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Archived Poetry

Little Ghosts, by Duane Ackerson (2/8/10): This is no joke — / ghosts are real — / as real as economics.
How to Bake a Cake From Scratch, by Lisa Nohealani Morton (2/1/10): Once you've got evolution started, / don't worry about the mess
On Keeping Pluto a Planet, by Greg Beatty (1/25/10): Uneven, unbalanced, elliptical,/not even the farthest out,
Struldbrug Variations, by Robert Borski (1/18/10): Then in twice that amount of years/it appears blue,/a sky-colored or oceanic hole/that threatens to drink up time
By Way of Sorrow, by Peg Duthie (1/11/10): I've been told there are cures, but what I've heard/always ends with a witch in the fire
Bubba, by Robert Borski (1/4/10): one could no more / put a patch on a damaged / wing or red jewel of an eye
Hunting Party, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (12/21/09): I return by secret paths to the campsite
Finding the God Particle, by Sandra J. Lindow (12/14/09): It is something and nothing
Immaterial, by Sharon M. White (12/7/09): my toes crawled off to eat some grass
Cities in Fog, by Robert Frazier and Andrew Joron (11/30/09)
ὡς πολλοῖς ὄμμασιν εἰς σὲ βλέπω, by Sonya Taaffe (11/23/09): stark as shadows cast by sun within a cave, / but the gravity of hand answering hand,
Deluge, by Mike Allen (11/16/09): When he learned he could drink the stars, he vowed / that even one burning sphere could never be enough
f(love) = 0, by Monica M. Eiland (11/9/09): how could I have missed Newton's trick / to finding area where none used to exist?
Off the Pi Charts, by P M F Johnson (11/2/09): The gates of Faerie are eroding—
Surreal People, by Bruce Boston (10/26/09): The evolution of flora and fawning / would have learned nothing / from Darwin.
Gepetto, by Robert Borski (10/19/09): By evening, he is nearly finished; / all that remains doing
Thirteen Scifaiku for Blackbirds, by Joanne Merriam (10/12/09): It was autumn all year. / Blackbirds came and went.
The Sorrows of Rutherford, the Amazing Talking Dog, by Daniel Wright (10/5/09): We bow, you walk me off into the wings / and treat my question as rhetorical.
To Theia, by Ann K. Schwader (9/28/09): That we are shattered creatures, / our sacred texts assure us, but not why
Proof of Existence, by Duane Ackerson (9/21/09): The dreambike had eyes on its spokes
The Multiple Universe Poems, by Brenda Cooper (9/14/09): About the puppy we didn't choose
Black Hole Hunter's Guide, by Duane Ackerson (9/7/09): You should think of this book as analogous/to a mushroom hunter's guide
Little Red Cap Grows Up, by Amy Cummins (8/31/09): Angina, chronic back pain, rotten molars
They pass a dwarf star around like a bottle of rum, by Sankar Roy (8/24/09): Copper shackles dazzle from their unzipped nebulas.
MINSTREL'S LAST SONG, by Robert Borski (8/17/09): To the sea, to the sea / eurydice, eurydice...
Summer and Austin Have Left Their Apartment For a House, by Romie Stott (8/10/09): They don't use the term latent heat anymore.
The Chymical Marriage, by Sonya Taaffe (8/3/09): They belong dead, but we resurrect them
Rattlebox III, by Mike Allen, Kendall Evans, & David C. Kopaska-Merkel (7/27/09): Skinner's daughter is or is not / within the box, a paradox. / Is she learning an algebraic maze?
Book of the Dead Woman, by Mary Alexandra Agner (7/20/09): I'd eat your inconsistencies / and read the songs of my entrails.
Revolution Day, by Marcus Goodyear (7/13/09): Start the flight that ends with smash. / We'll all super-collide to find immensity,
Dark Emblem, by Greg Beatty (7/6/09): From our fingers, what falls, / when we new faithful fall?
In the Burned Places, by Ann K. Schwader (6/29/09): we wait in vain for the asteroid / its aeon come round at last.
Spacekill, by Robert Borski (6/22/09): Radioactive natterjacks, leap-frogging / from black hole to black hole;
Paper Doll, by Elizabeth Lee (6/15/09): all our lives will resemble what we see in magazines
Sweet Tooth, by Robert Borski (6/8/09): when he / heard the dentist's strict injunction / against sweets
Spacers' Prison, by Marge Simon (6/1/09): We are his reminders, / a company of ghosts,
Wind People, by Bruce Boston (5/25/09): There is no tying down the wind with rope or chain or tackle.
She's in the ice, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (5/18/09): Seemed like a good place / for the stolen mind
Conflict Carbon, by Ann K. Schwader (5/11/09): unutterably blue / as that sad legend's skies, the shattered hue / of starlight failing
Infinite Zero, by Duane Ackerson (5/4/09): Entering the computer
Whiskers, by Jamieson Ridenhour (4/27/09): I was bearded with words.
Four Years Later, by Chris Szego (4/20/09): When I watch over the cradle, our daughter, so perfect, / I see the subtle traps ahead:
A Spartan Boy, by Ellie Biswell (4/13/09): My grandfather fought at Thermopylae. / I say don't expect a second Lycurgus.
Birdbrain, by Robert Borski (4/6/09): Some traits are too deep to excavate / or remold, / like the impulse to take wing, to jump / into the sky
The last time, we trust, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (3/30/09): The last time, / we went with something exoskeletal, / something with fewer organ systems / something colonial.
Theodote, by Michael Meyerhofer (3/23/09): all across our American highways, / the slick tableaux of truck stops / speak to the same want
Gills, by Robert Borski (3/16/09): Haeckel would be pleased—although / in his scheme there never was any such / things as mermaids.
The Killer's Suicide Note, by Duane Ackerson (3/9/09): as if darkness, / growing thicker every moment, / were filling him.
The Would-Be Gods of Sonofusion, by Bruce Boston (3/2/09): Embrace the stubborn dream / of perpetual energy.
I Christen Thee, My Higgs Boson, by Michael Meyerhofer (2/23/09): starlings migrating over Wal-Mart / calligraphy of the inexplicable
Porlock, by Robert Borski (2/16/09): Fish now swim through the / libraries of Atlantis
Raised by Wolves, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2/9/09): Our biochemical keys fit fossil locks
Where Relativity Ends, by Elissa Malcohn (2/2/09): Time warped, in those days / when we took days for granted. / When calendars meant something.
pittsburgh o, by Martin Hazelbower (1/26/09): pittsburgh, o spidered—like / mars!—with canals, running / carb'nated milks of the moon—
A Guide to the Air-Dependent, by Kaolin Imago Fire (1/19/09): Focus on the effort wasted / that makes you stronger.
The Time Traveler Takes His N^th Lover at a Point of Departure, by Bruce Boston and Marge Simon (1/12/09): Centuries have come and gone / in the flash of a passing station
Ascending, by Mike Allen (1/5/09): The escalator, rolling ever down, / has reached an end at last and here you lie
The Invisible Woman Runs for President, by Karen A. Romanko (12/22/08): A woman president is nothing new, / but an invisible woman president—that's change
Gourmand in Remission, by Ed Gavin (12/15/08): mindful of its bluer than blue bouquet
Bardo Crossing, by Suzette Haden Elgin (12/8/08): Leave her alone. / She is a poor small huddled thing,
Teacher's Pet, by Robert Borski (12/1/08): Various stratagems for outwitting / the beast have been tried
Beowulf Goes to the Deli, by Tarun Shanker (11/24/08): They arrived at Heorot deli, / there was not a deli more magnificent
Exiling the Earth, by Duane Ackerson (11/17/08): First, we sent away the trees, / then the bubble of breath
Dream People, by Bruce Boston (11/10/08): If dream people were the world / there would be no time / for reflection.
