Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • Crackling Octopus by Jessy Randall
  • Regrets Only by Jeanie Tomasko
  • Casting the Future by Serena Fusek
  • Et in Arcadia ego by Alicia Cole
  • Lost in Space by Aaron DeLee

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: Fun, Fun, Fun

As a result of a snarky (but appropriate) comment that I posted, the Locus Roundtable online recently featured essays, most by SFPA members, discussing speculative poetry. The series began with a podcast with editor Karen Burnham, Mike Allen, and yours truly. Peruse the archives at locusmag.com/ Roundtable/2012/05/.

Each of us, as editor, poet, and/or reader, has varying definitions of what constitutes genre. I tend toward excluding work unless internal, rather than referential, narrative is present. Story is what engages the reader. I do not believe that merely alluding to genre tropes or using them metaphorically is sufficient to qualify for genre identification.

For me, the primary objective of speculative fiction—and, by extension, speculative poetry—is entertainment, and the sine qua non of speculative work is narrative, albeit a tale incapable of existing in present reality. While that narrative may be only implied, as the name of our organization suggests, fiction is a necessary component of speculative poetry.

The basic requirement of marketable literary work is engagement of the reader, and the narrative thread, or one that the suggestible reader is induced to construct, is the most successful method of focusing their attention, so that writers are driven to be observers and raconteurs of action. In poetry, my ideal is an image that inherently suggests a story.

As Kurt Vonnegut is said to have told his creative-writing students, “We’re in the entertainment business.” Recreation. But do not forget that the word can also be spelled re-creation: remaking, making anew. Or, Make it new (to appropriate Pound).

Speculative writers make new worlds. Sometimes an existing world is destroyed or altered and the new one built on its smoking ruins; sometimes the new world appears to be generated from its own Big Bang or divine breath.

I’ll leave you with this quatrain from the Rubaiyat:

Ah, love! Couldst thou and I
      with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

May you find in speculative poetry at least part of what your heart seeks.

—F.J. Bergmann, Star*Line Editor

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Editor's Choice Poems

"Crackling Octopus," by Jessy Randall

a found poem

source texts: online catalogs of U.S. Fireworks, Half Price Fireworks, and Phantom Fireworks (fireworks.biz, halfpricefireworks.com, fireworks.com)

Whirlwinds. Snakes. Dominators. Lost empire fountain. Neon crash fountain. Molten madness. Mammoth strobe. Mammoth brocade. Giant willow with color tips. American thunder cake. Haunted fish. Crackling dragon Z shape. Wave whistle. Clustering bee rocket. Total blast. The beast. Parachute battalion. Rainbow fire. Dragon tears fountain. Red wave silver pony. Green glitter with crackle. Crackling octopus. Howling wolf pack. Panoramic finale.

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"Regrets Only," by Jeanie Tomasko

But there were promises of exploding stars,
thousand-light-year-sized walls of dust no one
had seen and on the trip out, views of Mars,
not to mention the chance of aliens. A done
deal. Every time we looked through the brochure,
we said we must go. Soon as the kids graduate
from college. There were times we were sure
we could leave them home alone. The wait
was long. But we saved our money and when
we could afford it, we booked a flight.
Dear ones, there’s no coming back. Back then
the world was never enough for us: nights,
days, all those sweet years. We knew it as soon
as we saw the old spinning blue planet, its dark moon.

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"Casting the Future," by Serena Fusek

The artist dreams of them on a night of dark moon. She sees her hands turning over the cards, glimpses the images.

She rises into a morning of yellow haze, the TV droning pollution alerts and the latest update on the spreading oil spill. She pours a glass of pure water, goes into her studio.

The first card she brings out of her dream is the Queen of Jaguars with her roseate skin and golden eyes. She works without hesitation, without redrawing a single line, as if in a trance.

The second painting is of the King of Ravens, a man with black hair and feathered sleeves. At noon Crow Woman clamors for her depiction but the artist’s weary body drags itself into the kitchen and finally breaks her fast.

Outside her apartment window the city grinds on: traffic, crime, streets a moving tide of humanity, several leashed to dogs. A few stunted trees grow in cement planters but are drying up in the drought. No one considers them important enough to water.

Crow Woman has mischief in her yellow eyes. Antlers grow from the hair of the King of Deer. The Doe Mother leads her fawn or a lost soul through the Suit of the Forest. The Salmon King knows the secrets of the Suit of Water, both ocean and river. Grief clouds his human eyes.

From the website where the images first appear, it is the Salmon King who is most often downloaded.

The Queen of Vultures, the King of Condors can use even what is spoiled. They ride the Suit of Storms: thunder, lightning, hurricanes, the undertaker wind, blizzard and forest fire.

The last cards created are the Suit of Youth, also called the Suit of Hope: children in nests, cubs in cradles, fledglings and kittens sleeping together on a pillow.

The decks are printed without a book of interpretation, but they are snatched up as soon as they appear. In the cards people see not fantasy or a dream but a reality that was hidden from them. From laminated cardboard that reality stares at them like a reflection in a mirror.

