Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End by Pedro Iniguez
  • Rhonda by Gerri Leen
  • The Comedown by Jennifer Crow
  • The Boatman Statue by Daniel Ausema
  • [flying forward in time] by Lauren McBride

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: freedom is where poetry lives

It is frightening to live in a time when our freedoms are threatened. But it is important to remember that our rights and freedoms are never set in stone, and that they can be gained, revoked, and regained. Culture is always in flux and there are always those who would wish to exploit rather than see justice and individual freedom flourish. While those who would impose their beliefs and ideas unto others may at times succeed, there is a freedom that they can never take away, freedom of thought. This freedom is where poetry lives. Where our words can manifest entire worlds and universes in the mind, and actuate real change in meatspace. Words are that powerful. Language is a weapon, and we must choose to wield it for positive change. I do not say this to suggest that you must write political poetry, but rather to insinuate that poetry is a conversation. One in which feelings can be shared, empathy learned, and experiences transferred from one mind to another. We learn about ourselves and each other through these stories. Poetry is that powerful.

Never forget that they can’t take our freedom of thought away, and that we can flex our strength by using our craft against the repression of ideas. We can use our words to show the world what we think, our visions of a better world, and to share each other’s feelings. We can use our words to write the powers that be and hold them accountable. We can use our words to alter perceptions. We can use our words to change the world, and indeed to create new ones. We can use our words to write history. We can use our words to educate. Your poetry is powerful and your words are strong. Never forget that freedom of the mind is yours and cannot be taken away. Your poetry is power.

And congratulations to this year’s Rhysling winners, and the Dwarf Stars and Elgin nominees!

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

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Editor's Choice Poems

"The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence Plaguing Our Schools Must End" by Pedro Iniguez

Their atoms dust the floors
of every school in the country;
those frightened children
we can no longer console.

Their cries have faded
into inaudible wavelengths
inside a quantum world where
hugs and spacetime both cease to exist.

They have dissolved into mere fractions
of their corporeal selves,
their particles swept into dustpans
and mopped into oblivion.

Blame those new blasters inundating the market,
stowed inside scores of scruffy backpacks;
the preferred choice of disgruntled
circuit-heads throughout the nation.

As parents, we stand before you
requesting prompt legislation to end
the rampant wave of shrink-ray-gun violence
endemic to our culture.

We beg you.
Think of the children,
screaming
beneath the soles of your shoes.

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"Rhonda," by Gerri Leen

I named you after
A German shepherd
I loved as a child
You aren’t a dog
But you’re the closest
This planet can provide

I found you alone
Young enough to be gentled
Until you were loyal
And loving, you slept
At the foot of my bed
Your head on my feet

I bury you now in the place
I first found you, wrapped
In a biolock film to keep
Others of your kind safe
They told us the local fauna
Might make us sick

They forgot to say the reverse
Also applied
I should have left you alone
To live or die as this world
Demanded—not indulged the humanity
That ultimately did you in

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"The Comedown," by Jennifer Crow

He used to build starships.
If you hand him a few credit chips, he tells you
That part of his story: the calluses
Still rough on the pads of his fingers,
The squint of his faded-denim
Gaze burned in by solar flares. I learned from my dad,
He says, hands twitching on the decking.
The trade, yeah, and distant worlds
And he taught me about the demon, too.
You glance over your shoulder
Where wormhole traffic rushes and blurts
Beyond sight, lights flickering,
And you wonder if he means the poison
He injects, or something else,
Something crueler yet. He laughs
At a joke you don’t hear, and pockets
The credits you slipped him, a vanishing
Gleam like the cruiser disappearing
Beyond the station’s artificial horizon.
Maybe it’s curiosity, or guilt, that nudges
The next words out of your mouth:
That’s a strange thing for a father
To give his child. You remember
Your dad’s sudden rages, thunderstorms
Sharp and bright and fearsome, fading
Just as sudden, and tamp down
On the same electric fire rising in your chest.
He tried his best, the junkie says,
And forgiveness of a sort glows
In his clouded eyes. It’s a hard life,
Full of pain. You nod. It’s only true,
And only now you understand.
The high always brings the comedown
In its wake, the slow detonation
Unpeeling the hero like a rotting fruit
And leaving destruction behind,
A hypodermic pinch settling in cankered flesh.

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"The Boatman Statue," by Daniel Ausema

an immense statue, we haul ourselves
onto the carven gunwales, explore
the uncanny lines of oar and bow,
what is this colossus that appeared
on our canyon floor,
posed as if to row the red rock,
to cross to some land
beyond the canyon walls? for days
we pondered, explored, and finally forgot,
went on as if the statue had always stood there.

until at last those stone muscles moved
and at a pace of a pace a day, the oars pulled,
leveraged deep into solid stone,
propelled across our world.

we climbed inside and now we wait
to learn where the mystery will take us
and those who come after.