The Astronaut's Return, by Marge Simon (11/3/08): Too long I've been in exile, / I've paid enough for my misdeeds.
Heyiya, by Sonya Taaffe (10/27/08): Who would deal in straight lines with a god / of double faces?
Moonfish, by Robert Borski (10/20/08): Part trilobite, part lungfish, / it crawls about the basalt seas / of the Mare Tranquillitatis
When the Vacuum Takes My Hand, by Holly Day (10/13/08): is it assault / to turn off the power
Laurentia Burning, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (10/6/08): a singing in the south / a quickening rumble / a great shimmy /
Hill and Pail, by Mary Alexandra Agner (9/29/08): She drags his body down, away from town, / to bury with the others, flattened grass / running wrong way against my scalp. /
Black Swan, by Robert Borski (9/22/08): this truest / of rarae aves still has, at least in game / theory, the potential for existence /
Skywatching, by John Grey (9/15/08): It takes a stalwart soul to find the light these days, / to go beyond the city and its affectations of / brightness /
Upon the death of my host and waiting for uplink: by Event Horizon, formerly of the Oracle Duality Liselle Marie Michaud / Event Horizon, by C.S. MacCath (9/8/08): It is cold. / No, not cold, but cooling / And still, except for bacteria / That favor flesh. /
Atlantis, by Robert Borski (9/1/08): All for / now is calm. No one / needs mention / the hubris of this Icarian /
Maya Blue (at Chichen Itza), by Ann K. Schwader (8/25/08): Above us in the silence yet to come, / deep thunder speaks -- then lightning-axes fall
Mondrian's War, by Mike Allen (8/18/08): When did he first discover this gift for equilibrium? / An urgent revelation in a haystack-mounded field?
The Vampire's Reflection, by Duane Ackerson (8/11/08): he wakes to the moon's glassy stare
Dystopian Dusk, by Bruce Boston (8/4/08): if they had slapped blinkers / on our eyes, narrowing our vision
Von Neumann's Poem, by Aaron Benson (7/28/08): Do not read this verse
A Posthuman, Blind and Appendage-less Stump of Flesh Experiences the Sensation of Reading Various Editions of "Gravity's Rainbow" in a Temperature Controlled Room with Cloroxed-White Walls., by Christopher Hellstrom (7/21/08): I could experience it as a Medieval text
Why She Canceled Her Online Dating Membership: A Martian Female Responds (a triolet), by Terrie Leigh Relf (7/14/08): You ask why I'll no longer date a human? /
Misfortune Cookie, by Lark Beltran (7/7/08): No tears, just plots to keep the moving finger from writing their scary scripts. No doubt, rewriting,
V.D., by Ed Gavin (6/30/08): Kiss her, she tastes of broken glass / and promises, a cold gray ash / upon your tongue. But each adieu
Some Random Hero, by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff (6/23/08): Her life too short to waste / on other people's fantasies, / she went to find her own,
Dancing with Stones, by Elizabeth Barrette (6/16/08): All true things are known by stone, / whose wisdom is grown ponderous / with its rounding of the year's ring.
CSI: TRANSYLVANIA, by Robert Borski (6/9/08): Please update your awareness
Family Poet, by Rolli (6/2/08): One night, he vanished
Transformation, by J. C. Runolfson (5/26/08): I am writing
Paper People, by Bruce Buston (5/19/08): If the world / were paper people
How Wizards Duel, by Jessica P. Wick (5/12/08): I know your fingers. / I know them in the salt-sea. / I know them, charcoal-smudged, / smelling of smoke.
Thousand Flower Sun, by Jennifer Crow (5/5/08): We waited in the light / of our thousand-flower sun
Diaspora, by Robert Borski (4/28/08): The Word fractured then, like a crystalline / vase, and has been cracking and / splintering ever since.
Topquark, by Gene van Troyer (4/21/08): You are the top quark / in the particle stream blasting through your nerves
The Calendar of the Dead, by Jacqueline West (4/14/08): The uselessness of time / at the end / of breakfast, bedtime, dinner and sunrise.
Monoculture, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (4/7/08): swirling with faces I don't know they / mouth words contort
Our Father, the Colonel, Home on Earthleave, by Robert Borski (3/31/08): Our father (who art from heaven) / sleeps standing-up, in an anti- / gravity chamber, but Mother ...
This, a Kind of Prayer, by Kendall Evans (3/24/08): That my skeletal remains might commingle / With a dire wolf's bones
So Many Lullabies, by Mary Alexandra Agner (3/17/08): I'm not the type of man / who needs a son,
Werepenguin, by Joanne Merriam (3/10/08): Little things make her love him: / he says he'll call and does,
For His First Tattoo, The Robot Considers Several Different Designs, by Robert Borski (3/3/08): In the end, the pulsing needle, with its / beam of light, scores / the metal deeply...
Disciples of Paradox, by David Memmott (2/25/08): in a wheelchair spaceship
Poultry, by Duane Ackerson (2/18/08): there is / no apparition in the shroud
The Gambler, by Sonya Taaffe (2/11/08): a comet glitters / like gunpowder,
I'll Keep a Green Lantern Burning, by Lee Battersby (2/4/08): Batts has been living out of the back seat / Since Missus Batman threw him into the street
Zeitghosts, by Robert Borski (1/28/08): Later, give or take a millennium, / in the food court next / to Chronautica, we share lunch,
A Creation Myth, by Holly Dworken Cooley (1/21/08): So Rock created stone in his own image
Dsonoqua on Lewis, The Outer Hebrides, by Neile Graham (1/14/08): She's a cranky tourist here. Exposed / with no forest to back herself into.
Moonomania, by F.J. Bergmann (1/7/08): If we had more moons, / months would fracture into innumerable shards
Beanstalk, by Robert Borski (12/17/07): from afar it must look like / God's finger, / the one He used when He / stirred forth the world's flora / from the first mud.
Given to the Frost, by Ann K. Schwader (12/10/07): Given to the frost our fragile cities / bright with banners, dance, & brilliant song / offered up in sunlight.
Flights of Fancy, by Ed Gavin (12/3/07): She expects fireworks upon arrival, / a spectacle put on just for her
Beyond the Clouds of Paradise, by Bruce Boston (11/26/07): We see the chosen revelers / in their endless cosmic dance.
She Needed To Get Out, by Ashley M. Nissler (11/19/07): She'd smudged my fresh-scrubbed wall. "Why so yellow?" / I asked. You never can tell with Charlotte.
The Night Boat, by Sonya Taaffe (11/12/07): Over the damp-blackened slates, the harbor / lights douse and sizzle in the sloping rain,
Golem Americanus, by Robert Borski (11/5/07): Strung up on our armatures of wood, it is we / who feign life every time the wind blows.
Post-Material Lotophagi, by Gene van Troyer (10/29/07): It's there on every page that links / into the junction of that throbbing dot. You are here.
The Native Finds Her in the Wreckage, by Marge Simon (10/22/07): but he breaks her fingers anyway, / stretches the bones to imitate his own,
Watching the Watchman, by Robert Borski (10/15/07): the rosettes open, blink, and take light.
Why We Left, by Ann K. Schwader (10/8/07): The breath of chaos / Howled there like a solar wind / Too strong to ride, too wild to trust:
Children of Breath, by Mary Alexandra Agner (10/1/07): There are no children of my blood / because I have failed under the eye / of history to make a family
The Wandering, by Rane Arroyo (9/24/07): We've been pushed into this lush / nothingness in the sky. Yes, I wore / a cloud as a crown while herded / onto my ship.
