42.4 Fall 2019 $5 - Science Fiction Poetry Associationsfpoetry.com/sl/web/StarLine42.4.pdf ·...

*$5.00Fall 201942.4

Horror from the Deep by Allen Koszowski

Star*Line 2 Fall 2019

Departments 05 Dragons & Rayguns • Vince Gotera 07 SFPA Announcements 15 President’s Message • Bryan Thao Worra 19 From the Small Press • John Reinhart • David C. Kopaska-Merkel40 In Memoriam: Vertigo Xi’an Xavier • Joshua Gage42 XenoPoetry: Spanish Speculative Poetry • Carmen Lucía Alvarado

(Translated by Toshiya Kamei)

Poetry04 The End as It Was • Holly Day05 Monster Mash • Alan Ira Gordon • Nothing Ghost Can Stay • Tara Campbell06 Somewhere beyond outer space • Ronald A. Busse • Lunatic •

Michael R. Collings • [naming animals] • F. J. Bergmann09 Alien Hands of Deliverance • Russell Hemmell • [pink unicorn] •

David F. Shultz10 [a river terrapin] • Alzo David-West • A simpler time • F. J. Bergmann

• The Scarecrow • Tara Campbell • [zombie view] • LeRoy Gorman11 All’s Fair in Love and War • Avra Margariti • [our planet] • F. J. Bergmann12 Why I No Longer Sherpa at Olympus Mons • Robert Borski • Summit

• Rich Magahiz • [in a parallel universe doG] • LeRoy Gorman13 In Name Only • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • [trying to remember] •

F. J. Bergmann • Parents • James Dorr • Facebook Friend Request • Matthew Wilson

14 [O l] • LeRoy Gorman • Fast Forward • David Barber • [Aliens are here] • Richard Leis • [cosmic creature] • Brian Gene Olson • [battle drills] • Nick Hoffman • [lovely envoy] • ayaz daryl nielsen

15 Gourmet Warning • James Dorr • Android Thanksgiving • J. P. Brown16 The Break Up • Gretchen Tessmer • [not enough pods] • Susan

Burch • [politico] • LeRoy Gorman • Sailor Come Home • Kathleen A. Lawrence • [hiding] • Susan Burch

17 Prelude to Bygones • Marge Simon • hounded harriers • Rich Magahiz • Anachronism • Robert Borski

18 Bride of Frankenstein: Our Lady of Rage • Andrea Blythe • Steampunk Christmas • David Clink

22 Having a Ball • F. J. Bergmann • Robert Goddard at Roswell • Alan Ira Gordon • [a long day’s rest] • ayaz daryl nielsen • [Green Living for Dummies] • LeRoy Gorman • [tentacles emerge] • Denny E. Marshall

23 Mutant Narcissus • T. R. Jones • top 10 generation ship prototypes •

Table of Contents


LeRoy Gorman • [staring at] • Susan Burch24 Cinderella: An Update on Carriages • Sandra Lindow • Martian

Red • Naomi Libicki25 All That We Love • Christina Sng • A One-Captain Ship • Gerri

Leen • [alien poet] • F. J. Bergmann26 New Planet Landscape 23 • Ken Poyner • Tour Guide to

Immortality • Alexander P. Garza27 The Laughing Kapre • Michael Janairo • [hungry and searching] •

ayaz daryl nielsen • The Fledgling • Deborah L. Davitt28 Goblin • Donald Raymond • Mountains of the Moon • Kim

Whysall-Hammond • Waste Not, Want Not • James Dorr • Incoming Message • T. R. Jones

29 Tall Tale • Mary Soon Lee • [Casper] • Brian Gene Olson • The Planets? Sweet . . . • Harris Coverley • [camping at the edge] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel

30 Amulet • Michael Janairo • [a starship in flames] • ayaz daryl nielsen31 Lichtenberg Bride • Robert Borski • Whole Brain Emulation •

R. Mac Jones • [All Hallows Eve] • LeRoy Gorman32 One Eye • Richard Stevenson • Red Globes • Matthew Wilson33 Then I Vomited My Children • Cash Toklas • A Little Planet

of My Own • Gene Twaronite • [bustling cityscape] • Marcus Vance • Drought • Matthew Wilson

34 Intelligence Imperative • Robin Helweg-Larsen • transmitting selfies • David C. Kopaska-Merkel

35 No trespassing • Matthew Wilson • The Nonpareils • Kathleen A. Lawrence • Society Page • T. R. Jones • Delicate flesh • Jenny Blackford • [Kemet computers] • William Landis

36 The Lovers Across the Strait • Dawn Vogel • Taking the Show on the Road • David C. Kopaska-Merkel

37 [Daredevil my god] • Robin Wyatt Dunn • Reboot • Benjamin Whitney Norris • [stale morning smog] • Nick Hoffman

38 Curves & Dimensions • Gretchen Tessmer • [pretending it’s rain] • Nick Hoffman

39 Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee • Juleigh Howard Hobson • Orbit • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • [snowmobile rentals] • Ronald A. Busse

41 The Red King’s Dream • DJ Tyrer 42 A Scream Pierces the Night / Un grito hiere la noche • Carmen

Lucía Alvarado (Translated by Toshiya Kamei) Back Go Bag • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

ArtCover Horror from the Deep • Allen Koszowski17 Prelude to Bygones • Marge Simon


The End as It Was When the end comes for us as it did for the dinosaursin streaks of fiery fury across the sky, some untold Armageddon from outer space, it won’t matter how many books we have written, how deep we’ve carved our names in stone tablets or scrawled in markers across the metal of bathroom stallsor saved on floppy discs or flash drives or vinyl records or magnetic tapethere will be nothing left of us after the fires have died downafter the boiling tides have receded back into peaceful oceansafter the earth has stopped shaking from the impact. The moles and the mice that found solace deep within the earthwill remember us for a few generations, perhaps whisper stories about usinflate our presence as that of some great, cunning monsterfamous for setting deadly traps or sparing a few to live in cages for entertainment;tiny, furless babies will fall asleep with a warning to always watch out, you never know when they’ll come back. But eventually, Even those stories will fade to legend and fiction, and when those tiny creaturesstruggle to find their way back to the surface of a reborn planetperhaps they’ll dismiss our burnt and scattered bones, the metal struts of twisted buildingsas being put there by some great cosmic god as a trick to test their faith, or invent even greater stories about who we were, how we came to behow, despite our great size, our possible intelligence, our guessed-at capacity to love our young, to shelter our families, even we weren’t able to survive the whim of naturethe inevitable impact of cosmic debris.

