Time for a surreal drabble now – Haircut 100 by Alan Garth. (And bonus points for the pop music pun.) When not shooing swans off the lawn, Alan Garth writes SFF and has published in outlets including AE, 5 Minute Fiction, Stupefying Stories and Perihelion.


​Haircut 100
by Alan Garth

The best dressed chimpanzee Harry had ever seen strutted into his barber shop. Designer suit, crisp shirt, skinny tie. No shoes though.

When the ape climbed into the chair, lounging there, too cool for words, Harry knew he wanted a haircut to match his clothes. But Harry's regular customers were human, mostly: was a primate premium justified?

He opened with "Short all round, sir? Centre parting?"

"Mais non," drawled the chimp. "Ça ne se porte plus."

The Congo is francophone, Harry remembered. Gallic style, Gallic language.

"Je prends la coupe numéro cent."

​"Excellent choice, sir. And on special offer today ..."

Three fantastic new poems for you now. What more can I say except they are SO Grievous Angel!

About our contributors...
M.C. Childs’ speculative poetry appears in multiple publications. He is associate dean of architecture at the University of New Mexico specializing in urban design. 
Gretchen Tessmer is a writer/attorney based in the US/Canadian borderlands of Northern New York. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Star*Line, Abyss and Apex, Wild Musette and Strange Horizons.
​Yuan Changming currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include Best of the Best Canadian Poetry: 10th Anniversary Edition, BestNewPoemsOnline, and Threepenny Review.  


beseeching the kitchen gods
by M.C. Childs

push the dishwasher button 
for power scrub plus 
set the maytag dial 
to extra heavy load,  high water
self-clean the oven
and adjust the freezer 
to ice over Hades

slide the kitchen knife 
back into its wooden block


Teach Your Children Well
by Gretchen Tessmer

empty your pockets
of what? are these treasures?

nickels and dimes and
half-written letters
I’d rather—sea stones,
red leaves
and white feathers


Moving Sale
by Yuan Changming

A whole box of human hearts, each
Still beating fresh like skinned toads
 
Two rows of shiny skeletons of unknown gods
All fingers longer than legs, toes bigger than skulls
 
Three sets of knives, blades extremely blunt
With evil spirits and devilish impulses
 
Four giant alarm clocks, making thunderous noises
Waking up all dead from as many directions
 
Five bottles of wine filled with soaked souls
As colouful as the rainbow above the styx
 
Can I just have the reddist heart please?
Sure, it’s free

Writing a sequel to a fairy tale is a hard act to pull off but in our latest story – After the Dragon – Tobias Backman manages it perfectly. As for his bio, he writes: Tobias Backman used to hate cliffhangers until... Find out what happened next and more at www.tobybackman.wordpress.com


After The Dragon
by Tobias Backman

The knight had found the secret lair, slain the dragon, and, despite burns and bleeding wounds, he’d rescued the princess, dragged her out of the cave seconds before it collapsed. 

That should’ve been the hard part. From then on it was just marry the princess, inherit half the kingdom, and happily ever after. But nobody had warned him how much of a bother the princess was – eighteen years old and never heard the word no. Nobody had told him how hard it was to rule a kingdom: dodging arrows and training with sword and shield nine hours a day was nothing compared to managing inbred nobles and peasants who thought pigs a legitimate currency. 

He probably should’ve asked himself, though, who was inheriting the other half of the kingdom. He should’ve wondered if there wasn’t a younger sibling, a prince who became sole heir when his sister was gone, a prince with a massive grudge now that his plans had been foiled. And he probably should’ve wondered if the prince wasn’t the type who’d poison his own family to get rid of a few obstacles. 

​Taking in the scene of his in-laws and wife sprawling with their faces planted in their soup, his own throat itching and burning, and the prince grinning at him from across the table, he definitely should’ve asked the cook who’d been helping out in the kitchen lately.  

Two new poems for you today: Meisho's Dodos by Mary Soon Lee and At The Natural History Museum by Bruce Boston – both touching on the topic of extinct birds. (And a rare appearance of the word discombobulated in a poem.)

* Mary Soon Lee grew up in London, but now lives in Pittsburgh. She has won the Elgin Award and the Rhysling Award for her poetry. You can find her at http://www.marysoonlee.com and on Twitter @MarySoonLee

* Bruce Boston's poems and stories have appeared in hundreds of publications, including Analog, Asimov's, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase, and received many award, most notably the Bram Stoker Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Asimov’s Readers Award, and the Rhysling and Grandmaster Awards of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. http://www.bruceboston.com


Meisho's Dodos
by Mary Soon Lee

Inspired by Ria Winters and Julian P. Hume


Welcome to the Kyoto Imperial Gardens.
Kindly do not photograph the dodos.

As you can see, we are overrun by them.
Stay on the paths. Careful where you step.

In 1647, a single dodo landed in Dejima,
a curiosity presented to the shogun.

Discombobulated by a lengthy sea voyage,
the dowdy bird failed to impress.

On a whim, the underwhelmed shogun
foisted the dodo on the emperor's sister.

Meisho perceived the intended insult,
yet sympathized with the dodo's plight.

The bird, like Meisho, had been shuffled
hither and thither at men's commands:

Dodo-san from its distant island,
Meisho from the Chrysanthemum Throne –

If you look beneath the cherry tree,
you can see a fledgling in that nest--

Meisho befriended the displaced dodo,
neither of them free to fly their fate.

With time and patience and fair winds,
she contrived to procure companion birds.

Year by year, bird by bird, egg by egg,
the palace grounds filled with dodos,

leading to the situation we face today.
Thank you. The gift shop is on your left.

​
At the Natural History Museum
by Bruce Boston
 
Pinned upon a board
as if they are in midflight,

or still for a second
alighting on a broad leaf,

creatures born for flight,
trapped in a glass case

until they are discarded,
consigned to the dark

of some storage basement
for newer more exotic

and colorful specimens.
Only those now extinct

remain upon display,
valued for their rarity,

their colors dimming
through the years,

a final testament
to their transience.