Cover: The Guide © Austin Arthur Hart
Editor: Jean-Paul L. Garnier
Layout: F. J. Bergmann
Production Manager: F. J. Bergmann
Mailing: Andrew Gilstrap
Buy this issue of Star*Line in print for $5.00 plus $2 U.S./$3 international shipping, or as a PDF for $2.50.
See our subscription page for details. Better yet, become a member of SFPA and never miss an issue!
Menu
Online Issue Contents
Wyrms & Wormholes: Dreamers Rise Up
I am delighted to bring you my first issue of Star*Line as editor. It has been an honor to read and select everyone’s poetry and to take the helm from a long line of esteemed editors. This issue features poetry from twelve countries, and from twenty-four states within the U.S. The scope and breadth of speculative poetry around the world is a source of wonder, and I am proud to be in the position to help steer the course for our amazing, peaceful army of dreamers and visionaries. It is my belief that together we can dream a better future and hear our song rise up into the infinite cosmos, with infinite possibility. I am deeply indebted to F. J. Bergmann and the rest of the executive committee for their guidance and help in learning the ropes of the magazine, and I’m looking forward to doing my part to help strengthen the SFPA. I can’t wait to read more of everyone’s work and to watch our ever-growing international community of poets thrive!
—Jean-Paul L. Garnier, Star*Line Editor
Editor's Choice Poems
"The Last Invader" by Lee Clark Zumpe
It squats on the charred metal bones
of a troop transport
on the outskirts of
some New England city—
long irradiated and still
but for the dusty winds
that invoke ghostly moans
as they pass through
vacant, windowless towers.
Put up a good fight,
these Earthlings,
even after the first wave
decimated their defenses;
no decisive victory
followed, though—
just long years of bloodshed
as the insurgency adapted;
advanced technology proved
less effective than anticipated.
Public support waned
as the arguments for invasion
grew nebulous:
the planet’s dwindling resources
no longer justified the appalling
loss of life …
… and Earthlings simply don’t
make good slaves.
It squats on the ruins,
the last invader,
overseeing the withdrawal
of occupying forces,
dreaming of returning to its home,
seeing its mate and their brood.
An unseen sniper, unaware
of the unspoken truce,
brings an end to its musings.
"The Ice Hunter," by Jennifer Silvey
The hunter searches the frozen earth, his prints
in calloused white snow.
Amethyst night without a kind
thought in it. Large icicles hang
and threaten to drop—the bone-chilling
creep through the forest, the wind
plays ice like cathedral bells.
The tundra spirit, a mist dragon
waits on some forgotten perch.
The wind blows snow on the highway.
The snow dances around like white snakes,
wrapping their slithering bodies
around rubber tires.
Into the arctic cavern:
the hunter crawls—
he presses his boots into ice—
he chaffs his hands on frozen spikes—
the cold smarts—the red on his face blossoms.
Then he sees the chest,
the dragon chest;
its heart but a ghost.
Its wings encased in ice. The body in red, yellow, and blue.
The Vritra serpent uncurls its eel like tongue:
a breath of thick will-o’-the-wisps melts
the ancient permafrost holding it back.
The bounty hunter,
in his heavy army jacket, in his industrial boots,
and in those obnoxiously large earmuffs—
he readies his shotgun
to buckshot the highest stalactite
to stake the winged serpent.
Off in another space miles away, a tea kettle screeches,
the house rattles, lights flicker. The cat hisses
at the screen door—a deep groan
from the four-legged feline—those snake eyes of hers.
Children sleep under quilts, the ticking clocks,
the mom reading in a rocking chair, waiting for her husband
to come home.
Some television anchor comments on the Idiatrod
winner—then a flash of white and a loud boom.
Television goes in and out,
digital flies cover up the screen,
followed by bright Technicolor bars.
The colors reflect in the woman’s glasses.
The ice cavern crumbled into a landslide.
The hunter found trapped in ice.
His orange earmuffs frame his face,
his pupils dilated—electricity
escapes from the metal and wires
poking out his cheek.
Will another android be sent
to escort Vritra to heaven?
"The Revenge of Henrietta Lacks," by Cecilia Caballero
She owns you
You owe her your life
All your medical advancements
The secrets to an immortal life
Held in her cells that never die
Black women will never die
HeLa cells travel space
Clone themselves
Created the polio and Covid-19 vaccines
Blood-pressure medications and antidepressants
That her daughter swallowed to keep herself alive
She lived in the former slave quarters of her ancestors
She was a tobacco-plantation farmer
She tended the plants, dried the leaves,
Packaged the profit.
And she worked the land
Underneath the 100-year-old oak tree
At the home-house.
She was a 14-year-old mother
She declined medical treatments for
Toothaches, syphilis, injuries, pain.
“Happy home” was noted in her medical file.
She was told she had cancer
And went home and did not
Tell anyone her fear of failure as a mother.
At the public wards for colored women
She was afraid her womb would be taken
She wanted to mother more
But she was treated with radioactive
Radium rods sewn into her cervix
A glow-in-the-dark substance
During her first cancer treatment
Her cells were taken
With the umbilical-cord blood
Of Black babies and mothers
And used to develop the first
Vials of human cell cultures
Made of salt and water and plasma.
And her cancer was mixed with chicken blood
And her cancer was mixed with chicken blood
And her cancer was mixed with chicken blood
Taken with a syringe from the still-beating heart
Of a chicken. They tell us this is science
When she mothers you without her consent.