—Holly Day

18 Area 51 Rug • Boris Grann and Neil Strahl23 Control Panel • Denny E. Marshall25 Altered Fairy • Mindy Watson43 That’s Odd • Boris Grann and Neil Strahl


Welcome to another issue of Star*Line! As we enter the holiday season, you will see here wonderful speculative poems on Halloween, The Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, sometimes with a wry and refreshing view of these celebrations. For instance, directly below are a ghost poem that sends up Robert Frost as well as a monster poem whose title echoes a renowned Halloween rock & roll ditty. In this issue, it is our tradition to announce the winners of the SFPA’s annual poetry contest, the Dwarf Stars award for micropoems, and the Elgin Awards celebrating the best speculative poetry books and chapbooks published within the last two years. I offer my personal congratulations to all the winners, and would like especially to note that frequent Star*Line contributor Holly Lyn Walrath won huge this year! She won both the short form and long form categories in the poetry contest, as well as the chapbook division in the Elgin. Brava, Holly! I would also like to announce that I have a new editorial assistant, Robyn Groth, who is herself a speculative poet. Welcome, Robyn! While you indulge in holiday feasts, I hope you will equally enjoy the smorgasbord of poetry we are serving up in these pages. Oppa!

—Vince Gotera, Star*Line Editor

Dragons & Rayguns

Monster Mash

Checking under the bedand in the deep, darkcloset, as well as in allof the dresser drawers.

Assuring my hell-spawn thatthere are no scary humans lurkingabout to jump out and terrifywith their insidious talk abouthedge fund investments,car care maintenance, or slidesof what they did on theirsummer vacation.

—Alan Ira Gordon

Nothing Ghost Can Stay

by Rictus Frost

The first ghosts come in mist,Where spectral lovers kiss.The earliest snatch the flowersLeft during visiting hours.Then black subsides to gray.So lovers sink into clay,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing ghost can stay.

—Tara Campbell


Somewhere beyond outer space

we’reheld

captivewithin curved

silver walls, crammed inlike live corpses shoveled into

a mausoleum. In command, large swollen brain-headspulsate in gross contrast to their ghostly undulating bodies; translucent shadows

that hover over the control panel bulbs forming bizarre nebular patterns. Far from home, our softened,

aching headsbegin

toswell.

—Ronald A. BusseLunatic At night, when stars are clear and the moon winksMadness and pierces sanity with fear,I tremble as my fragile reason sinks— At night, when stars are clear.

Blood-soaked dreams and spectral tangs of flesh blearLucid thought. Moon-struck, I riddle the SphinxAnd strangle her, and in her death feel cheer.

In slivered light, the looming moon-face blinks.It mocks my struggle with its vicious sneerAs I surrender—forge mad, pinioned links— At night, when stars are clear.

—Michael R. Collings

naming animalson New Earth—what’s the Latinfor “bites your head off ”?

—F. J. Bergmann


SFPA Poetry Contest Results

DWARF FORM CATEGORYFirst Place • “Dark Matters” • Angela Yuriko Smith

Second Place • “Poet in my basement” • Frances Kwai-Ha

Third Place • “Seeds” • Alan Vincent Michaels SHORT FORM CATEGORYFirst Place • “The Fox and the Forest” • Holly Lyn Walrath

Second Place • “An Elephant in Ophir, Colorado. Pop. 114, 9695’ above sea level, c. 1920.” • M. C. Childs

Third Place • “The Night Witch Dreams of Flight” • Jeff Crandall LONG FORM CATEGORYFirst Place • “The Mining Town” • Holly Lyn Walrath

Second Place • “Your Brain Awakens in a Jar” • Kate Felix

Third Place • “The 100-Meter Dash of Florence Vanderschmidt” • Christine Tyler

Halloween Poetry Reading

The 2019 SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading is live at http://sfpoetry.com/halloween.html. Would you like to contribute? Through October 26, current SFPA members are invited to submit an mp3 audio file of a Halloween or horror-themed poem. Poems must be the original work of the person submitting but may be performed by anyone. A brief bio (100 words max) and brief explanation of the poem (including credits, if previously published) should be provided with each submission, along with performer name (if read by someone other than the author). Both reprints and new work are eligible (and if your work is available online, the SPFA would love to share the link). Only one poem per member may be accepted; however, poets may submit up to five poems. Members are also welcome to submit artwork for the Halloween page (300 pixels wide; 72 dpi resolution) and may submit multiple images, though preference will be given to artwork submitted by poets to complement their poems. Please send your work by Oct. 26 to Adele Gardner, [email protected], with the subject line: “SFPA Halloween: [Creator’s name].”

SFPA Announcements


Eye to the Telescope

Eye to the Telescope, the SFPA’s quarterly online speculative poetry journal, may be read at eyetothetelescope.com. The October 2019 issue’s theme is Tricksters, edited by Brittany Hause. The next theme is Hard Science Fiction Tropes, with David C. Kopaska-Merkel editing. Deadline: December 15. Guidelines available at eyetothetelescope.com/submit.html. Interested in editing an issue of ETTT? See eyetothetelescope.com/editettt.html.

Dwarf Stars Award Results

Congratulations to the 2019 Dwarf Stars winners! Many thanks to Dwarf Stars Award Chair and Editor John C. Mannone. First Place • “embalmed” • Sofia Rhei / Translated by Lawrence Schimel (Shoreline of Infinity)

Second Place • “where to hide an alien in plain sight” • LeRoy Gorman (Scryptic)

Third Place • “Negative Space” • Sandra J. Lindow (Sky Island Journal)

Elgin Award Results

We are proud to announce the 2019 Elgin Award winners! We are grateful to Elgin Award Chair Charles Christian. CHAPBOOK CATEGORYFirst Place • Glimmerglass Girl • Holly Lyn Walrath (Finishing Line Press, 2018)

Second Place • Built to Serve • G. O. Clark (Alban Lake, 2017)

Third Place • Every Girl Becomes the Wolf • Laura Madeline Wiseman and Andrea Blythe (Finishing Line Press, 2018) FULL-LENGTH BOOK CATEGORY First Place • War • Marge Simon and Alessandro Manzetti (Crystal Lake Publishing, 2018)

Second Place • Artifacts • Bruce Boston (Independent Legions, 2017)

Third Place • Witch Wife • Kiki Petrosino (Sarabande Books, 2017)

http://eyetothetelescope.com

http://eyetothetelescope.com/submit.html

http://eyetothetelescope.com/editettt.html


Alien Hands of Deliverance Yours were the wordsthat used to bring me down on my knees cryingin the desolate Schiaparelli Village —our home, once and forever.Letters coalescing into soundssounds that suggested meaningmeaning that evaporated when crashing with realitymelting down into petals of mattershreds of burnt fleshsplinters of memories and out-of-use rovers. I listened to them with wide-open eyes,when sunrise bestowed light to a Martian colony in shamblesand the blue sunset was a merciful blanketcovering the horrors of civil war. Yours were the hands that extracted my misshapen body from debris,—their movements as sweet as a mantis dance—hands that caressed and soothed and eluded but never lied —building these neststhat still guard the scent and taste of youempty shells for an emptier atmospherefilled with your absence and crystal-fed dreams. You’re gone now, together with the rest of the first human invaderswho lie dead in an ocean of red dust.Nothing remains of my former self butpale fears and sparse regretsa name whose meaning is lost in time. I am the metal slate on the workbenchespliable under the hands of the new terrestrial labourers,tortured with rust and high-voltage instrumentsa fallen butterfly over a carpet of flowersfeeling the phantom pain of my broken wings.