The Wolf From the Door, by Sandra J. Lindow (9/17/07): Regular maintenance/takes longer now/and the nightly ritual/washings and lockings/consume me.
Antivenom, by Robert Borski (9/10/07): Six long months of fever and vomit/later, he believes himself ready
Wereman, by Robert Frazier (9/3/07): a pup slipped backward toward the valley below / the gray didn't hesitate to leap in and push her free
Attracting the Attention of a Cat Who Disdains to Acknowledge Your Existence, by Susannah Mandel (8/27/07): I see I fill you with contempt./I cannot prove your feeling wrong.
Bird Seed, by Duane Ackerson (8/20/07): The seeds immediately sprout acres of jays
The Painting Speaks, by Duane Ackerson (8/13/07): My voice recognition units/enable me to eavesdrop on your critique
The Quince Bedroom, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (8/6/07): She touched her round organic limb
Growing Days, by Tina Connolly (7/30/07): We only talk now on growing days
Transmutation, by Scott Pearson (7/23/07): Wanting to shed what bleeds
Wings, by Andrea Blythe (7/16/07): peeling from his flesh, reaching up, tips pointed skyward.
Animal Pharm, by Robert Borski (7/9/07): Dr. Moreau, with his uplifted / beasts, might be considered / the father of this line of research
Dark & Light, by David Lunde (7/2/07): Dark / is the natural state of things
Freebasing the Moon, by Mike Allen (6/25/07): Silver glitters in his cratered eyes
Gaia's Children, by Robert Borski (6/18/07): I am now half the monster I used / to be.
What Relativity Tells Us, by Jeff Jeppesen (6/11/07): There is no such thing as distance—
The Amateur Astronomer in Me, by Timothy Green (6/4/07): It's no wonder he spends / so much time alone
Wish-stone at Dunnottar, by Neile Graham (5/28/07): Twice I have assailed these walls.
The Cook and the Scullery Maid, by Mikal Trimm (5/21/07): Such a mess the Master makes with his plate—
If Cold Is a War, by Ann K. Schwader (5/14/07): If cold is a war, it was forced upon us
The Bell Ringer's Wife, by Robert Borski (5/7/07): So maybe he's not the most handsome man
Flyboy, by Lucy A. Snyder (4/30/07): With a chemistry book in my hand, I could fly.
Porch Lights, by Duane Ackerson (4/23/07): Milky traffic lights click on and off,
Armageddon: At the Clinic, by Marge Simon (4/16/07): Stella checks the food supplies.
Rehydration, by Tina Connolly (4/9/07): The ship is hot; it backfires / in the last row of corn, and there is popcorn in the night / which isn't supposed to happen
The Whole Atom, by Lee Ballentine (4/2/07): grief wakes the nucleus / of the whole atom
An Atypical Reaction to the Death of the Sun and the Moon, by Mikal Trimm (3/26/07): a sliver of sunlight threatening the sky / so I don't have much time before / I lose the animal inside
This is the House, by Jaime Lee Moyer (3/19/07): This is the way Jack's eyes gleam / in a house where no one can see. / This is the way he shivers.
Muse, by Sonya Taaffe (3/12/07): With ink I feathered you, at your fingertips sketched
We Will Not Go To Memphis, Then, by Jeff Jeppesen (3/5/07): We camp not far from the empty highway but no cars drive by.
Be True, by Mary Alexandra Agner (2/26/07): Your devotion to mathematics and the three laws / of robotics prohibit romance and biology.
Casting Her Lot, by Deborah P. Kolodji (2/19/07): Stranded from the outer galaxy, / she signs over her last ranch credits ...
Jumping into the System, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2/12/07): We're fomenting revolutions on alien planets,
Now We Must Speak in the Shadows of Silence, by Kendall Evans (2/5/07): the intermittent chant / of lunar eclipses
Crash, by Robert Borski (1/29/07): he managed to evade conscription
The War on Terror, by Duane Ackerson (1/22/07): insecurity was our only security
The Observatory, by Duane Ackerson (1/15/07): Now the observatory stores firewood
Dead Light, by Ann K. Schwader (1/8/07): As it happened, the star she wished on burned
Noplace Like Home, by Elizabeth Barrette (1/1/07): And the strange moon hanging overhead / Is every shade from palest chrysoprase / Through emerald to almost black
A Compass for the Mutant Rain Forest, by Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier (12/18/06): Travelers who venture this trek witness / these mutations and are soon transfixed.
The Robot-Emperor's Concubine, by Elizabeth Barrette (12/11/06): Some nights, after he leaves, / She sits on the windowsill / Staring into the night,
Bluebeard's Third Wife, by Helena Bell (12/4/06): I am the answer in Trivial Pursuit, / the first interesting prime,
Kitchen Carcharodon, by Robert Borski (11/27/06): . . . it waits to strike down / the unwary, / the unsuspecting innocent
Iphigenia in Shaker Heights, by Mary A. Turzillo (11/20/06): Daddy kisses me, hands me onto the skiff, / going home to explain it all to Mom, he says.
Sleeping Beauty, by Mary Alexandra Agner (11/13/06): Poor planning lets fate devour the happy story here-and-now.
Sympathy, by Lucy A. Snyder (11/6/06): Sympathy evolved peripherally
Blood Moon Sestina, by Jennifer Hudock (10/30/06): What crushes underfoot like old bones?
Moon Mirror, by Duane & Cathy Ackerson (10/23/06): she can't take her eyes off herself.
Beach Climbing, by Elizabeth Barrette (10/16/06): Gills becoming lungs
Telling, by M. Frost (10/9/06): soldiers of your enemy wait / stroking the flanks of their guns.
Full Fathom Five, by Leah Bobet (10/2/06): Full fathom five you sing the change / into something rich and strange
Spiral Scream, by Ann K. Schwader (9/25/06): Was this what you heard, Edvard Munch, / in that moment / when vision shrieked like a mad sunflower
A Rebel's Pale Eyes . . ., by Robert Frazier (9/18/06): Seem to haunt this icy REM fugue of mine / The pixilated arcs of a black box imagery
Helen Says . . ., by Chris Szego (9/11/06): . . . much is passed on, you see. Oh, not the / surface—the face is due to my mother's mother
The Last Alchemist, by Bruce Boston (9/4/06): when even the quarks / Charm and Strange rise / to a balanced breakfast,
After the Last Spaceship, by Deborah P. Kolodji (8/28/06): A dying world's value / borne in a shoulder sack
Elementary Students Explore the Universe, by Helena Bell (8/21/06): these kids will in one week / discover the unifying theory of physics.
To Her Mother, by Leah Bobet (8/14/06): I didn't want to let you down
Home at Last, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (8/7/06): remembering when / they kept her / in the sea
Giving Back the Moon, by Duane Ackerson (7/31/06): I left all the other moons in place.
Trepanation, by Lucy A. Snyder (7/24/06): Headcutting is old as woodcutting
Field Notes, by Bette Lynch Husted (7/17/06): They have imagined something they call time.
Mirror Man, by Cathy & Duane Ackerson (7/10/06): Deciding on a mirror as the perfect camouflage, / he drinks the liquid coating destined for one.
The Bather, by Joanne Merriam (7/3/06): but beautiful as the daze of nature's chlorophyll dynamos
lis pendens, by Mike Allen (6/26/06): I filed suit for your soul today.
Distant People Gravitate To Distant Worlds, by John Grey (6/19/06): the first footprint on strange worlds, / and sometimes the last.
