Here are some more of our members’ poems for you today!
Let There Be Stars – A Spacer’s Journal in 13 Parts
Grace Bridges
Day 1, January 9, 2193 (subjective Earth time)
crisp crescent moon dips towards unseen void
there is no horizon to stop the sky
Centers of gravity shifting, ever shifting
I tumble about in low-G and learn
my body is a stranger crawling the walls
This desert of night has stolen the world
and we the only oasis of light
hurled ahead into the endless night
In a shipload of partygoers
I dream alone
Day 2
it is black
not even a sliver of bright pierces to my windowless bunk
but the dark, it is not silent
it fdgets like a living thing
with shudders and sighs
and rumblings from the bowels of the ship
the sense of direction in my head, it is confused
it thinks we move backwards
so I face that way and wonder if
travelers of old on the sea felt something like this
my spin and thrust is their pitch and yaw
there is no dawnlight to wake us in this metal den
day comes with the measure of hours
and I rise and pitch myself to a place with a window.
~Read the rest at Common Oddities Speculative Fiction Sideshow, Autumn 2015 (PDF, page 16)
Award-winning author. Editor, mentor, President @SpecFicNZ & Chair @GeyserCon_NZ. Cat Rescue. Art. Fandoms. www.gracebridges.kiwi
A TOAST TO THE KREIGLES
Deryn Pittar
Under the kiss of the purple moon
we sip galleymops as the Kreigle herds pass.
Their annual migration from cradle to crest
flows like a wave of flannel and fur,
a fast flowing ribbon of warm breathing flesh
to succour our captors’ desires.
The swallowing sands, a plethora of grains,
call to me with their gravely song.
The morning’s twin suns will warm the chill
and I, my love, must return to my ship
to seek and conquer the Bastadills.
To crisscross and hunt the barren plains
quartering hills, searching for water,
the lifeblood we need in this place without rain.
Deep in the shards of stalagmite pinnacles
protected by roaring Hessles and Quonts,
their treasure defended with deadly belches
they fight us to shelter their liquid wealth.
The blue planet calls, its cry rips our hearts,
stuck as we are on this murderous outpost.
A remnant of race, our memories fading,
we pine for the past we have lost.
We fight them, they fool us,
we’re cunning, they’re more so.
Intrepid travellers, a brief trip planned here
now we are delicacies, penned in by fear.
The Bastadills farm us, fear us and kill us,
the machines we have saved keep them at bay.
Drink up your galleymop, a toast to the Kreigles,
while they are breeding we live another day.
~Deryn writes Sci-Fi (Romance and serious stuff), Young Adult, short fiction and poetry.
Deryn’s books in these genres are available at https://www.amazon.com/Deryn-Pittar/e/B00JAEN1GW