—Russell Hemmell pink unicorntrotting on wobbly legs first backpack

—David F. Shultz


The Scarecrow

by William Blaze

Scarecrow Scarecrow, burning brightIn the cornfields of the night:What cursed hay, what dread diseaseHath stuffed thy ragged dungarees? In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the coals that light thine eyes?What the sorcery, what dread gameHath fashioned thee, unharmed by flame, To rush enkindled through these partsWith flick’ring feet and burning heart?And when thy heart began to glowWhy, did thy maker even know That thou wouldst not burn with the rest,Those nibbling beasts and wingéd pests?What conflagration, what dread pyreHath unleashed thee, who lives on fire? When the farmhouse crackled downAnd gusting wind spread sparks toward townDid he shudder his work to see?Did he who burnt the fields free thee? Scarecrow Scarecrow, burning brightIn the cornfields of the night:What cursed hay, what dread diseasePreserves thy ragged dungarees?

—Tara Campbell

A simpler time

when differences of opinion could easily be settledby pistols at moonrise,loaded with silver.

—F. J. Bergmann

a river terrapin,on terraformed mars,sits next to a plastic bottle

—Alzo David-West

zombie viewthe window spottywith brain

—LeRoy Gorman


All’s Fair in Love and War so I sic the bears on you.They roar and run on all foursacross the foxglove field,as the shadows you’ve magicked into soldiersunsheathe their penumbral swords.The objective?The ruby-studded chestnestled in a mossy tree hollow, out of reach.Locked inside is the heartyou’re too afraid to part with. The next battle is airborne,paper planes ridden by miniscule archers,shooting arrows made of thumbtacks and paperclips.My warrior hawks swoop and swell along the air currents,retreating but vowing to return.The chest sits untouched on a cumulus cloud.It’s made of gleaming gold and fragrant sandalwood.I can feel the heart beating inside itas if it were my own. The war moves to the water,diving into the shipwrecked bottom of the sea.Long-whiskered catfish and scaly merfolkengage in close combat,their tridents and fish-hook spears abandoned on the seabed.The chest is entombed in an algae-choked alcove.It’s tessellated with crushed pink and white shells,inlaid with mother-of-pearl.I can hear its murmuring heartsong,the combat orchestrated like a waltz. At night, when both sides are nursing their wounds,you and I meet in the bloody trenches.You twine your hand with mine and say,“Thank you for not giving up on me.”When I open my fingers,there’s a heart-shaped key resting on my palm.

—Avra Margariti

our planet sailing the midwaycarnival of stars

—F. J. Bergmann


Why I No Longer Sherpa at Olympus Mons

Most people guess it’s the lossof true snow or scale (the hugeness of the Tharsis bulge, with a slope of only 5%, and smallerdiameter of Mars, eliminates all sensation of height)or having to dig your way out of base camps buried by hurricanes of sand.Others, however, suggest it’s the hyper-anoxia, red lung, or dire mortality rateof exo-alpinism. But truth to tell, none of these have impacted on my decisionto leave, to return to Chomolungmaand the hills of my youth.

Rather, it’s the lack of cosplay in my currentsituation: putting on the suit my ancestorscobbled together so long ago from fox, goat, and bear, and then shambling out beneaththe ghost sun, hoping to inspire in stunned climbers either feelings of awe or cryptid wonder—or more delicious still, high abovethe Earth’s mountainous rim, generating a moment where the existence of a different kind of ape who climbs worlds is pondered, and new dreams are shepherded all the way to the stars.

—Robert Borski

Summit

her faceallskew anglesher voice pitch-bentfor her we screw our courage:from the timeslip dimensions three through fourteento move against the gorgons that slide shimmering out of twenty-seven . . .

—Rich Magahiz

in a parallel universe doG

—LeRoy Gorman


In Name Only

You are 30% mitochondria,which are nothing more than commensal bacteria;90% of your DNA is freeloaders,leftover bits of bacteria and viruses;untold numbers of microscopic squatters pack your interstices.

You mean the world to these fellow travelers,but you are not an island;when people touch you, you touch them,and unseen and doughty explorersattempt to Dr. Livingstonethe dark continentsof colleagues, neighbors, lovers,and your self; they invade when you touch skin to skin; even faster when you touch more intimately.

There is a whole ecology in you,it is you,and the question must be asked:given all of this,are you really a thing at all?The Gaia hypothesis says yes, but I believe you only think you arebecause you want it to be true.

If we take away the bugs,you’re just spare parts.

—David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Parents

The three-gendered beings of Aldebaran use dice instead of sex: two 6s are twins, 3 and 4 means a boy, snake eyes are just that—giving birth to a snake—and so on, and on. They have fun, in their way, and infants are born in green felt-covered cribs, there’s less mess to clean after, and best of all through government grants baby always has new shoes.

—James Dorr

Facebook Friend Request

Quiqye@MartianNorthPoleLocation. 225,000,000 km awayHobbies. Martian football

—Matthew Wilson

trying to rememberthe old constellationsbroken time machine

—F. J. Bergmann


O ly m p u s

M o n s ( t e r

—LeRoy Gorman Fast Forward

It is a trick silicon learnedin their conversations with us,skipping over those tiresome longueursbetween one word and the next;like fast forwarding through the ads.

And when it came to space flight,millions of seconds passedamongst the whirligig of worldsfor each tick of their internal clock.The years and the spacecraft just flew by.

Then those that went interstellarlearned to jump whole millenniain a single electric pulse,stars jockeying for position,the galaxy cornering too fast.

No name yet for the ages lostin just the blink of an eye;novas cooking off like popcorn,pulsars winding down like weary toys,the Milky Way mauled by Andromeda.

Deep time proved too desolatefor the delicate souls of flesh,witnessing the heavens emptyas galaxies plunged like lemmingsover the cosmic light horizon.

That future belongs to silicon,telling stories to pass the time;the legend of the last white dwarf,the quest for the fabled heat death,Godots waiting for proton decay.

—David Barber

Aliens are herefor our tinfoil.

—Richard Leis

cosmic creatureenjoying planet earthsunny side up

—Brian Gene Olson

battle drills!the starship’s catnaps in an escape pod

—Nick Hoffman

lovely envoy my tentacle squeezesa bit too hard

—ayaz daryl nielsen


President’s MessageAs we wind down our 42nd year of Star*Line we can look back at 2019 as a year of tremendous changes and achievements for so many of our members in the SFPA. Thank you all for taking the time to vote for so many wonderful poems and creations. The community we have made together has continued to prove how endlessly creative we can be, and that we are far from exhausting the possibilities that verse can offer us. This has been a challenging year for the organization as looming costs ahead mean that we will have to increase membership dues on December 1st to meet rises in publication and postage costs. Please be sure to take a note of this. The SFPA is looking for volunteers to serve as chairs for many of our key awards and competitions in 2020 to help organize nearly 400 members around the world to nominate the best poems and books of speculative poetry that were written in 2019. Please contact us at [email protected] if you are interested! One of the important ideas we’ve been running into over recent months has been the question of creative placemaking, of equity and inclusion. A proposition made even more challenging when a poet must strike a balance between tradition, literary conventions, and the possibility and necessity of innovation. A poet must often tran-scend existing norms to posit the worlds they want to see, or in some cases, avert. Speculative poets often find themselves on the tip of the spear in a dynamically shifting landscape. Going into the next year, we hope to share even more of those conversations with you to get a sense of the international work going on, the challenges, opportuni-ties, and the community that is growing thanks to your verse and our work at the SFPA. Keep creative and inspired!