Sometimes the cards seem to move in the hands laying them out, like an animal stretching. Sometimes the Jaguar Queen looks straight at whoever is studying her. Blink and she is just a picture, but the nerves thrum from the recognition. The Suit of Youth revives dreams almost forgotten.

Someone starts to water the container trees. That is the first sign.

In cities of cement and steel, in glass towers in the sky, people lay out the cards and the spirit of the forest, of air and water enter the rooms.

In a woman on the subway, riders recognize the Jaguar Queen, the power and smell of the cat on her golden skin. The Prince of Wolves gleams from a young man’s eyes.

In a year, in two, green breaks through the sidewalks. Deer browse in the parks. The trees break their pots, sink their roots through concrete into the earth and birds sing in every branch.

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"Et in Arcadia ego," by Alicia Cole

What God grew wild in me
spirit could not contain.
His little hooves thrust free
to dance again; wild hooves,
gold-flecked, that labor finally
brought to light. Glorious,
I clutched him weeping, could
not bear the sight. His head
still slick, I gave him to a girl,
went raving through fields awhirl
with hyssop. Charmed, I go still
with much weeping, honeyed
tears. In the belly of this world
or on the heights, is there anything
more terrifying than he? Cold
light, keen hooves, stark purity.

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"Lost in Space," by Aaron DeLee

c-ing the moon bright
as a bottlecap makes me
want another drink.

those carbonated
stars sparkle like teh bubbles
bursting in my beer.

god, gravity sucks
when ur high—fell on my ass
so they kicked me out.

do streetlamps spiral
like galaxies all the time—
or is that just me?

found peace in a park:
quiet & dark. alien.
dont no where I am.

can u come get me?
I’m cold, alone & the sky
looks like its falling.

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• The 2012 Rhysling Awards • Lyn C. A. Gardner
• Wyrms & Wormholes * F.J. Bergmann
• President’s Message • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• A Tribute to Ray Bradbury • Marge Simon et al.
• From the Small Press • David Summers, John Garrison, Edward Cox Full reviews
• Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
• Xenopoetry • Alfredo Álamo; translations by Fred W. Bergmann

Art

• Wired for Destiny • Randy Moore
• Future Spark • Randy Moore
• Space 7 • Denny E. Marshal
• The Portal • Denny E. Marshall
• Double Plus Nothing • Randy Moore
• Mountain Top View • Joshua Gage

Poetry

• Crackling Octopus • Jessy Randall
• Rapture of the Zombies • Robert Borski
• Proper Perspective • James S. Dorr
• Uncertain Principle • Neal Wilgus
• “warm glow of altruism” • Shelly Bryant
• Regrets Only • Jeanie Tomasko
• How I Would Like to Die • Gary Every
• Last Transit: 2012 • Marge Simon
• “tiny robot mice” • Deborah P Kolodji
• “no life on Mars” • LeRoy Gorman
• Growing Up • Dennis M. Lane
• Casting the Future • Serena Fusek
• Against Twinkling • Ron Czerwien
• Grow Alien Mermaids • Deborah Walker
• Et in Arcadia ego • Alicia Cole
• Xochipilli • Lee Clark Zumpe
• The Warrior with the Hundred-Year Warranty • Margaret Benbow
• War Robots • Ken Poyner
• Overview • Timons Esaias
• “the robot’s funeral” • LeRoy Gorman
• Intelligent Design • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• The Circuit Rider • Frederick Pollack
• 2.0 • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• “rips tearing the sky” • Simon Kewin
• Imperial Mercy • Alec Austin
• inquest • Timons Esaias
• “transmat status” • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• “gates of multi-verses” • Yunsheng Jiang
• Hazardous Work Environment • Alan Haider
• “two roads diverged on an ochre plain” • LeRoy Gorman
• Lunatick • Robert Borski
• Sneezing in Zero-G • Melissa Frederick
• The Duelists • Mike Allen
• “singularity” • Geoffrey A. Landis
• e-ldritch • Joe Nazare
• Dance Floor • Robert Borski
• “she touches my skin” • Simon Kewin
• “unrequited love” • LeRoy Gorman
• Every Planet Wears a Ring • Kurt MacPhearson
• Egg Foo Young • Terry Garey
• A Fairy-Tale Excuse • Ian Hunter
• Time Shift 27 • Denny E. Marshall
• The Passage • Matthew Y. Yasuoka
• The Insomniacs • Alessio Zanelli
• Café Tables of Canberra • P. S. Cottier
• Promethea • Barry King
• Miff-ology • Juan Perez
• Search Party • Denny E. Marshall
• “In the Year 2525” • LeRoy Gorman
• Why I Love Star Trek • Vincent F. A. Golphin
• Ain’t that Nice • Neal Wilgus (correction from 35.2)
• Winter on Paradise One • Francis W. Alexander (corr. from 35.2)
• Lost in Space • Aaron DeLee