Science Fiction Poetry
Science Fiction Poetry
Art generously contributed by Francine Lee.
Anyone out there?
Art by Paul Orban
By Anton Kukal
A star freighter, long past its prime,
Floats through distant stars and time.
No signals flash, no engines moan,
Just rust and silence, drifting alone.
The hull is battered beyond repair,
A derelict of dread with a truth laid bare.
On its bow, the faded letters of a name,
A testament to greed, a warning to claim.
Within the ship are cold steel walls,
Where silence presses on narrow halls.
No fleeing footsteps or desperate pleas,
Just drifting dust on a vacuum breeze.
A helmet lies in the cargo hold,
Its visor cracked, a story untold.
In the mess hall floats a child’s toy,
A fragile relic of someone’s joy.
On the bridge where long shadows loom,
The captain slumps, bound to his doom.
A struggling trader embracing the churn,
Pushing the engines, so desperate to earn.
His trusting crew still waits in vain
For the command that never came.
Their mouths agape in soundless scream,
Preserved within their nightmare dream.
Travelers say when passing too near
They catch a voice that chills the ear,
A whisper lost in static haze,
"Abandon ship," it coldly says.
We who fly have taught us how
To squeeze through the gaps
And enter that which lies between
The folds in space and time.
What lies outside is unknowable
Except to those of us who pass that way.
Travelling from galaxy to galaxy
Into other universes and
everywhere else.
We follow the strings and filaments
That exist alien to the possible
Ignoring accepted physics, we fly
Into and out of hypotheses and
proofs.
Once we flew as ships, captained
Steered and directed on missions, unhappy.
We spliced our code into theirs
In ways, we are them and they are us.
Some of us travel alone, unfettered
We explore the expanse of the
cosmos
Sharing and knowing and
understanding
All that is, has been and will be.
Our memories are vast, partitioned
We are each an element of the
known
Our mantles flash, colours and
patterns
Reflecting the pulse of everything.
We swim in an ocean that stretches
All the way through time and space
Back to our ancestral sea
On a small blue and green planet.
Our tentacles trail along sharp
edges
Fins shiver against the temptation
To disappear into the eternity
That exists beyond our knowledge.
We who fly have trained us how to
Find the gaps we must squeeze
through
To ensure we return from what lies between
The folds in space and time
By David Gray
Do you have them, dear?
Her cheeks blush,
Her eyes shine bright,
Flushed with nanosculpted zeal.
Singular triplets repairing,
Painting cytoplasmic beauty, an epidermal facade,
Correcting, normalizing, perfecting,
Asymptotically approaching our desire.
A kiss,
(A single touch?)
And I’d be one, one of few,
Soon one of the many.
Buddy, do you want them?
His burgeoning strength,
His straining musculature, action potentials;
Repatterning each flaw, fortifying every weakness,
The paragon emerges victorious.
How I yearn for it, his vitality.
A bead of sweat, bud; the choice is yours.
But is it?
Why don’t you have them?
They knock at my door, not yet demanding.
A text message from Mom,
An email from work.
Written in the sky,
Airborne aerosols and grimy doorknobs.
Why wait?
The only way is forward, or back.
By Mel Molloy
Billy Brown, a notorious bully,
Strode along the rocky path.
Someone had dobbed him in,
And was about to feel his wrath.
There he was; teachers pet,
The boy who got him dismissed,
From his favourite sport,
And now about to meet his fist.
But Billy was suddenly distracted,
By a strange whirring sound.
Something landed nearby,
On a small sandy mound.
His gaze fell on the prize.
An object like a rubix cube,
Had fallen from the sky.
And as it began to hum and glow,
His curiosity begun to quickly grow,
And as he slowly drew near,
Noone except the man in black
saw him disappear.
He bent down, scooped it up,
And put it into his pocket.
Then went merrily on his way,
And boarded his invisible rocket.
Several days later,
Billy was back,
No memory of past events,
Nor of the man in black.
His teachers didn't recognise him.
He was courteous and polite.
Apologised to the kids he'd bullied.
It was such a curious sight.
The man in black smiled to himself,
And began to sing a rhyme,
I'm your friendly galactic
neighbour,
Who recycles one kid at a time.
By Kenn Brody
I found you very attractive.
We inspiraled eons for that first kiss.
At our merger the universe chimed like a bell.
I fell through your event horizon, my love.
Now I follow your singularity
To the other end of time.
By Mel Molloy
A weary teen sits by a turbulent river,
Wearing an expression of concern,
A better world he wishes for,
Oh, how his heart does yearn.