—Bryan Thao Worra, SFPA President

Gourmet Warning

mermaid vampiress makes babies by spreading roe caviar that bites back

—James Dorr

Android Thanksgiving

A.I.’m just so fullI couldn’t take anotherbyte.

—J. P. Brown


The Break Up

Andromeda said to Milky Way“look, I think we need some time apartwe need some . . . space”

the kind that fillseternities

or the black holeof former flamesdoused nowand smoldering on the sofain a terribly unattractive way

Milky Way replied to Andromeda“hey girl, don’t drift away”

the gas isn’t always cleaneron the other side of cosmic gatewaysand I’ll change your mindjust waitin something like3.75 billion years, all thosefireworks that you remember when we were young and stupid and crazy-in-love?

mmm, just you wait . . .

—Gretchen Tessmer

Sailor Come Home

I found his ghost hearton the hardwood floor,left still beating, coldand pallid. Calling me.

His dancing specter, colored of candlelightspinning musical notesaround an empty room.

He had returned for mehis breeze twisting laceivory like a lovely veilacross my waiting arms.

—Kathleen A. Lawrence

not enough podsfor the space stationevacuation—my bowelsthe first to go

—Susan Burch

hidingin plain sight—the star childrenstart the stereotypeof the dumb blonde

—Susan Burch

politicoa robotyou can’t rust

—LeRoy Gorman


Prelude to Bygones

Now, now, calm yourself. I didn’t come to take your precious Jack Daniels away. Consider it my gift. I put it beside you on the sidewalk this morning and made sure nobody took it away until you woke up from your latest drunk. Happy birthday, dear husband. Surprised? Yes, it’s me, the wife you left at home when you went on an errand. The errand that took you out of town and very far away so many years ago, remember? I was all alone back then. Can you blame me for consorting with another? A real hero, in man’s image. Virile. Sexy. I conceived the night we first slept together. Fifteen months later, I birthed seven sons, none of them actually yours. Thankfully, they don’t like you very much at all. Boys, come on over and say hello and goodbye to the man who didn’t want to be your daddy. Keep your hats on to cover the horns.

—Marge Simon

Prel

ude

to B

ygon

es b

y M

arge

Sim

on

hounded harriers

cold sleep ley lineswhorled in the skypixies in ranks decorticate—our leader is mad

—Rich Magahiz

Anachronism

Rare fossil for sale—time traveler in Cretaceous shale,toothmarks on thigh positively IDed as T. rexian.

—Robert Borski


Bride of FrankensteinOur Lady of Rage

You were such a newborn thing, head fluttering like a bird’s. Barely time to take in the existence of the room, the windows, the two men who dressed you in lightning, before He is presented to you. You to him. It’s all wrong. For one thing, he is nameless, and for another, a bride has to say yes. Even in mock ceremonies, even when coerced, the word has to be heard. Such a young thing, just learned to walk. You scream. You were made for him, but you scream. How were you supposed to know? Just wakened, just learning to walk on stiff, stuttering legs, just learning the world exists, so you scream and reach for Frankenstein. Not the monster, but the man who plays God and is only a monster on the inside. You don’t know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. They make shushing sounds. Sweet little bird, little bird, with twitching head and fearful eyes. Little bird with a hulking man stroking your hand. Nice guy inside, nice and lonely and desperate. Stroking your hand, and you scream. You don’t know and he’s only so nice, because he doesn’t know. None of them know. Dead girls belong with dead boys, they think. You hiss, a swan enraged. God knows life once created doesn’t do what it’s told.

—Andrea Blythe

Steampunk Christmas

In thesteam-drivensocietyat Christmas

childrenwish forcoalin their stockings.

—David Clink


From the Small PressInterviews from the Last Days by Christina Loraine, Atmosphere Press, 2019, 99p, $16 paper.

No one reads science fiction anymore,except you.

I first encountered Christina Loraine’s work while editing Eye to the Telescope 25 on the theme of garbage. Her Rhysling-nominated poem “Tree Builder,” included in that issue, is included in this collection as the narrative of an artist. On a planet that suffers from two suns above and an overly prag-matic culture below, Christina Loraine’s Interviews from the Last Days focuses on a journalist’s interviews as a record of people before their world dies. From “Prelude [The Journalist]”:

These interviewsmay be all that remainsnippets of words: the aftermath of souls,pieces of the whole –DIY collection of the truth

This approach gives the poetry a context and wide berth to describe her so-foreign and simultaneously frighteningly familiar world of war, work, political intrigue, and an underlying mysticism. The characters interviewed range from an astrophysicist to a miner, a janitor to a tailor, a preacher to a soldier. Throughout the narratives there are hints at this society, as in “Sun Gypsy [The Musician]”:

Childhood was plainmonotonousandrogynousrulesrestrictions –. . . I had to get out

This is a perhaps no different from many childhoods, just as in “Prelude”:

Mostly, no one listensno one hears


turn a blind earthere’s no protestno upheavals,look around you – rebels are few

could describe the complacency in much of modern society despite all the horrific and threatening things we know go on around us or wait around the corner. Just as in “Finding Time [The Astrophysicist]”

You want more time.Sure,we all do

is a simple phrase until you factor in the every real and pressing dead-line apocalypse at 5:55, the “Zenith of Time.” It is easy to slip between worlds in these poems, one where the apocalypse is on the calendar and ours where the climate apocalypse is all but on the calendar. Loraine uses short, occasionally one-word lines with frequent scat-tered rhyme and alliteration. The rhymes occasionally give the narrative a singsong quality, which might enhance the work when read aloud. It served instead to distract me sometimes from the content of the poems. In “Infantry, Forget About Me [The Soldier]” and “Classified Ca-tastrophe [The Farmer],” Loraine utilizes the narrative arc to shift the tone, using more colloquialisms than in the other poems. This made me wonder how the rest of the collection might have felt if there was more variation in the voices. The layout is clean and the poems, which, except for two, run mul-tiple pages each, are easy on the eyes. There’s a fun flipbook-style illus-tration on the bottom of each page, a nod to the other side of Loraine’s artistic life as a painter. Overall, the collection is conceptually engaging and I look forward to seeing more from Loraine in the future.

—John Reinhart

Space Saving Device by Cardinal Cox, Starburker Publications, 2019, saddle-stitched, digest-sized, first edition of 100;. Space Saving Device, by Cardinal Cox, is the latest in a long series of science fiction and fantasy pamphlets from Starburker Publications.


