Dwarf Stars 2016

TheDwarf Stars anthology is a selection of the best speculative poems of ten lines or fewer from the previous year, nominated by the Science Fiction Poetry Association membership and chosen for publication by the editors.

From this anthology, SFPA members vote for the best poem. The winner receives the Dwarf Stars Award, which is analogous to the SFPA Rhysling Awards, given annually for poems of any length.

The text was set in Arno Pro and Charcuterie fonts, using Adobe InDesign.

The Best Very Short Speculative Poems Published in 2015

Lesley Wheeler edited by & Jeannine Hall Gailey Introduction

A Letter from the Editors

LW: Welcome to the 2016 Dwarf Stars anthology! JHG: Lesley and I were so impressed with the quality of the nominations this year. LW: Yes, and grateful that so many writers nominated poems they admired by other people. That’s generous work. Deborah P Kolodji, founder of this anthology series, deserves especial thanks for all her scouting. JHG: We also pored over journals—online and print, speculative and “regular”—to find short poems that would fit well into theDwarf Stars anthology for the Science Fiction Poetry Association. We hope we’ve represented a wide variety within the limits of what is considered speculative in style, substance, and sources. LW: Jeannine lives in Washington State and I live in Virginia, so while we sat in our distant offices reading physical books and journals, the editing process was entirely email-based. I thought we might haggle more over favorites, and even over definitions of “speculative,” but we tended to agree. You’ll see many dwarf stars here radiate an irresistible shine. And a few of them wink. JHG: We found many other poems that were wonderful and speculative, but too long. We looked through 2015’s many books of poetry to find poems short enough and speculative enough to qualify. (Sorry, Ada Limón’s Bright Dead Things—a terrific book—too bad the shortest poem was 11 lines!) It was difficult to narrow it down as much as we did, but I think the SFPA members will be as fascinated as we were by the poems

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chosen—some scifaiku, some short lyric poems, and even a short prose poem or two. We both mused that if some writers had chosen slightly different line breaks, they would have been eligible for the award. And how many literary journals we read through that didn’t have anything that was ten lines or less—a bit of a surprise! Something to think about when you all are writing and editing your poems in 2016. LW: We hope you enjoy this year’s constellation, and that it inspires you to more brevity and brilliance in 2016. JHG: We were so honored and happy to have the chance to read this year's poems. We hope you enjoy these outstanding poems as much as we did. —Jeannine Hall Gailey & Lesley Wheeler June 2016 z

Only current SFPA members may vote for the 2016 Dwarf Stars Award. Choose first, second, and third choice poems and select them in the online voting form: (link posted at sfpoetry.com/ds/16dwarfstars.html) or send by postal mail to: Shannon Connor Winward SFPA Secretary Voting deadline: 117 McCann Rd August 31, 2016! Newark DE 19711

v Congratulations to last year’s Dwarf Stars Award winners!

1st Place: “abandoned nursing home” Greg Schwartz Tales of the Talisman 9:3

2nd Place: Princess: A Life Jane Yolen Mythic Delirium, 2014

3rd Place: The Square Root of Doppelgängers Robert Borski Star*Line 37:2 Table of Contents

Accident-Prone Susan Rooke 1 Alice was chasing white rabbits out of a black hole John C. Mannone 1 Anomaly F. J. Bergmann 2 “at the barre” Julie Bloss Kelsey 2 “awake after surgery” Sandra J. Lindow 2 “back on earth” Robert Piotrowski 2 Bees Fell Asleep Grzegorz Wróblewski 2 (translated from the Polish by Piotr Gwiazda) Black Hull, Greenheart Susan Grimm 3 Boston to Providence Carrie Etter 3 Classified II Robert Borski 4 “Comicon” Susan Burch 4 Creation Myth (1981) Iliana Rocha 4 “crumbling castle” Greer Woodward 4 “daybreak” Helen Buckingham 5 The Doorman F. J. Bergmann 5 Driving 80 mph at Night William Cullen, Jr. 5 “the economy of a solar system …” Ralf Bröker 6 A Field Amelia Martens 6 Gretel Robert Borski 6 “hell-bent” Susan Burch 6 How We Sing Katharine Coles 7 jellyfish Beth Langford 7 “late winter” Kristen Deming 7 The Man with Red Eyes Christina Sng 8 “methane rain” Joshua Gage 8 “night sky” Susan Antolin 8

