Online Issue Contents

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • First Person Singular by John Tumlin
  • Code of Ethics by F.J. Bergmann
  • Shards by W.C. Roberts

• Full Table of Contents

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Editor's Choice Poems

"First Person Singular," by John Tumlin

Snowblind from the fury of that storm,
I stare at night as white as any screen
forgotten in some vacant movie house,
the projectionist having wandered off
to lob stones at sparrows
while the cat watches.

The soothing hiss of no-sound
comes from the speakers and the sky.
Into the stream of light
I raise my hands,
thumbs interlocked
and fingers spread like wings.

The hawk stoops in the sun.
There is peace in his talons
for the desert mouse
who keeps a careful thoughtless life
beneath that wheeling dark.

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"Code of Ethics," by F.J. Bergmann

During the first millennium, we did nothing
but observe. They were happy to be rid of
stinging insects and some inconvenient
birds. We all hoped that they would come
to their senses. By the time they had lost
the lizard whose intervention was essential
for pollination of the only species of fruit
tree remaining on the smaller subcontinent,
everyone realized we had waited too long.
Other extinctions followed, more swiftly
than our geneticists had believed possible.
We tried to atone by sending teams from
door to door with our personal apologies,
in their last years.

"Shards," by W.C. Roberts

their voices etched in vinyl
or rolls of magnetic tape
turned to white noise
and snow, confetti
jettisoned into space

the salamander losing its tail
in pursuit
of a talking stone

as conversations follow a groove in ceramic
and are thrown off by the breaking of a vessel
there, on the potter's wheel

a golem orbital, undone; lashed
by a corona mass injection
of plasma, stone ceramic shards

the plumes of a phoenix, or the azure
mane of Quetzalcoatl,
feathered snake and ambassador
to ancient astronauts, in the tree of life

the walls of ghetto-earth
hold us back, they hold us in
a garden of tenements and alleys
prison
squalor lined with a glimmering
hope's civility

our rocket to the moon
a flaming sword they cannot contain
in a scabbard of stone

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Quarks & Strings • Marge Simon
• President’s Message • Deborah P Kolodji
• Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
• Men-An-Tol • Les Merton
• From the Small Press • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Heavy Metal Lyrics: Are They Horror Poetry? • Mary A. Turzillo and Jack Brizzi, Jr.
• Dwarf Stars Winners
• Guest Editor: Call for Poetry Submissions • Elissa Malcohn
• From the Small Press • Edward Cox, Josh Gage

Poetry

• The Pioneer Anomaly • David Lunde
• untitled • Mary Turzillo
• Letter from the Golden Age • g sutton breiding
• First Person Singular • John Tumlin
• One Morning; One Nightmare: Two Zip
• One-Breaths • Lauren McBride
• Ever Do They Hunger • Beth Cato
• Anadromous • Wade German
• The Ties That Bind • C. William Hinderliter
• Two Now of a Kind • Steve Sneyd
• Teeth • F.J. Bergmann
• All But According To Plan • Steve Sneyd
• Two Haiku • Carolyn Hinderliter
• Alien Machines • Ann K. Schwader
• The Television Stars, My Destination … • Alan Ira Gordon
• The Life Of Objects On A Shelf • Peter Layton
• Tell Me Now • Shelly Bryant
• 10 things to know about staplers • Carolyn Clink
• FTL • C. William Hinderliter
• Code of Ethics • F.J. Bergmann
• The Dualities • Gary William Crawford
• untitled • Mary Turzillo
• Other Attics • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
• untitled • Mary Turzillo
• from The Human-suit Series, Part 1 • Jessica Young
• Macedonian Stars • Ann K. Schwader
• Word Balloons • Elsa Colon
• I Thought I Knew His Father • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• The Forest of Infinity • Elizabeth Barrette
• Ramscoop (after Tom Brinck) • Geoffrey Landis
• Exit, Pursued By A Bear • Robert Borski
• The Vampire of Ramallah • Chad Hensley
• Vanity • Juan M. Perez
• Little Ghosts • Alexa Seidel
• untitled • Mary Turzillo
• Banishing Point • Lawrence P. McGuire
• Demon Girl • Deborah Walker
• Navigating Venus • Gary Every
• Jumping Jack • James S. Dorr
• On Nazca & Nightfall • Ann K. Schwader
• The Stars Prevail • G. O. Clark
• Hand over Hand • Elizabeth Barrette
• Shards • W.C. Roberts
• The Right Tattoos • Nancy Ellis Taylor