A Feel for the Heavens, by Robert Frazier (6/12/06): often they have picked clean his ego and left him / hiking along the barren shores of physics
Abductee: Two Sonnets, by Ann K. Schwader (6/5/06): It started with her coffee—
In All Probability, by K J Kirby (5/29/06): We always knew / we weren't the only world, not even / here in our own little system
Virgo H121, by Deborah P Kolodji (5/22/06): A gas cloud spins its wheels / unable to form the stars / of sister galaxies
The Glass Blower, by Karen A. Romanko (5/15/06): Inside the crystal sphere / in an identical wooden chamber / sits a glass blower, / completing a pretty vase
Fallen, by Sheree Renée Thomas (5/8/06): The night a comet / with its silver tail / tucked between its legs / fell through darkness
Taking Back the Moon, by Duane Ackerson (5/1/06): Real estate agents \ may notice a gap in the night sky.
After Reading Stephen Hawking's Essays On a Nutshell-Shaped Universe, by Apryl Fox (4/24/06): Humankind, so small, they are tiny.
Marble People, by Bruce Boston (4/17/06): If marble people were / the world
Stormland, by Elizabeth Barrette (4/10/06): I grew up / in a house made of clouds
Parchment People, by Bruce Boston (3/27/06): like the texts of old, / each of us would be a book
Spot in Space, by G. O. Clark (3/20/06): See Spot / gazing out the porthole / of his space capsule, looking / down at Dick and Jane
Stella Rosetta, by Yoon Ha Lee (3/13/06): No poem survives its own / translation.
Ajax Redux, by Bruce Boston and Marge Simon (3/6/06): I live in a land of ice / and mirth and explicit premise. / I'm starving, but I don't hunger / for your glittering glory.
Cherries for Buttons, by Joanne Merriam (2/27/06): I woke for a woman all tooth and whispered want. Like the oven she was / warm when met and cold when done.
Sweets, by Mary Alexandra Agner (2/20/06): must we smile, must we thank her / even though she never gives us sweets?
Summoning, by Tim Jones (2/13/06): the lighting of a candle / and the speaking of a name
A Story for Winter, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2/6/06): The snow is deeper now and we cannot / get out
At the Dump, by Duane Ackerson (1/30/06): chanted portions of the 1957 / Chevy Owner's Manual / to summon a virgin.
The Journey to Kailash, by Mike Allen (1/23/06): I tell him I know a doctor / who can do something about that nose.
The Dream Factory: Two Tours, by Duane Ackerson (1/16/06): the dream completer software / massages the story line / and develops alternate dreamlines.
SETI Hits Pay Dirt, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (1/9/06): We have come, gods be spoken / between packing and material (?)
Swans Take Flight at My Father's Grave, by Scott Hughes (1/2/06): Put down this poem, / see it now: the black hole / stretching like a mouth
Chess People, by Bruce Boston (12/19/05): Some women would be queens, / both swift and extreme / in their influence.
Where Elevator Music Comes From, by Thomas D. Reynolds (12/12/05): how resilient, yet how vulnerable, they have evolved
Daughters, by Suzanne Burns (12/5/05): As murder chimed with the clockworks / you confessed to thumbing fashions
The Bones of the Tale, by Neile Graham (11/28/05): I read her bones like oracles
Symbiosis, by K. J. Kirby (11/21/05): The cold hard hearts of gods / despise / the lickspittle loyalty of dogs
Tiger Lily Madness, by Cat Rambo (11/14/05): Tiger lilies for me, their petals dusted with black pollen / Like a moth's shadow
from FRANK, by CAConrad (11/7/05): after Mother / died her red / dress continued / baking pies
When you left your body lying around, by Keyan Bowes (10/31/05): The face in the mirror was more familiar than my own
John Travolta Stars in My Flick, by Earl J. Wilcox (10/24/05): I ask him: / Why are we drinking out of paper cups, anyway? I need / to know.
The Greening, by Joanne Merriam (10/17/05): we know the sound / and see their footsteps' deep blue shadows and their occasional bodies
Also Sprach Fred, by Gary Lehmann (10/10/05): my brother-in-law posed as Fred Nietzsche on a trans-Atlantic flight
The Strip Search, by Mike Allen (10/3/05): I thought I'd tossed all my hope away, / but when I stepped through the Gate, it still pinged.
Summoning Stones, by Jennifer Crow (9/26/05): I call the pebbles / broken by ice, / smoothed by water and time.
Some Houseguests Can't Be Helped, by Peg Duthie (9/19/05): Aunt Marybelle being Unitarian, see, / and thus already well-versed / in unnatural ways with peanut butter
Son of an Astronaut, by John Grey (9/12/05): Now, everything gathers dust
Swan Fetish, by Erin Donahoe (9/5/05): He slips out at night, / when his swan-wife is sleeping / and takes her cloak of feathers with him.
Return Engagements, by Greg Beatty (8/29/05): When the whirring saucers came, / back in the 1950s, they came / for our women,
Waiting for the Daemon, by Pamela Steele (8/22/05): Outside, hard frost has fallen / from the mouth of the moon
Natalie, by Heidi Garnett (8/15/05): She'll always be a seamstress now, / sewn into a simple black dress,
Cabazon, by Samantha Henderson (8/8/05): Lucy's big ape eyes brimmed, / And he leaned close to hear her whisper: / I know what's it's like, Mr. Man; I have lost one too.
The Great Gnome Escape, by Duane Ackerson (8/1/05): guarded indifferently / by deer, ducks, and flamingoes,
Settler's Song, by Joanne Merriam (7/25/05): the way plumigan flock to the mowthorn at suggestions of snow.
Making Robot Poets Great, by Greg Beatty (7/18/05): They remembered perfection
Halos, by Tobias Seamon (7/11/05): halos once emanated above every human head
Sturgeon Crosses Over, by Marge Simon (7/4/05): Light is calling
Curse of the Void's Husband, by Bruce Boston (6/27/05): Beyond the lattice / a vacuum that devours / all it surveys with / aimless abandon.
On Any Given Midnight, by Ann K. Schwader (6/20/05): These stars will never shine so bright / as they do now. Our future lies / darker & lonelier every night.
First Contact, by Joanne Merriam (6/13/05): Try sign language, semaphore, a series of notes. / Feel how the walls freeze and can't breathe.
Picasso's Rapture, by Mike Allen (6/6/05): handsome, sullen, clad in / diamonds of rose and black, / wearing Harlequin's peaked hat, / the nature of his magic / as yet unsculpted.
Rattlebox, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Mike Allen (5/30/05): heat shimmer veils Heisenberg / details—the expected can never happen here, / but sometimes it just might.
For The Rain It Raineth Every Day, by Mikal Trimm (5/23/05): On Tarsus the rains come / once every seventy years
In Their Element, by M. J. Kirby (5/16/05): It's a Saturday night / at the Accelerator Club.
Orpheus Retires, by Erin Keane (5/9/05): Sons of muses / know the score—we follow, / heroic
In Blood On Stone In Bone, by Neile Graham (5/2/05): how do we know her?
Three Urban Legends, by Duane Ackerson (4/25/05): Here's the one with Elvis's profile
Crazy Box, by Rio Le Moignan (4/18/05): It was supposed to be a time machine.
A Bestiary: Tlaltecuhtli, by Tim Pratt (4/11/05): you run out of hope, you remember
The Elongated Years, by Bruce Boston (4/4/05): Our lives were stretched beyond their limits.
Ossuary, by Ann K. Schwader (3/28/05): entombed by accident or failed escape / from orbit, he is otherworldly tall
The Rainy Season, by Joanne Merriam (3/21/05): It's August and rain makes the air fresh / as it dances on our roof. It's my first time in love.
