Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • Robotic by Overcomer Ibiteye
  • Meatbag Writing Prompt by Jason P. Burnham
  • American as Atomic Pie by Pedro Iniguez
  • A Key for Every Lock by Gerri Leen
  • Chupa-Ku, Volume XX: No. 96–100 by Juan M. Perez

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: Keep Bringing the Light

I am always impressed by our international community of speculative poets. Poets from all over the world working together, and populating this magazine, gives me hope and reminds me that in some ways, as a species, we are achieving a positive future together. Of course, there’s always more to do, but we’re off to a great start. I remember back in the days when we had to do submissions by mail, the SASEs, and the terribly long wait times for the dreaded rejections and rare acceptances. Today we communicate without borders, and this serves as a reminder that we have made great progress and there are elements of our future that are positive and wonderful. It’s amazing how quickly we grow to take things for granted, such as the miracle of the videophone—these kinds of tech were the things that science fiction had always told us were possible and many of us pined for as children. Things can, and do, improve! So, no matter how much darkness is in the world, keep bringing the light; as individuals and as a group, you shine!

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

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Editor's Choice Poems

"Robotic" by Overcomer Ibiteye

Now that the night has speckled the sky
with infirmities,
We are left with no other option than to burn
under a stigma of stars,
our robes dripping with fire and ash.
The air still reeks of power,
but our bodies are already testaments of
fizzled brain lobes
broken bones
blistered minds induced
with anti-telekinetic drugs.
Under the shocked clouds, we refract into something strange
something robotic
something death cannot touch.

We lose our names
to be clothed with nuts and bolts.

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"Meatbag Writing Prompt," by Jason P. Burnham

1. Take the fingers you use to hold your pen when you sign your life away and insert them into your mouth
   
2. Feel past tongue, uvula, and larynx into the esophagus
   
3. Where you feel your heart beating on your fingerprints, grab and squeeze tightly
   
4. When the electrical system of your heart spasms, pull it back out through your mouth
   
5. With the quotidian dirt under your nails, scour back epicardium and let the fibrillations of your atria spill words onto the paper
   
6. The coagulated remnant words of a life finally unleashed into the lived world is your poem

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"American as Atomic Pie," by Pedro Iniguez

Simple instructions for those in power and on the go:
Start with drilling into the crust.
Pump any oil reservoirs you may find (We’ll use this later).
Take one stick of marginalized people and melt over skillet.
Dial up global warming until ice caps have completely thawed.
Begin making some dough. If you cannot make enough dough,
fire everyone and smother hot crude oil directly onto the panhandlers.
Add one cup of Harvey Milk’s fate.
If not on hand, substitute with baby formula and lead-tainted water mixture.
Toss in Granny Smith.
Bring down heat on her 401K (That’s 262.13°F).
Add a hit of nose sugar.
Dust with plenty of sinner men.
Scramble nuclear jet fighters until everything is mixed up.
Toss dissidents into oven.
As an alternative to ovens, use microwaves and nuke it all.
Caution: Food will be hot.
And there you have it; a wonderful recipe for disaster.

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"A Key for Every Lock," by Gerri Leen

Presented with a multiverse
Of choices, the woman
Closes her eyes and dreams
Of a future that lies behind
One—or all—the locks
Lining the painted wall
She dangles a key (to one—
Or all—the locks) from her
Ear and feels the heavy
Drag of it, the tickle
As it brushes her neck
She hums a song of motion
And reaches for
One—and all—the locks
The key is suddenly in her
Hand leaving only a hoop
Curved through her ear
The key murmurs, “If it
Can be chosen, it will be”
So she reaches for the
Lock most appealing in
The moment, knowing
Some other her may—will—
Choose differently
The key blows a kiss
Then resettles on the hoop
Hanging from her ear
As a new path diverges
And she makes her way
To the next wall in
A world of next walls

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"Chupa-Ku, Volume XX: No. 96–100," by Juan M. Perez

like goats in the night
taken out one at a time
somebody’s hungry

then I saw “its” face
now I’m a believer
no doubt in my mind

Hey, we’re the Chupas
and we like to chupa around!
… quickly, hide your goats

once upon a goat
whose life ended at the throat
so say those that gloat

it was strange indeed
dreaming of chupacabras
never be the same

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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 * John Reinhart, Mary Turzillo
• Stealth SF * “The King’s English” * Denise Dumars
• SpecPo Publishing * Interview with Justin Sloane * Jean-Paul Garnier
• Xenopoetry * Las Hadas (The Fae) * Ricardo Jaimes Freyre, translated from the Spanish by Brittany Hause

