Online Issue Contents

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • The Dread: A Thermoelectric Duet by McArthur Gunter
  • Now We Are by Vin Miskell

• Full Table of Contents

---

Editor's Choice Poems

"The Dread: A Thermoelectric Duet," by McArthur Gunter

(For Edgar Allen Poe)

We stood like two icicles in the summer night, as though
Hoping for the moon's light to melt us back from a
State of suspended animation. But with our bodies
Shackled almost with a cement of fear which even Jonathan
Could not rival or produce, puzzled with disorganized
Thoughts unable to reach a synthesis of the happening
It had perceived, knees shaken with an involuntary horror
Spasm, eyes dazed as though hypnotized or iced and blinded
With confoundment, faces contorted more than that of a
Stutterer left dumb, hands trembling as though struck with
A palsy with fingers more fidgety than two gunslingers
Standing at a close distance, lips trembling as though
Enthralled in some ancient ritual prayer to the dead, we
Staggered toward the holy or unholy place as the four winds
Converged an smacked our faces, the grass tripped us, the
Branches and twigs smote violent blows and hindered and
Choked us and we perceived ourselves to be moving through
Some mad jungle when we finally converged at the spot just as
My eyes suddenly opened, straining under an intense ray of
Sunlight which had slipped through the half-drawn curtain
Before my bed.

---

"Now We Are," by Vin Miskell

Upper atmospheric winds
fanned by suddenly appearing rainbows
convey the aliens’ message
directly to our hippocampuses
as recently as morning memories.
Saying something similar to “Farewell”
and “So you are alone”
or “By now, you solely occupy the galaxy”
and “We are gone”
or “All our ideas sleep forever.”
Different groups continue to debate
the lyrical undertones of the remembered message.
Still, it is clear
that some otherworldly entities
tens of thousands of light-years distance
faded away as some of us
first settled in sparse communities.
Too far apart in age and ability,
we had no hope of marriage,
no merging of myths
or technology or mores.
So, they let us remain
as children in the inaccessible wilderness
of a spiral arm
to raise ourselves alone.
Or perhaps they spoke to us in the past
through stormy rainbow memories
dispensing wisdom like gods.
We might never know, but we know
we were not alone and now we are.

---

Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Quarks & Strings • Marge Simon
• 2011 Election Results for SFPA Officers
• Jane Yolen, Grandmaster
• President’s Message • Deborah P Kolodji
• Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
• Slithering Out of the Rut • F.J. Bergmann
• From the Small Press • Edward Cox

Poetry

• Chores • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
• Stepford Doom • Robert Borski
• T&A • Neal Wilgus
• Dwarf Universe • Alexandra Seidel
• Beastly • P.M.F. Johnson
• The Galileans • Richard Lung
• Navajo Violin • Gary Every
• Opinionated • Juan Perez
• Song of the Machines • Suzanne Sykora
• Flight of the Nanites • Tanner Wiens
• The Red Planet • Simon A. Thalmann
• Public Transport 2062 • Stephen M. Wilson
• The Return of Quetzalcoatl • Simon A. Thalmann
• Chupacabra Truth Number Three • Juan Perez
• Deadline • Frida Westford
• Lonely Planet • Mary Cresswell
• (untitled) • Karen Newman
• In the Privacy of Oorts’ • Steve Sneyd
• Ballad For My Astronaut Lover • Mary Cresswell
• Castle-Launch • Robert Borski
• Salmonidae martiae • Robert Borski
• (untitled) • Karen Newman
• (untitled) • Karen Newman
• The Green Reich • S.A. Kelly
• The Dread: A Thermoelectric
• Duet • McArthur Gunter
• Chiba City Blues • Julietta Randell
• Up by the Hollywood Sign • Nancy Ellis Taylor
• Saving Places • James S. Dorr
• The Unseen • Michael Fosburg
• Lifelog • Tom Smith
• For Your Own Good • Steve Sneyd
• Now We Are • Vin Miskell