Equinox, by Yoon Ha Lee (3/14/05): The word itself / acknowledges the tilted / balance
Chagall's Lamp, by Mike Allen (3/7/05): She shone from inside, / her skin like sunlit clouds, / her eyelashes pins of light.
Prince Charming, by Helena Bell (2/28/05): One December / the Prince abandoned hunting, / tired of Old Kings with blind dogs, / and ugly daughters, selling their lands / with marriages.
Wise and now-departed uncles, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2/21/05): The first ones, / those who built everything / worthy of the name,
Yggdrasil Yardwork, by Sandra J. Lindow (2/14/05): Yardwork used to be easier / before the Norns unionized.
Assembling Titan, by Deborah P Kolodji (2/7/05): puzzle pieces / fitted together / without a box lid
Surface Properties, by Joanne Merriam (1/31/05): I wish we'd never come here.
We Asked, by Tobias Seamon (1/24/05): We asked for a tyrant
Operation Macbeth, by Duane Ackerson (1/17/05): while someone tolls a bell / in a drowned cathedral
War Is For the Hard of Hearing, by Greg Beatty (1/10/05): That soldiers silently embrace
The Bus Stops Here, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans (1/3/05): I am almost sure that it begins on the bus— / She sits alone, flanked by strangers;
Excess Baggage, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (12/20/04): Once our genes were our own, / or we were theirs,
Rich & Strange, by Ann K. Schwader (12/13/04): When they come back from the stars, we will not know them.
Strange Cargo, by Mike Allen (12/6/04): The train slides toward the hill-concealed horizon, / a mammoth serpent winding through the tall grass,
Tam Lin, by Dru Pagliassotti (11/29/04): They warned me not to go to Carterhaugh— / Tam Lin was there / And he had a reputation / For using women.
The Other Sleeping Beauties, by Greg Beatty (11/22/04): Once upon a time, you couldn't / shoot an arrow through these / woods without tinking a glass bier.
Rural Blessings, by Pam McNew (11/15/04): The tractor wouldn't need fixing, the bank would stop calling, / and maybe my mom would no longer need to go dancing / around a bonfire, naked, in the evenings.
A Theory of the Universe, by Marci Rae Johnson (11/8/04): I am the universe, / the beginning and the end, yet
Second Bait, by Cathy & Duane Ackerson (11/1/04): Even in the dark the boy knew what to do. / He cut the soul out of the shark.
Leonid's Family Reunion, by Leah Bobet (10/25/04): Leonid is a good host, a busy host. / He has no time to feel alone.
Trawling for Trolls, by Duane Ackerson (10/18/04): Then, in the midst of pretending to drown, / they discover they really are drowning, / no rescue in sight.
Voices, by Kathryn Rantala (10/11/04): airborne and essential, / luminous as a silver vessel.
Gray People, by Bruce Boston (10/4/04): If gray people were / the world we would wait / for others to colorize.
Bird People, by Bruce Boston (9/27/04): If bird people / were the world / our lives would / span continents.
Diana, by Andy Miller (9/20/04): Come! Drink this milk! It has dissolved the moon.
Absolute Zero, by David Lunde (9/13/04): Some nights I think that the stars / Have died
All the Starry Audience, by Bruce Boston (9/6/04): The starry audience / waits with baited breath / for the conclusion / of the docudrama
Minions of the Moon, by Deborah P. Kolodji & Ann K. Schwader (8/30/04): crescent grins / halfway to the horizon / minions of the moon
Mother of Atlantis, by Robin M. Mayhall (8/23/04): Guided by the pull of instinct / She knows only temperature; / She seeks the perfect weight and warmth / Of sand to cradle her last egg.
The Tall Walkers, by Marge Simon, illustration by Marge Simon (8/16/04): Thin & long / as moonlit shadows
Library Time: A Folk Tale, by Holly Elliott (8/9/04): Time has stopped in the children's section; / it is 2:25 and 37 seconds.
Distractions, by Lisa Firke (8/2/04): It takes practice, this inattention / to life beyond the desk.
Making Monsters, by Tim Pratt (7/19/04): In a little workshop / downtown, in a room / without windows, a man / sits at a workbench, making / monsters.
Soul Searching, by Tim Pratt (7/12/04): On weekends I help my old neighbor look / for his soul. He says he used to be a wizard, or a giant / (the story varies from telling to telling), and, as was / the custom for his kind, he put his soul into an egg / (or perhaps a stone) for safe-keeping.
After You Die #6: Sunglasses at Night, by David Bain (7/5/04): After you die, you / put on a pair of shades and / go driving at night.
Stars, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (6/28/04): you, volcano or limpet, / clinging to my mind's eye / like you were born there, / starlight streaming through your keyhole,
Ghost People, by Bruce Boston (6/21/04): If ghost people / were the world / we would roam / the empty highways / in search of life.
Space War, by Mike Allen (6/14/04): SPACE went to war with itself at 8:20 Tuesday morning / on the phony oriental rug in my living room.
Ode to the Last Mountain, by Danny Adams (6/7/04): But tend to the fire on your mountain / Before the world falls asleep. . . .
Space on Twenty Dollars a Day, by Chris Corbett (5/31/04): He began showing symptoms of coming and going / A nesting sparrow spooked off an egg
The Scattering of Ashes, by Chris Corbett (5/24/04): He knew it wasn't an accident / There was no oversight / no cause for excuse
Signs You Could Be a Clone, by Bruce Boston (5/17/04): You have a recurring / nightmare about being / trapped in a Mason jar.
The Blind Man, by Duane Ackerson (5/10/04)
How to Survive on a Distant Planet, by Thomas D. Reynolds (5/3/04): Terrified, we watched him work, / and after he chopped a load of firewood, / cleaned the gutters, and mowed the lawn. . . .
Night of the Living Dead Metaphors, by Lisa Firke (4/26/04): What if women were not circles / and men were not straight lines?
Near Life Experience, by Tobias Seamon (4/19/04): "What was it like?" / family, friends whispered, / shoulders and chins bent close, / as though speaking lowly would diminish / their ghoulish curiosity.
How to Court a Native of Altair V, by Bruce Boston (4/12/04): Offer her-it-him / as a sexual favor / to your family and friends.
Antique Roadshow of the Occult, by John R. Platt (4/5/04): Hello, and welcome / To the Antique Roadshow of the Occult / From the convention hall / In scenic Salem, / Our experts are waiting to meet you.
Song from the Kalevala, by Eleanor Arnason (3/29/04): My daughter is gone. / She has turned into a salmon.
Her Hero, by Leah Bobet (3/22/04): Last night, between / the pizza and the death ray / she found out who I was again.
The Wheel, by Andrew Grossman (3/15/04): She sends a herd of horses / Stampeding across the sky, / to pull the covering from his bed.
In the Time of Lycanthropy, by Jim Heston (3/8/04): by stalking various tomorrows / as if they are a pack of wolves / I will wear one of them like a cloak / slip into its skin once it is mine
tropical dream, by Karen R. Porter (3/1/04): the garish purple feathers / of the bird that only lives / somewhere in her eyes
Jewels #1, by Dawn Stanton (2/23/04): The bloated opal moon, in black sapphire sky, nudges diamond stars.
Death and the Magus, by Jack Heazlitt (2/16/04): Despairing of marvels, we settled for mockery,
     danced on the magicians sofa,
     swung from his chandelier
     and burst through one last door to find . . .
A Ghost Story, by Duane Ackerson (2/9/04): A small voice is whispering. / "George . . . George something . . ." / in his ear.