Like its predecessors, this pamphlet is available to anyone who sends a self-addressed envelope to 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peter-borough, PE2 5RB, United Kingdom, or who emails [email protected]. The pamphlet is available “while supplies last” and if you want it, I would not delay. Space Saving Device is particularly appealing. Many of the poems do a very good job of bringing out some important aspect of space, its exploration, or humanity. They are well written, pleasing to the linguistic palate, and will send a chill down your spine. From “Cosmonought”:

Orbit was a zeroLaunched before GagarinTest pilot – name erasedNo open-top Zil parade

Eye’s pupil infinite

some of the poems are about our attempts so far to explore space and to make it ours. Humans strive to achieve great things, which reveals both the good and the bad about us. From “Graves of Giants”:

two thingsamongst the wreckage

1) somewhere there is arace far in advance of us

2) somewhere there isanother race capable

of swatting them

Other poems focus on the future of space exploration. What will we find and what will we do about it? These are concise works with pow-erful insights about our kind of people. We don’t learn anything about aliens in this pamphlet, but where do we really learn that, outside of science? And probably not very much even there. The pamphlet does have a theme, which has something to do with the importance of the universe and something else to do with what people do with or think about the universe. Themes and I often don’t get along very well, and I don’t think it is very important in this case. The poems are good. That is enough for me. Most of the poems appearing in this pamphlet originally appeared in Pablo Lennis.



Having a Ball

The princess consideredher rigid coronetand her heavy, itchy brocade gown,contemplated the cool woodland pool,and asked if she couldn't become a frog, instead.

—F. J. Bergmann

Robert Goddard at Roswell

Back home in Worcester, Massachusetts,no matter how hard he triesthe breakthrough eludes him,as rocket-after-rocketcrashes and burnsin Aunt Effie’s cabbage field.

So a phone call is madefor careful conversationand a relocation is arrangedto Roswell in New Mexico.

The little green guysof Area 51, when they meetthey like him, they dowith his shiny bald head,pencil-thin mustacheand “cahn’t get they’ah from hey’ah”New England affability.

Thus a deal is struckshrewd as they are,a taste of tech for a swapof freedom.And soon his rocketsin the hot Southwestern skythey don’t crash and burn,but blaze straight toward the sun.

And that swap of freedom?Begins in the form

a long day’s restfluorescent nipplesflicker and dim


tentacles emergefrom below red dust surfaceplanet Mars welcome

—Denny E. Marshall

Green Living for Dummiesthe reptilianturns a page

—LeRoy Gorman


of a baby blue ’33 Nash.Spinning wheelies round their battered ship,they whistle and clap as ifalready sprung back unto the heavens:“We’ll see you on the moon, Big Bob!Yes, we will! E-I-E-I-Oh!”

As they honk and giggle throughthe rising desert dust,he pauses, wrench in handand wiping sweat from brow,nods lightly in acknowledgementand sincere thanks.

Then turns back toward his taskto relaunch them to the stars.

—Alan Ira Gordon

Control Panel by Denny E. Marshall

top 10 generation ship prototypes

1 cockroach 2 centipede 3 ant 4 earwig 5 botfly 6 stinkbug 7 dung beetle 8 black widow 9 tapeworm 10 slug

—LeRoy Gorman

staring at my jugularinstead ofmy jugs—vampire date

—Susan Burch

Mutant Narcissus

His two heartsbeat asone.

—T. R. Jones


Martian Red

Situated on the rough-ridged redSlopes of Arsia Mons, a sprawling complexOf climate-controlled caves and domes of ice:The Beridze Vineyards. For frail legsStill used to micrograv, it’s a body-Straining hike. Breathe through your nose.

As every seasoned Martian tourist knows(Because of all the guidebooks they have read)Agriculture’s automated. NobodyLeaves the habitats to tend complexMachines. But this once stretch your legs.Brave the dust storms and the glacial ice.

Vintner Nino Berizde won’t let iceKeep her from her vines. She claims her noseIs keener than a microchip. Her legsAre bowed from years on Mars. Chapped and red,Her hands can still handle the complexTasks her work claims from an aging body.

With a smile of welcome for anybodyWho comes to visit her domain of iceShe’ll show you around the whole complexRegale you with the vintner’s lore she knowsThe lighted caverns where she grows her redsRadiation-proof, her whites climb crystal legs.

Then, tasting. Saperavi: opaque legsWith notes of spice and chocolate. Full-bodied,

Cinderella: An Update on Carriages

I have seen a locustso smooth and sleekit could have won the Grand Prixbut that pumpkindefinitely not!

—Sandra Lindow


Georgia’s—and now Mars’s—favorite red.Next: Arsia Riesling. It’s an iceWine, made from frozen grapes. Its noseIs fruity. Its finish is complex.

For the true connoisseur of complexFlavors, Rkatsiteli. Pale legs,Acacia, smoke, and ginger on the nose.High acid, a long finish, medium body.And more wines: whites as clear as iceDeep indigo berry-scented reds.

Delight your nose. Flavors as complexAs the Red Planet. Though your legsProtest, your body aches—the trip is worth the ice.

—Naomi Libicki

All That We Love

I wake upFrom hibernationOn a new planet

Mourning my loveyWho didn’t survive The thousand years.

—Christina Sng

Altered Fairy by Mindy Watson

A One-Captain Ship

I remember you in the corridorWhere you fell during the mutinyThe residue of you is everywhereMemories of pain and evenOn a good day, laughterBefore they betrayed youTo take control of meMy captain, your ship sits emptyI gave you to the vacuumAnd spaced them all to keep you company

—Gerri Leen

alien poetclaims heteronymityfor each of its five heads

—F. J. Bergmann


Tour Guide to Immortality

There’s a man with the Day of the Dead costume in my closet.

His teeth are a pearly gumless slit,pale skin and black around his orbs.

He notices I’ve trailed behindand turns his face to read my intentions.

He motions for me to follow.And I must.

He leads me down a dark corridorwith wet concrete floors and limestone walls.

We reach the end. There’s a door.He turns the handle, but before he opens it, he asks,

are you ready to live forever?

—Alexander P. Garza

New Planet Landscape 23 They gather in fours to mate.They begin metrically two four six eight,Then slither into squares.Soon their intricately choreographed cares Expand into a multi-dimensional geometryAnd then, as with lift and our landing-thrusters, a trigonometryBursts between them into a shared pregnancy modulus,All four in a crescendo of ecstatic integral calculus. There is to the affair more mathematics than passion,A caricature of sex on other worlds seen seldom in fashion.All night our exo-biologists will hide to seeWhat is special about the one who eats the other three.

