Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • The Things That Killed Us: A History through Art by Pedro Iniguez
  • [hibernation] by Karl Lykken
  • All Are Welcome by Christina Sng
  • What Bees Read by Mary Soon Lee
  • elites see elites by Herb Kauderer

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: Together We Roar

Congratulations to our Rhysling, Dwarf Stars, SFPA Contest, and Elgin winners! The winners and nominees are a credit to the SFPA, so many wonderful poets it’s overwhelming. Once again it has been a joy to read everyone’s work, especially from speculative poets around the world. This issue features poems from eleven countries, and eighteen states within the U.S. Our international community remains strong and continues to grow. As our governments move towards cultural isolationism and xenophobia we fight back through connection and positive visions of the future, one species crying out into the void and yearning for better worlds, possible worlds. Our individual voices may be quiet but together we roar!

In other exciting news, Zara Kand, this issue’s cover artist, has donated the original 11x14” oil painting and we’ll be holding a fundraising auction for one lucky winner to take the painting home.

—Jean-Paul L. Garnier, Star*Line Editor

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Editor's Choice Poems

"The Things That Killed Us: A History through Art" by Pedro Iniguez

Paintings on cave walls:
Depictions of hunters gored by prey.
Graffiti on colosseum pillars:
Etchings of gladiators speared in combat.
Chalk drawings on sidewalks:
Portraits of victims killed in cars.
Murals on buildings:
Scenes of citizens murdered by police.
Digital images on visors:
Renderings of soldiers vaporized in war.
Paintings on cave walls:
Depictions of Earth seared in fire.

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"[hibernation]," by Karl Lykken

hibernation
2,580,000 years
silent, sightless depths
global warming
awakening

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"All Are Welcome," by Christina Sng

Everyone was mostly polite
Through their clicking sounds
And pincer-like arms

But we drew a line when
The alien couple decided
To have our brains for lunch.

Their banishment began
An interplanetary conflict
That turned Mars red

And ended the First Age of Man.

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"What Bees Read," by Mary Soon Lee

The essentials of their trade:
horticulture, crop forecasts,
Farmers' Almanac, hive design;
perturbing reports on pesticides,
poison, parasites, pathogens,
their collapsing population.

And to pass the winter hours
as they huddle round the queen,
anything to delight or distract:
flower catalogs, choreography,
royal gossip, glossy art books
featuring Georgia O'Keeffe.

The queen, alone in a crowd,
reads of sky lanterns, da Vinci,
Coleman, Earhart, Sputnik, Venera,
Tereshkova, each stepping-stone
toward the day her daughters
dance on other worlds.

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"elites see elites," by Herb Kauderer

first contact assumed
emissaries & eminence

failed to consider
exiles, escapees,
transported prisoners

overlooked Terran history
left governments scrambling
to react to the unanticipated

because
when the day of first contact arrived
image building & negotiation
were set aside

in the face of a flood of refugees
escaping impressment

and while compassion & protection
are summoned
to give new visitors succor

the elites make plans
for meeting the aliens
whom the refugees flee

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Wyrms & Wormholes * Jean-Paul Garnier
• SFPA Announcements
• President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
• From the Small Press * Herb Kauderer, Sandra J. Lindow, Rich Magahiz, Marge Simon, Lisa Timpf
• Stealth SF * “Submission Guidelines from the Devil” * Denise Dumars
• Writing Spec Po * The Grand Design * F. J. Bergmann
• Xenopoetry * 白金城市 (Platinum City) * Yuan Hongri, translated from the Chinese by Manu Mangattu

Art

• untitled * Sandy DeLuca & Marge Simon
• Deployed * Denny E. Marshall

Poetry

• In Memory Yet Green * Alan Ira Gordon
• Hallowed Eve * Sarah Cannavo
• [love letters …] * Lauren McBride
• [noisy chatterbox] * Gary W. Davis
• Hurting Wounds, Forgotten Colours * Russell Hemmell
• Demons * Beth Cato
• it’s how this hillside weeps … * Simon Perchik
• [a villain reciting] * ayaz daryl nielsen
• The Things That Killed Us: A History through Art * Pedro Iniguez
• Cautionary Tail * Hayley Stone
• A Haiku Howdunit Murder Mystery * John H. Dromey
• Near c * Jason P. Burnham
• Blow * Holly Day
• [you have five seconds …] * Robin Wyatt Dunn
• [the ship shudders] * Greg Fewer
• Daedalus’s Daughter * Mary Soon Lee
• In a Galaxy’s Final Hours * Meg Smith
• [hibernation] * Karl Lykken
• Evening Encounter at Arecibo Observatory * Beatriz F. Fernandez
• The Dream Fields of Hell * Christina Sng
• In Memoriam: Spring * Dan Bornstein
• Alchemical Gambit * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Sky Water * Joshua St. Claire
• India Lima Yankee * Gerri Leen
• [empty heirloom vase] * Deborah P Kolodji
• Classic * Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
• [across eons] * Barun Saha
• Twelve * Sara Cleto & Brittany Warman
• Re-Wilding Time * Marissa Lingen
• Last Angel * Bruce McAllister
• Heart of Darkness * Christina Sng
• Sharp Gaze * Lynne Sargent
• Ghost at the Golden Fleece * Colleen Anderson
• All Are Welcome * Christina Sng
• Machine Machination * Dick Narvett
• Two Come Together * Robin Rose Graves
• Where and When * Gerri Leen
• What Bees Read * Mary Soon Lee
• Recawlection * Lorraine Schein
• Surgery * Ashley Bao
• Mission Assignment Lottery * Jenny Thompson
• The Fall * Matthew Chamberlin
• In the City of Feasting Banshees * Tara Campbell
• Watching Wide-Eyed * Lauren McBride
• Surreal Science Nightmare * Bruce Boston
• Double Homing * Warner Robinson
• The Clinic * William Shaw
• Tourism Credits * Herb Kauderer
• elites see elites * Herb Kauderer
• the not-a-dog * Richard Magahiz
• Absolute * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [magic shoppe] * Greg Schwartz
• As the Wind Drives the Mist * Michelle Muenzler
• The Watering Hole at Ms. Millie’s Mythic Tavern * B. Sharise Moore
• [eternal thinness] * Amber Winter
• [time nibbles] * PS Cottier
• Oedipus Astronauticus * Bobby Parrott
• The Cult of Lethe and Mnemosyne * Avra Margariti
• Ambient Mars * Garrett Carroll
• A Proton’s Fate at the LHC * Martin J. Elster
• Sarcosoma * Avra Margariti
• Hourglass * Jordan Hirsch
• Wedding Backward * James Arthur Anderson
• DIY Demon Disposal * John Reinhart
• Sword of Shadow * Garrett Carroll
• The Undertaker Undone * LindaAnn LoSchiavo
• Rebooted Heart * L. P. Melling
• Lovesick/Broken Heart * A. E. Chandler
• Space Stations of the Cross * Bill Abbott
• turning and turning * Brian Hugenbruch
• Radiometric Timepieces * David Jalajel
• [event horizon] * Stephen C. Curro
• Riding Down a Dream * Melissa Ridley Elmes
• Song of the Warrior Queen * Shelly Jones
• Commander Daphne * Jenna Le
• Toward a Theory of Something * Terrie Leigh Relf
• Orthodoxy of Stars * Nicholas G. Kealey
• A Peek * Francis W. Alexander