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Notes for Next Week’s Sermon David C. Kopaska-Merkel 8 November rain LeRoy Gorman 9 Placebo Effect Roberta Beary 9 Scissors Series Arielle Greenberg 9 “shapeshifter” John Reinhart 9 “she said” dl mattila 9 “steam rises” David McKee 10 “tail in Winnipeg” Sandra J. Lindow 10 “they claimed our star” C.R. Harper 10 Thor and Saturn’s Tête-á-tête Maceo J. Whitaker 10 “time portal wedding” LeRoy Gorman 11 “upturned faces" Deborah P Kolodji 11 “warm the blur …” Michelle Tennison 11 We Begin This Way Stacey Balkun 11 Weathering Sandi Leibowitz 12 What Dolls Eat Karen Bovenmyer 12 “when hell freezes over” Deborah P Kolodji 13 “the window cleaner’s ladder” Mark Holloway 13 Wish Rebecca Buchanan 13

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Accident-Prone

Trouble seeks you, requests your hand where it does not belong, no other invitation so compelling. You touch darkness though it burns, wish to know what comes uncoiled in the pocket of the snake hole, what heart beats without its head. What poison-bright legs propel the leaf that creeps the forest floor of its own accord. You'll prick your finger on the spindle of the spider's fang while sifting through the crumble in a live oak hollow. 100 years of sleep await you in the eye of that tree. —Susan Rooke

Alice was chasing white rabbits out of a black hole darker than Kentucky nights when it exploded everywhere at the same time. Heaven inflated hot with light, and she rode a gamma ray stretching all the way into radio just to whisper static into the statuesque antenna—a giant horn—listening for secrets from the edge of the invisible universe. —John C. Mannone

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Anomaly

Comes the night you turn on the television and it explodes. So you sit there in the dark house, a cascade of moonlight spilling over the windowsill, and finally rise to swim toward the door, which opens inward. You may be a monster, but that doesn’t make you a created monster. Someone is coming up the street at midnight. Someone is walking backward. at the barre —F. J. Bergmann the graceful arms of a spiral galaxy

awake after surgery —Julie Bloss Kelsey hallucinating star charts fentanyl flowers back on earth —Sandra J. Lindow I can't help but feel like the alien again —Robert Piotrowski Bees Fell Asleep

"As we slowly forget the dead, we slowly draw closer to them ..." says a dour man met by accident. It's true. Bees fell asleep and I remember nobody. In yellow leaves I don't recognize your wrinkled face. —Grzegorz Wróblewski (translated from the Polish by Piotr Gwiazda)

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Black Hull, Greenheart the courts of winter are snow-covered utterance self- binding a fine-tuned quiver in the air from which streams arrows of light letter openers to meaning the trees bedizened besmirched them having been present the letterbox where I emptied my mouth I could have lived in your watchpocket (liar) I could have lit up like a matchbox like Shackleton I have named my body “Endurance” embroidery of being beholden beware —Susan Grimm

Boston to Providence Two trains for the same city arrive from opposite directions—we board in unease, in chill incipient spring shade— my own incipience recurring in its untimely, ungraphable past the budding trees, at the end of and along each branch and twig a small green— past the flowering dogwoods and cherries milk and pink aloft and scattered beneath rumbling, whistling forward toward city and other selves known or emerging or even as the trees begin to blur —Carrie Etter

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Classified II

For Sale: Used Time Machine. Must sell by year of Grandfather's birth. Comicon— every Darth Vader —Robert Borski says he’s my father —Susan Burch

Creation Myth (1981) I was born drunk & paisley, vestige from the womb. My face laughed into itself— eyes sank into earlobe & nostrils warped into seahorse. I was vanilla bean & Mexican vanilla & amniotic dessert, & my mother did everything she could not to devour me. I became comino & ajo & hibiscus— all good for grinding. Mocajete, first, & knuckle decomposing mass & matter, baby & mother. When she tried to stillbear me it hurt until she cried diamonds while my father was swapping spit with the agave. —Iliana Rocha

crumbling castle a patch of witchflowers —Greer Woodward

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daybreak blackdog pixelating —Helen Buckingham

The Doorman

That poem was a revelation; it really opened a door. You descend from the limousine onto the mandatory red carpet. When you approach the threshold, the poem stands there attentively, gloved hand on the crystal doorknob, gold braid on its epaulets. It smiles and waves you onward, with a genial nod. You step through onto the rocky promontory, shading your eyes with your hand and squinting against the glare. From far below, you hear the crash of waves, a foghorn, seabirds, lobsters singing. Out there, something is moving its tremendous flukes. —F. J. Bergmann

Driving 80 mph at Night

late health premium his google contact lenses begin to dissolve —William Cullen, Jr.

