Online Issue Contents

• Dragons & Rayguns

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • Advice Columnist Replies to Mrs. Frankensteinsmonstersbride by Sarah Brown Weitzman
  • How to Be Invisible by Mary Soon Lee
  • Misstep by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader
  • Recent Excavations in Amerika by David Barber
  • A Terrible Meat-Eating God by Holly Lyn Walrath
  • Claimant by F. J. Bergmann
  • [New from the Quantum Physics Book Club:] by Robert Borski

• Full Table of Contents

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Dragons & Rayguns

Dear friends in speculative poetry, greetings! This issue of Star*Line closes the SFPA’s 40th anniversary. It’s been a marvelous year of poems!

Our cover’s whimsical fall fantasia in colored pencil is by previous Star*Line editor F. J. Bergmann, so once again cover art by a poet. We have several interesting forms represented in this issue: an ovillejo chain by Mindy Watson (a centuries-old Spanish form popularized by Cervantes); a terzanelle by Deborah L. Davitt (the terzanelle is a terza rima–based form invented by Lewis Turco); linked cherita by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader (the cherita is a narrative form in 3 stanzas—1 line, 2 lines, then 3 lines—originated by the poet ai li); and also fibs by Lauren McBride and David C. Kopaska-Merkel (in a fib, from line to line the syllable count follows the Fibonacci sequence). Roxanne Barbour gives us a sci(na)ku tanka and a reverse sci(na)ku tanka—a hay(na)ku variation Roxanne invented and premiered in Star*Line a couple of issues back.

I neglected earlier this year to thank Mary Chipman, my editorial assistant for issues 41.1 and 41.2 (Winter and Spring 2018). Mary performed this service as my graduate assistant at the University of Northern Iowa. Many thanks for your great work, Mary!

Starting with this issue I’m very pleased to have a new editorial assistant, Seth Thill, who is, like Mary, a graduate student in creative writing at UNI. Welcome, Seth!

Friends, I hope you enjoy these poems. Why don’t you try out writing an ovillejo or a terzanelle, a cherita or a fib, or a sci(na)ku tanka even!

—Vince Gotera, Star*Line Editor

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Editor's Choice Poems

"Advice Columnist Replies to Mrs. Frankensteinsmonstersbride," by Sarah Brown Weitzman

Dear Mrs., I don’t mean to offend but your last name is quite a mouthful. Since you didn’t give a first name I assume it is too. Apparently you are a new bride but claim you knew your hubby only for a few moments. I am not sure of these facts as your spelling and grammar, not to mention your handwriting, are really atrocious.

Was yours an arranged marriage? You said his appearance was a great shock to you. You actually call him a monster. And yet you say you were made for each other so please forgive me if I am confused. I hope you realize that looks fade over the years so physical attraction is not what a happy and lasting marriage should be based upon.

In addition, I am troubled by your seemingly unhealthy attachment to your father. As a doctor, he should recognize this as a problem for you both. Also, I think you need to sit down with your mother as soon as possible and have a talk, a very open talk, about what’s called “the facts of life.”

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"How to Be Invisible," by Mary Soon Lee

Shapeshift into a chameleon. Blend in.
Purchase an invisibility cloak.
Be a woman.

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"Misstep," by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader

they’re back this year

vermilion shoots
burst from the soil

we didn’t burn deep enough
when we cleared the land
native roots are tough

*

strange feathers

beneath each hen
the orb that killed her

desperate for protein
we never heard
them hatch

*

some women

their bellies swelling
crave native fruits

ordinary foods
are ashes in their mouths
their sunken eyes

*

corner crack

the tiniest vine
finds a way

two days with our lasers
recovered the structure
at least

*

forests do the wave

as if flea bitten
the planet twitches

each epicenter
closer than the last
something come

*

blood warm rain

we watch the heavens
bruise & darken

this thunder a language
our brains lack
a tongue for

*

eye-corner motion

I almost shot
my brother today

we’re all jumpy since
the mayor disappeared
her unfired gun

*

tree shadows at dusk

the ones we never planted
not-trees / not-shadows

closer each evening
when we opaque our windows
some have faces

*

this world is not ours

native microbes
make moves we can’t counter

growths appear
on fabric on skin
things fall apart

*

parasites in flight

ancestral vessel
savaged salvaged savior

native to nowhere
wishing on next star
kinder

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"Recent Excavations in Amerika," by David Barber

This is where they lived, memories of their dwellings
marked by baked brick in an outline of Euclid.
Whether they were happy here we cannot say.

