Three new poems for you today covering everything from the outer planets to the decline of butterflies here on Earth, by John Reinhart, Janka Hobbs, and John Hawkhead. We've split the posting to accommodate the visual element of John's poem.

About our contributors:
* An arsonist by trade, John Reinhart lives on a farmlette in Colorado with his wife and children. He is a Frequent Contributor at the Songs of Eretz and was recently awarded the 2016 Horror Writers Association Dark Poetry Scholarship. His chapbook encircled is available from Prolific Press. More of his work is available at http://www.patreon.com/johnreinhart

* Janka Hobbs grew up in Albuquerque, chasing lizards and feeding bugs to spiders. She now lives in the Puget Sound lowlands, where she studies Botany and Aikido when she's not playing with words.

* John Hawkhead is a writer of haiku and other short poetry forms. His work has been published all over the world in small press magazines and the Internet. His book of poetry and haiku Witness is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes.


the cosmonaut’s heart
by John Reinhart

unconstrained
by earth’s grave
matters, free from the atmosphere
stifling creative love – no stigma
to loneliness, the cosmonaut’s heart
embraces what on earth
we only imagine
though our calculations
assume it


Pluto
by Janka Hobbs

Wears its heart on its sleeve.
Strews its picture all over the internet
Begging to be re-admitted
To the company of planets.
 
Bereft.
Like a parent
Circulating the photo
Of a missing child.
 
Keep up your orbit.
Maybe things will come around.
Balance hope
With a heart of stone.
 

Unlike Special Agent Dale Cooper in the cult TV series Twin Peaks, we haven't got "a cherry pie there that'll kill ya" however Canadian writer Christina Klarenbeek has served us up a slice of dystopian flash fiction about an equally lethal peach pie! Christina Klarenbeek writes science fiction, fantasy and horror from a small farm in rural Ontario. She can be found on twitter @MaraGant


Remembering Edith Munroe
by Christina Klarenbeek

When I first arrived for my scheduled appointment, things looked normal enough. An excess of family photos crowded her bookshelves but, as they were institutional in production, I was prepared to overlook their abundance. The rest of her apartment appeared in order. The Conformity Commission granted me leeway to forego balcony inspection. If I hadn’t done that I’d have noted the fresh herb infraction. 

The interview took place at a small dining room table that had obviously been passed down through the generations and been grandfathered in, despite its unrestrained lines. 
It was the pie that gave her away. Everyone knew the only state approved option was industrial apple, served cold and bare, with coffee. Yet she served her auditor a one sixth slice of homemade peach still warm from the oven. The accompanying cream was whipped instead of iced. It topped the pie slice in an over generous dollop came from a bowl rather than a more proper aerosol can. It didn’t stand to stiff attention as whipped cream should. It slid off the egg washed lattice crust in a luscious embrace 

The crust was too fluffy and light. It melted in my mouth. There was an unmistakeable hint of both vanilla and…something else. Too much fruit and none of the double-action corn starch the state relied on to hold together a sparse allotment of thinly sliced apple with rigid efficiency. In its place, unmistakeable pearls of tapioca brazenly peeked between an orgy of peaches that weren’t even uniformly sliced. 

The tea she served was comprised of Bergamot and Mint straight from the garden. Their freshly picked leaves steeped in a clear carafe, in willy-nilly fashion, denying him the possibility of ignoring their unsanctioned origins. Worse still, she’d pulled apart the scarlet flower clusters and added them to the brew, stirring them amongst the leaves where they mingled with adulterous abandon. 

After I’d politely cleaned my plate and drained my tea, I handcuffed her and took her in. The case took a dive when my by-the-book bagging and tagging of the leftover pie, for evidence and forensic testing was called into question. The sample went missing before scientific testing could take place. Luckily I had taken damning pictures as well. The judge ruled her guilty that very night, despite court documents stating the something else having never been identified by the lab. 

There was another glitch when she insisted on exercising her rights. The feds had tabled a bill in the House of Commons late last month, to prevent subversives from receiving visitors. The minority opposition were slowing its passage with a pointless filibuster. The Age of Majority increase, that had been part of the government’s election promise, was still being drafted. There was nothing I could legally do to prevent Edith from meeting with her eldest grandson. 

I oversaw the kid’s search at both ends of the visit to ensure nothing interfered with her execution. Nothing did, but a smuggling did occur. The next morning crudely lithographed copies of a hand-written recipe for peach pie starting showing up pasted to telephone poles and the sides of buildings next to a posterized profile of Edith. The something else had been cardamom. The kid must have memorized the recipe before the State offed his granny. 

The weekend brought news reports of grocery stores experiencing an increase in peach sales. A week later they were running out. A limit of one peach per person was imposed but it didn’t help. In the precinct, we started hearing rumours of underground potlucks. The Mayor banned peaches from the city.  

​I had to drive to Leamington to get mine. All the way home, their fresh scent reminded me of sitting across the table from Edith Munroe, enjoying a slice of pie as individual as she’d been. 

