Online Issue Contents

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • Throwback by Emma K Osborne
  • At the Luxarium by Robert Borski

• Full Table of Contents

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Editor's Choice Poems

"Throwback," by Emma K Osborne

Hardwire scaled cables are heavy and low on our
Distended, sticky limbs—
Hardware splay in reptile grip will
Choke and bind the near next,
The best, should the silvered ghosts come but one by one by
One far off—a staccato thrill on upper hatch is a boot call,
Footfall—prey siren and oh, the scent—crimson musk and feverish heat,
We twitch and snap snap snap meagre wires and
Filaments of thinning cobweb plastic.
We flick tongue and roil in fresh oxygen
(translucent luxury when tank is touchstone) and coil when
Thundering dark booms on near staircase.
Perhaps we host the Creators—back to stifle and check the very last;
We, the monstrosity—race-killer, gore spiller, a maelstrom of twin helix and
Double joints.
They reared wits with hundreds of the brightest
Sparks surging down interlaced saline hookups (minds amplified)
Each little seizure another elder—a fused flare to
Manifest in scaled destruction—our war they bred is long dust.
Distant ammunition clatters brilliant over pitted flat-walls and flickers off,
Chasing lead-hot tails into corridors, caverns—measureless
As what we call us;
Our incestuous tangle, a myriad network gasp and thrust
Neatly strapped into this;
Our stark talons nicking rivulets in plastic pavers.
The silvermen march; we (all) wait for homegrown claw
to match spun-web armour and cannons of all light exploding
No eyes, but for a dull helmet, though we know our swing when—at last—the
Warm-bloods surge and hammer at us with shells and slugs
We greet silvermen with tooth and claw, chill-breath and
Hot rending for hot flesh, spattering the decks with iron tang.
As if from a hive, the silvermen spill out of the boom doors,
Destruction flying from steel mesh fingertips,
Ever breeding
To fall beneath our flicking razors.
Their tiny, stumpy sting winnows to nothing as
Genetics hold the line.
In the end, it is we who stand,
One full 'I', knitted by carnage; forged under silver boots.
This is the last time.
I (alone) sink to my tank and wait for the next.

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"At the Luxarium," by Robert Borski

     "If people could put rainbows in zoos, they'd do it."
     —Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Only after you have taken in the bottled lightning
and the snow-globe aurorae, will you come
to the caged spectra. (This season, in order
to see the other most-popular attraction,
Blake's Tygers, you must come at night.)

Here, imprismed, all seven of the banded hues
can be seen, radiantly arrayed in sickle form
between two great stanchions of white light.

The reds, the oranges, the yellows,
followed by the darker tints
(perhaps hinting at equatorial roots,
perhaps not—the genetics of
colored light remain controversial)
all of them quite naked,
the underthings of the natural
world, the sun's petticoats.

As however the cones of your eyes
can be permanently seared
by the vividness of the display
(to say nothing of its prurience),
a five-minute viewing limit is once
again suggested.

Not a problem. There's always your
cellphone-cam to capture photos
for later delectation.

And so when your three hundred seconds
are up, you force yourself to move on,

emerging once again,
dazzled and shaking,

into the pure monochrome of sunlight.

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Quarks & Strings • Marge Simon
• President's Message/Rhysling Awards • Deborah P Kolodji
• Grand Masters Tribute • Mike Allen
• Reviews from the Small Press • Edward Cox

Poetry

• Air Descent on Salt City (7/13/09) • JoSelle Vanderhooft
• untitled • G. Sutton Breiding
• Ghost of Li Po • W.C. Roberts
• Till World Tree Choke On Age • Steve Sneyd
• Solar Radiations • William John Watkins
• where last Man rests • David E. Howerton
• A Plea to Time's Gatekeepers • Danny Adams
• Kindler • J.C. Runolfson
• Tourists • Richard Lung
• Eye of the Cuckoo • Ann K. Schwader
• untitled • Lawrence P. McGuire
• —But a Sigh— • David E. Howerton
• Stargazers • W.C. Roberts
• Evolution • Jenny Schwartz
• 5,433 Miles • Marsheila Rockwell
• Tangerine • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Circumventing Shiva • Deborah P Kolodji
• Signal to Noys • Elizabeth Barrette
• Verdict • ayaz daryl nielsen
• February Twentieth, 10:13 p.m. • Stefanie Maclin
• —starting over— • David E. Howerton
• untitled • Lawrence P. McGuire
• Symphony for Heraclitus • Darrell Lindsay
• Waters of Gehenna • Steve Sneyd
• The Humanity • Neal Wilgus
• Throwback • Emma K Osborne
• Martyrs' Tales • Adrienne J. Odasso
• Unraveled • Stefanie Maclin
• At the Luxarium • Robert Borski