Cover: Overview © Michal Kvác
Editor: F. J. Bergmann
Layout: F. J. Bergmann
Production Manager: F. J. Bergmann
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Wyrms & Wormholes: Riding off into the Sunset
This will (presumably) be our last issue of editing Star*Line; it was great to be back in the saddle again, however briefly. And the marvelous submissions ensure that it’s always a great ride! Thanks to our advertisers in this issue who support SFPA and its awards.
Your editor has just had her second dose of Covid-19 vaccine! Soon everyone will be assimilated … er, vaccinated (we hope). Bring on the parties, live readings and SF conventions!
—F. J. Bergmann, Star*Line Editor
Editor's Choice Poems
"[under the bridge]" by Greg Schwartz
under the bridge
the troll devours
a good book
"Plans for Departure," by Howie Good
This feels like the worst place one could possibly be—insurrectionists on the front steps, an unkindness of ravens in the yard, a side door that requires a sign explaining how to open it. I’m leaving for … I don’t know where. Maybe somewhere bombs would only ever kill the bomb makers. You can come if you wish. I can’t promise there’ll be roads and buildings made of spider silk or that lakes will gently bubble to the dreams of sleeping fish, but light will reach us even a million years after the source of light has gone out.
"Shortened," by Daniel G. Fitch
Around that rock,
around that star,
we spent many days
and later on, our nights as well
staring into the so-called face of god:
as the features congealed and formed,
sending our many machines down to
crawl through chaos on the sliding plates,
burning and terraforming at the edges
of our own (personal) hells above and below,
the angry volcanoes spidering out great
solidifying stone that one day will be the sands.
We should dream, but still we sit awake
in orbit, a black refusal to engage.
The cells now multiply; the fish climb
back and forth from the oceans of time;
and finally apes send their fragile metals
toward our stars, our home undetected, but
we end up somehow
shortened
under that long sun,
enslaved to a past we no longer remember,
the target moving, the endpoint not
yet fixed in our predictions; to lose faith as
the planet’s curve decays and grows
warmer still. The life grows so fast
it chokes itself. I tell you for certain, now:
This age is a place we did not
choose to call home. A coin
thrown down for luck at last into
the doctrine of eternal recursion,
with the sand looping over and over
in the shoreline’s shifting waves,
the civilization’s biome long gone,
but still we float unseen
above the sky and
refuse to sink
long-gone toes into
that well-worn sand.
"Glitter," by Jordan Hirsch
There are shards of sky glass on my bare shoulder.
Alarms of imminent decompression
blaring in my ears. Dominoes falling
One then two then three—taking down empires.
The molten hull of our ship raining down
to the surface is safer than signing
any treaty our diplomats carry.
Safe for souls on the planet at least.
Don’t call me a martyr; my sins outweigh
delaying the domination of one
pristine planet, an Eden ignorant
of the corruption our handshakes promise.
Here I stand, planted between these people
and their loss of agency, naked and
covered in righteousness, the glitter of
my own broken ship decorating me.
It’s one ship, but let these sparks fly lightyears
to stoke embers of revolution throughout
this so-called heaven. May the scales held
by Justice’s hand tip an inch toward mercy.
"Wormhole," by Nnadi Samuel
after the movie Interstellar (2014)
ruin their stalks.
men of little maize die amazingly often in a windvane
with haywires firm to their throat—
cyst we rip off, & fling to space,
or bedrooms,
where fathers become their children’s ghost,
promising comebacks & bliss
& time between them as Einstein’s ring.
he’ll grope the wormhole to touch an age;
a different timezone robotic in pace
& moon rifles.
faces he had known, whittling to shape
like dew points.
they do nothing to the corn bulbs dying how they breathe.
survivors, more relic than their looks,
than centuries they lose to a trace of data signaled home,
as a flood, or pool, or watering tool
for their hood having dust bowls for food.
on earth, a teen twiced her father’s age
& lived with that decision.
& the world did not end, because nothing ends far from home.
& I’m that man, detached,
approached like a horizon,
relearning Newton’s third law & emotion.
all my god sides, preached down,
to go through this.
I have my visual of events all jammed, like killer drones,
& I crash into a new earth,
becoming my daughter’s ghost when I seance her to break rules,
& read gravity:
dot-dot, then dash.
& I’m centuried like noon, like a millennium for two:
her fate & mine knowing me back to her sickbed,
made grey to abuse my looks.
"There Will Come Soft Rains," by Deanie Vallone
What slinks between the city’s
hollow monoliths, we’ll never
know—we were half-gone by
the first deluges that felled
sweeps of forest and schoolhouses
alike. The cold snap took
the rest and now these roving
beasts make a home of our
wreck, lap water from our skulls,
dampen our history with their
wet tongues until we bleed
into black smears on white pages.
"[terrestrial furlough]," by LeRoy Gorman
terrestrial furlough
the unforgettable green
war graves
"flight to nowhere," by Davian Aw
acrylic windows black with night,
no stars outside
(should there be stars?)
