* 42.1 Winter 2019 $5.00 Night Stop by Robert Frazier Table of Contents 05 Dragons & Rayguns • Vince Gotera 07 SFPA Announcements 15 President’s Message • Bryan Thao Worra 19 From the Small Press • Rebecca Buchanan, Herb Kauderer, Diane Severson Mori, Lisa Timpf 27 Stealth SF: Where Shall I Pour My Dream? • Denise Dumars 42 XenoPoetry: Untitled • Shiyi Li (Translated by D. A. Xiaolin Spires) Poetry 04 New Year’s Resolutions • Mary Soon Lee • [thought we’d found] • Lauren McBride 05 [time machine testing begins] • Lauren McBride • A Deity Goes Too Far • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • epilogue • Brittany Hause 06 Mothra • Robert Borski • The Fairy T.A.Z. • Lorraine Schein 08 Titanium Sheen • Russell Hemmell • The Day the Dragons Returned • Jacqueline West 09 On a Dead Spaceship • Robin Helweg-Larsen 10 White Silk-Lined Casket • Jessica Drake-Thomas • Not Tonight • Kathleen A. Lawrence 11 Life on Uranus • Christina Sng • Does it have cup holders? • Gretchen Tessmer 12 NonLinear B • Denise Dumars and s. c. virtes • [happy ending—] • Carolyn M. Hinderliter • [new baby robot] • Denny E. Marshall 13 Rocket Autumn • Aaron Knuckey • Space Junked (LA Ramjet) • Benjamin Whitney Norris • [last supper] • Greg Schwartz • [eternal life . .] • Greg Schwartz TM 14 The Cook •P M F Johnson • Pregnant • David Barber 15 [after hypnotherapy] •Christina Sng • Styx and Bones • Gretchen Tessmer 16 Giants in the Earth • Deborah L. Davitt • [“Eject” button] • Noel Sloboda • [Oort cloud slam] • LeRoy Gorman 17 Overodd (Er)go Self-Installation • J. P. Brown • [pets] • Christina Sng • [her gentle kisses] • ayaz daryl nielsen • Property of Hansel and Gretel • Matthew Wilson 18 In the Vast Underground Cities of Mars • Mary Jo Rabe • [For her who laid and hatched my egg] • Ronald A. Busse 24 [“hey!] • ayaz daryl nielsen • [even as queen] • Christina Sng 25 Unicorn Care • Mary Soon Lee • Paleopoets Speak • Mickey Kulp • [lingerie fetish] • F. J. Bergmann Star*Line 2 Winter 2019 26 Blocked • Robert Borski • [burying the alien] • Christina Sng • [like the moon] • F. J. Bergmann 30 cyborg teambuilding • F. J. Bergmann • [winter chill] • LeRoy Gorman 31 The Farm •Josh Brown • a nano message • D. A. Xiaolin Spires • [fossil star in shale] • F. J. Bergmann • [dawn chill on Enceladus] • F. J. Bergmann • [crumpled behemoth] • Marcus Vance 32 Willowisp • Lynne Sargent • [protected old growth] • LeRoy Gorman • Drunk on Spring • Symantha Reagor • [Earth a blue speck] • F. J. Bergmann 33 the way home • Michelle Muenzler • loose change • Allan Rozinski • My Fault • David C. Kopaska-Merkel • [lost twin] • Christina Sng 34 Organic Traffic Cornelius• Fortune 35 [the feeling] • Christina Sng • What You Hear When Your Best Friend Falls for a Supervillain • Beth Cato • In Situ • Charlotte Ozment 36 Esmeralda • Marge Simon • heavy-planet dreams • Peter Roberts 37 Amphitrite • Cassandra Rose Clarke • [odor of lilies] • Alzo David-West • The Mantids’ Moirai • Mindy Watson 38 The Child •David Barber • [immortality] • Christina Sng • [By sheer coincidence] • Jeffrey Park • [second opinion] • Carolyn M. Hinderliter 39 It Is Said • Lisa Timpf • [time machine] • Denny E. Marshall • Balancing Act • D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Deborah L. Davitt, and Gretchen Tessmer 40 Self-Portrait as Pretty Monster • Jeannine Hall Gailey 41 Why You Should Buy Your Loved One a Final Resting Place on Sepulcrum Minor • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Quantum Hearts • Stace Johnson 43 Snubbed • Mary Soon Lee • [bustling city] • Marcus Vance • Paprika Dust • D. A. Xiaolin Spires • [cinnamon tentacles, cardamom suckers] • D. A. Xiaolin Spires Back Noble Cinquains • John Caulkins Art Cover Night Stop • Robert Frazier 04 Lies the Tree Told • Christina Sng 11 Worlds Collide • Christina Sng 34 Stroller • Denny E. Marshall 36 Esmeralda • Marge Simon Star*Line 3 Winter 2019 New Year’s Resolutions thought we’d found a suitable New Earth 1. For novices coffee plants won't grow colonization efforts Huddle in the Antarctic dark abandoned with emperor penguins for sixty-four days. —Lauren McBride Irrigate Mars (canals preferred). Memorize the first ten thousand primes. • 2. For journeymen Endow peahens with plumage eclipsing that of peacocks. Circumnavigate the Moon by hot-air balloon (add appropriate atmosphere in advance). Prove the Riemann hypothesis. • 3. For advanced practitioners Travel to 17th-century Mauritius to retrieve dodos. Rearrange the rings of Saturn. Make π rational. —Mary Soon Lee Lies the Tree Told by Christina Sng Star*Line 4 Winter 2019 Dragons & Rayguns Happy New Earth-Orbit, Terrans and other sentient beings, terrestrial and extraterrestrial! As always, we offer you the proverbial veritable feast of speculative poetry, reviews, articles, art, and news. Again in this issue, as we had throughout the 2018 volume year, the SFPA’s 40th anniversary celebration year, we