Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • In This House of Sinners by Isaac Black
  • Since Breaking Through The Ice by Dominik Parisien
  • Wild Rat Prophecy by Chris Lynch
  • New Vaccine Slows Aging by Michael Kriesel

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: Beautiful Terrors

Rilke has said that beauty is only the onslaught of terror. He may be right, but the reverse is also true: there is beauty in terror as well as terror in beauty. How else to explain the appeal of horror, the delectation of an exquisite frisson of fear and/or disgust? Wandering the garden by night, in the tenebrous wasteland left in the wake of months-long drought and the depredations of squash borers and Japanese beetles (themselves gorgeous in the iridescence of their dark armor), pale pumpkins deflate like the doomed hot-air balloons of a miniature humanoid race, collapsing into a ruin of rot; outcast tomatoes squelch underfoot with only momentary resistance, suggesting putrescent organs that even a zombie wouldn’t touch. Farther out, along a moon-gilded road, the fabulously loopy entrails of what had possibly been a raccoon, orange (orange?) and glutinous, seem to glow from the shadows of the drainage ditch. Of course, the horror instantly reaches its zenith when the dog discovers the mess, and tries to roll in it.

Identifying—and creating—beauty in the terrible, the horrible, is the poet’s task. The poet Ross Gay speaks of “the dazzle / of gold-threaded embroidery inside / the hangman’s mask”—not only noticing beauty where its existence might be presumed to be impossible, but generating a surreal juxtaposition with horror. But horror—terror, if it’s done well—in the literary sense is not merely a special effect, not just one of the tools at our disposal, not only a symbol of our collective angst, but, by giving voice to our secret embellishments on darkness, a weapon in the battle that all of us fight against loneliness and despair. Gay ends the poem with these lines:

[…] against which the ascent
of a crow into the night, a tendril of carrion
dangling in the clutched beak,
and a moment, a diamond
of starlight streaking its black wing,
which is what we, against it, are:
      impossible,
golden, longing, gone.

—Ross Gay, “It Starts at Birth”
from Against Which

I keep prodding speculative poets to be more intrusive with respect to the mundane community. Hallowe’en is the perfect excuse for confronting others with zombie poems, vampire poems, werewolf poems, or poems that are just plain weird. Make a practice of actively engaging other literary communities as a genre poet—although whether I bring speculative poetry to my mainstream-poetry crit group or poetry to the speculative fiction group, the cringing, deer-in-the-headlights look on the faces of the other participants is the same. Tell yourself that it’s the beauty that terrorizes them.

—F.J. Bergmann, Star*Line Editor

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Editor's Choice Poems

"In This House of Sinners," by Isaac Black

Did someone miscount, miscalculate, pull
the wrong straw, assign you a number
that’s odd or outdated? I’m looking at your
dossier and everything seems in order.
Help me here. Was the gun a .357 Magnum,
and did you fire it? It appears that bullets
took flight after Despair and Jealousy. One
passed, with due speed, through Sabrina’s
aorta. Death was instantaneous. Doc. #1788
says, in fact, that you dragged your missus
out of the bedroom in her pink PJs, leaving
a brushstroke—a lattice of violet inkblots.
You laid her out like a washerwoman,
tampered with, called 911 like you’d come
home from Holy Communion only to find
her body. We couldn’t help but laugh.
Our hot line lit. But what about ballistics,
powder burns, body cooling, muscular
flaccidity, one thumbprint? Here, we
have the timeline: shades for black eyes,
long sleeves after I’m sorry, those I’ll
never do it again bruises. That Jack Pyke
Skinning Knife scared the shit out of her.
Got it all in Technicolor, audio, with every
You Bitch, Whore. Forget those tiny spy
cameras. We sat with you on the toilet,
closer than Scott’s tissue. Before her lover’s
pickups, the cheap motels, six-packs, heels
on the dash, you were already boiling.
The flames took over. We loved how you hid
in the folds of tapestries, treaded oil in her
Peugeot. Man, you were the air’s greatest
trapeze swinger, sea-gull, slug. It’s all
recorded here: the maps, Quaaludes, hide-and-
seek, dark corners, in triplicate. Frankly,
you weren’t too smart. Not that it matters
now. In any case, it’s all beyond incriminating.
If you want to talk to the hologram of your
wife wailing, accusing you, be my guest.
Sure, you can pursue this, buddy. But
things could get far worse. You’ve seen
and felt what’s here. Already, the soles
of your feet are peeling. Believe me, in
the lower pits it’s hot enough to melt steel,
2,750 Fahrenheit at least. Why didn’t you
get it? There’re no secrets, perfect crimes.
You should have had a boys’ night out,
got drunk. Now, it’s a wrap. You could
have been working here beside me at
the front desk, handling the proverbial
bullshit. I am innocent. This has to be
a mistake. This first-tier cubbyhole is
nobody’s picnic. Only coal-fueled boilers,
no water, ventilation. But it beats
going back down in that damn elevator.