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the economy of a solar system our daughter’s first date —Ralf Bröker

A Field

Once upon a time there was a fly. Once upon a time there was an ache shaped like a sunflower, at least to the eye. Once upon a time a field lay down in a patch of gods and got shot through the gut with cotton and wheat. Once upon a time all grass was sea grass and we swam, serrated by the blades of all known light. —Amelia Martens

Gretel

Lost girl found after weeks in woods, but doctors refuse to opine about weight gain or whereabouts of brother. —Robert Borski

hell-bent on talking to you— Ouija board —Susan Burch

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How We Sing

With our leg bones. With alphabets And lambkins. With bat-wings Hung out to dry. With the birds. With our heads on our sleeves. From The lion’s throat, in stitches. Riding The backs of dragons. Bohemian, Spare-pantried, squeezing our boxes, Penises wagging, breasts akimbo, mouthing Feet, hearts in our hands, whistles Whetted. Barefaced. Captive. In time. —Katharine Coles jellyfish what boats and ghosts know snags on the same hope. saddled smoke coasting, down-filled. bundled up ribbons and egg yolks, jingles to popularize buoyancy, a lost-grip seaside —Beth Langford late winter— lighting both lobes of my brain sweet daphne —Kristen Deming

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The Man with Red Eyes

childhood monster standing before me ordering coffee —Christina Sng methane rain— the steady whir of idling thrusters

night sky —Joshua Gage one of those stars might be the reset button —Susan Antolin

Notes for Next Week's Sermon

1. Don't mention the Goat. 2. Use the water in the green pitcher to anoint the faces. 3. The red pitcher is for cleaning stains off the altar. 4. The litany of Yug is undefined. 5. The offering this time is for restoring the Hall of Mirrors. 6. Call for volunteers for the Consecration of the Hall. 7. Buy tarps. Big ones. 8. Really don't say anything about the Goat!!! —David C. Kopaska-Merkel

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November rain rusting robots creak up on us —LeRoy Gorman

Placebo Effect

lunar tilt—the longevity of bad luck scanning the adverse side effect black fly notes on necrosis orchid at dusk well-water the metallic taste of clinical trial unwilling to hypothecate crepe myrtle cloud stem cell … distance from earth to moon —Roberta Beary

Scissors Series

In which I shove my dream life back the other way through a plastic bendy straw. —Arielle Greenberg shapeshifter tattoos herself she said on herself again he said they said —John Reinhart contagion —d l mattila

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steam rises from the horses wave and particle —David McKee tail in Winnipeg ice dragon raises blind eyes in Wisconsin —Sandra J. Lindow they claimed our star marred their sacred sky we're forced to agree —C. R. Harper

Thor and Saturn’s Tête-á-tête

To thwart? To abet? To mete? Quixotic cobbler, spread apocryphal mendacity from Styx to Mt. Dix. Yoke check to bank, broadcast flaccid gospel. Raze it! Scorch it! It’s summertime in Mendocino. Ah, poke stigmatized feet-stank. Quotidian Stygian, pack funk-stuffed rucksacks into boats of dope(d) diction. Fuck Friday. Yes, you, Freya. Be fazed. —Maceo J. Whitaker

10 Dwarf Stars 2016 upturned faces of the last humans plum blossoms —Deborah P Kolodji time portal wedding an exchange of nows —LeRoy Gorman warm the blur of Persephone a beat I can almost hear —Michelle Tennison

We Begin This Way

in dirt and thread, two birds eying the loose hem of my skirt. Stag-boy and I stand between the words owl and nest, feet bare in the river bend, mud settled between our toes. We watch two heaves of ice break from the upper falls. He picks up a stone warm with autumn light and presses it into my open palm. —Stacey Balkun

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Weathering

When she asked what the weather was like here, I sent it to her— coastal winds to tame her fever, scent of sea-brine to undo the hospital’s nosegay of disinfectant and disease. Days later, when her voice on the phone grew distant as she said the room was cold, so cold, I blew across the miles the island sun brave as a browning sunflower nodding on its stalk. —Sandi Leibowitz

What Dolls Eat

Our cat, Puddles, never missed breakfast, until today. When I told my daughter, she said the dolls, which she tucked in their beds each night, were also missing. Puddles loved to play with them—carrying them by the hair, leaving a porcelain hand poking from under the couch or a tiny spikey shoe at the top of the steps. At last, we found them in the 1/12-scale gazebo, sipping plastic red wine. My daughter had forgotten she did not put them away, but that did not explain their sticky hands and faces or the shine in their open, painted eyes. —Karen Bovenmyer

12 Dwarf Stars 2016 when hell freezes over: pomegranate jam in the ski resort gift shop —Deborah P Kolodji

the window cleaner’s ladder leaves two small holes in the planet —Mark Holloway

Wish

Basile. Perrault. The Grimm boys, with their heavy sideburns. The author is irrelevant: in every version, it is all about her. The fairy, owl-eyed, did not have the heart to tell the soot-covered girl, that she was there for the rat. —Rebecca Buchanan

