FIRE LOVER, by Karen Bovenmyer Do I really own you, Fire lover, woman of dragons? Gold foil on your breast, your head Reflecting the heat of the beast under you Resonating with secret places Inside your familiar column of flesh A pulse of heat from head to toe Like you, dragons mate for life Accepting […]

THE BARGHEST REVENGE, by Adam Vine   I. The Barghest rose from stirring gloom Through creeping shadows of my room The dangling keys about his wrists Like tiny bells foretelling doom. O’er to my bed he slithered, black His skin mottled like mordant wax All tufts of hair in ancient cysts Sprouting from nose, toes, […]

Gæscligcrymblingas, by Ariel Bolton   Hwæt! A is for Alhwin, whom nematodes ate That’s not an untypical Old English fate And Æ is young Ælfred, attacked by his thanes B is for Byrhtnoth, beheaded by Danes C is for Cynewulf, caught with a wench D is for Dufenal, duped by the French E is for […]

COLDER THAN MARS, by Andrew Crabtree   Mars is a god who loves the taste of it The bright red racing mortal taste of it So in his ring of iron he makes a war. In fields beyond the seven marble hills His men take arms to force strange kings to kneel. His sacred camp […]

THE PIRATE QUEEN CHING SHIH CONFRONTS HER DOPPELGANGER, by Kendall Evans   The sound of bells; swells of brackish water The harbor stench a dead-fish atmosphere— A bearded would-be pirate slight of build Standing on the dock in dreary overcast Applied one dawn to join the Red Flag Fleet   And take training on The […]