A Magazine of Many Arts

Sorry we were down for so long. There were some technical issues that required updates, and it took me a little while to get it all working. Next week we’ll be back publishing regularly.

Some good news — a number of poems we published were nominated for Rhysling awards, the main speculative poetry awards. Congratulations to the poets!

• “Stormbound” by Marsheila Rockwell

• “Envoy” by F. J. Bergmann 

• “Bright Record” by John W. Sexton 

• “The Snow Globe” by Marge Simon 

• “The Journey” by Deborah L. Davitt 

• “The Certainty of Seeing” by Michelle Muenzler 

• “Blood Moon” by Sara Backer 

• “Witch” by Mary Soon Lee 

• “children of the trees” by Deborah L. Davitt 

Lorraine Schein

On my way to the next Millennium
I passed Christ blessing a witches' coven,
circle-dancing in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The hordes of the dead had risen up,
shielding their multi-clustered eyes
from further genetic warfare.

I saw the Dark Goddess, Kali
and Green Tara, the Compassionate One,
locked in battle, many-handed,
each hand wielding a sword
that fought the others senselessly.

My eyes stung from the dirty red wind
blowing nuclear waste
through our glow-tainted cities,
burning with designer plagues.

I heard the muted prophecies of Prozac,
the new Cassandra rescorned.

John Grey

Yes, he’s a butterfly.
drank the nectar,
thinking he’d
evolve into a giant wasp
once the chemicals kicked in.
 
He’d sting the naysayers,
the ones who doubted him,
the fools who kicked him
out of the government laboratory,
who labeled his experiments
as “science fantasy”,
who even laughed
when he approached the subject
of inter-species hybridization.
 
But he’s grown fluttering fairy wings,
not buzz-saw pinions.
He’s flamboyant, pretty almost,
far from threatening
And there’s no sting to his fury,
just a desire to suckle on rosebuds.
 
He seeks revenge
but his enemies merely
point and say, “How pretty.”
His experiment failed
but his color scheme triumphed.

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

It comes from the forest
and winds about your limbs,
a scent you shouldn’t recognize,
but you turn, like a windsock;
the campfire at your back,
you stumble toward the shadows
waiting beneath the trees.


Hands clutch,
drag you back,
set you down by the fire,
voices, urgent voices, beset you,
senseless as the calls of birds.
Eventually, you sleep.


You dream of running, of leaping,
of soaring above tall brown boles,
green mantles ashiver.
Stars beckon from the inky reaches,
their ringing voices call you home.


Morning breaks
over the tiny camp,
your cold and empty tent;
friends follow your tracks
miles through the snow,
farther and farther apart they come,
till at last they vanish
under an endless sky.

Davian Aw

she grows used to murdering doppelgängers
quick jolts to the heart, slipping poison into drink
fatal injections while lost in the helplessness of dream
whispering denials to herself as she hides the bodies
in secret rooms in other worlds.

she walks down rows of her faces blank in death
and tells herself: they are asleep.

she slides into clothes, identities, laughter
of all the people she could have been
welcoming kisses from smiling strangers
unaware they’ve been bereaved.

at novelty’s end, she leaves no trace
but grieving, and nights wearing hope to the bone
searching the rivers and roads of their world

hoping to bring a body home.

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

I was his first,
that means a lot to certain men,
and, for a scientist,
Paul has a love
of all that’s old –
done right, he says –
traditional.

He’s kept me well.
My cubicle’s luxurious and plush,
and properly maintained —
the maids all vie
to keep the polished
luster of my walls
gem clear.

And though I’m forced
to watch the newer models traipse about,
bedecked in jewels, and chrome,
and circuitry,
en route to dinners
or to plays
to suit his whim…

I know I was his first,
and that, while he keeps their upgrades fresh,
there’s so much to be said
for antique amber,
vintage verdigris,
unadorned, and classic
in the box.

W.C. Roberts

his chin thrust out like a ledge over the chasm 
between them, their child 
a tiny figure cut out of stone and blackened in a fire
that burned their house boat
to the water line 
he glares at her, eyes like flint and steel 
but the sparks do not so much and singe her hair 
the woman takes up their child 
and cradles him in arms 
not yet turned to stone, but thunder in a confining space
shakes the soot from his brow 
-- the child stirs

there was a time when the men on the banks of the river
would have died for them, and their stories told 
to frighten children who hadn’t the good sense to turn to stone 
when the fire comes and their thatched huts burn down
to the ground

from these ashes we are enjoined, and one of the ravens
he watches over us 
and we, who’d live for ages, and cannot live under the water
that comes to bury us alive
we, who’d live for ages, and cannot live 
in the crook of his elbow like a firearm
we look away, and he looks for us, as the storm’s fury 
shards of a white porcelain heaven breaking 
and they come down on the water, without hardly a splash 
knowing the bottom well, and the chasm between them
who’d take a drink from this well? and know

     what’s left of the sky

father, father, says the child, in the child’s lisping way  
why have they turned against us? are we not good 
for them?



he swallows, as if thinking of his answer;
he steps into the chasm
and is gone