Speculative Poetry

June 26, 2013

“Elemental” by Jeannine Hall GaileyPosted by

Jeannine Hall Gailey

ELEMENTAL

The titanium staple
the surgeon left in your stomach
is just the beginning:

it’s the strontium-90 in your baby teeth,
in the bones of your parents.
(The dust of New Mexico, the echoes of
tests of implosion triggers
fifty, sixty years ago.)

Note the Americium in your smoke detector.
Note the rate of decay per second.
The trees drink Cesium click click click
The bees weave particles into their nests click click click

The traces around you
of other people’s experiments
linger in your veins, lungs, eggs
linger in your femur and kidney.

Carbon-based structures,
we absorb from the water, from the air,
from our food, from our walls
from our parks and fishing ponds.

We absorb and our body says:
it is good.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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June 11, 2013

“How We Knew Them” by Chris BullardPosted by

Chris Bullard

HOW WE KNEW THEM

It was so familiar. The spaceship,
saucer-shaped and brilliantly lit,
conformed to every expectation
we had concerning spaceships,
though this particular one hadn’t
touched earth before. The crew,
grey, oval-headed and humanoid,
were immediately identifiable
as extraterrestrials, as they met
our stereotypes of space aliens
from innumerable lousy movies.
If their nonchalance registered
as the same nonchalance frat boys
show as they shrug away the wreck
of a father’s expensive sports car,
we could still empathize. Weren’t
they checking us out like a girl
at her debutante ball looking for
the right one among the bachelors.
Hadn’t they come looking for us?
But it seemed they didn’t want
our natural resources. They didn’t
want to mate with our daughters.
When we tried to communicate
by symbols, by music, by neon
digital billboards, they wrinkled
their lipless mouths and laughed.
We knew, of course, it was laughter.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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__________

Chris Bullard: “I wrote this poem in response to Lawrence Raab’s marvelous ‘Another Argument about the Impossible.’ I was attending a writing seminar with Stephen Dunn and I had heard that Raab’s poem recounted a conversation between the two poets about worthwhile poetic subjects. My poem was an attempt to muscle in on their dialogue. I read an early version of my poem to Dunn and he laughed. I am relatively sure that this wasn’t the laugh of estrangement we receive from my aliens.”

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June 9, 2013

“Singularity” by Rachael BriggsPosted by

Rachael Briggs

SINGULARITY

Stuart prepared to be uploaded
by the superintelligent robots
who would one day rule the world.
He taught himself decision theory,
wrote long tracts about its social benefits
in Esperanto.
As one of the most rational humans on the planet,
he expected to become a subroutine
in an important program:
the game-theoretic missile-defense system
or the hyper-logical central planning algorithm.

He was unprepared
when the slime molds took over.
They would not listen to reason.
You’re being emotional!
he screamed at the plasmoid
hungrily engulfing his arm.
He tried to scream again
in Esperanto
but the fruiting bodies had by this time
occluded his airway
so that it was becoming difficult to think.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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June 7, 2013

“The Astronaut Explains Divorce to Me” by Ash BowenPosted by

Ash Bowen

THE ASTRONAUT EXPLAINS DIVORCE TO ME

Your father’s like a far-flung rocket, a G-force orbiter
funneling through the stratosphere. Each day

he screens the perimeter of our atmosphere
to keep us safe from ray guns

aimed from outer space, leaves us
notes he’s written with his vapor trails.

But at night, the frequency
of your grief keeps him homing through

our house. He meets your mother glowing
in her latest wedding gown, her hand heavy

with the bloom of stars I’ve laid upon her finger.
The gentle thing’s to leave your father to the memory

of the spheres. Lonely but bobbing in his armor,
nothing can hurt his heart up there.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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Ash Bowen: “When this poem (and others like it in my manuscript) came pouring out of my pen, I was surprised as anyone that I was writing what my poetry friends have dubbed ‘science fiction poetry.’ But here I am, showing up in Rattle, with the controls set for the sun and a behemoth of a Wookie gargling directives at me to hit the hyperdrive.”

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June 6, 2013

“Currencies” by Kristin Berkey-AbbottPosted by

Kristin Berkey-Abbott

CURRENCIES

You will not need the pieces of paper
that used to define
you: the deeds, the degrees, the diplomas.
Leave them behind.

Leave, too, your dollars and coins.
Now your currency will be clementines
and tangerines. The ferrymen
prefer fruit.

You spent decades struggling against your shape,
but now you will be grateful for the extra calories stored
in your hips, the strength
in your stocky thighs.

Dig into your long-neglected
backpacking equipment for your waterproof
matches and purification tablets.
Hope for the best.

Sew seeds into your hemlines.
Seeds will be the new gemstones.
Take all your needles and strong thread.
Cut your hair haphazardly.

Fill your small shampoo bottle with champagne.
You’ll need it for disinfectant.
Pour yourself a glass of wine; admire
the crystal in the candlelight.

Sink into sleep,
one last night of softness
before you strap your sturdy
boots to your feet to set forth.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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June 3, 2013

“Howie Night at the Drottkvaett” by Burt BeckmannPosted by

Burt Beckmann

HOWIE NIGHT DRÓTTKVAETT

Next to the surf-road
six sat late,
thinking we’d found out
a fine hideaway.
The ladies were laughing,
lapping up beer,
we warriors were not
woman weary.

Pleasant that party
until the lager
made the girls piss.
Staggering, giggling
down the dunes
they descended,
hardly aware
of Howie.

There as they squatted
his squad car
came sneaking: in floodlights
the females were framed.
Still spraying, they skimmed
across the strand,
wetting their wear
in the brew-tide.

Meanwhile, hearing the hassle
we hastened
to see how things stood,
our odds in the fist-storm.
Ready to reckon with rednecks,
for a brawl
we abandoned the brandy.

I remember our ranks,
brutal in gang-play:
no bolder berserks
than Ratzo and goat-bearded Jim.
Carrying clubs to the conflict,
dangerous with driftwood,
they meant to split skulls
in the old style.

Already the ravens
were rending the cowards to bits,
in our minds we saw
wolves making short work
of wounded foes, crabs clipping
at corpse flesh,
when around us arose
those sons of trolls.

Capture brings credit to none.
Who cares for his name
should look after his heels,
the swift foot of his beer friend
full readily praise:
Had his luck not run out
brave Ratzo would still
be outrunning the hounds.

But the first to fall
was fierce James,
lord of hard liquors,
lightning-quick drinker.
Corralled by the cops
in a crapper,
the hero was handcuffed
heaving his muffins.

Escape was not easy
on that escapade.
In the confusion
I fled for the fen.
Immersed in slime,
muck up to my ears,
I thought I would drown
in frog spawn and gnats.

Over the rushes
the searchlight played.
The voice on the bullhorn
inveigled in vain.
Thanks to that dousing
I pulled one on Howie;
alone I defended
the honor of thanes.

—from Rattle #38, Winter 2012
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Burt Beckmann: “At an early age I came to imagine that I was inhabited by a cat, and as I grew older I discovered that the cat would purr verse.”

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