Letter from the Old World, by Tobias Seamon (2/2/04): The poets, as usual drape themselves across / the gravestones, mewing flirtatious threats towards / their intended.
Supersonic Rocketeers, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (1/26/04): The Dashing Captain struck a pose, / and romanced a Virgin Queen with his / hard, tanned, body.
Carnival, by Jennifer de Guzman (1/19/04): Your mother is the swan-bench. / We don't know who your father was.
A Daybook of Devils, by Tobias Seamon (1/12/04): Monday: / St. Valentine's Devil coyly seals / stamps to scented envelopes, posting / missives of hidden love for strangers: / secret admirer to the all-alone.
When Clock Is Egg, by Bruce Boston (1/5/04): The walls of the chamber dissolved about me. / The substance of the world began to sing, / a roar at first painful, at last sublime.
How I Will Outwit the Time Thieves, by Mike Allen (12/22/03): at last I see this conspiracy / for what it is: a temporal embezzlement
All Things Being Relative, by Jim Heston (12/15/03): even an astronaut can find time to be / the best man at his only brother's wedding / before accelerating toward the speed of light / in a tiny capsule composed of thin aluminum . . .
The Rose-Child Iterates, by Leah Bobet (12/8/03): In the dreamworld, she called the filing cabinets brother. / We are alike. We are akin. / Like you, I am full of secrets / Just waiting to be opened up.
Adero's Wheel, by Mary Alexandra Agner (12/1/03): This far from Earth, the stars don't line up / in what they call "familiar patterns". There's weather / enough to sit and watch the clouds turn over / our heads, revealing night.
Spring Invades, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (11/24/03): And then the day comes / when the blue comes back. / Birds are dark against it / like words spoken by winter.
Sound Check, by G. O. Clark (11/17/03): When all are asleep, / I can hear the stars sizzling like / 4th of July sparklers, / the moon grumbling to itself, / and the silence of / possibility seeking a voice in / a busily mutating world.
from FRANK, by CAConrad (11/10/03): Frank was embarrassed in the bar / when his skin began to smoke
Seven Silurian Scenes, by Steven Utley (11/3/03): The drifting lands close / on ancient seas like the jaws / of vast, patient beasts.
Angel Bites, by Tim Pratt (10/27/03): In the event that you are bitten by an angel, / immediate steps must be taken
Tarot Cards and UFOs, by Mark Rudolph (10/20/03): My mother is seeing a fortune teller / because she wants to know / the exact date, time, and place / the aliens will land.
Deities, by Tobias Seamon (10/13/03): and so is the cat, black / fur coating the chairs, sinking / into the places he's torn in the fabric
Evolving, by Linda Addison (10/6/03): tears of the dinosaurs / clicking on window panes
God's Gift to Women, by Sharon Wachsler (9/29/03): When I devoted my life to Christ I was not prepared / for how normal it would be.
Pulse, by Mike Allen (9/22/03): Red pulse black pulse blue pulse sound thrums / quantum chance rhythm beats with subatomic / possibilities that pulse up pulse down pulse with
Quasimodo Takes the Grand Tour, by Tobias Seamon (9/15/03): Beginning in Dublin, where the whale-lanes end. Below / the Trinity belltower, Stephen's Green, where the / citizens like August dogs stretched under a flurry of / sun. I climbed the steeple, rang the bells. On the / Green, a few books were shut, fewer eyes opened.
Raven Rules, by Duane Ackerson (9/8/03): It is like a hawk . . .
Mrs. Rigsby's Fatecast, by Mike Allen (9/1/03): And if you happen to be Mrs. Hilda Rigsby, / do not walk down Coralview Avenue at 10:38 / this evening. . . .
My Favorite Life, by Megan E. Davis (8/25/03): I am weeping for old memories / of my favorite life . . .
How a Werewolf Chooses an Agent, by Bruce Boston (8/18/03): Knows Stephen King, Steven / Spielberg, and Steven Seagal.
The Laundromat Advances the Plot, by Jon Hansen (8/11/03): I snuck down there once / hoping to see someone I knew / like Captain Kirk getting blood / and dirt out of his uniform
Futurity Wears the Head, by Bruce Boston (8/4/03): In isolated and remote regions Futurity sleeps for centuries only / to awaken refreshed with an accelerating appetite that can devour / generations.
Ammut in Her Later Years, by Tim Pratt (7/21/03): Ammut snapped up their hearts / and swallowed, the juice filling her mouth, the hearts / dropping into the great empty hollowness at her center.
A Portrait of the Artist, by Vandana Singh (7/14/03): Yet beyond the glare of its twin suns, in the night of the caves, / There are paintings, glowing mauve and silver, yellow and green. / Phosphorescent waves of . . . abstraction? / Or a literal reflection of some unfathomable reality?
When Soft the Water Fell, by Yoon Ha Lee (7/7/03): Vapor spills / from her eyes, / from the pores that nest in her skin, / from her open mouth.
Bosch in Hollywood, by Karen A. Romanko (6/30/03): Hell / mandolin crucifixions
What If, by James F. Yockey (6/23/03): I will / and will not / be comforted / by six arms and a triple goddess / Ménage à trois
The Secret Lives of Fingerprints, by Jacie Ragan (6/16/03): Intricate whorls and loops / like the flight / of summering buzzards / who swoop through the hollows / and hover over ridges / to capture updrafts
Children of the Mutant Rain Forest, by Bruce Boston (6/9/03): wherever I travel / on Earth or beyond, / the forest stains / my life and thought.
In His Cloak Still Freezing, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (6/2/03): A chill river flows from the glacier's toe, / bringing with it all the glacier carries, / and depositing its load where no sun shines.
Surreal Wedding, by Mark Rudolph (5/26/03): The sign says CHURCH and at the top / of the hill, guarded by the granite names / of dead parishioners, it is the only piece / of architecture for miles around / neither tumbling down nor recently erected.
Psyche and Eros, by Leah Bobet (5/19/03): She was always the cerebral one. / He was a tumult, a tempest, a true tribulation. / But for him she learned accounting to sort lentils, / Husbandry to pluck golden fleece, / Physics to contain beauty in a box.
Origami Rockets, by Bruce Boston (5/12/03): The moon smells / like a green apple.
A Bestiary: Ts'its'tsi'nako, by Tim Pratt (5/5/03): Imagine a woman. Imagine a spider. Imagine / the woman is a spider, but also a woman, and also / imagine that she made everything you see, / and also that she made you, so that you might see / the other things she made. Imagine that she made / your imagination.
A Bestiary: Nidhigg, by Tim Pratt (4/28/03): It has been said that everyone is a world unto themselves, / and to stretch a metaphor, that implies / subterranean depths, and biological equivalents / to geological structures, and at least the possibility / that myths about the world might apply / on a more personal level as well.
Portrait of the Mad Scientist's Wife, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (4/21/03): The design is inconsistent: / rooted at one level in the painter's art, / and at another, in the product of my admirable / machine.
The Holes through which the Scarabs Come, by Marge Simon (4/14/03): If you get high enough / you can worship down.
Mary Has a Prophetic Vision, by G.O. Clark (4/7/03): the eyes of a ventriloquist's dummy, / the pointy ears of Nick Bottom, / and the voice of a drunken Greek god
It's Not the Magic, by John Teehan (3/24/03): Whether or not I believe in magic is surely beside the point. . . .
Rich and Pam Go to Fermilab and Later See a Dead Man, by Richard Chwedyk (3/17/03): Each particle a Basho frog slipping into / the pond, to the surface of / perception—plop, splash, again . . . / and again.
