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Spatial Storm by Sonali Roy

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EDITORIAL

 

Sure was a snowy winter, here in NEPA. I hope all of you Readers are finally enjoying the warm breath of Spring.

 

Scifaikuest finally has its own ISBN!!! Please inform your local book stores and library that they are now able to ORDER SCIFAIKUEST!!!

 

You can always find us here, at Hiraeth Books at:

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If you don’t have a subscription to our PRINT edition, they are available at:

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And, if you would like to join the select group of contributors by submitting your poetry, artwork or article, you can find our guidelines at:

https://www.hiraethsffh.com/scifaikuest

 

Pssst! Looking for something good to read?

You can get t.santitoro’s newest book, The Telempath, the first book in the Crojan Chronicles series, from Hiraeth Publishing, at:

https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/telempath-by-t-santitoro

 

and her other recent novel, The Red Foil, a SF mystery, at:

https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/red-foil-by-t-santitoro

 

and you can find her novella, Those Who Die, at:

THOSE WHO DIE by t. santitoro | Hiraeth Publishing (hiraethsffh.com)

 

You can also order t.santitoro's novella, Adopted Child, at:

https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/adopted-child-by-t-santitoro

 

And you can still get a copy of her vampire novelette, The Legend of Trey Valentine, at: https://www.hiraethsffh.com/product-page/legend-of-trey-valentine-by-teri-santitoro

 

 

We would love to extend a huge Scifaikuest welcome to our newest contributor: Alper Ghuchlu

 

on this planet

spring mating rituals

with three genders

 

-sakyu-

 

***

 

SCIFAIKU

 

infrastructure

Herb Kauderer

 

computer implant

many tongues now understood

few that lips can speak

 

*

 

cultural exchange

Herb Kauderer

 

jellyfish planet

outside the submersible

interpretive dance

 

*

 

the getaway getaway

Herb Kauderer

 

resort balanced on

black hole’s event horizon

thrillseekers’ heaven

 

*

 

deaf to the prophets

Herb Kauderer

 

future forecasting

predictability zone

barred to some of us

 

*

 

at the speed of light

you comb my hair I’ll comb yours

mirrors are useless

 

John H. Dromey

 

*

 

her child of stardust

born from void and plasma streams

weeps in zero-g

 

Yuliia Vereta

 

*

 

the black hole’s embrace:

even the light cannot flee—

a mother’s fierce hold

 

Yuliia Vereta

 

*

 

breakdown on the road

to Betelgeuse

Sol’s flares beckon

 

roadside assistant,

John Granville

 

*

 

as Phoenix goes up

its mile-high glass spires’

meltdown

 

tempered tantrum

John Granville

 

*

 

mysterious strangers

eye to eye

in the mirror

 

Richard E Schell

 

*

 

micro meteor

space helmet breach

saved by duct tape

 

Richard E Schell

 

*

 

interstellar travel

cryogenic unit malfunction

long journey

 

Richard E Schell and Nancy C Griffith

 

*

 

escape pod stampede

as sirens scream

first and last fire drill

 

Nicholas De Marino

 

*

 

gills gummed shut

cursing discount surgeons

I drown in thrift

 

Nicholas De Marino

 

*

 

terraforming kit

brimming with carbon

and chemical prayers

 

Nicholas De Marino

 

*

 

nonlinear time travel

every now and then

. . . all at once

 

Rick Jackofsky

 

*

 

brain transplanted to alien

tentacle arms

takes time to get used to

 

Alper Ghuchlu

 

*

 

the years

get so much shorter

I approach light speed

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

*

 

normal space

coalesces around us

a few dim suns

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

*

 

obedience school

my robot doing well

training me

 

Guy Belleranti

 

***

 

SENRYU

 

her darkest secrets

an open book

psionic biography

 

Benjamin Whitney Norris

 

*

 

twin suns setting

a long shadow creeps

along android alley

 

Colleen M. Farrelly

 

*

 

robot rickshaw

blocking the main wormhole

evening commute

 

Colleen M. Farrelly

 

***

 

HORRORKU

 

ancestral tomb

daring each other to lift

the trapdoor

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

*

 

bamboo flooring

held down

by children’s fingernails

 