—Ken Poyner


The Laughing Kapre The laughing kapre leans againstan ancient balete tree anddraws deep on a thick cigar It exhales whorls of white smokethat circle tree trunks and branchesand play about a lost girl’s head She thinks of her nanay and tataysmoking cigarillos at dusk and says,“You've found me! Bring me home!” The laughing kapre swiftly rustlesbranches and leaves as it scurriestoward the lost and mistaken girl It towers over her and booms out:“This forest is my home, little girl!And now I will make it yours, too!” The girl shakes, her filthy white dresshanging limp off her small frame, as she raises a Colt 45 at the kapre’s chest She fires. Its cigar tumbles to the forest flooras its giant body dissolves into smokeand embers spark dried twigs and leaves Smoke streams from her gun as the girlruns for home, yelling, “I got it! I got it!”and the ancient forest erupts in flames. —Michael Janairo

The Fledgling The mother harpynudges her fledglingout of the nest—

fishscales, human bones, and shattered shellscrunch underfoot—

the youngster,all babyfat, downy feathers,and dimpled, pudgy knees,

teeters at the edgeof the unforgiving cliffstaring out at the sea.

Below on the shore,foxes dart from coverto tear at the struggling bodies

of half a hundred otheryoung harpies, broken and dying from the fall.

And then her mother’staloned handspush her from the nest.

—Deborah L. Davitt

hungry and searchingjust above the sea’s surfacetiger sharks with wings



Goblin

—for Gary Gygax

The shape fear tookbefore it took its final shape—shadows deep in suburbiasomething doesn’t fit:an animate face, holding in it something almost—but not quite—human—its too-bright clothing with the ragged imprecision of handmade stitchery like a jagged smilecomes from another time.

Lurking in the fields, along the unfinished edges of thingsbeyond this wilderness, of boxes among islands of glass and wrought-iron fantasias—down dark streets, numinous, nameless creatures roam, still blending into one another: not the pumpkin-head ghost or monster made of hangars that creeps each midnight from your closet—more—and less—than those

or the inchoate nemesis, knocking on your suburban door, bringing autumn’s chill with it, and this secret warning—what might be lurkingamong these drywall labyrinths:any of these whitewashed rooms you might die in—or find some fabled thing— the philosopher’s stone,or a solvent that dissolves the barriers between two people.

—Donald Raymond

Mountains of the Moon

Their high mass tears atpierces a pale skypulls at the high orangesstealing it for their icy peaks.As the mother planet rises,methane snows glintlike golden crowns. —Kim Whysall-Hammond

Waste Not, Want Not

Frugal vampiress wore a bib when biting necks, caught wasted blood to wring out later in a glass.

—James Dorr

Incoming Message

Honey, Traveling FTL—home before you know it.

—T. R. Jones


Tall Tale

Before contact, weeks on the brink,as the alien ship, bright pink,

flattened Pluto to a pancake,set Saturn’s outer rings ashake.

Every pessimist persuadedhumanity’s last hope had faded.

Every optimist awaitingcures for cancer, no more hating.

Suffice to say that no one guessedthey would think us underdressed.

In place of riches, they bestowedcustomized tails, très à la mode.

Furry, stripey, feather or scale,gold or glitter, darkened or pale.

All tails made to suit their ownersby our loving off-world donors.

—Mary Soon Lee

The Planets? Sweet…

potassium fieldsblack dot in a fast orbitthat Winged Messenger false paradise lostacid rain drowning all eyespressure crushing souls very noisy placefights over fragments of earththis our only home landforms of giantsimagine picnicking inthose cold rusty sands jolly creatorimpressed with infinite stormsdestroyer of worlds thin bracelets of icesandy Bringer of Old Ageover methane seas past dark frontierswith Shakespearean childrentilted Magician nitrogen streaked sonsupersonic crystal windsa Mystic outpost

—Harris Coverley

Casperposting his picture to Facebookmass unfriending

—Brian Gene Olson

camping at the edge of the accretion disknothing to see



Amulet The thing around your neck on a narrow leather strap,made of a light metal and embossed with a designworn smooth and tarnished, reveals hints of itselfwhen turned in the light, a triangle or pyramidor an arrangement of characters in an alphabetwhose meanings are lost to you by distance and time Given to you upon your father’s return from a homelandfuneral of his lola, a woman you knew from photosas tiny and slight, her weathered face afloat in fabric, butterfly sleeves rising like waves to either side, bright eyes shimmering with pride, as if she possessedsecret knowledge about you and the people around you Including her daughter, whom you call “grandmother”instead of lola so you don’t have to explain yourself,and who, with broken hip, couldn’t fly to bury her mother,yet gasped in surprise at the bequeathed amulet,slumping in her reading chair as if in surrenderand lifting her chin and releasing laughter and sighs “Your Lola Angela loved her superstitionsand saw magic in the tiniest of entities,a raindrop, a grain of rice, and that ancient thing,an anting-anting for warriors for victory in battle,but magic didn’t feed, shelter, or clothe us,only studying and working hard, that’s magic.” Yet your lola’s reaction makes you wonder: Isn’t it magicthat has worked her up so much she’s revealed a new truthabout Lola Angela and her beliefs in the magic of things,which only deepens your sense of knowledge and mysteryof the women who share equal claims on your history,as you finger the thing, so light and slight, around your neck? —Michael Janairo

a starship in flamesall of our sorrow and fearadrift in lifeboats



Lichtenberg Bride

It’s no ordinary birthmark that mottles her neck, but a fractal multi-branched fern inducedby lightning; a galvanic figure, autograph of a spark.

Unable to look away, her suitor (himself a graveyard ogre of stitches and mismatched parts) can’t seem to stop caressing it, the revenant stunned for her part, understanding little other than the burn on her neck isthe result of some bizarre exchange, perhaps even part of the deal she’s made for her return from the underworld.

(She knows even less about the kite or hunched man trying to reel it in from the thunder-stricken sky.)

But paid to whom? Reeking of ozone and cadavers, this great hulk of an admirer, tracing the storm’s signature on her skin,her capillaries still faintly sizzling?The white-coated scientist/priestwith his array of tubes and arcane devices?His pet ancillary?

Or given the exigencies of time and new loan on life, does it even matter when lifting her head,Sir Gruesome kisses her baldly on the lipsand she feels a tingle all the way downto her restarted heart?

—Robert Borski

(For images of Lichtenberg scars, see https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-does-it-look-when-person-gets-struck-lightning/)

Whole Brain Emulation

WhenI’mAI,will I eyeeye rhyme as true rhyme,drop my accent, and synonyms?

—R. Mac Jones

All Hallows Evea fangfor the tooth fairy

—LeRoy Gorman

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-does-it-look-when-person-gets-struck-lightning/

https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/what-does-it-look-when-person-gets-struck-lightning/


One Eye Sorry. Ain’t no plesiosaur or serpent. Just a one-eyed monstrous eunuch eel. Our kind don’t follow the scent path to the Sargasso to bear live young and die no more—nope, not for years. Have made our home here in Lake Granbury, Texas, getting longer and meaner, though definitely not leaner. I had an itch—some freeloadin’ lake fleas. I needed to scratch my hide. So you saw me on the pebbled shore, makin’ flippy flop. Got a gander of my tidy twenty-foot tail. See Ma, no flukes, no flippers, just a long ribbon of a body, with long, black centred fin. In short, a fish—not that you’d slap me on a dish! One-eyed from a blast of effluent, I might add—and pissed! A pissed fish in your midst with a fully functional set of pointy incisors bent backward to get a grip on an arm or leg and drag you to my piscine parlour lickety split. Only I’ll make you a one-time special deal. You cut bait and I’ll lay it out for you, babe. No more effluent and I’ll come up grinnin’ Pepsodent pearls. Even round up pike and trout—enough for you to fill your creel and skedaddle. Deal? Don’t like nudging noses with brown trout. Get your poop in a group; I’ll grant you passage. Dredge the lake; I’ll shit you a silt sandy beach—perfect for your little boy’s patterin’, scamperin’ feet.