(surely there should be stars)
low drone of engines
ride oddly smooth
as though you were gliding
through something
altogether different from air
passengers buckled in seats
wires streaming down cheeks
gazing at screens
the muted fear in their eyes
surely just your imagination
stewards run drink trolleys
down carpeted aisles
smiles tight on their faces
(they have run out of drinks)
(all of their trolleys are bare)
it is better not to:
—move
—speak
—remove your belt
—take your eyes from the movie
(it is not a movie)
(it is an icon of a plane
in a sea of darkness)
the seatbelt signs
have been on
for a very long time
do not scream for the captain
(it is not the captain)
(and what would you do)
(if the captain comes)
Full Table of Contents
Departments
- Wyrms & Wormholes * F. J. Bergmann
- SFPA Announcements
- President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
- From the Small Press * Rebecca Buchanan, Daniel G. Fitch, John Philip Johnson, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Sandra J. Lindow, Richard Magahiz, Thomas E. Simmons, Marge Simon, Lisa Timpf
- Stealth SF * “Planned Obsolescence” * Denise Dumars
- Writing Spec Po * Love, Hate, and Poetry Titles * Herb Kauderer
Art
- Space Base * Denny E. Marshall
- Matrix Arrival * Denny E. Marshall
- Delivery Dragon * Baishampayan Seal
Poetry
- Goldilocks Stars * Ann K. Schwader
- [space station] * Greg Schwartz
- A Motley of Unicorns * Mary Soon Lee
- [under the bridge] * Greg Schwartz
- Unincorporated Territories * Mack W. Mani
- Plans for Departure * Howie Good
- Today I Make the Mourning Wreath * Denise Dumars
- Commodity * Sadie Maskery
- from “The First God” * Marc Vincenz
- [two belief zones …] * Barbara Candiotti
- Social Media * Ian Willey
- It Doesn’t Matter What You’re Made Of * Duke Kimball
- Mission: Ares * Russell Nichols
- [dome crop harvest] * Deborah P Kolodji
- [windblown newspapers] * Marcus Vance
- Teatime with a Shapeshifter * Mary Soon Lee
- [Down in the river] * Denise Dumars
- Letting Go * Lisa Timpf
- [Twenty-sixth-century colonials] * Andy Dibble
- Shortened * Daniel G. Fitch
- [earth annihilated] * Davian Aw
- [brainwaves—] * Barun Saha
- Stress Level Test (Self-Assessment) * Pankaj Khemka
- Lust in the Time of the Bubonic Plague * Avra Margariti
- Glitter * Jordan Hirsch
- [gossip] * Deborah P Kolodji
- Anamnesis * David Barber
- Directions to the Apocalypse * Mary Soon Lee
- [a hissing leak in the airlock] * LeRoy Gorman
- No Bad Publicity * Lynne Sargent
- [tattoo inked on your arm] * Matthew Wilson
- Classical Romance * Sarah Cannavo
- moonrise * Jennifer Crow
- [while you were busy] * John Reinhart
- Wormhole * Nnadi Samuel
- [receiving messages from john] * William Clunie
- A List of Grievances * Jason P. Burnham
- Prayer for Moving Up * Andy Dibble
- [dinner with Earthlings] * Marcus Vance
- Conversations Caught on Street Corners * Matthew Wilson
- I’m Thinking a Gift Shop * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- More than Mortal * Randall Andrews
- [trying to lose weight] * Matthew Wilson
- Magical Girl Transformation * Leslie J. Anderson
- There Will Come Soft Rains * Deanie Vallone
- In Garden Buried * Robin Helweg-Larsen
- The Second-to-Last Man on Earth * David Gianatasio
- Warm Front * Peter Archer
- Lacus Felicitatis * Josh Pearce
- [If my mind become a fortress] * Robin Wyatt Dunn
- Because The Night * Alan Ira Gordon
- Well(s) Met * Raymond Gallucci
- One day the Morlocks will come for me * Joel Ferdon
- Lycanthropy * Deanie Vallone
- The Astronaut, Lost in the Hellas Basin * Bruce McAllister
- Nothing to Do * Andy Dibble
- [a galaxy] * LeRoy Gorman
- Orbituary * Ann K. Schwader
- Eridanus * Januário Esteves
- Night and the Robot: A Sestina * Jon Hansen
- Divine * Leslie J. Anderson
- How to Autopsy an Enemy Alien * Mary Soon Lee
- [terrestrial furlough] * LeRoy Gorman
- Galactic Archivist * Valentin D. Ivanov
- Postulate #4 * Timons Esaias
- flight to nowhere * Davian Aw
- [I’m trying to sleep] * Marcus Vance
- [waiting] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- The Astronomy of Monsters * Jason Kahler
- Hitched * Bruce McAllister
- Ghost Story * Sarah Cannavo
- What Mad Pursuit * Mariel Herbert
- The Bomb has Hit * Coleman Bomar
- Sonnet Written above Jezero Crater * P. Aaron Potter
- Dog Plus * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
- [muscle memory] * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
- Callisto Dreaming * Mariel Herbert
- Sense of Self * Brian Garrison
- Crossroads * Colleen Anderson