Art

• All Became a Bit Darker * R. Mac Jones
• Oval Universe Star Maker * Denny E. Marshall
• Crescent Moon Encounter * Denny E. Marshall
• To the Moon * Christina Sng

Poetry

• Wolf Skin * Colleen Anderson
• Better Off * Beth Cato
• Pitcher Plant * Jay Sturner
• Displacement * Michelle Muenzler
• [UFO blues] * Gabriel Smithwilson
• The Darkness * Darius Jones
• [city-light cocooned] * Howard V. Hendrix
• [these eyes] * Ann K. Schwader
• Hosts * Yuliia Vereta
• Robotic * Overcomer Ibiteye
• [art & craft] * Barun Saha
• A Map of Heaven * F. J. Bergmann
• Broken Rovers * Joshua Fagan
• [No price is too high] * Randall Andrews
• Sculptor of Odontophore … * Nnadi Samuel
• [family squabble] * Tyler McIntosh
• [cold hand reaching up] * Sarah Cannavo
• The End in Sight * Garrett Carroll
• Terraforming Grief * Amelia Gorman
• [modern funeral] * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
• On the Trail of Forgotten Dreams * Deborah L. Davitt
• Meatbag Writing Prompt * Jason P. Burnham
• Transparent Defense * John H. Dromey
• Eating Contest * Matthew Wilson
• American as Atomic Pie * Pedro Iniguez
• Time Traveler: The Playground * Meg Smith
• [north wind] * Jonathan Roman & Dyana Basist
• For the Generations to Come * Lauren McBride
• Recruits * Mary Soon Lee
• [somewhere] * Christina Sng
• hum(s) * Jason P. Burnham
• Circadia * Julie Allyn Johnson
• A Key for Every Lock * Gerri Leen
• Casting Call: Oldsters * Ruth Berman
• Slippery Slope * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• The Cover-Up * Randall Andrews
• The Tollbooth in the Wardrobe * Aaron Knuckey
• [split pairs have gone a-] * Howard V. Hendrix
• Mother Hubble’s Speeding Ticket: May 11-24, 2009 * Sandra Lindow
• Chupa-Ku, Volume XX: No. 96–100 * Juan M. Perez
• Mate * Robert Walton
• Do the Gods Laugh? * Lisa Timpf
• Mysterious Call * Ian Willey
• [Celestial tear widens] * Sarah Cannavo
• How To Write About The Apocalypse Or Whatever * Juan M. Perez
• [mushroom cloud] * Joshua St. Claire
• Lesser Quests * Mary Soon Lee
• Maybe it’s Mephistopheles * Marisca Pichette
• Extraterrestrial * Steve Wheat
• Draining the Precinct * Jason P. Burnham
• [nightly roaming animals] * Roxanne Barbour
• Not as Advertised * Rebecca Olson
• Pestiferous * Oliver Smith
• [psychic cold] * Stephen C. Curro
• Times of confusion * Yuliia Vereta
• [animal revolt] * Richard Leis
• [uplift] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• I, Cassandra * Mary Soon Lee
• Lady Death and Her Whistlers * Emmie Christie
• Not Worth the Price * Gerri Leen
• A Ruminant’s contemplation requires * Richard Weaver
• [across the translux …] * Robin Wyatt Dunn
• Track My Radioactive Carcass … * Jason P. Burnham
• Moss Folk * Sam Lesek
• The Oak-Seers * Avra Margariti
• Seeds from Space * TS S. Fulk
• Basement Entomology * Jason P. Burnham
• Attempting to Touch a Mind * Lauren McBride
• I Bought My Own Planet Cheap … * Juleigh Howard-Hobson
• cyber-life, solar-tech * J. D. Harlock
• Blood’s Kiss—November 2nd nightfall * LindaAnn LoSchiavo
• [age 50] * Christina Sng
• [too old for new draft] * Denny E. Marshall
• different kinds of light eaters * Eve Morton
• False Advertising * Gerri Leen
• [an alien] * Anna Cates
• Vampire Therapist * Alan Ira Gordon
• [their first kill] * Anna Cates
• Thirteen Ways to Know You Are a Witch * John C. Mannone
• Time Travel II * Akua Lezli Hope
• radha * Archita Mittra
• The Book of Cold Spells * Mariel Herbert
• [cocktail hour] * Greg Schwartz
• Sabbatical Somewhere Warm * Elizabeth R. McClellan
• When I listen to a shell * Toni Artuso
• Portrait Day … * Dawn Vogel
• [war propaganda] * LeRoy Gorman
• [is it wrong …] * Charles Christian