Online Issue Contents

• Dragons & Rayguns

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • The Scarecrow by Tara Campbell
  • Bride of Frankenstein: Our Lady of Rage by Andrea Blythe
  • Martian Red by Naomi Libicki
  • The Planets? Sweet… by Harris Coverley
  • The Nonpareils by Kathleen A. Lawrence
  • Go Bag by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

• Full Table of Contents

---

Dragons & Rayguns

Welcome to another issue of Star*Line! As we enter the holiday season, you will see here wonderful speculative poems on Halloween, The Day of the Dead, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, sometimes with a wry and refreshing view of these celebrations. For instance, directly below are a ghost poem that sends up Robert Frost as well as a monster poem whose title echoes a renowned Halloween rock & roll ditty.

In this issue, it is our tradition to announce the winners of the SFPA’s annual poetry contest, the Dwarf Stars award for micropoems, and the Elgin Awards celebrating the best speculative poetry books and chapbooks published within the last two years. I offer my personal congratulations to all the winners, and would like especially to note that frequent Star*Line contributor Holly Lyn Walrath won huge this year! She won both the short form and long form categories in the poetry contest, as well as the chapbook division in the Elgin. Brava, Holly!

I would also like to announce that I have a new editorial assistant, Robyn Groth, who is herself a speculative poet. Welcome, Robyn!

While you indulge in holiday feasts, I hope you will equally enjoy the smorgasbord of poetry we are serving up in these pages. Oppa!

—Vince Gotera, Star*Line Editor

---

Editor's Choice Poems

"The Scarecrow," by Tara Campbell

by William Blaze

Scarecrow Scarecrow, burning bright
In the cornfields of the night:
What cursed hay, what dread disease
Hath stuffed thy ragged dungarees?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the coals that light thine eyes?
What the sorcery, what dread game
Hath fashioned thee, unharmed by flame,

To rush enkindled through these parts
With flick’ring feet and burning heart?
And when thy heart began to glow
Why, did thy maker even know

That thou wouldst not burn with the rest,
Those nibbling beasts and wingéd pests?
What conflagration, what dread pyre
Hath unleashed thee, who lives on fire?

When the farmhouse crackled down
And gusting wind spread sparks toward town
Did he shudder his work to see?
Did he who burnt the fields free thee?

Scarecrow Scarecrow, burning bright
In the cornfields of the night:
What cursed hay, what dread disease
Preserves thy ragged dungarees?

---

"Bride of Frankenstein: Our Lady of Rage," by Andrea Blythe

You were such a newborn thing, head fluttering like a bird’s. Barely time to take in the existence of the room, the windows, the two men who dressed you in lightning, before He is presented to you. You to him. It’s all wrong. For one thing, he is nameless, and for another, a bride has to say yes. Even in mock ceremonies, even when coerced, the word has to be heard. Such a young thing, just learned to walk. You scream. You were made for him, but you scream. How were you supposed to know? Just wakened, just learning to walk on stiff, stuttering legs, just learning the world exists, so you scream and reach for Frankenstein. Not the monster, but the man who plays God and is only a monster on the inside. You don’t know, and you don’t know what you don’t know. They make shushing sounds. Sweet little bird, little bird, with twitching head and fearful eyes. Little bird with a hulking man stroking your hand. Nice guy inside, nice and lonely and desperate. Stroking your hand, and you scream. You don’t know and he’s only so nice, because he doesn’t know. None of them know. Dead girls belong with dead boys, they think. You hiss, a swan enraged. God knows life once created doesn’t do what it’s told.

---

"Martian Red," by Naomi Libicki

Situated on the rough-ridged red
Slopes of Arsia Mons, a sprawling complex
Of climate-controlled caves and domes of ice:
The Beridze Vineyards. For frail legs
Still used to micrograv, it’s a body-
Straining hike. Breathe through your nose.

As every seasoned Martian tourist knows
(Because of all the guidebooks they have read)
Agriculture’s automated. Nobody
Leaves the habitats to tend complex
Machines. But this once stretch your legs.
Brave the dust storms and the glacial ice.