We feature two longer poems today by Beth Cato, the author of the novel Breath of Earth, and The Clockwork Dagger steampunk fantasy series from Harper Voyager. Beth adds "I reside in Buckeye, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix. My family includes my husband Jason, son Nicholas, and elder-cat Porom. I'm originally from Hanford, California. If I wear ruby slippers and tap my heels three times, that's where I go by default." Her website is at http://BethCato.com


No Upgrade Required
by Beth Cato

that Amy down the street
she got a mecha-tiger for Christmas
it's the size of a housecat
and loves to talk all day long
about hunting leaves and mice
it's annoying really
almost as annoying as Amy
with her parents' snazzy self-driving car
her fancy house, fancy clothes

my neighbor Jose
his mini mammoth isn't much better
it sings a lot – in verse
Jose yells at it to shut up
and complains that his dads
must have bought it for cheap
'cause it sheds constantly, too
proper programming 
should prevent a pet's flesh
from doing anything so inconvenient
Jose could get a software patch
but he'd rather get a 'better' pet

as for me, well
we don't have much money
I don't ask for any ani-mechs
despite all the pop up ads 
during cartoon streams

I have a regular old cat
no programming included
his meows and purrs
are plainer than most human speech

the other kids tease me
talk about how much their mechs cost
about the upgrades they'll get next year

whatever
my cat's fine as he is
no upgrade required
even if he does shed a lot


Final Portion of Elixir Recipe
by Beth Cato

the tricky part begins as you bring
unicorn milk to a rolling boil
temperature needs to stay consistent

as you add maple syrup and cinnamon
a sprinkling of recollections
of your mother's fleeting true smile

sift in white chest hairs from a black cat
one of your baby teeth, ground to powder
the festering breath of a teenage boy

continue to stir all the while
wear goggles or keep your eyes as slits 
to avoid memories
that sear and pop in every bubble

pour in lavender grown near the sea
and two friendly kisses blown by strangers

remove pot from heat 
continue to stir
the elixir should resemble golden thick honey
fragrant as your grandmother's kitchen
on a happy holiday morning

allow the mix to cool for thirty minutes
drink by the fireplace 
keep a cat cuddled at your hip
as a storm rages like a toddler denied nap-time

take small sips
as the heat dissolves regrets
seeps through muscle and marrow
to the dented armor of your soul
breathe in the fragrance
of cardamom and things long lost
things best left forever lost
cast like dandelion puffs to wind:
let them grow where they will

you are here in the now
cat purring
storm petulant
liquid perfection cupped in both hands
drink
all is as it should be

No prizes for guessing what we're covering today in our wall-to-wall scifaiku fest. Our featured poets are... Guy Belleranti, Christina Sng, Bruce Boston, John Calvert, Deborah P Kolodji and Lauren McBride – most of them will already be familiar to you but we've also included their details at the foot of this feature. Enjoy and just remember the old joke: To write a poem in only seventeen syllables is very diff


love hurts
especially a hot date
with a dragon

Halloween party
costume unnecessary
I bare my fangs

alien daughter
extremely intelligent
great heads on her shoulders 

by Guy Belleranti


three suns
why we evolved
nine eyes

twin headlights
the monster all fawns
are warned about 

sprinkled beneath
my favourite tree
your lovely bones

by Christina Sng 


Inconclusive View
Far as the most powerful
telescopes can reach,
still no sign of Heaven.
 
Blurred Future
His fortuneteller
had a cataract
on her third eye

by Bruce Boston


THE GALILEAN MOONS

IO
Pizza eruption
Set on full magnetosphere
Cooked. Melts inside out

CALLISTO
Colder than Christmas
Glass ball bauble crater-pocked
Joves golfball hard hail

EUROPA
Below whipped spindrift
Cauldron of simmering ocean
Brewing unknown cells?

GANYMEDE
Big kid on the block
Shifting snowfield to mountain
And feeling groovy

by John Calvert


quicksand
under the lander
your goodbye static

by Deborah P Kolodji 


in the spacestation lobby
a grand piano
tentacles tickling the ivories

by Lauren McBride


* Guy Belleranti writes poetry, fiction and more. His poetry has appeared in many publications including Scifaikuest, Midnight Echo, Grievous Angel, Trysts of Fate, Disturbed Digest and the book Anomalous Appetites.

* Christina Sng is a poet, writer, and artist. She is the author of several collections, including A Constellation of Songs (Origami Poems Project, Allegra Press), Catku (Allegra Press), Astropoetry (Alban Lake Publishing), and A Collection of Nightmares (Raw Dog Screaming Press).  http://www.christinasng.com/

* Bruce Boston's work has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Asimov's SF, Amazing Stories, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, The Pedestal Magazine, Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase. His poetry has received the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Rhysling Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and the SFPA Grandmaster Award.

* John Calvert lives in Manchester (England) and is a writer, musician, performer and, at the  moment, teaching English

* Deborah P Kolodji is the moderator of the Southern California Haiku Study Group and a former president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Her first full-length book of haiku and senryu highway of sleeping towns was recently published by Shabda Press. http://www.shabdapress.com/deborah-p-kolodji.html

* Lauren McBride finds inspiration in faith, nature and science. She shares a love of laughter and the ocean with her husband and two grown children.