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"Since Breaking Through The Ice," by Dominik Parisien

I have seen them bend a man in an impossible way
and pull him down a fishing hole; wrapped
my hands, too cold to hold, around my neck
and dreamt of drowning under white skies;
discovered a mark like a crow’s wings
around my left calf;
scoured the shore in spring for blue-black
bodies I pray wash up but never do;
walked on water as though it were frozen,
tried diving in only to hit a rippling surface;
yearned for the day the ice breaks under me
again, so I may go home to them.

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"Wild Rat Prophecy," by Chris Lynch

above the moon
a metal nest
crumples
and a white brother
is tossed
into the night
without end

later
long after
all the seeds
and grasshoppers
and our pups
have been
licked away
by tongues of fire
from the sky

the frozen body
of the albino
will be found
drifting between stars
sliced whisker-thin
and sniffed
by a thousand
wet voices

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"New Vaccine Slows Aging," by Michael Kriesel

         —USA Today

After the shot you bleed white:
shoulder weeping a bright teardrop
a CDC nurse wipes away.
Wrapped in a bathrobe of flames
the president levitates while
promising we’ll live forever.
He just needs four more years.
You can see where this is going
though no one saw it coming
when the grass quit growing.
Time is becoming a thing of the past
as rivers slow, then cease to flow.

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Wyrms & Wormholes * F.J. Bergmann
• President’s Message • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• From the Small Press • excerpted reviews by Joshua Gage, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Susan Gabrielle, Edward Cox, Denise Dumars, John Philip Johnson, Sandra Lindow Full reviews
• Stealth SF • Denise Dumars
• Cons, etc. • reports & other news

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

• Aquarius Regards Orion • Denise Dumars
• Cognizance: a Triptych • Kurt MacPhearson
• In This House of Sinners • Isaac Black
• Three Transits • Ann K. Schwader
• Seabeds of Mars • Banks Miller
• Community Pool Rules • David A. Dickinson
• Trick No Treat • Ian Hunter
• Burning Down Woods on a Snowy Evening • James S. Dorr
• (untitled) • C. William Hinderliter
• (untitled) • LeRoy Gorman
• Zombie Footwear • Charles Cantrell
• The Werewolf as Failed Escapologist • Ian Hunter
• The Franchises of Time • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Fishing Rights • Elizabeth Barrette
• War Among the Umbilicids • Robert Borski
• (untitled) • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• February, 1962 • Lowell Jaeger
• The Carolers • G. O. Clark
• Small-Scale Poultry Keeping • Lisa J. Cihlar
• Since Breaking Through The Ice • Dominik Parisien
• (untitled) • LeRoy Gorman
• The Roads Are Slippery With Oil • D.R. Wagner
• Wild Rat Prophecy • Chris Lynch
• Rats Live on No Evil Star • Aaron DaMommio
• (untitled) • WC Roberts
• Chrononaut Inductees • Bruce Boston
• Property of Tesco • Stephen Wilson
• (untitled) • LeRoy Gorman
• The Aliens Breathe Chlorine • Kurt MacPhearson
• New Vaccine Slows Aging • Michael Kriesel
• Date Night • J.A. Grier
• I Was Marooned on a Desert Island, See • Shelly Bryant
• Time Travel • Chazley Dotson
• As Dark Asda • Cathy Bryant
• Chupa-ku No. 25 • Juan Manuel Perez
• Customary Use • Jeffrey Park
• Dropping By • Ken Poyner
• Intergalactic Coupling • David S. Pointer
• In the Man-Cave • Robert Borski
• Kitchen Strategy • Will H. Blackwell, Jr.
• What Noah Left Behind • Marge Simon
• and then Mom said • Alexandra Seidel
• (untitled) • Dietmar Tauchner
• Among the Shards • Ann K. Schwader
• Hunger Hunt • Jennifer Ruth Jackson
• Recycle • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• (untitled) • Lauren McBride
• (untitled) • LeRoy Gorman
• (untitled) • LeRoy Gorman
• Chupa-ku No. 27 • Juan Manuel Perez