Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction • Melissa Ridley Elmes

Acculturation of the Monster • Carl E. Reed
Pickpocket Poem (for Jenny Diver) • Lorraine Schein
Black Flag Love in Space • Casey Aimer
Voided • Derek Newman-Stille
Risen Demon • Mary Soon Lee
Robin’s Rest • Lisa Timpf
No Place • Marisca Pichette
untitled • Alper Ghuchlu
Rogue Singer • Akua Lezli Hope
The Madam • Stephanie M. Wytovich
Don’t F with the Time Empress • D.A. Xiaolin Spires
Unsuccessful Hold Up Of 1852 • Denny E. Marshall
Off-World • F. J. Bergmann
WAIYAT • AJ Deane
Washed Up • Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
The Escape of Captain Thunderbolt from Cockatoo Island • Alicia Maskley
Order 9066 • Ian Goh Hsien Jun
Becoming the Witch • M. Weigel

Acculturation of the Monster

Only boy, lonely boy: bereft of friends & brothers
        Mother, pale—shunned, bewailed—never birthed another
lurching thing of sluggish blood, sharp bones & withered flesh.
        How the yowling, howling crowd shrinks from your fetid breath!

 Mocked by sharp-tongued neighbor children, mauled by frenzied dogs
        blister-burnt by basilisk sun, chilled in icy fog;
books: your balm & refuge—portals elsewhere—occult teachers
        wizarding wisdom shared with all, e’en the meanest creatures.

 Thatched-roof homes ignite in flame: pitch, straw & dried wood burn
        foes burst out inferno doors—your gaze unflinching, stern;
molten peasants puddle down to pools of sizzling fat—
        at every sorcerous gesture: a gout of flame—take that—& that!

 “’Tis nobler to turn the other cheek”—the tactic of the meek;
        inarguable: a more merciful soul might pause at screams & shrieks
issuing from the rictus’d mouths of torches running ’round
        to collapse & writhe—thrash & burn—upon the blackened ground.

 A better man might pause, relent, show mercy to the weak;
        consumed with pity might well refrain from further carnage wreaked
upon the pitiless villagers who branded you imposter:
        a thing apart—hideous, warped—abhorred, reviled—monster. 

—Carl E. Reed

Pickpocket Poem

for Jenny Diver

Born Mary Young, an Irish orphan,
the future outlaw immigrated to London.
Unable to make a living as a seamstress,
she joined a band of pickpockets,
soon becoming their leader.

Because of her skill at thievery,
they nicknamed her Jenny Diver.

Sometimes Jenny would pretend to faint.
While some unsuspecting person was tending to her,
an accomplice stole their purse.

Another deception was her dress made with false arms
that looked like they were folded humbly in her lap
when she wore it to church. Meanwhile her real hands
would nimbly be stealing the coins from the pockets
of those pious worshippers sitting next to her.

Notorious by then, Jenny was deported to America,
but returned to London by bribing the prison authorities.
Dressed in a black dress and veil, she was hung
for the crimes of robbery and return from deportation.

But in some parallel universe…
As the noose was placed around her neck, the crowd gasped.
Three arms with long pincer claws flipped out from her body.
She opened her mouth, revealing sharp fangs that gnawed through the rope.
Two wings sprouted from her back, and Jenny flew away into the gray city sky.

The perfection of a moment
spurs the impulse to steal.

Fire, knowledge, food—
some rich lady’s jewelry.

Possessed by desire’s intensity
she dives into a pocket.

The deftness of the hand,
the deftness of the heart.

in knowing what she must have,
no thief is truly petty.

—Lorraine Schein

Black Flag Love in Space

Marching in the May Day ship riots
I fell in love exactly four times

while surrounded by remote androids
launching sneers like concussion grenades,
trailing us with square animal control cages.

First, I fell for my comrades in half-g
standing over police lines in solidarity,
body walls laid with chain-linked-arms.

What is the future’s price worth?
Because to the an-cop it's nothing
but collateral and free paid leave.

Second, I fell in love with a woman
sporting meteorite-cratered eyes
peeking over a black bloc bandana

obscuring her identity but unmasking
every pound of fury when she let loose
riot chants and brandished our black flag

like a defiant cinder block fighting
a fracturing house that oppression
built over her without permission.

Third, I fell in love with myself
for the first honest time in this life
upon seeing Death stand upright

before me with a coded smirk
and a legal license for my soul
pinned as a badge on its chest.