Vintner Nino Berizde won’t let ice
Keep her from her vines. She claims her nose
Is keener than a microchip. Her legs
Are bowed from years on Mars. Chapped and red,
Her hands can still handle the complex
Tasks her work claims from an aging body.

With a smile of welcome for anybody
Who comes to visit her domain of ice
She’ll show you around the whole complex
Regale you with the vintner’s lore she knows
The lighted caverns where she grows her reds
Radiation-proof, her whites climb crystal legs.

Then, tasting. Saperavi: opaque legs
With notes of spice and chocolate. Full-bodied,
Georgia’s—and now Mars’s—favorite red.
Next: Arsia Riesling. It’s an ice
Wine, made from frozen grapes. Its nose
Is fruity. Its finish is complex.

For the true connoisseur of complex
Flavors, Rkatsiteli. Pale legs,
Acacia, smoke, and ginger on the nose.
High acid, a long finish, medium body.
And more wines: whites as clear as ice
Deep indigo berry-scented reds.

Delight your nose. Flavors as complex
As the Red Planet. Though your legs
Protest, your body aches—the trip is worth the ice.

---

"The Planets? Sweet…," by Harris Coverley

potassium fields
black dot in a fast orbit
that Winged Messenger

false paradise lost
acid rain drowning all eyes
pressure crushing souls

very noisy place
fights over fragments of earth
this our only home

landforms of giants
imagine picnicking in
those cold rusty sands

jolly creator
impressed with infinite storms
destroyer of worlds

thin bracelets of ice
sandy Bringer of Old Age
over methane seas

past dark frontiers
with Shakespearean children
tilted Magician

nitrogen streaked son
supersonic crystal winds
a Mystic outpost

---

"The Nonpareils," by Kathleen A. Lawrence

I wasn’t a sorcerer or ugly witch
and I didn’t stir a black cauldron
or saw women in half for a show.

Neither would I conjure magical
spirits like Merlin or quell rivalries,
like the hexes of Baron Samedi.

Yes, I was single, lonely, drawn
black—but a creator, a baker at heart,
who just wanted sweet deliciousness.

So what if it came at the expense
of trespassing, precocious thieves,
foolishly unafraid of the dark woods.

Those were my lemon drops,
cherry lollipops, and iced candies
that they gobbled with sticky fingers.

I was minding my business mixing
an angel-food cake and needed
spice, salt, sugar and leavening.

The oven was ready, pan greased,
and diet abandoned for heavenly,
tender, candy-coated siblings.

---

"Go Bag," by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

We were off at school
when it happened,
and fighting our way back
wasn’t as much fun
as in the movies.

But we got home
and Ella saw the note first,
stuck to the fridge
with blood and Gabe’s
old Elmo magnet.

That’s why we stayed
out of the garage,
and left the second stash
of weapons and the truck
to what was left of her.

We didn’t talk much,
just added what we wanted
to the bags that Ma had
prepped there by the door, and
started towards the lake.

I never asked what
Gabe and Ella grabbed.
I took my favorite fairy tales—
all happily ever after—
and some chocolate.

In the end, no matter what
we face upon the road,
I'll have some of what
I need for s’mores,
and something I can burn.

---

Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Dragons & Rayguns * Vince Gotera
• SFPA Announcements
• President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
• From the Small Press • John Reinhart, David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• In Memoriam: Vertigo Xi’an Xavier • Joshua Gage
• Spanish Speculative Poetry • Carmen Lucía Alvarado (Translated by Toshiya Kamei)

Art

• Prelude to Bygones • Marge Simon
• Area 51 Rug • Boris Grann & Neil Strahl
• Control Panel • Denny E. Marshall
• Altered Fairy • Mindy Watson
• That’s Odd • Boris Grann and & Neil Strahl