Benjamin Whitney Norris

 

*

 

blood rain

a mortal’s fear

is a vampire’s feast

 

Alper Ghuchlu

 

*

 

spider home invasion

I miss the times

when they were small

 

Alper Ghuchlu

 

*

 

battling beams

I scream myself to sleep

sheets soaked in lightmares

 

Nicholas De Marino

 

***

 

TANKA

 

energy added

Herb Kauderer

 

teleportation amplified

by gravitational lensing

supplies arrive

enlarged by dark matter

cockroaches arrive too

 

*

 

too much coffee

on the fritz

my body

hotwired for a joy ride

re-possessed

 

neuro-abduction

Benjamin Whitney Norris

 

*

 

due in court today

and jammed a #2 pencil

in my ear canal

whatever it takes

to avoid the hearing

 

siren call

Benjamin Whitney Norris

 

***

***

 

OTHER FORMS

(including: Sijo, Fibonacci, Cinquain, Minutes, Diminuendo, Ghazals,Threesomes, Brick, etc.)

 

SATURNE

​

​

reach

cold legs

now it's just

deep frozen food

bite

 

Yuliia Vereta

 

*

 

hands

passing

twelve numbers

time never stands

still

 

Yuliia Vereta

 

*

 

FIBONACCI

 

I

am

cold and

unable

to find any warmth

in this dreadful place so I scream

but that does not help

for no one

can hear

the

dead

 

Guy Belleranti

 

*
 

JOINED POEMS

(incl. renku and sedoka, joined fib. etc.)

 

Flying Cities

 

flying cities

Sfnal utopian homes

prices soar

 

flying cities

at last the uber rich

see only themselves

 

flying cities

drunk rich kids pee and fall

into cornfield graves

 

flying cities

folks on the ground

hate trash day

 

flying cities

my solar panels

never see the sun

 

flying cities

Carrington Event hits hard

and cities harder

 

flying cities

not just the stock markets

that crash and burn

 

flying cities

we keep the legends alive

for a time

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

 

*

 

ARTICLE

 

Lifting Body

Robert E. Porter

 

     What was I talking about?   

     Time dilation and the perils of Elfland? Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human and gestalt theory? Karl Popper's critique of the social sciences?    It could have been anything.    My friend wasn’t following me, and he didn’t have to.   

     "That's a deep thought," he said.    "Don't fall in."   

     ¡Ay, caramba!   

     How long have I been chasing white rabbits down black holes?    Looking back, I wonder… Could they all be one – the greyhounds’ mechanical rabbit?    Or a pookah, named Harvey?   

     If there’s no really telling, who knows? Who cares?

I'm an escapist – from this moment.    If it's not small enough to keep to myself, to hold in my arms and not let go, I’d stay the hell out.    I’d dig down deep, thinking only of my Sam Peckinpah Getaway.   

     But a good haiku tugs on my lifeline and hauls me back in… To surrender and acceptance.    To be a part of something bigger than me. To experience whatever this is.    Here.    Now.     

     Sure, it's fun to escape for a little while and indulge a fantasy.    To take some concept (the philosophical zombie argument, for ex.) and run with it.    Extrapolate.    If/then.    All work and no play, Jack be nimble, etc.    Otherwise, life can be overwhelming.    Exhausting.    Unsustainable.   

     But a life totally immersed in fantasy, why, that’s no life at all.    I mean, can the drowning victim help himself?    Not once the panic sets in.    Then everything he does makes it harder for him to breathe and stay on top of things.    So long as he fights the water, down he goes.    And not like Basho’s frog.   

     Plop!

     A good haiku, though, wakes me up from this nightmare.    It gives me a chance to see where I am and do what I can.    It's not hard to float on the surface, if you relax.    And don't overthink it.    Nothing too much.   

     Out of my head, into the moment--

     The moment of truth.

I can be fifteen minutes into my walk sometimes before I start noticing things.    That robin with a worm.    The beads of dew on a flower.    My neighbor sitting on his porch.    He waves, and I wave back.    It's not Hokusai’s off Kanagawa, or U of I’s Blue Waters, and it doesn’t have to be.    It just is.   

