans cannot smell the delicate scents by which it shares the heart of its soulfor they do not know how to read and sing through their noses or the cells of their skins.

They can only wonder at why the alien is crying.

—Scott E. Green and Herb Kauderer

The Young Transylvanian’s Guide to Dating: Taking your Date Home

The teeth are always a good thing to look forwhen vampires smile—unnatural sharpness and length are a clue—but also a fondness in a young womanfor backless gowns,especially if, at odd times, bat wings pop out,can often be taken as a sure sign she may have more in mindthan a simple goodnight kiss.

—James Dorr

outside the greenhouse nothingbut red dust

—Greg Schwartz


The Ghost Diet

Forget Adkins, the Mediterranean, and Paleo Diets:the newest miracle weight loss solution involves ectophagia—the eating of ghosts.

“It tastes like jellyfish,” says one new convert(before and after pictures depicted below),“or a very thin gelatin.”

Having no calories, of course, there is no need to restrict or measure portion sizes, while ghost milk (the residue left after a fattened ghost is harvested) can be used as a neutral substrate to build more flavorful dishes.

Shivering, and fighting back the urge to flee—typical reactions when first exposed to spectral foods—also burns calories.

Unfortunately, in producing mass ectobiota for the market, graveyards and haunted housescan no longer compete with corporate ectobusinesses,although there does still appear to be niche activity for artisan geistfleisch—

but no matter who supplies the actual victual, every single vendor has decried the urban mythsthat allege the existence of ill-managed ghost abattoirs or that the consumption of spectral foods is bad for either your mental or physical well-being, contributing in no way to permanent neck hackle raising, heart palpitations, polter-tinnitis (“Hello? Is someone there?”) or simple bad dreams.

—Robert Borski

alien teenagerscruising the Milky Way—their high tenswhen they scare offanother earthling

—Susan Burch

prohibitedalien landingsprotests reach governmentlocal ordinancesoverride

—Roxanne Barbour


Everything started with the Big Bang, they say

I’ve wandered through thousands of galaxies,observed countless civilizations on innumerable planets.I’ve catalogued dark clusters, sentient gas clouds, iced lightsand a couple of universes too.

And the truth I’ve learned is this:There is only three ways anything can start.A stab in the gut,a random quantum vacuum fluctuationor a kiss.

Don’t let them fool you with that Big Bang lie.

—Juanjo Bazán

Erratum: we printed this poem with missing text in the previous issue. Apologies to Juanjo Bazán.

held to my earseashell from Arcturusexoplanet ocean

—F. J. Bergmann


the prospect recedes

behind her the stairs sublimate in dust-strewn light

slower she climbs now on hands and kneesthe sky closes in

—David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Red in the Morning

Did you look up at all, that cloud-caked morning,at the gorgeous airborne horses, white and puffy,as they turned to alligators, then ships and tanks?

We’re mostly water, like the clouds, I learned, and stream, though less perceptibly, and parade, suggest, loom, blind, and metamorphose.

On that luminescent red-tinged day,did you not think you heard Someone say,His voice a vision, that Something was coming?

And, like the glass tower across the way streaked in a checkerboard of mirrored clouds, we too once stood tall—and now have become

Did you suspect the mobilizing crimsonin the sky, the clouds pregnant with blood pulsingin prophecy, toward all of us, from heaven?

reflective surfaces. Which reminds me: the skyscraper and the river were dapple-strewn with rolling shapes throughout that afternoon.

What did it look like from your distant land?Didn’t enemies, back then, have clouds, moons, stars,the sunrise, and the sunset sky, in common?

I thought I’d ask, since it’s just me and you with nothing left, and so much left, to do.

—James B. Nicola

heat death of a universedestroying galaxieson the car windshield

—F. J. Bergmann


Missouri City, Texas, in a Far Tomorrow

Stillness in the hall of a great house.The creature glows in a bright yellowwith red clouds moving across her skin.Her eyes fixed on a twinkling arrangement. It refracts the light of her glowand tinges yellow, red, obsidian orangethe darkness around them both. A chandelier. She eyes the crystals as they click together, slowly.She disturbed their ancient spacein exploration. The device and she, they are nebula in the depth: a sunken star, shattered in light. She sneaks three of her arms around the chandelier,grips tight on a strand of crystals: they taste unknown like ice. She rips them freeand instantly her shapeless escapepropels her from the great house to the open, ruined world.

