Dwarf Regiments & other bite-sized poetry

We've a delicious mixture of shorter bite-sized sci-fi, fantasy and dystopian poetry for you now from Francis W. Alexander, John Reinhart, Holly Walrath, Greg Schwartz, Susan Burch and Lauren McBride.


Universal Fads 

Segregated Southern graveyards
proudly peering at infinity
When the end comes.
broken and boiled
caskets and bones mix
with no regard for race.

...Francis W. Alexander


superheroes

on the bus
on the lightrail

cutting through traffic
flying away
flying home

superheroes
in ordinary costumes
on cell phones

working day jobs
making a living
making change 

...John Reinhart


Confessions of a Supermassive Black Hole                    

You can’t escape my body.
I deform spacetime, invisible
collapsing even as everything surrounds me.
I am the center of you, of your galaxy.
Sieving particles, radiation, light, through my skin
I search for the ghost of my former self. 
My gravity is also my weakness.

...Holly Walrath


Dwarf Regiment Marching through the Forest

Their warboots 
    shake the earth
but their helmets
    don’t even graze
the lowest branches.

...Greg Schwartz


the end
of our spaceship
romance –
too many days
stuck on the dark side
of the moon

...Susan Burch


to save space
we brought e-books
to New Earth
one by one
batteries dying

​...Lauren McBride