     “When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive."    (Nhat Hanh)

     Isn’t that something?   

     When I went off to school, I’d hear Vietnamese in the hallways.    I’ll never forget the older man who stepped out in front of a city bus and saluted it, having some intense conversation.    Haunted by the ghosts of his past…

     After all these years, we should really know better than to take anyone’s argument from authority.    There should be no cults, no dictatorships, no conspiracy theories, no anti-vaxxers on the social media feed or put in charge of the CDC.    But there is something to the “banality of evil.”    Herd behavior and sheepish credulity bring out the wolves, and the werewolves.

     Adolf Eichmann, for ex.   

     "[T]here is a need to draw a line,” he said, “between the leaders responsible and the people like me forced to serve as mere instruments in the hands of the leaders. I was not a responsible leader, and as such do not feel myself guilty."    (Eichman)

     Excuses, excuses.   

     Where’s the buck going to stop, if we keep shifting the blame?

     A tyrant only has the power that people give him.    If no one listens to him, or does anything he says…

     But who’s first?    How many of us have to draw the short straws and be liquidated before the blitz of black shirts and brown shirts finally breaks into a rout?

     I don’t know.   

     But a good haiku provides the short, sharp shock I need to regain my focus.    To rediscover a sense of purpose and appreciation, to look out and dive right in, to see what I can do.       

     Write a haiku, for ex.    Even a bad one.   

     Those three little lines act as a lifting body.    They help me to clear the brain fog and bring my Taoist landscape in perspective.    I’m a tiny figure in the corner, down there, bent under a heavy load – which is not unbearable; it helps to ground me in the here and now.   

     Humility.    Humus.    Human.    Hmmm...

     Him?

     I'm fascinated by Richard Wright's turn to haiku late in life.    He was living in Paris, and dying there.    His daughter Julia paints the scene in her introduction to a collection of those haiku:

     "Back then I was an immature eighteen-year-old and, worried as we all were by his drastic weight loss (the haiku must have been light to carry) and the strange slowness of his recovery, we did not immediately establish a link between his daily poetic exercises and his ailing health.    Today I know better.    I believe his haiku were self-developed antidotes against illness, and that breaking down words into syllables matched the shortness of his breath, especially on the bad days when his inability to sit up at the typewriter restricted the very breadth of writing."    (Wright, viii)

     How much time between that "breath" and the "very breadth"?   

     But it's death that leaves me breathless -- and depthless.    Speechless.    Still, I keep falling for deep thoughts, like these, over the event horizon.    Spaghettified.   

 

     Haiku is fleeting.    The mayflies of literature.    Quick to read.    Quick to write, rewrite, and revise. Different words, not always in 5-7-5 form, but all hammering the same message home: Hey, you!    Look up from the page.    See your part in this.    We stand together, not apart.   

 

in a corner of the window

a dead fly

showing the way

 

WORKS CITED

 

Eichmann, Adolf.    "Letter to Israeli president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi."    New York Times, 27 January 2016.   

 

Nhat Hanh, Thich.    "Calm and Centered."    Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation.    Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, 2025.    https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/quotes

 

Wright, Julia.    "Introduction."    Haiku: This Other World.    Arcade Publishing, 1998.   

 

***
 

FAVORITE POEM by editor, t.santitoro

 

There were SO MANY great poems in this issue, that I was sure I would have trouble choosing a favorite. And then I read this wonderful, wistful, poignant poem by David C. Kopaska-Merkel. Who didn’t long for the Jetson’s ultra-modern cities? What a great commentary on human beings, and the results of their ceaseless desires, this is!--t.santitoro

 

Flying Cities

 

flying cities

Sfnal utopian homes

prices soar

 

flying cities

at last the uber rich

see only themselves

 

flying cities

drunk rich kids pee and fall

into cornfield graves

 

flying cities

folks on the ground

hate trash day

 

flying cities

my solar panels

never see the sun

 

flying cities

Carrington Event hits hard

and cities harder

 

flying cities

not just the stock markets

that crash and burn

 

flying cities

we keep the legends alive

for a time

 

David C. Kopaska-Merkel