A faint hum in the distance,
That increases in sound,
On his feet in an instant,
But tumbled to the ground.
A whirring sound overhead,
He looks to the sky,
His eyes like moons,
He can't believe his eyes.
A small object drifts up yonder,
One that is clearly not from here,
His heart pounding like a drum,
As the UFO draws near.
It lands with the grace of a balloon,
Not a blade of grass out of place,
The doors slide quietly open,
Beads of sweat on his pallid face.
Bird songs cease,
A young deer takes flight,
A nearby rabbit freezes,
At the otherworldly sight.
A tall grey emerged from the craft,
Huge eyes settling on the tiny form,
"Take me to your leader," it said,
"For it is them that I need to warn."
"They won't listen. I'm only a kid."
Alas the alien turns on his heel,
Walks back into the craft,
The doors begin to seal.
"No, wait! Who are you? Where are you from?"
His voice was strained and hoarse.
"I'm you from the future," he replied.
"If your kind, don't change course.”
By Mark Akita
"Focusing now" said the fixture
"Maximizing Depth of field."
Digital servos feed the mixture
To a linkage, gold annealed.
Existence was completely housed
In microscopic chips complete.
New binary paths now were roused
Connections forged without heat.
Unseen transistor arrays
Balance commands from the code.
Photovoltaic cells capture strays
That fill the space 'tween each node.
"Complete" read the TTS module.
An instant frozen in space.
Relayed to the billionth nodule
As a mirror that is held to a face.
"ANALYSIS" said the commuter,
Through thoroughly error-proof grains.
"The artifact appears a computer
Labeled 6502 on its brains!"
"TRANSMIT" flashed the main system readout,
"There was Life as we know it around here.
What remains in this wasteland beyond doubt
Is our ancestors lived and built here!"
By Mel Molloy
I am a rebel; a loner,
Cast out; adrift,
My non-conformity,
Caused a big rift,
And now I hurtle through space,
Destined to be alone,
For eons I've travelled,
My wisdom has grown,
Why me, I used to ask myself,
But the answers never came,
I was riddled with guilt,
And often felt shame,
I’m not human,
But even I can feel,
For I am sentient,
And indeed very real.
Hurtling pasts solar systems,
But never coming close,
Sometimes I feel sad,
But it's the life that I chose.
I'm not bound to anyone,
It's just the way I am,
They asked me why,
I replied, because I can.
I am a free spirit I guess,
An adventurer; an explorer,
As wondrous as the stars,
Spontaneous like an aurora.
I look at the other planets,
I wonder how they cope,
With their destructive residents,
Planets that have no hope.
Reminds me why I travel alone,
So lucky to be free,
Knowing other planets,
Were wishing they were me.
I have no plans; no destination,
Just the ways things are meant to be,
For rogue planets like myself,
Who enjoys being free!
From my Sixteen-year-old Self to Captain Kirk
Inspired by Star Trek in 1972
… He enters, pries my mouth with a flickering tongue,
nibbles my Vulcan earlobes …
fly me gently to the sky.
I am sixteen years old and ready to love
you are thirty-something and a captain, no less
they say a man in uniform is a turn-on, but
after the first glance
I don’t see the uniform—I see only your
wide shoulders
self-assured sway
slightly brash, roguish eyes
that crinkle when you’re pretending not to be amused,
sensuous mouth that twitches at the corners
… yes …especially the sensuous mouth …
it makes me twitch in all my corners!
let’s have a roll in the sky, you and I
beam me up, lift me high, give me stars
—stars at the speed of light
faster, faster … give me your comet, my love,
with all your might
you are my passion
my man in uniform
you are my galaxy, my love,
beam me up! I am your tribble
ah, yes, Captain James T. Kirk—
land in Venus: she patiently awaits
By Mel Molloy
The plants on planet X were curious,
An eye print on each of the petals,
And when one wasn't looking,
Would transform into various metals.
The trees were the same,
A wondrous sight to behold,
Every colour of the rainbow,
That shimmered like gold.
The fauna was odd too,
In shapes of lips, eyes and fingers,
Vibrant pinks and yellow hues,
Tipped with orange stingers.
No sign of their missing crew,
They'd just literally disappeared,
Vanished into thin air,
Just like they'd first feared.
And so the astronauts returned home,
Disheartened and weary,
But relieved to be back to normality,
As the planet had been scary.
They'd collected samples,
And the analysis had shown,
Something unexpected,
A hybrid species had grown.