Poetry

• The End as It Was • Holly Day
• Monster Mash • Alan Ira Gordon
• Nothing Ghost Can Stay • Tara Campbell
• Somewhere beyond outer space • Ronald A. Busse
• Lunatic • Michael R. Collings
• [naming animals] • F. J. Bergmann
• Alien Hands of Deliverance • Russell Hemmell
• [pink unicorn] • David F. Shultz
• [a river terrapin] • Alzo David-West
• A simpler time • F. J. Bergmann
• The Scarecrow • Tara Campbell
• [zombie view] • LeRoy Gorman
• All’s Fair in Love and War • Avra Margariti
• [our planet] • F. J. Bergmann
• Why I No Longer Sherpa at Olympus Mons • Robert Borski
• Summit • Rich Magahiz
• [in a parallel universe doG] • LeRoy Gorman
• In Name Only • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [trying to remember] • F. J. Bergmann
• Parents • James Dorr
• Facebook Friend Request • Matthew Wilson
• [O l] • LeRoy Gorman
• Fast Forward • David Barber
• [Aliens are here] • Richard Leis
• [cosmic creature] • Brian Gene Olson
• [battle drills] • Nick Hoffman
• [lovely envoy] • ayaz daryl nielsen
• Gourmet Warning • James Dorr
• Android Thanksgiving • J. P. Brown
• The Break Up • Gretchen Tessmer
• [not enough pods] • Susan Burch
• [politico] • LeRoy Gorman
• Sailor Come Home • Kathleen A. Lawrence
• [hiding] • Susan Burch
• Prelude to Bygones • Marge Simon
• hounded harriers • Rich Magahiz
• Anachronism • Robert Borski
• Bride of Frankenstein: Our Lady of Rage • Andrea Blythe
• Steampunk Christmas • David Clink
• Having a Ball • F. J. Bergmann
• Robert Goddard at Roswell • Alan Ira Gordon
• [a long day’s rest] • ayaz daryl nielsen
• [Green Living for Dummies] • LeRoy Gorman
• [tentacles emerge] • Denny E. Marshall
• Mutant Narcissus • T. R. Jones
• top 10 generation ship prototypes • LeRoy Gorman
• [staring at] • Susan Burch
• Cinderella: An Update on Carriages • Sandra Lindow
• Martian Red • Naomi Libicki
• All That We Love • Christina Sng
• A One-Captain Ship • Gerri Leen
• [alien poet] • F. J. Bergmann
• New Planet Landscape 23 • Ken Poyner
• Tour Guide to Immortality • Alexander P. Garza
• The Laughing Kapre • Michael Janairo
• [hungry and searching] • ayaz daryl nielsen
• The Fledgling • Deborah L. Davitt
• Goblin • Donald Raymond
• Mountains of the Moon • Kim Whysall-Hammond
• Waste Not, Want Not • James Dorr
• Incoming Message • T. R. Jones
• Tall Tale • Mary Soon Lee
• [Casper] • Brian Gene Olson
• The Planets? Sweet… • Harris Coverley
• [camping at the edge] • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Amulet • Michael Janairo
• [a starship in flames] • ayaz daryl nielsen
• Lichtenberg Bride • Robert Borski
• Whole Brain Emulation • R. Mac Jones
• [All Hallows Eve] • LeRoy Gorman
• One Eye • Richard Stevenson
• Red Globes • Matthew Wilson
• Then I Vomited My Children • Cash Toklas
• A Little Planet of My Own • Gene Twaronite
• [bustling cityscape] • Marcus Vance
• Drought • Matthew Wilson
• Intelligence Imperative • Robin Helweg-Larsen
• transmitting selfies • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• No trespassing • Matthew Wilson
• The Nonpareils • Kathleen A. Lawrence
• Society Page • T. R. Jones
• Delicate flesh • Jenny Blackford
• [Kemet computers] • William Landis
• The Lovers Across the Strait • Dawn Vogel
• Taking the Show on the Road • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [Daredevil my god] • Robin Wyatt Dunn
• Reboot • Benjamin Whitney Norris
• [stale morning smog] • Nick Hoffman
• Curves & Dimensions • Gretchen Tessmer
• [pretending it’s rain] • Nick Hoffman
• Area 51 Custodian Gets Coffee • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
• Orbit • David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [snowmobile rentals] • Ronald A. Busse
• The Red King’s Dream • DJ Tyrer
• A Scream Pierces the Night / Un grito hiere la noche • Carmen Lucía Alvarado (Translated by Toshiya Kamei)
• Go Bag • Marcie Lynn Tentchoff