The Leonids, 11/18, 2002, by S.R. Compton (3/10/03): Connect the dots, connect the dots
The Kidney Thief, by Jamie Wasserman (3/3/03): One man woke in his bath packed in ice like a fish
Driving Across Idaho, by Duane Ackerson (2/24/03): it's as if the car is caught in an old forties movie
Wolfways, by Tim Pratt (2/17/03): There are so many ways to become a werewolf.
German Man Found in Home 5 Years After He Died, by Jamie Wasserman (2/10/03): What do you say to the neighbor / who swore she heard him coughing / (crying, maybe) only yesterday?
No Words, by Joanne Merriam (2/3/03): we just have no words for what they are.
My Wings, by Michael Chant (1/27/03): it hurts when I let them out / but they have to be let out / because they hurt when they're kept in too long,
Spontaneous Human Combustion, by Jamie Wasserman (1/20/03): It's not likely to happen, / but should it, it would strike / without warning.
Eel Week, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (1/13/03): I was surprised to see eels wandering around downtown. / They tried to blend in, but it was hopeless.
Carcinodjinn, by Tim Pratt (1/6/03): and having discovered a thumb- / sized tumor in his left lung,
Mirror Points, by Joanne Merriam (12/23/02): Somewhere an ion or electron slows as it enters a stronger magnetic field, and is turned back.
The Computer vs. My Personal Evolution, by John Grey (12/16/02): I had planned evolving into this, / a million years from now.
Alien Quarry, by Bruce Boston (12/9/02): There was something centipedal / in his violet stare / that made her skin itch.
Shepherds in the Night, by Tracina Jackson-Adams (12/2/02): We weren't expecting shepherds, / and nearly tripped over them, since / we were looking at the sky.
The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (11/25/02): The elephants were better; / the gray pebbly skin was quite realistic, and if / the creatures had just been a little bigger, / the simulation would have been almost uncanny.
Anthropic Principle, by Emily Gaskin (11/18/02): you tread on dead wood, / your face awash with moonlight / bent down by the soft grey clouds.
Gwydion's Loss of Llew, by Ellen Kushner (11/11/02): No one sang in the house, / And when I set my ears into the wind of the hall, / All I could hear was, / I am cold . . . I am cold . . . / It is October.
Metarebellion, by Mike Allen (11/4/02): This is the time, the Soothspeaker said, / the webbing of her mind filled with tangles / of light, the clusters of her eyes pressed / shut.
Skrying, by Derek Adams (10/28/02): If I stare long enough into the polished black obsidian mirror, / they will come to me / the angels or demons.
Superheroes, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (10/21/02): There are so many ways to get through a skylight, / here are just a few:
Seventh Coming, by Mike Allen and Ian Watson (10/14/02): One Messiah in particular became rather famous.
A Bestiary: Engulfer, by Tim Pratt (10/7/02): Funny thing, I thought I heard the water / in the bottles crying, like kids snatched / away from their mother, like lost kittens / grabbed by the scruff and stolen away.
A Bestiary: Plate Spinning, by Tim Pratt (9/30/02): This isn't about physics or / geography, it's about the fact / that the world must rest on someone's shoulders
The Garden of Time, by Lorraine Schein (9/23/02): Here, an atomic clock blooms chronons. / Nuclear pistils strike and quiver at the hour. / The bright petals of minutes enfold me.
Mr Hyde's Daughter, by Mary Alexandra Agner (9/16/02): . . . watches her fingers shrink / back to human size, her knuckle hair disappear, / leaving only the smooth, ivory skin / so coveted by gentlewomen.
The Children of the Moon, by Heather Shaw (9/9/02): You can see them as they move among you / their opalescent aura shimmers like summer pavement heat, / mother-of-pearl, on the tips of their frizzed-out split ends.
All Those Bleached Bones . . ., by Andy Miller (9/2/02): all those bleached bones / beside a road carved out of desert night
chaos, by Jessica Langer (8/26/02): gods and muses / arc from sky to earth / and earth to sky / in thought-bodies
It Wears You, by Ann K. Schwader (8/19/02): No doubt the cyborg lifestyle has its thrills. . . .
My Infatuation with Chaos, by Jonathan Price (8/12/02): They are her tentacles / Once again drawing him in / To her bed of infinite recursion
Howling with Ginsberg, by Phil Wright (8/5/02): In space too tiny to hold them / My mind too tiny to hold them / No way could I hold them / All in.
Two Poems, by John Sweet (7/22/02): rain / just after midnight / and the sound of / geese moving south
To Atlantis, by S. R. Compton (7/15/02): Great city, fabled isle, were you at the far end / Of the world, across the starry ocean, / As some aver? Or Krete's sister, / Now only a dead volcano's crater?
Long Voyage, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (7/8/02): I visit your tube each watch that I'm off work / And there are many such; the years like leaves behind / us swirling / In our plasma trail. Have I aged well, you think? / I like to believe you do under your frost.
The File of a Thousand Places, by Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. (7/1/02): His filing system / Was cosmosophy / In action:
The Canticles of Rage, by Bruce Boston (6/24/02): across the atrium faces die to be heard / within the canons of the heart / no word is sacred
The Big Bang Cycle, by Abbi Ball (6/17/02): They often spoke of the seed / as they sipped from a dwindling supply of absinthe, / their words tumbling from absent-minded lips / into my hiding place behind the vent.
The Wash of Moments, by Jason Lee (6/10/02): The wash of moments, like stars / burned out near the beginning of time.
Haystacks, by Lucy A. E. Ward (6/3/02): In the slow creep of delirium / Johnny and Hoagy threatened / to loudly ruin our soft dehydration.
Mathematics, by Jennifer Crow (5/27/02): In a weak moment, the boy counts— / one body, two, a dozen / and he wonders if their ghosts / remember him. . . .
Bone Flute, by Cenizas de Rosas (5/20/02): silent music / notes falling into night
Frank, by CAConrad (5/13/02): "this daisy in my / mouth" Frank says / "is a snorkel / breathing / another / dimension"
Mrs. Lincoln's Terror of Moths, by Ed Lynskey (5/6/02): I rue / tigerish mandibles banqueting in my Saratoga-Carroll trunks—
Troy: The Movie, by John M. Ford (4/29/02): The motion for the Trojan's / From the goddess with the bodice, / The Greek who's got the grief / Is in the stew from the blue, / As they'll say in the talkie remake
A Bestiary: Laughing Blood, by Tim Pratt (4/22/02): This is the second poem in Tim Pratt's new mythological series.
A Bestiary: Poor Bahamut, by Tim Pratt (4/15/02): This week's poem is from a new series by Tim Pratt. It has everything good mythology needs—pain, hell and fish. Check next week for another in the series.
Gravemaid, by Wendy Rathbone (4/8/02): Witch in a torn lace smock / Goblin with spider-cobbed hair / Dryad hiding among fallen graves
To Sleep, by Mark Rich (4/1/02): people falling in twos, threes / by the office-load / by the building-full / to sleep
Ice Magic, by Robert Randolph Medcalf, Jr. (3/25/02): Our ship / Is fueled / By a deuterium / Iceball—
Carnaval Perpetuel, by Sandra Kasturi (3/18/02): While wanting a ball is not wanting a prince / the two seem to go hand in hand, / a kind of logarithmic function of desire and fulfillment.
The Lesions of Genetic Sin, by Bruce Boston (3/11/02): loosen your collar your tie
            & let the bruised & bloodied vocabularies
      of the urban night descend between
your cool shirt & warm belly
        like hinged scraps of living meat
Killers From the Light, Killers From the Heat, by Scott E. Green (3/4/02): They come down from the light / that blinds / our eyes.
