Online Table of Contents

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • "Moonless," by Ann K. Schwader
  • "Sorry, Your Call Has Been Blocked," by Duane Ackerson
  • "Outward Through the Inner Worlds," by Malcolm Deeley
• Full Table of Contents

---

Editor's Choice Poems

"Moonless," by Ann K. Schwader

Earth's satellite enslaved me, so I slept
Uncounted lifetimes lost between dark stars
& dreams that lasted years, but left their scars
Inside my mind alone. Though bloodthirst kept
Its tidal torment surging through my veins
A century or so, the soul-deep chill
Of cryo hibernation sapped its will
(& mine) until I woke to gentle rains.

So many months, now, in this mild green place
Without a moon … & yet I cannot sleep
For fearing I will wake as prey: these sheep
I live among wear my unchanging face.
Night after night, still flexing phantom claws,
I haunt their fields & mourn the wolf I was.

---

"Sorry, Your Call Has Been Blocked," by Duane Ackerson

At my wife's urging,
I purchased a dummy cellphone—
very authentic looking,
but responsive as a block of wood.

Now, she thought,
when I wandered about the world
talking to myself,
I'd look less crazy
chatting with a piece of wood.

Unfortunately,
spruce trees are beginning
to leave me messages
on my cellphone
and ring tones keep appearing,
ghostly ripples in front of my eyes.
It's hard to drink it all in.
Then, yesterday,
I had a final notice
from a blue toothpick.

I may have to stop talking to myself
and begin conversing
with the moon.

---

"Outward Through the Inner Worlds," by Malcolm Deeley

Out of death, the journey from core to edge,
vast center, toward the night of giants.

1. Sol
He looked into the sun, watched the roar of atoms,
and when he turned away his eyes were white,
icy diamonds, and his profile was a vast eclipse.

2. Mercury
Forgotten, the sound of voices.
Instead, the peace of desires burned away.
Turn from the sun, look out.
Black falls into black, and blindness is welcome.
I have hurt too many, and now I want to touch
the surface of a sphere; seared and frozen, lifeless,
rolling, slave of the sun, which burns my back
as I pass the tortured face
of a child chained too close.

3. Venus
Moonless and seething with liquid heat.
I would like to lie on that ravaged surface;
feel the appalling pressure. Poison air, crushing.
I will stay until a vision of touching her
beneath the waves of an imagined sea
becomes the same as my presence,
spread-eagled, face up
under her blanket of chemical rain.

4. Earth
Blue eye, calling me to remembrance.
Blue eye, accuse me all you like.
I'll pass.
Red Death is next.

5. Mars
Brother to the House of Prospero.
Ruddy with age and silence.
You were alive once, wet, and fierce.
The winds still roar at your towering heights
and in the low places of your cracked skin.
Pounded with violence that bears no malice.
Then waiting, unhurried,
for the ancient scars to fade.

---

Full Table of Contents

Features

• Quarks & Strings • Marge Simon
• President's Message • Deborah P Kolodji
• Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
• Never Such Innocence • Robin M. Mayhall
• Reviews from the Small Press • Anthony Bernstein, Edward Cox, Gary William Crawford, Sandra J. Lindow, Frida Westford, Neal Wilgus

Poetry

• His Nature • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
• The Poisoned Apple • John Tumlin
• Birthcycle • Kurt MacPhearson & Rick Yennik
• Hansel & Gretel Revise Their Stratagem • Robert Borski
• The Ubiquity of Coincidences Under Suspicious Consideration • Berrin C. Henderson
• A Sort of Buzzing in All Our Heads • Steve Sneyd
• Down Town • Neal Wilgus
• Nightfall • Jaime Lee Moyer
• Moonless • Ann K. Schwader
• Each of her harsh kisses oozing ancient incantations • Stephen M. Wilson & Kendall Evans
• Two Haiku • Lawrence P. McGuire
• Zombies • Robert Borski
• Sorry, Your Call Has Been Blocked • Duane Ackerson
• (untitled) • Karen L. Newman
• Apparition House • David C. Kopaska-Merkel & Wendy Rathbone
• For Philip Dick • Ray Greenblatt
• Notes from the Observation of Subjects XX and XY • Megan Arkenberg
• Building Mirrors • John Borneman
• The Hamlet • Wade German
• Pipping Ships • Elizabeth Barrette
• Jupiter's Red Spot • Robert Borski
• The Time Traveler's Dog • Robert Borski
• How to Win a Space Race • Kurt MacPhearson
• Outward Through the Inner Worlds • Malcolm Deeley
• Burns at Both Ends • Rose Lemberg
• The Lost Pilgrim • John Tumlin
• Anime Girl Delays Adulthood • Jeannine Hall Gailey