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"[flying forward in time]," by Lauren McBride

flying forward in time
suddenly piloting
an antique spaceship

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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, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, John Reinhart, Lisa Timpf
• Stealth SF * “That Haiku That You Do” * Denise Dumars
• SpecPo Publishing * Interview with David C. Kopaska-Merkel * Jean-Paul Garnier
• Xenopoetry * Déserteuses (Deserters) * Charles Cros, translated by F. J. Bergmann

Art

• Holding the Rose * R. Mac Jones
• Reclaimed Outpost * Austin Hart

Poetry

• The Epidemic of Shrink-Ray-Gun Violence … * Pedro Iniguez
• [collecting scrap metal] * Matthew Wilson
• Remembrance * Ian Willey
• [still fixed on Kepler-24] * Nick Hoffman
• Coronation * Marisca Pichette
• Ordinary Witches * Meg Smith
• The Long Big Quiet * Mary Soon Lee
• Mare Serenitatis * Oz Hardwick
• Idles of the Closet Monster * Ken Poyner
• Positively Love it Here * Lauren McBride
• [reptilian takeover] * LeRoy Gorman
• Pas de Trois * Gerri Leen
• T-Rex Detective * Randall Andrews
• Offerings to a Voiceless Star * Jean-Louis Trudel
• Abandoned Sun * Eva Papasoulioti
• [tombstone] * Greg Schwartz
• Castaway * Shelly Jones
• To Become the Elf Queen’s Bride * Avra Margariti
• [dream recording] * Tyler McIntosh
• Planet Seeds * Garrett Carroll
• [Visitor arrives] * DJ Tyrer
• The Adaptation of the Species * Daniel Bourne
• [Leafy alien] * Herb Kauderer
• A Knight Retires * Mary Soon Lee
• Nekroevolution * Yuliia Vereta
• The Gods Bleed * Goran Lowie
• horsegirl * Jordan Hirsch
• Meanwhile, in this created corner * Richard Magahiz
• A Postcard for Count Dracula * William Shaw
• [rogue winds] * Lauren McBride
• The Ghostly Scarecrow of Chiang Rui * Richard Stevenson
• His Blushing Bride * Gretchen Tessmer
• Evolution * Donna Glee Williams
• Rhonda * Gerri Leen
• [Black cat, golden eyes] * Adele Gardner
• [felines seize big tech] * Gary Davis
• [pet cat] * Matthew Wilson
• Chicago 2033: Big Brother versus the Tiny Alien Who Lives on Sandra * Alicia Hilton
• Ogre Series * Akua Lezli Hope
• [a UFO crash] * Gabriel Smithwilson
• Weather Forecast * John C. Mannone
• [another birthday] * John Hawkhead
• One Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Nine Years after the Apocalypse * Gabriel Meek
• The Voyage to Mars and Onwards (for Two Voices) * Melanie A. Rawls
• [ramscoop] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [the last Martians] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [Martian petroglyphs] * Joshua St. Claire
• [Martian Spaceways] * Stephen C. Curro
• Black Ice, Cracked Dreams * WC Roberts
• Winning Chess Brilliancies for the 21st Century * Richard Magahiz
• On A Clear Day * Alan Ira Gordon
• [on fire in orbit] * Lauren McBride
• The Comedown * Jennifer Crow
• Doing Her Part to Combat Sexism in the Sciences * Beth Cato
• Syph * Marisca Pichette
• The Coral Wreck * Jennifer Crow
• The Boatman Statue * Daniel Ausema
• [flying forward in time] * Lauren McBride
• [time jump to Noah’s era] * Lisa Timpf
• March Hag * Jeanette Gibson
• [Veniforming] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• And To and By * Ai Jiang
• Alien Astrology * Mary Soon Lee
• [orbital ring] * Jonathan Roman
• Mummies * H. Russell Smith
• Oh Children * Kendall Evans
• Nest of the Eye-Thief * Jean-Marie Romana
• every dead man trades his body for dust * Chukwuma Eke Pacella Chioma
• Mother, Grandmother, God * Beth Cato
• Interstellar Pirate * Kendall Evans
• Brother * Helena Pantsis
• [Eating my Captain’s Log] * Francene Kaplan
• Remembering Forward * Deborah L. Davitt
• [the wake dims back …] * Robin Wyatt Dunn
• The End of the World Happens Suddenly, and on a Continual Basis * Bobby Parrott
• my bones thirst * Dennis Maulsby
• States of Antimatter * Brian Garrison
• [house of mirrors] * Barun Saha