The strand of crystals will hang in her denfor her babes to marvel. And when all of them dream, brilliant,motionless, filling the cavern with light, the crystals will translate, unseen.

—José Chapa

Intruders

I can hear them coming—closer to the cabin.They are crawling up the sides,trying to find a way in.

Like lunatics,they gather at nightwhen the moon is hiddenbehind dark cloudsof constant confusion.

Feel the footstepspressing in on me.Tell me you hear them—It’s going to be soon,they are gnawing on the logs.I can hear them coming . . .

—Cindy O’Quinn

Looking at each starGuessing which one my family’s onHoliday abroad

—William Landis

The Plague

Consigning dead men to the starsconstantly working all air-locksnow Earth has run out of cemeteries.

—Matthew Wilson


Mermaid Warrior

Moonlight cracking like ice,the night seemingly upside downon this glass sea

when a mermaid surfaceswith a sword in each hand& thrusts at forces of fateboth flesh & phantomrushing from all sides.

I bob in the smoky water,hear strains of strange musiccoming from the depthswhere she was shackledfor gold & silkfor the sake of a Martian mistress.

Her husband now chainedto the brass starshipby the purple planet’s bold band of women,she orders his hypnotized crewto ripen the skywith one last liftoff.

—Darrell Lindsey

star partyin a turquoise fieldunder alien constellations

New Earth colonists aiming their telescopesback home

—Lauren McBride

class four body dieslandfill skinfill entropywhat debris we save

—Holly Lyn Walrath

guys on a float tripa mermaid meets our raftwe hand her a beer

—William Landis

Exfil

from the ISS to Olympus Monsthe nextgen Falcon bringsnectar and ambrosia

torn down, born underthe rust-red sands of Marslike John Carter’s empty tomb

only to rise again, and risingwe (I think) stand to loseour pixilated illusionsof homecoming

the PICA heat shieldbreaking upas 18 Merlin thrusterschase Erinyes from our stern.

—WC Roberts

Stiff with chill,I throw my lot inWith the slow zombies.

—Denise Dumars


Japanese Scifaiku and Tanka: Five Selections by Shouko Izuo

Edited by Alzo David-West • Translated by Natsumi Ando

sakura suku through the sakura trees hoshi no mukou o beyond the stars kakeru hate soaring to the limits

eeaaru augmented reality toriton no on a pond ko o rowing on a lake ike de kogu of the moon triton

rokujuuchou 60 trillion biggudeta big-data sets matomeage compiled, saibou masuta the cell master nobi o surunari stretches

kumo chirasu cloud-scattering supernova, novua ni haraware purifying kyokukou mau blaze-dance, beterugiusu wa red star betelgeuse touku katamuku fades away in the distance

ashiura no white clover shirotsumekusa no on a foot sole mizutamari in a water pool, haura no tsubu wa droplets under a leaf, awabako no hiseki particle tracks in a bubble chamber

Shouko Izuo (b. 1962) is a computer graphics animator, projection mapping producer, and lecturer from Hiroshima, Japan. Her poetry in Japanese appears in Imaginia, for which she has illustrated covers, and Tanshes-f. She is a member of the science-fiction group Imaginian founded by writer, editor, and critic Hiroyasu Amase.

XenoPoetry WORLDWIDE SPECULATIVE POETRY IN TRANSLATION


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Shapeshifter Taxonomy

I.Today you have three arms:athlete Tribrachia athletusparent Tribrachia parentuschef Tribrachia archimagirusTribrachias all?no no no, you are nothe she they we me me me me

II.Today I have two mouthsfor singing operanot popOsduo cantoperatusnot cantopopulusnomenclature of small differences

III.Get out of my tiny box

IV.Today I have thirteen eyesjust becauseTredecimoculis idontknowiusleave me out ofYour Vanity Vocabulary

V.Tribrachia athletusTribrachia parentusTribrachia archimagirusOsduo cantoperatusOsduo cantopopulusTredecimoculis idontknowiusShapeshiftersall

—A. C. Spahn

Cover Art: “Strumming to Cloud and Moon”

by Likhain www.likhain.net

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strumming to cloud and moon by likhain $5.00 spring 2018

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