The Eclipse, by Liz Henry (2/25/02): As we are dying we reveal / ourselves. This is why / when I kiss you I close / my eyes sometimes.
Why Norm Jones Never Feels Like He Gets Anything Done In A Day, by Russ Bickerstaff (2/18/02): "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear." / They could also be further away. . . .
Muse Trap, by Tim Pratt (2/11/02): Tonight I made a muse trap / and baited it with all her favorite / things. I left a trail of palm fronds / and cinnamon sticks and jelly beans
Gargoyle Poems, by Michael Marsh (2/4/02): There is / even the Ghost / of a Gargoyle / riding / his night colored mare.
Had Been There, by Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca (1/28/02): An instinct rose within / and she began to spin herself / in her dress of yellow, summered silk.
Cryogenica, by Lee Ballentine (1/21/02): were any blooms open this morning? / did the radio come on?
Tombstone Tapestries, by Sandra J. Lindow (1/14/02): At Our Lady of Perpetual Memory, / funereal fads can be followed for centuries.
Slouching Towards Entropy, by Ann K. Schwader (1/7/02): Not clean light, after all: not sweet atomic / absolution of our myriad sins / in one swift Lenten smear of ash, faint thumbprint / shadow on a shattered concrete sky.
An Open Letter to Our Astronauts, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (12/31/01): I wonder about them, those brave explorers,
Oracle, by Kendall Evans (12/17/01): "Go," said the Oracle
Threnody at Sea, by Mark Rudolph (12/10/01): the ocean steals anything it wants: / bridges, ships, even entire cities; / then throws it all back—warped / and bleached, battered beyond recognition.
Purified on the Only Visible Moon, by T. Emmett Mueller (12/3/01): our footprints, / pristine, eternal, / mark paths of to and from.
Historian's Guide to the Galaxy, by Derek Adams (11/26/01): Brought into being / with a cosmic slap on the bottom. . . .
The Franks, by CAConrad (11/19/01): Frank hammers
carrots
all day

it works

the earth
can't
leave us
On the K-T Boundary, by S. R. Compton (11/12/01): We have had many visions: / the world dried like a raisin, / cracked mudflats or windblown deserts / as far as a satellite's eye could see;
A Crash Course in Lemon Physics, by Robert Frazier (11/5/01): Here is a new poem from Robert Frazier, who is to SF poetry what Hugo Gernsback was to Science Fiction.
Π in the Sky, by Joan Aiken (10/29/01): Who'll solve my problem? asks the moon
Down Below, by Joan Aiken (10/29/01): There's a deep secret place, dark in the hold of this ship / A fine, private place, if one could get down there and hide
The Fright Before Christmas, by S. K. S. Perry (10/22/01): I sprang from my crypt, and ran to the window, / Looking for signs of that netherworld bimbo. / When what to my pustulant eyes should appear, / But a battered up sleigh, and eight rancid reindeer.
Orpheus Among the Cabbages, by Tim Pratt (10/15/01): A man's head rested among the cabbages. / He had black hair, and the kind of olive skin that / some women find exotic when they don't know / better. "I am Orpheus," he said.
Gothic Romance, by Dave Whippman (10/8/01): We have altered each other more thoroughly / Than moon or potions ever could. Tonight / The experiments in creating anger / Escaped control.
The Golem, by Denise Dumars (10/1/01): I'd wanted a muse, / but had created a monster.
Dreaming Black Holes, by Sandra J. Lindow (9/24/01): In the dream when I boiled, / skinned and ate Schrvdinger's kitten, / there was no uncertainty inside / the lidded aluminum kettle;
Deconstructing Night, by Ann K. Schwader (9/17/01): That one is sane & holy in our sight, / the other neither, merely seems to be / (on close analysis) a privileged view / of questionable worth.
Reunion, by Lucy A. E. Ward (9/10/01): They move in a slow wheel of devastation / dark sisters spinning with the grace of death. . . .
Hibernal Cryodreams of Conquest, by Steve Sneyd and Gene van Troyer (9/3/01): Will you be changed / when we stand upon alien bones / next planetfall, the new skies / yet again our own and / purified with our constellations?
On Mars, by David Salisbury (8/20/01): There isn't really life on Mars rather / existence, continuance along infinite lines / on the island suspended in black cold.
In the Shade of the Tree of Knowledge, by Michael Chant (8/6/01): Slowly, painfully, she turns to the window, / Glaring as her train passes through the city. / Despite knowing them as rapists who fancied themselves as gods, / It has become hard to frown at their straight-edged encroachment; / Success was found in failure.
The Clouds, by Thomas M. Disch (7/30/01): Slowly they graze the mountaintops, slow / Cows wandering home to their sunset— / Mildly anxious, leaking drops of milk / Into the monumental snow.
Ballade of the New God, by Thomas M. Disch (7/30/01): I'd worship me if I were you. / A new religion starts tonight!
A Collective Invention Revisited, by Margaret B. Simon (7/16/01): . . . a collective invention, half fish, half human. / Sucked dry by too many conventional seagulls / swooping, pecking at his exposed soul. . . .
Embalmer, by Maryann Hazen-Stearns (7/2/01): They bring their dead to me daily / Rich or poor they bring their dead
Mask, by Tim Pratt (6/18/01): I have come to find a new / face and body, a truer expression / than the one I see in the mirror.
The Heat of the Moon, by Gary Lehmann (6/4/01): It was a chill evening in fall. / He had moved his table of mirrors over to the open window / and bundled himself warmly against the cold night air.
Venusian Cuisine, by Timons Esaias (5/21/01): What do our colonists eat on Venus?
Voodoo Corner Bus Stop, by Nancy Ellis Taylor (5/7/01): I was holding / Black candles / And waiting / For a bus / That would never come
A Gardener Betrayed by Roses, by Benjamin Rosenbaum (4/16/01): Roses want to eat the ivy, / fill the oaks with blood. / They want kisses and hatred, / chocolate and vengeance;
A Tale of Collaboration, by Marge Simon and Bruce Boston (4/2/01): I open my fingers, drop the pen. / It bounces on the forest carpet, / lands on a trail of blood kisses.
Beans, by Jody Wallace (3/19/01): Gold chain man, faithless, nevertheless / worked harder to beat the beans / than he ever did to love Lynda.
The God of the Crossroads, by Tim Pratt (3/5/01): "You're waiting again," the god said in / the punkette's sexy-raspy voice. "What / are you waiting for?"
accidental series, by Charles Coleman Finlay (2/19/01): lights off. sit calm! sit calm! / begin our slow glissade into the tears / of heaven where we d(are not)rown
Ghost Lakes, by David C. Kopaska-Merkel (2/5/01): Deserts sometimes dream of water. . . .
Passing Through, by Kurt Newton (1/15/01): A fragment of a man in his car, hurtling headlong through time, a startled, curious look upon his face.
If the Dead Must Speak, by Ward Kelley (1/1/01): We miss our limbs, the splay / of arms, the limbo legs, the / inimate positioning of apertures / for sex;
Icarus, by Wendy A. Shaffer (12/4/00): Did he blame Daedalus, his father?
Who warned him not to fly too high
        in the same distracted tones with which
        he admonished his son
        to put on a sweater in the cold,
        to eat his lima beans,
        to not run with scissors.
Changing Masks, by John B. Rosenman (11/6/00): A man sits at a table on the city's busiest sidewalk. His table is big and covered with masks, hundreds of them. People pass him in an endless stream, just as they have been doing for years.
Grief, by Wendy Rathbone (10/2/00): In the forlorn dark
Surreal Domestic, by Bruce Boston (9/1/00): I have a giant flea for a pet. / It has little dogs running around on it.

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