Karen Romanko's "City of Imaginary Friends"

The Sword Review has published this nifty poem. It's both sad and delightful. And I love her use of the h and c/k sounds in this stanza, which yet quiets down to a hush of sibilance when it's time to stretch out and catch the child's voice that summons them back:

They busy themselves with hijinks,
their hopscotch and their stickball,
with heads cocked, always listening

Nice.

Read "City of Imaginary Friends"

Why I'm Weeping Over My Keyboard

Not to worry. It's for a happy reason. I got good news a few minutes ago:

I'm nominated for a RHYSLING AWARD!

Now, to understand why this would bring me to tears, when you're probably going, "What the heck is a Rhysling award?" you have to understand how much I love poetry, and how much I admire so many speculative poets, such as Joe Haldeman, Samantha Henderson, Mikal Trimm, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Deborah P. Kolodji, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Mike Allen, Karen Romanko, Bruce Boston, and a host of others who, in comparison to me, are glorious unicorns to my little mushroom gnat self.

At least, that's how I see it.

So, to have one of MY poems in the Rhysling Anthology for 2007, for short form poem published in 2006, well...

I cry. That's what I do.

Thanks to the person (or persons) who nominated me. I'm just utterly astonished.


(First posted to Mirathon)

"Basho on the Back Road to Camelot"

Deborah P. Kolodji's scifaiku sequence, "Basho on the Back Road to Camelot" is up for your enjoyment at DKA.

Here's my fave in the sequence:

moving line of ants
the sword in the stone
remains still

You may also want to saunter over to The Sword Review, where Deborah's "The Launch of Red Spot, Jr." is posted, and whose opening stanza follows:

She wore red
to match the new spot,
we were all bored
with the white ovalness
of last year’s surface fashions.

Thirteen Ways, Times Two: Speculative Homage to Stevens

Delightful. You really need to treat yourself.

First: Read the classic by Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird The first way of looking per Stevens:

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

Then go over to HELIX and enjoy Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Holy by Lawrence Schimel. Here is his first way of looking:

Among the twenty billion stars
that hang like eyes up in the sky
the black hole is a wink.

Go. Read. Have fun.