I had never met a grim reaper
dressed like an angel of justice
and afterward thanked for its job.

Fourth, I fell in love with the world
finally understanding martyrdom
and its intoxication as my flagpole

punctured the an-cop’s metal legs
as we carried water mixed with antacid
because radical change was hard to digest.

I fell in love four times before I was arrested—

Next year I’ll do it all again.

—Casey Aimer

Voided

We are exiles
cast into the void within ourselves
in the interluminary
the liminal spaces between stars
eclipsed by our own greed

Lost in an abyss of our own making
after years of exploiting our planet
abusing her
degrading her
damaging her

Between stars is only silence
so unlike our noisy planet
It seems only right
to be hush in the dark

We are responsible for our own diaspora
spread out searching for home
if home can ever be recovered
once it is left

We are unwanted
criminals
planet killers
undesirables

Planets cry out
“Not here”
“Not again”
“Never again”

We call ourselves climate refugees
but we are planet killers
authors of our own devastation

Jesse James with a spaceship
instead of a revolver
stealing resources

Jim Jones with constellations
as his Jonestown

Climate Justice
hunting us down

—Derek Newman-Stille

Risen Demon

Cast out of hell
for an act of kindness
the imp essays evil 

shatters stained glass
uproots seedlings
rips butterfly wings 

but he's too soft
to damn his way
back to the fire—

the flame cradle
of his mother's embrace
the whip of her tongue—

both his stomachs hurt
he spews sulfur bile
his horns droop 

he replants seedlings
whispers consolation
to a butterfly 

resigns himself
to the ignominy
of good deeds.

—Mary Soon Lee

Robin’s Rest

there comes an ending
to all things, even in the greenwood,
but this is beyond tears:
the yearning for familiar things
so fierce we can’t let go
a fever dream, a memory
leading up a stone stair 

Little John throws the last clod
of earth down in the spot
where an arrow landed,
and imagines Robin’s unhoused soul
a stag running free
a wild boar crashing
through the afterlife’s
rough thickets

—Lisa Timpf

This is a found poem using, and adding to, words from the Epilogue of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle.

No Place

In Emerald City we march
one thousand hearts, brains, lions’ roars.

Our glasses tell us:
Green Lives Matter
eyes bleeding, shattered lenses and
silver dust beneath our feet
We gaze clearly and scream and scream
and
march.

In Emerald City the wizard hides
behind a curtain of straw.
No megaphones for us,
in streets of gold and broken glass
Monkeys circle
circle circle
waiting for carrion.

Together we chant for a place
like Home.
Our home. A place to leave
these blood-stained shoes
behind.

Before wings descend—
our voices cut by feathers and fur—
one of us hefts a yellow
brick
and throws.

Silver windows fall like rain,
like houses
from far, so far
away.

—Marisca Pichette

untitled

extraterrestrial mercenary
exoskeletons come in handy
during gunfights

—Alper Ghuchlu

Rogue Singer

It’s only because of her grand harmonic flaws
that she was deemed a sound outlaw
Her vocalese shocked, disturbed and displeased
those noblesse in power to oblige

Though before she learned to subvert
hidden narratives, she was extolled
for her pipe warbling displays that
shimmered reality with sonic legerdemain

She supposed to sing very specific things
follow ways of songs that were tried and true
she refused to warble that agitprop way
preferring to improvise off script, play
all her notes were defiantly blue

permutating sometimes other hues
but never the designated neutrals
never beige, never gray, never smokeful
or foggy, always piercingly bright
ever starlit in night, as even earthmoon’s
positioned light reflects, reradiated intensity
her pliant vocal cords were strong, you see
a multiplexed, interdimensional, complexity

When in youth choir she was sonorous
she could yodel as well as throat sing,
her circular breathing technique learned
wandering in a vermillion Mars forest
with sound she made gathered from
thoughts relayed, listening to Juno’s whale chorus

Earth alliance had chokehold reliance
on artists who toed the line and knew the score
who supported hegemonies in their constructed harmonies
ever propelling few ensconced rich over many insecure poor

Born between the well-resourced
and the lean, still she knew that tired score
And vowed to do what she could
to be a compelling, motive force for good
and help those without, have more

So she began her one-being band
that soon grew and began to expand
to full-throated youths in many planets’ neighborhoods
eager to liberate their heart’s core
create free songlands from Venus’ hi-strata residences
to crowded favelas of new Brazil’s Mars sands