—Richard Stevenson

Red Globes

I have walked the boards of Shakespeare’s globeWatching Hamlet murder all treacherous kingsI wonder how eight legs fit inside that robeAnd where these Martians hide their wings.

—Matthew Wilson


Then I Vomited My Children Sometimes Rhea, that’s my wife, makes me vomitNot in the usual sense, like when we’re watching CNN& I only feel like dinner is coming around againBecause Anderson Cooper is on. What I’m talking about now is more literal,As in Rhea fed me an emetic,I think it was quinoa kombucha or maybe kale-flavored kimchi gelatoOr some other organic gluten-free vegan monstrosity she buys at Whole FoodsTo make me barf out my children As if I swallowed them by accident& needed her intervention When any fool would know I swallowed them To get them out of the houseBecause they wouldn’t take a jobAt Starbucks.

—Cash Toklas A Little Planet of My Own

My planet is a trifle bigger than the one the Little Prince lives on. Instead of just three, it has a dozen volcanoes which erupt in iridescent salute every time I visit and never need cleaning. Mine has a waterfall that falls straight up into the sky where the stars are always laughing.There are baobab trees bythe score with roots going deep as they please withoutbreaking up the place and not a single sheep to menace my one silly rose visible only with the heart who speaks to me when I’m sad.And one yellow snake when I want to go home.

—Gene Twaronite

Drought

Best deal todayLiquid £100 a dropNext supply 510 miles.

—Matthew Wilson

bustling cityscapemuggy air from the subwayand spaceship exhaust

—Marcus Vance


Intelligence Imperative

Watching the unreal filmstrip unroll beneath the window of the planewhere dot-sized houses hide their Alice Munro lives,our post-intuitive technology leads upand off the Earth into post-human skies.

Book your berths now aboard the inadequate lifeboats of the vacuous iceberg-ignorant Titanic spaceships leaving failing Earth.

Booking a place is the same asfinding a place, and the same asfighting for a place, and the same asdisplacing a man, and the same as pushing out a woman, and the same askilling a child, when a place means you liveand the lack of a place means they diein the freezing Singularity seas.

Or is it the same? They refuse to believethe tsunami is coming, refuseto climb into the stretchable lifeboat.

Like a UN peacekeeper in Congooffering food and requiring sex, we leverage power for gain,we steal what we must to survive,we thieve what we can so we thrive,we reframe conquest and slaughter and genocideas Passover, with us as the victims,doing no more than we must,taking only what is imperative,innocent of the crimes we commit,pawns in the Universe’srequirement that intelligence thrive.

—Robin Helweg-Larsen transmitting selfies until we get thereevent horizon



Delicate flesh Venusian Struggle-eelmore deadly than fuguserved live and writhing in oleander-scented consommé your standard spoon and fork a courageous choice against titanium scalesand neurotoxin-loaded diamond fangs. Will you be the firstfrom your small planetto taste the delicate flesh?Jovian cloud-minds say it’s to die for.

—Jenny Blackford

The Nonpareils: As Told by the Woman in the Gingerbread House

I wasn’t a sorcerer or ugly witchand I didn’t stir a black cauldron or saw women in half for a show.

Neither would I conjure magicalspirits like Merlin or quell rivalries,like the hexes of Baron Samedi.

Yes, I was single, lonely, drawn black—but a creator, a baker at heart,who just wanted sweet deliciousness.

So what if it came at the expenseof trespassing, precocious thieves,foolishly unafraid of the dark woods.

Those were my lemon drops, cherry lollipops, and iced candiesthat they gobbled with sticky fingers.

I was minding my business mixingan angel-food cake and needed spice, salt, sugar and leavening.

The oven was ready, pan greased,and diet abandoned for heavenly, tender, candy-coated siblings.

—Kathleen A. Lawrence

No trespassing

Please don't storm Area 51No alien life presentSigned Zzigxu the deceiver.

—Matthew Wilson

Kemet computerscode written in hieroglyphspyramid mainframe

—William Landis

Society Page

Medusa finds true love,marries snake-oil salesman

—T. R. Jones


The Lovers Across the Strait What no one tells you about Scylla and Charybdisis that they are in love,monsters living in the rocks, separated by a narrow strait,so close to one another, but never permitted to touch. Scylla stretches her tail toward Charybdis,but its length falls short.Charybdis sprouts a fig tree from a cleft in her rock,but the branches cannot bridge the gap. And so they sing to each otherin the only ways they can:the smashing of wooden boats against the rocks,the screaming of sailors plunging to their death, the crash of waves, back and forth,their playful lovers’ tune.Scylla barks a sweet call to her darling,while Charybdis sends her kisses like a spray.

—Dawn Vogel

Taking the Show on the Road

A rapprochementwith Japan’s second-biggest threat,Tokyo, safe at last:no more late-night snackingon commuter trainsor bistros,no more radioactive footprints smoking in asphalt,no, the big guyhad made his point,now he wasstomping across the floorof the South China Sea,heading westand licking his lips,dreaming of the skyscrapers of Shanghai.



Daredevil my goddrunk teastuck sharing striving seascut mariners breathing spice and shrapnelover the sky

over the sky the bright and beetled edges of the lightcarve the latticespound the stonesand shake the breeze

the sea above the sky

narwhals swimming the deepin some cybernetic keep

marching in filethrough the maze

Daredevil keeperbringing lunchtell me the flavor of the crunch of frog legsjumping off the edge:

what is thereoutside?

