Cover: © 2010 Garret Dechellis
Editor: Marge Simon
Layout: Robert Frazier
Production Manager: Malcolm Deeley
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Online Issue Contents
Editor's Choice Poems
"Gotham City," by Charles Kasler
reborn vultures create mischief in Birmingham
with abandoned parachute and excessive tattoos
selling insurance against bad weather and bad luck
homeless scarecrows in corduroy search the trash
for empty lipsticks and worn memories
foghorns signal mildew in the night
police battle inner demons on weekends
in a thick soup of deserted hotels
forsaken church and abandoned lighthouse
autumn's vague prophesy delivers emptiness
at the doorstep of her beloved
weary evangelists call for repentance
and foghorns whisper secret passwords and jade status
torpedoes head for the opera house in full formation
angels get wings trimmed in barbershop quartets
blind whales flounder through treacherous currents
of underground lakes and rivers
even as salmon swim the canals on Mars
the morning is dank and hung-over
as smoke from junkyard tugboats
and foghorns speak to passing ships in their own language
Monday's desolate sun sets on abandoned coffins
jazz musicians stand beside corrupt snake charmers
worthless confessions spill out of rusted horns
cold lanterns illuminate nervous encounters in subway tunnels
gypsies cry obscure and foreign spells
and foghorns play ambient hymns for zombie weddings
pinstripe chain gang swings the hammer in bad neighborhoods
accident-prone clowns sing the blues from disappointed balcony
to an aimless congregation of shaggy mutts and old propellers
gargoyles patrol the sky looking for food
and foghorns signal a call to prayer at the appointed hour
green limousines roam the street in frozen weather
detectives inspect strawberry rhinestones in a warehouse elevator
cheerleaders way past their prime assemble in vacant lots
foghorns breathe clouds of gloom in the cathedral
sigh cranberry sadness over the city
sing velvet songs of lost love
… and foghorns mourn for creeping and forgotten dreams
"Origins," by James S. Dorr
Mice were invented in 1859
to give cats something to do.
Prior to then cats slept,
dug holes under rosebushes,
at twice their weight in food,
scratched carpets, lounged on beds,
shed over everything,
made general pests of themselves
most times of the day.
Cats still do all of these things, of course,
but now they have mice.
Full Table of Contents
Departments
- Quarks & Strings • Marge Simon
- President's Message/Rhysling Awards • Deborah P Kolodji
- Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
- News & Announcements • Various Authors
- Visions in the Light and Dark • Elizabeth Barrette
- Reviews from the Small Press • Edward Cox, John Garrison, David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Poetry
- Zombies are a guy's best friends • Robert Frazier
- Network Pulls Plug on H.P. Lovecraft Variety Hour • Robert Borski
- After Too Many Twilight Zone Episodes • Duane Ackerson
- Immigration Rap • Frida Westford
- Gotham City • Charles Kasler
- Can Two Cliches Cancel Out and Make an Original Idea • Chris Chapin
- Skinning the Slippery Stars • Rose Lemberg
- Goldilocks, Twenty Years On • Adrienne J. Odasso
- Piltdown Man's Seasonal Message • Steve Sneyd
- Scifaiku • Darrell Lindsay
- Dispatch • ayaz daryl nielsen
- two haiku • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- Appetite • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
- SKPA in San Francisco • Elizabeth Barrette
- The Secret of Space • Denise DeVaney
- Plaint of a god • Suzanne Sykora
- untitled • Suzanne Sykora
- Origins • James S. Dorr
- American Beauty • James S. Dorr
- The Empty Space Suit • Les Merton
- When You Know the Removers Have Come • Steve Sneyd
- Booting the Kernel • irving
- Taming Electricity • F.J. Bergmann
- Human Fighting Is Illegal • Juan Manuel Perez