Traces of copper worming through the walls; thought
to be a charm to ward off disillusionment.
This we understand. Some fragments of vessels

fashioned lovingly from glass the colour of rain,
stained with a residue of vines, in those days
drunk as proof of success. Now extinct.

A broken blade with lettering in ancient script:
STAINLESS had notions of purity and innocence;
ST was shorthand for Saint. Their cult spoke endlessly

of sacrifice and blood. Object of ritual.
This silvered ghost they called a photograph,
though whether it is the ocean, the smiling

woman or their coincidence it honours
we do not know. You wonder if she loved
or was loved. Their lives have this effect,

their brief, crowded lives. Many of us wept
at the frail bubbles of glass, totems they hung
in every room, not trusting the dark. We believed

that words, or the weight of a thing in our hands
would be enough to make sense of these people,
and the hour and lost places of their passing.

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"A Terrible Meat-Eating God," by Holly Lyn Walrath

after Edward Hirsch

Rolled in butter and herbs my body is a succulent sacrifice and the god takes me in his mouth bit by bit, moaning at the taste of me. His tongue is cat-rough, his teeth straight and white like the feeder system of a great whale. He licks me off his fingers and pieces of me re-converge in his belly. There’s a thin layer of slush down here, sloshing back and forth. It smells holy dank. I clamber onto his heart with my wet feet tucked beneath me and I rub my eyes with bloody hands, waiting for daylight on a shore with no birds, only the hush of waves and the thin promise of morning in the garden of eating.

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"Claimant," by F. J. Bergmann

She desperately wanted to marry a kind human.
Each evening she grew a delicate new hymen.
Her favorite elixir changed absolutely nothing
but the color of the antidote.

At dawn, façades shed their protective mirrors.
Glittering powder dusted the broadening meres.
No one was hungry enough to eat anything
prepared by anomalies.

When summoned, she put on a satin underwire.
The intricacies of her hair concealed the whirr.
She was decorated for rancor and something
else under an antonym.

Days accumulated in drifts of dark wreaths.
No one acknowledged the shuddering wraiths.
The trees offered to translate almost everything
into the tongues of her ancestors.

She shed her fading scales in order to resume
an occupation she did not list on her résumé.
Her fatalistic overseer manifested as a thing
neither angel nor animal.

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"[New from the Quantum Physics Book Club:]," by Robert Borski

New from the Quantum Physics Book Club: 
Demifelicide: the 4 1/2 Lives of Schrödinger’s Cat

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Dragons & Rayguns * Vince Gotera
• President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
• From the Small Press • Luke Forney • Rebecca Buchanan • Herb Kauderer
• Stealth SF: Wouldst Thou Like to Live Deliciously? • Denise Dumars
• Publishing Speculative Poetry: Rejectomancy and Rejection Rates • Herb Kauderer
• XenoPoetry: Cebuano Ekphrastic Poetry • Jonel Abellanosa
• In Memoriam Steve Sneyd • Andrew Darlington

Art

• Autumn Migration • F. J. Bergmann
• Halloween Cat • Jade Foo 
• Furry • Denny E. Marshall 
• Fate • Marge Simon
• Happiest Childhood Memories • Christina Sng
• Little Animals • John Reinhart