have cover art created by a poet: Robert Frazier, SFPA Grandmaster and former editor of this magazine. I hope you enjoy this issue, dear friends in specpo, and I wish you all—bilateral and asymmetrical—the best poetry year ever! —Vince Gotera, Star*Line Editor A Deity Goes Too Far time machine testing begins People just didn’t get the hint, auto return enabled Yahweh wasn’t getting thru, time machine testing begins 12 not enough? The 13th plague, —Lauren McBride Dwarf hippopotami, would do the trick. No? How about No. 14: Mixed velociraptors and tyrannosaurs? (If the right one don’t get you epilogue The left one will) If the survivors STILL won’t how the whole hill shakes Obey the commandments, to the thrum Another flood, of chitinous wings . But this time from below: if you were with me now Molten rock, 1000 °C. I’d dance along How does it feel? Feeling the love and obedience yet? —Brittany Hause Hello? Hello? —David C. Kopaska-Merkel Star*Line 5 Winter 2019 Mothra At a cost of several billion dollars, and conceived as the ultimate bioweapon, able, like Lorenz’s butterfly, to fan up enormous hurricane winds, but released under cover of darkness from its aircraft-hangered chrysalis (within the silver threads of which germline edits have reworked its trachea and exoskeleton), then directed via alarm pheromones to attack our hostile foe, only to see it err off-course, taking a skyward route, winging its way toward the rising bulb of the full moon. Perhaps, after all, we should have gone with the giant fire-breathing lizard prototype. —Robert Borski The Fairy T.A.Z. The nihilist Unseelie fairies live in a Trans-Temporal Autonomous Zone. It’s a pop-up rave, held outside of space-time, a party that bubbles up between midnight and eternity—a never-ending revel, outrunning the dawn. Indolent aristocrats, they fornicate with each other and their change- lings in every position, drink the greenest absinthe and then hallucinate us. We sometimes hear them carousing, though we are but their dreams. The Unseelie light bonfires that burn so brightly they incinerate the edges of reality, creating sparks of anomalous experiences, déjà vu moments, and fugue states. They party so hard, they create more of the dark energy of the universe, an ebony tidal wave accelerating the collapse of the cosmos. As the last atoms rip apart, the Unseelie celebrate the Void. —Lorraine Schein Star*Line 6 Winter 2019 SFPA Announcements SFPA Treasurer Election Voting is open January 15–March 15 for SFPA Treasurer. The only candidate is Rich Magahiz; members may write in other names. Rich tells us, “After a long while in the Midwest and East I am living back on the West Coast getting used to the new millennium. I have been writing speculative poetry for about twenty years now, mostly minimalistic, and have enjoyed a few publications.” Members may vote at http://bit.ly/SFPATreasurer2019 or by mail to the SFPA secretary: Renee Ya, P.O. Box 2074, San Mateo, CA 94401 USA. Rhysling Award Nominations David C. Kopaska-Merkel, the 2019 Rhysling Awards Chair, edited Star*Line in the late ’90s and later served as SFPA President. His 29th book, a speculative-poetry collection entitled Metastable Systems, was nominated for the Elgin award. Kopaska-Merkel edits and publishes Dreams and Nightmares, a genre poetry zine in its 33rd year of publication. In 2017 he was named Grandmaster of the SFPA. Nominations are open until February 15 for the Rhysling Awards for the best poems published in 2018. Only SFPA members may nominate one short poem and/or one long poem for the award. Poets may not nominate their own work. All genres of speculative poetry are eligible. Short poems must be under 50 lines (no more than 500 words for prose poems) and Long poems are 50+ lines, not including title or stanza breaks, and first published in 2018; include publication and issue, or press if from a book or anthology. Here is the online nomination form: http://bit.ly/2019RhyslingNom. Or nominate by mail to the SFPA secretary: Renee Ya, P.O. Box 2074, San Mateo, CA 94401 USA. Elgin Award Nominations Charles Christian will be the 2019 Elgin Awards Chair. Nominations due on May 15; more info will come by MailChimp email soon. Send title, author, and publisher of speculative poetry books and chapbooks published in 2017 and 2018 to [email protected] by mail to the SFPA secretary: Renee Ya, P.O. Box 2074, San Mateo, CA 94401 USA. Only SFPA members may nominate; there is no limit to how many they can nominate, but they may not nominate their own work. Books and chapbooks that placed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, in last year’s Elgin Awards are not eligible. Star*Line 7 Winter 2019 Titanium Sheen In the lucid reflection of titanium, her cyborg identity. Her exoskeleton, like a beetle’s carapace or a knight’s armour. She is made for war and all mankind’s harrowing dreams, one among a thousand dark sisters of no-name.