And they call us witch doctors
And they call us witch doctors
And they call us witch doctors
And we are.
Because her daughter said
Blackness be spreadin all inside you.
Because we know
Blackness is not a cancer
But it cannot be killed.
"Damsel in Distress Redux," by Marsheila Rockwell
Her tower window
A knight below
Spinning tales of courtly love
Promising her freedom
She does not let down her hair
Spurned and sour, he rides away
She watches him go without regret
The wise princess knows
Rescues unasked for
Only forge new chains
"Nursing A Home For The Grandfather Paradox," by Soren James
The grandfather paradox got
out of bed,
put a pink playful outfit on
and a watch which barely
tells what day it is, then went
’bout its business
of savage, smily parricide.
Dressed in a DeLorean, the ’dox drove down
highways of expected traffic then
turned off, fell
into a spin
of funeral cost calculations
and casualty claims—doing so much these days
to deaden the ’dox’s power. Then,
later, and alone—tired, dispirited and bored—
Enough! said ’Dox.
I don’t care what damage is done,
I’m moulding a murderous means
to illustrate my anomaly—
even if it be
the death of …
’Dox ceased existence, its car careened
into the ditch in which
earlier it was found—
ideas still spilling like petrol, polluting its own
paradox as it got
out of bed,
put a pink playful outfit on
and a watch which barely …
Full Table of Contents
Departments
- Wyrms & Wormholes * Jean-Paul Garnier
- SFPA Announcements
- President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
- From the Small Press * Rebecca Buchanan, Marge Simon, Lisa Timpf
- Stealth SF * “We’re All in This Together” * Denise Dumars
- Xenopoetry * El vampiro (The Vampire) * Delmira Agustini, translated from the Spanish by Brittany Hause
Art
- Horizontal Adjustment * Denny E. Marshall
- Small Worm * John Pogline
- Landing * John Pogline
- If It Is to Be, It’s Up to Me * Christina Sng
Poetry
- New Planet Landscape 17 * Ken Poyner
- The Mysterious Black Cube * Ian Willey
- Orbital Mechanics * Ian Goh
- Dyson 2.0 * Deborah L. Davitt
- Apocalypse * Bruce McAllister
- [after implants] * Tyler McIntosh
- Dreams of Dead Worlds * Matthew Wilson
- The Message * Dawn Vogel
- Observation * Mary Cresswell
- Out of All the Experiences * Beth Cato
- To Find Life * Robin Rose Graves
- [coevolution] * Karl Lykken
- [suspended animation] * Greg Schwartz
- Fortune Teller * Lorraine Schein
- Visitation * Adele Gardner
- A Trickster’s Guide … * Avra Margariti
- Fruits of the Season * Federica Santini
- Inescapable Personality Disorders … * P. Aaron Potter
- [chalk silhouette] * Noel Sloboda
- History * Kenny A. Chaffin
- [after the earthquake] * Denny E. Marshall
- The Last Invader * Lee Clark Zumpe
- silver plate galaxy * D.A. Xiaolin Spires
- [homecoming] * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
- Married With Benefits * Russell Nichols
- Disappearance * John C. Mannone
- Avian Alchemy * Wesley D. Gray
- Lilith’s Cave * Kim Goldberg
- Non-Existential Dilemmas of Time Travel * P. Aaron Potter
- DogFood * Sydney Bernthold
- [werewolf doggy bag] * Alan Ira Gordon
- [meating halfway] * LeRoy Gorman
- Opening the Mouth * DJ Tyrer
- Don’t Change * Rhonda Parrish
- Red Cloak * Karie Jacobson
- [skin like fly-paper] * ayaz daryl nielsen
- Time Assignment * Felicia Martinez
- [spring storms goad mud slides] * Colleen Anderson
- Multipurpose * Sarah Cannavo
- The Ice Hunter * Jennifer Silvey
- Landscape * Coleman Bomar
- Exiled Leader * Robin Helweg-Larsen
- Hunger Dreams * Herb Kauderer
- Edifice * Mike Allen
- The Planet of The Planet of the Apes * K. V. K. Kvas
- Vegetable Garden on Quiva * John Grey
- Hagridden * Amelia Gorman
- Survivor * Jonel Abellanosa
- Love Songs on a Planet Circling Binary Stars * R. Mac Jones
- First to Bloom * Jason Burnham
- Dead World Canvas * Miguel O. Mitchell
- [a jungle planet] * Stephen C. Curro
- The Pelagic Colossus * Daniel Ausema
- The Revenge of Henrietta Lacks * Cecilia Caballero
- Fatherless * Roger Dutcher
- expanding life across worlds * Herb Kauderer
- Passing Sights * Garrett Carroll
- Sky King * Gretchen Tessmer
- Damsel in Distress Redux * Marsheila Rockwell
- Horses of Fire, Horses of Ice * Gerri Leen
- All the Difference * Sharon Cote
- Sleepless Beauty * Oliver Smith
- Undine Whispers * Hicham El Qendouci
- Nursing A Home For The Grandfather Paradox * Soren James
- [devices beep] * Barun Saha
- Clandestine * Keily Blair
- The Lie Machine * Louis B. Rosenberg
- [deep space Elvis] * Greer Woodward
- this too-solid flesh is not * Rich Magahiz
- Daily Fire * F. J. Bergmann
- The Priestess Considers Her Fate * Stewart C Baker
- Dropout * Mariel Herbert
- closer * Matthew Daley
- Thunderstorm on Terra II * Lauren McBride