13 Acknowledgments

Antolin, Susan. “night sky.” Modern Haiku 46:2. Balkun, Stacey. “We Begin This Way.”Gingerbread House 16. Beary, Roberta. “Placebo Effect.”Modern Haiku 46:2. Bergmann, F. J. “Anomaly.” 2015 SFPA poetry contest. Bergmann, F. J. “The Doorman.”Grievous Angel, 16 May 2015. Borski, Robert. “Classified II.”Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2015. Borski, Robert. “Gretel.” Ghostlight, The Magazine of Terror, Summer 2015. Bovenmyer, Karen. “What Dolls Eat.” The Were-Traveler, 28 June 2015. Bröker, Ralf. “the economy of a solar system …” Frogpond 38:2. Buchanan, Rebecca. “Wish.” Gingerbread House 11. Buckingham, Helen. “daybreak.” Noon 10. Burch, Susan. “Comicon.” Grievous Angel, February 2015. Burch, Susan. “hell-bent.” Grievous Angel, February 2015. Coles, Katharine. “How We Sing.” Crazyhorse, Spring 2015. Cullen, William, Jr., “Driving 80 mph at Night.” Star*Line 38:2. Deming, Kristen. “late winter.” Frogpond 38:1. Etter, Carrie. “Boston to Providence.”Molly Bloom 7. Gage, Joshua. “methane rain.” Scifaikuest 50, print. Gorman, LeRoy. “November rain.” Scifaikuest online, August 2015. Gorman, LeRoy. “time portal wedding.” Star*Line 38:3. Greenberg, Arielle. “Scissors Series.” Crazyhorse, Spring 2015. Grimm, Susan. “Black Hull, Greenheart.” Cherry Tree 1. Harper, C.R. “they claimed our star.” Star*Line 38:2. Holloway, Mark. “the window cleaner’s ladder.” Bones 6. Kelsey, Julie Bloss. “at the barre.” Rattle 51. Kolodji, Deborah P. “upturned faces.” Star*Line 38:2. Kolodji, Deborah P. “when hell freezes over.” Star*Line 38:2. Kopaska-Merkel, David C. “Notes for Next Week’s Sermon.” Star*Line 38:1.

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Langford, Beth. “jellyfish.”inkscrawl 8. Leibowitz, Sandi. “Weathering.” Silver Blade 25. Lindow, Sandra. “awake after surgery.”Scifaikuest print, February 2015. Lindow, Sandra. “tail in Winnipeg.” Tales of the Talisman X:3. Mannone, John C. “Alice was chasing white rabbits out of a black hole.” Abbreviate Journal, July/August 2015. Martens, Amelia. “A Field.” The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review 41, Winter 2015, and The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat (Sarabande Books, 2016). mattila, dl. “she said.”Frogpond 38:1. McKee, David. “steam rises.” Modern Haiku 46:2. Piotrowski, Robert. “back on earth.” Scifaikuest print, February 2015. Reinhart, John. “shapeshifter.”Scifaikuest 50, print. Rocha, Iliana. “Creation Myth (1981).” Karankawa (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. Rooke, Susan. “Accident-Prone.” inkscrawl 8. Sng, Christina. “The Man with Red Eyes.”Scifaikuest 50, print. Tennison, Michelle. “warm the blur …” Frogpond 38:2. Whitaker, Maceo J. “Thor and Saturn’s Tête-á-tête.”Poetry , October 2015. Woodward, Greer. “crumbling castle.” Star*Line 38:1. Wróblewski, Grzegorz, translated from the Polish by Piotr Gwiazda. “Bees Fell Asleep.” The Los Angeles Review 18.

15 Dwarf Stars 2016 The best very short speculative poetry of the prior year edited by Jeannine Hall Gailey & Lesley Wheeler Each year, the Science Fiction Poetry Association selects the Dwarf Stars Award for the best short speculative poetry of the year before. The 2016 Dwarf Stars anthology contains a diverse mix of excellent, very short science fiction, fantasy, horror, and surrealist poetry (ten lines or fewer) and prose poems (100 words or fewer) from many venues, expected and unexpected.

Poetry by Susan Antolin Mark Holloway Stacey Balkun Julie Bloss Kelsey Roberta Beary Deborah P. Kolodji F.J. Bergmann David C. Kopaska-Merkel Robert Borski Beth Langford Karen Bovenmyer Sandi Leibowitz Ralf Bröker Sandra Lindow Rebecca Buchanan John C. Mannone Helen Buckingham Amelia Martens Susan Burch dl mattila Katharine Coles David McKee William Cullen Jr. Robert Piotrowski Kristen Deming John Reinhart Carrie Etter Iliana Rocha Joshua Gage Susan Rooke LeRoy Gorman Christina Sng Arielle Greenberg Michelle Tennison Susan Grimm Maceo J. Whitaker Piotr Gwiazda Greer Woodward C.R. Harper Grzegorz Wróblewski

Information about the Dwarf Stars awards and the Science Fiction $5.00 Poetry Association can be found on sfpoetry.com.