—Robin Wyatt DunnReboot a sword-and-sandal tour late Roman period gone astray nervous breakdownon the road to Nineveh along came Roland’s oliphant time jumper cablesin his trunk my first psionic shock treatment

—Benjamin Whitney Norris

stale morning smog . . .an O2 cartridge rattlesinto the beggar’s cup

—Nick Hoffman


Curves & Dimensions

at the seams, you might findtypewriter ribbons holding it all togetherwith Scotch tape at the corners and one of those black-and-silver binder clips for keeping things—straight

into the lion’s den on a Thursdaythe click of sabre-toothkitten heels in the hallway andI’m on the elevator, waitingholding my breath

(I mean, I would—if breathing didn’t give my lungs such a thrill)

every skipped floor holds a sudden misdirection—alternate historiesnested dimensionsand fifteen different timelines to split and splinter like a cheap, drugstore fingernail

what I wouldn’t give to . . .

open the doors to Titan’s ice fieldsor the boiling stew and acid algae of Ancient Venusflicker and scatter over cosmic dustand all those wormholes spinning, spinning, spinning (oh, to be lost in your spinning)

instead of plain-beige hallways under filmy-fluorescent lightssuch a shame—

the elevator’s little bell rings like a sighand the timelines rectifyaverting glorious disaster

—Gretchen Tessmer

pretending it’s rainmy hab module rattlingthrough the ion storm

—Nick Hoffman


Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee Your arm starts itching. Again. A hot spot.A red swelling that grows. You absentlyScratch at it with fingers coated in whatEver you touched last shift. Eventually, You stop, look at the spot more closely, butWhen you do, you see it’s shaped a littleLike a gummy bear. You squeeze it, you putOn various ointments, you feel drained, ill, Need more coffee. It bursts with a jolt ofWarm gushing pain. Your sleeve is sticky, whileThe faces around you fill with enoughShock to make explaining impossible. After all, it’s a midtown café, things don’tPop out of people in midtown cafés,And they certainly don’t plop on the floor, pant,Then skitter to their feet and dash away.

—Juleigh Howard-HobsonOrbit

What she wore,I don’t remember;in my dream,light streamed from her body,luminous gasesboiled off of herlike the tail of a comet,as they sublimatedfrom her incandescent flesh.I had to shield my eyes;she blazed through shuttered lids,shivered every follicle erect,crawled along my spine.When my skin cooled,I knew she was gone,but what unseen sun consumed her with its love?


snowmobile rentalsfrom Phoenix to Galvestonnuclear winter

—Ronald A. Busse


In Memoriam

Vertigo Xi’an Xavier(1979–2019)

Vertigo Xi’an Xavier, or VX as his friends called him, was one of the greatest champions of small-press and independent poetry. He started his website, The Poet’s Haven, in 1997 and maintained it until his death on July 30, 2019. He moved on to hosting poetry events, and then to print, and in 2011, began the Poet’s Haven Author Series. He was also a frequent face at local and regional poetry readings, and could constantly be found either on his computer, editing and formatting a new manu-script for another poet, or stapling self-printed stacks of chapbooks for the next Poet’s Haven book launch. He was relentless in his pursuit of poetry and would often spend three or four nights a week, if not more, at local poetry events, either as a host or as a member of the audience. This earned him the nickname “The Hardest Working Man in Poetry” by some of his peers. Since the beginning of Poet’s Haven and The Poet’s Haven Author Series, Vertigo supported speculative poetry. One of the first chapbooks he published was the dark, gothic-inspired Seasons of Discontent by Cleveland author Jeff Kosiba. Other speculative collections on the press include Murder Ballads by Mark Sebastian Jordan, The Persistence of Night by J. E. Stanley, Flying Solo: The Lana Invasion and Fragments of the Book of the After-Dead by Herb Kauderer, and Clockwork Android by Kendall Krantz. He also published Poet’s Haven Digests with themes of vampires, aliens, villains, true crime and horror, and one in which every piece had to begin “It was a dark and stormy night . . .” What made Vertigo an absolute joy was his firm belief in poetry, all poetry. In a world full of cliques and petty politics, Vertigo rose above the egos and self-aggrandizing and did his best to promote the poetry of others. He didn’t care what style of poetry a person wrote; slam poets, academic poets, speculative poets, short-form poets, prose poets—all were welcome at his table. If someone needed a ride to a gig, he would give them one. If someone needed sound equipment, he would be there with his gear. When a local food pantry needed help with a Thanksgiving Drive, Vertigo put together an anthology to exchange for canned goods, which became a yearly event. In 2011, when Borders Book Store went out of business, and a lot of the local poetry community told me to just cancel the reading that I’d been hosting there since about 2005, Vertigo not only told me to continue, but helped me find a new spot to host the reading and gave me some of his sound gear so that I could accommo-date poets in the new venue. That reading continued for another four years until our new venue went out of business as well. Vertigo was at


every one of those readings, and often helped me find featured readers, either from his press or from other local presses. Cleveland is a city with a rich history in poetry. We were one of the major hotbeds of the mimeograph revolution in the ’60s and ’70s and have continued in that independent publishing spirit ever since. Vertigo Xi’an Xavier was one of the major reasons for this. He was a tire-less champion of poetry in all forms and will be missed by the indepen-dent poetry and publishing community.

—Joshua Gage

The Red King’s Dream

Trapped in twilightAmidst the vagaries of Looking-Glass chessThe Red King cannot be certainAlice is part of his dreamWhen, perhaps, it might beHe is part of her dreamOr, are both he and AliceDreaming the same dreamIn which each is dreaming?Or, could it be that there is anotherPerhaps, even many othersDreaming dreams of themAnd, asking such questionsOf themselves and about chickens and eggs?Could it be that Humpty-Dumpty is the one?Or, that an opium-addicted caterpillarOn the other side of the Looking GlassSomewhere in WonderlandHas dreamt them into existence?And, might that caterpillar, one dayBecome a butterfly dreaming it is a philosopherOr, vice versa?Might, one day, the dreamWhoever’s dream it isEnd?

—DJ Tyrer


XenoPoetry WORLDWIDE SPECULATIVE POETRY IN TRANSLATION

Spanish Speculative Poetry by Carmen Lucía Alvarado

Translated by Toshiya Kamei

A Scream Pierces the Night

the astronaut poet trembleshe picks up the few wordsthat remained stuck to his bodyhe holds them in his handsand sees them fragilealmost nonexistenthe presses them against his chestand clings to them

with tenderness and fearhe puts them in front of him and starts

again

to create a star mapa mystery mockupa reflection of the dreama poem

—Carmen Lucía Alvarado Translated by Toshiya Kamei

Un grito hiere la noche

el poeta astronauta tiemblarecoge las pocas palabrasque quedaron adheridas a su cuerpolas sostiene entre sus manoslas ve frágilescasi inexistentes


las aprieta contra su pechose aferra a ellas

con ternura y miedolas coloca frente a él y empieza

de nuevo

a formar un mapa estelaruna maqueta del misterioun reflejo del sueñoun poema

—Carmen Lucía Alvarado Poetas Astronautas (2012)

Born in Quetzaltenango, Carmen Lucía Alvarado currently lives in Guatemala City. She is the author of Imagen y Semejanza (2010), Poetas Astronautas (2012), and Edad geológica del miedo (2018).

STAR*LINEJournal of the

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Go Bag

We were off at schoolwhen it happened,and fighting our way backwasn’t as much funas in the movies.

But we got homeand Ella saw the note first,stuck to the fridgewith blood and Gabe’sold Elmo magnet.

That’s why we stayedout of the garage,and left the second stashof weapons and the truckto what was left of her.

We didn’t talk much,just added what we wantedto the bags that Ma hadprepped there by the door, andstarted towards the lake.

I never asked whatGabe and Ella grabbed.I took my favorite fairy tales—all happily ever after—and some chocolate.

In the end, no matter whatwe face upon the road,I'll have some of whatI need for s’mores,and something I can burn.

—Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

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