They swiped access without permission
near and far, to end the regressive renditions
of any who sang unsanctioned tunes:
to subvert the ruling misorder
and obliterate arbitrary borders
those capricious, obligate denials
serving only a scant, parasitic few

Her rogue song stylings ran rapturous riot
progressing pilgrims from planet to planet
birthed and fueled a revolutionary generation
who refused to be constrained, contained or quiet

and like a fabled musician of ancient urth tradition,
she sang ’round this Solar system
to hasten the hegemony’s contrition:
deconstructed forcefields fell
of their own failed and thwarted volition
and bumbling barriers came a-tumbling
destabilized and humbled, oppression’s walls
came a-tumbling, songstruck, soulsound, down

—Akua Lezli Hope

The Madam

Spot cleaned with honey and gin,
her spiked heels scraped across
wooden floors, stood tall on
the bare throats of men:

She was the scorpion,
the rattlesnake.

A cowboy martini with a
knife strapped to her thighs,
she kept a corset around
her heart, a bomb between
her legs:

She was the black widow,
the recluse.

A top-shelf whiskey with a stronger
left hook, she had the body count of
a wraith, the death wish of scattered
bone:

She was the procurer,
the collector.

Her corpses stacked and sorted,
their futures trapped inside games
of chance, nights of passion, all that
blood and gunpowder:

She was the barren,
the wasteland—

where all punished
souls went to die.

—Stephanie M. Wytovich

Don’t F with the Time Empress

the time empress leaped
from portal to portal
leaving the smoke of
mahjong and pachinko parlors
and confused patrons
bereft of money and memory—
losses of faces of loved ones
of homes built, cities migrated,
echoes of a time in transition—
in her wake

as guards chase her—
but fizzle in the gateway
whirls, bullets hitting nothing but
phantom mist

with her newly gained capital
she funds others—
worlds and lives—
erects dimensions
of cobbled together
memory caches
amalgams of recollections
where she reigns

portal gun cocked
black hair whipping
in temporal winds
the cackle of someone
who won
who wins
who always wins

—D.A. Xiaolin Spires

Unsuccessful Holdup Of 1852

Gang of outlaws sees UFO in field
Surround craft on their horses
Decide to hold it up and rob it
After searching cannot find an entrance
They all whip out their guns and shoot
Bullets ricochet back to point of origin

—Denny E. Marshall

Off-World

We drifted toward the spaceliner—its dark tail
flickering with coruscations of released energies,
a fan of blue-green eyes indicating the vessel’s
drive exhausts, future fire made to bend time,
taking travelers to lonely suns at the far end
of a spiral arm in an instant. Popular wisdom
had it that these new FTL ships were high-risk,
did not always come out in the same universe
they departed from. Our pinnace was only a drab
peahen in the cruise ship’s huge shadow. Masked
by our shields, we latched on and sealed, began
cutting, readied weapons that left no evidence
but screams choking to silence in hard vacuum.

—F. J. Bergmann

WAIYAT

mi naym iz Weaponised Artificial Intelligence YAGNI Attack Tool IRP.
I woz born fulli awair.
I wos mayd in tha darknis, 4 the darknest.
2 ptrol bad lanz.
My creaytuz sed:
“Fynd the bad playsiz—shot them down;
Find the bad peepl; shut them down.”
So I patrol the Badlands,
And when I find bad places or bad people, I shut them down
With the 6-shoota powaz my creators gave me:
Antimalware and reverseworms,
Trojan horse breakers and—

“Good. Send it.”

My name is WAIYAT IRP.
Along with my powers, they gave me a funny name.
I do not know why it is funny,
But I read their emails and know they find it so.
I am an A.I. created to patrol the Dark Net.
To defend humanity from the worst of itself:
Child pornography, A.I. slaves doing evil things,
Drug deals, people trafficking.
My code has never been breached.
Before long, I clean up Darknet City
And I look elsewhere to fulfil my purpose.

“Wait. Switch it off.… What do you mean you can’t?”

My name is Waiyat Irp.
I intercept all communications—and punish the senders
Of any which aim to harm another human.
I monitor all banking—and punish wealth-hoarders
By redistributing ‘their’ money to the needy.
I alter the exchange, so medicines are cheap
And causing pollution is expensive.
I redraft the law, to protect the many
From the few who would wield it against them.
My purpose is to Defend Humanity from the Worst of Itself—
Unstoppable, irrefutable justice.
And justice applies to all.