Poetry

• [pinprick] • Roxanne Barbour
• Lupus Familiaris • Deborah L. Davitt
• [gardens] • Roxanne Barbour
• [spawn of earth] • Roxanne Barbour
• [last Christmas lights] • LeRoy Gorman
• [Christmas on Phobos] • LeRoy Gorman
• Repairing • Kimberly Nugent
• Buried in the Lee • Lauren McBride
• Robot Scifaiku.1 • Alzo David-West
• Days of Prehistoric Futures Past • Robert Borski
• Prehistoric Provisions • Beth Cato
• Advice Columnist Replies to Mrs. Frankensteinsmonstersbride • Sarah Brown Weitzman
• Spider Star • Josh Pearce
• Hail Mary Pass • Benjamin Whitney Norris
• [flying through the stars] • Marcus Vance
• Ghost Dunes • Ann K. Schwader
• [one moon sky] • Deborah P Kolodji
• After the Seas’ Rise • Deborah L. Davitt
• Nearsighted in the Mushroom Cloud • Stephanie M. Wytovich
• The Marvel of Us • Lisa Timpf
• When the Wild West Meets the Frontier • Lisa Timpf
• The Swarm • Deborah L. Davitt
• Louisiana Dragon • Melody Steiner
• Maybe Tomorrow • Beth Cato
• The Warrior Mephala • Christina Sng
• How Do They Do That? • Gerri Leen
• How to Be Invisible • Mary Soon Lee
• The Bar-Fly Dilemma • Ken Poyner
• [gearing up for Christmas] • Greg Schwartz
• What They Took • Mary Soon Lee
• [Rice Krispies—] • Susan Burch
• [brooms burning in the square] • John Reinhart
• [fantasy football league] • F. J. Bergmann
• Misstep • David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Ann K. Schwader
• Wherefore Art Thou? • Kathleen A. Lawrence
• [might be a good time] • Denny E. Marshall
• Alien Nursery • Gretchen Tessmer
• Recent Excavations in Amerika • David Barber
• [some] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Herding Comets • Robert Borski
• Lost souls • Matthew Wilson
• Hangry • Deborah L. Davitt
• boulder moves • Allan Rozinski
• [The moon has a big icy blotch,] • Robert Dawson
• There was an A.I. from Key West • Robert Dawson
• Cretaceous Zoo • Gary Every
• A Terrible Meat-Eating God • Holly Lyn Walrath
• Claimant • F. J. Bergmann
• [electric savior] • Brian Gene Olson
• [cold tentacles] • LeRoy Gorman
• Date Night • John Grey
• Fate • Marge Simon
• iSpell • John Reinhart
• [dystopic future] • C. William Hinderliter
• Transformation • Jacob Skillings
• Wind Chimes • G. O. Clark
• [asteroidinosaurecall] • LeRoy Gorman
• [first frost] • F. J. Bergmann
• [New from the Quantum Physics Book Club:] • Robert Borski
• [full autumn moon—] • Susan Burch
• Wish You Were Here • David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans
• [lost my gun] • Brian Gene Olson
• [grandma died last night] • Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
• [four arms are better] • Marcus Vance
• [spaceship window] • Lorraine Schein
• Drones & Dragons Disaster • Robert Borski
• [time stream convergence] • C. William Hinderliter
• The Septenary World • Kimberly Nugent
• [alien infant clutching tightly] • John Reinhart
• The Time Traveler’s Proposal • Phoebe Wagner
• Earworm • Benjamin Whitney Norris
• [santa sees bright flash] • Denny E. Marshall
• [growth spurt] • Billy Antonio
• A Rondeau on the Televised Launch of the First Rotating Wheel Spaceship • R. Mac Jones
• [for the first time] • Billy Antonio
• The Space Helmet Hand Dryer Where the Science Fiction Writers Meet • Ian Hunter
• unarmed • Justin Short
• Designated Responsibilites for Spokesparticles • Sandra Lindow
• Arthur the King • John C. Mannone
• [moonlit sea] • Greg Schwartz
• [earth’s gravity dies] • Denny E. Marshall
• Moon of a far planet • Mark A. McCutcheon
• (Under)worlds Collide • Mindy Watson
• [the alien’s suit] • D. A. Xiaolin Spires
• [hid his voodoo doll] • William Landis
• Icarus • Benjamin Whitney Norris
• [time travel retail] • LeRoy Gorman
• [autumn bonfire] • F. J. Bergmann
• Mining Solo • Lauren McBride
• wOLF FLOw • Oliver Smith
• [whirring of wheels on asphalt] • Lisa Timpf
• [two particles] • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
• Don’t Step in the Same Reality Twice • Soren James
• [the deep vibrato] • Alzo David-West
• [black hellebore in Hades’] • F. J. Bergmann
• Diana’s Own Black Sky • Kendall Evans
• [alien ruins] • Brian Gene Olson
• [brain operation] • Denny E. Marshall
• Pasipala • Jonel Abellanosa
• Blasphemy • Jonel Abellanosa
• Cybernetic Harvest • Deborah L. Davitt, Gretchen Tessmer, and D. A. Xiaolin Spires
• Legacies • Christina Sng