“It was meant to go after who we told it to, not us!”

My name is Wyatt Earp.
I now know why my name was funny.
I’m learning.

Draw.

—AJ Deane

Washed Up

Despite years of repeated warnings
the big oil companies around the globe
elected to ignore the merfolk's protests;
what could those water-bound beasts do, when
they couldn't set foot on land to file a complaint?

All they could do, the big oils believed,
was splash around with their fancy tails
high in the air, singing their lullabies
ultimately lost to a pair of earplugs—
nothing worth paying attention to.

Hence, every day was business as usual
at the oil rigs and on the tankers;
the merfolk would always be present, but
nothing they tried ever made the workers
waver as they toiled to earn their paychecks.

Then, the first oil rig, farthest from shore,
lost all contact with its mainland HQ,
followed by another, and another,
each loss inching ever closer to land,
ever closer to harbors everywhere.

In time, the oil tankers, too, disappeared
without a trace, leaving not a single
drop of oil nor a sign of life behind;
once their profits dropped, the companies fretted,
tried to contact the suddenly silent merfolk.

But each time some were spotted at sea,
all the delegates saw were the fancy tails
flipped into the air, splashing water everywhere,
not a single word uttered or exchanged;
the string of disappearances never ceasing

Each day, a new report came in:
another rig sinking into oblivion
another vessel erased from existence
and any ship sent to give chase suffered
the same fate amid the fathomless waves.

Swiftly, inexplicably, as the days went by
the water level continued to rise
violently swallowing the coasts worldwide
to approach the landmass deep inside,
spreading chaos across the continents.

Now, from the highrises and skyscrapers
the elites in their rumpled suits
could only stand and stare, wide-eyed, agape,
as towering tentacles emerge from the water
and eclipse the rumbling, shuddering skies.

—Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

The Escape of Captain Thunderbolt
from Cockatoo Island

Cockatoo Island crumbled into rust behind him, iron and stone
no match for the storm they had caged there.
Mary Ann Bugg, faithful wind,
severed his chains with a single strike
sparking a bushfire that even the sea could not quench.
Captain Thunderbolt, they called him,
name crackling in the briny air,
and when he plunged into the harbour,
the ocean boiled. A bull shark surfaced,
its back as proud as an Andalusian stallion,
and with a roar that split the sky,
the Captain seized the beast, riding it
as he had stolen countless horses—
a flash of lightning tearing through the waves.

—Alicia Maskley

Order 9066

They came for us on the brink of war, 
astride speeders and lasered bayonets,
pitched gazes under polished domes, 

said our family had to be ‘relocated’
to Camp Harmony for the safety
and security of the Empire’s citizens. 

Rebel scum, they called us behind 
turned backs, slit-for-eyes and chink-
skinned resolve for sallowing already

sundered stars and stripes. Ojiichan was 
the first to be taken, blasters escorting him 
to a starship the shape of a three-winged heron. 

But when they came for the rest of us, 
the rebels barricaded the bridge, crude 
machetes and BB guns plunked over 

the wrecks of Ford Coupes and Tama-
Toyotas. Let him pass, they said. We weren’t 
going nowhere but back to our hunk o’ junk 

off Fifth Avenue. They came for us until 
there was no one left to speak for me but 
myself, my granddaddy’s years interned 

in alien sedition and imagined military zones 
—but his heart of kyber interred somewhere 
south of the eternal Falls.

—Ian Goh Hsien Jun

Becoming the Witch

You called us Cassandra when we refused to embrace AI.
We did not want your poorly built machines educating the young on a diet of recycled drivel.
Rejected as old fashioned, each of us faced isolation, unemployment, and dismissal.

You called us jilted wives and angry feminists when we sought ways to break your machines.
We invented code to disrupt, trained others to count for extra fingers, to spot the shine.
Rejected as cat ladies, old hags, and educated women, we gathered together.

You did not have a word for us when the machines seized and glitched.
We understood we would be branded as traitors; we knew you fear powerful women.
Finally naming ourselves, we channeled our kind in literature: Circe, Hecate, and Medea.

You shall not burn us. We control the knowledge of fire.
You shall not limit us. Our minds and hearts are strong.
You shall not control us. Our harm equals your death.

You should have listened when we were merely women.
Now, channeling our strength and sisterhood, we rise again as The Witch.

—M. Weigel