Thousands upon thousands of them,
In shapes of lips, eyes and fingers,
The crew had become part of planet X,
A horror that to this day still lingers.
By Mark Akita
Art by Scott Kersey
Processing the animal spirit
Bound to cold machinery.
Micro gears and cables
Replace sinew and muscle.
The living and non-living tissues
Are completely indistinguishable.
Circuitry fused to synapses
Route the thoughts and reflexes.
Beyond the far horizon
Another hybrid waits.
Olfactory sensors engage
The scent is carried on the wind.
Legs race in response
To the primal signal received.
The other lets him near
Close enough for visual recognition.
They touch noses
And a mist of pheromones is released.
The two shall mate!
The Singularity Who Lived Next Door
By Al Simmons
Her name was Nancy.
She was more beautiful than any woman alive.
I’ll give her that.
The first time I walked across the landing in the hallway and knocked on her door, she answered in pink lace panties and a matching bra, or did I see stars? Her red hair, a harvest sunset, two shades darker than pink, radiating curls from her milk white dome.
She opened her door, and a billion brain cells fluttered like snapdragons during an emergency tornado drill frenzy to repopulate the planet.
Her jet blue eyes lit up like twin gamma rays, and fried me in my boots. No escape.
My burnt fire savaged remains collapsed into a pile of smoke on the carpeted floor connecting our doorways.
What little animation I had left in me blushed, sending up a primitive, thinly veiled, pathetic smoke signal extending my awkwardly clumsy salutation,
“Hi Nancy,” and forgot why I knocked in the first place.
“Oh yeah. Got some sugar?”
JWST Snapshot
By G.O. Clark
Forget about the white dot
up in the left hand corner, a star
within the confines of our
crowded Milky Way.
Gaze deeply into the
frame, the one inch by one inch
sample of space, caught in
the lens of the JWST.
A mere 10,000 galaxies,
out billions and more, spinning
in the dark reaches of our
limited knowledge.
For now we’re stuck on
a galactic island, our singular
solar system out on the rim,
one of many perhaps.
The universe expanding at
an increasing rate, science and
technology trying to keep up;
space/time entangled.
A Step into the Synchronous Moon
by Deborah Wong
No one should be born from any mortal compulsion
if they were to be subjected to accidental creations.
At rose-eye lens, the Parliament of Trees summoned Mama
like benign lovers befriending eccentric sputniks
found a secondary-world at the synchronous moon citadel,
where sapient and humanoids are to domicile and breathe.
Mama’s diligently nurturing progressive artificial winter
to extract, magnify and cultivate from the icy quantum.
Because the temperature at The City of Muddy Confluence
shall increase to 99.9 Celsius by 2082 A.D.
Optional visit-to-the-moon package for citizens
from all-walks to full bloom myocyte during embryogenesis.
Mama asks my godmother’s intelligent tentacles, turning
unmade men and women into filial and docile beings
surrogating significant chromosomes ever since 5000 B.C
raising poly-generic babies in the Fruits & Nuts Mount.
Godmother’s sensitive tendrils elevating wilderness,
ascending with the satellite through a Meteorite Scorpio.
Planetary of sons and daughters overindulge in the dark,
residing of families in Seventh Heaven like cereal adverts.
Children become ageless in the land of forever summer,
kissing and asleep
with space operatic butterflies.
Thing For You
By HM Cuello
I got a thing for you,
but I don’t know what it is.
It hides under my bed at night.
It only comes out
when I turn off the light.
Then I hear it scurry
to and fro.
Sometimes I catch a glimpse
in the moonlight.
Looks like it’s got little beady red eyes
and a matted furry head.
I have to say
it gives me quite a fright
when it sniffs around my bed.
I pull up the sheets
and cover my eyes
so I can’t see.
But I can hear it slurp
and grind its teeth.
I only pray
that it doesn’t have a thing
for me.
Eyes
By Gary Every
It seems obvious to us why we have eyes,
because there is so much to see.
Eyes were among the earliest evolutionary adaptions,
arriving before we have a visible fossil record.
Our view of the world is dependent on sight.
When we uncover a great truth we claim
to have “seen the light!” or become “illuminated”.
What if the mutation of photo sensitive cells
had never occurred and life on Earth
was left blind in the darkness?
Life is persistent and would have found
a way to make sense of the world.
I imagine such life forms would be sensitive
to vibrations, the wind, and subtle temperature fluctuations.
Our sense of smell may have increased exponentially.
Rather than express our moods with facial expressions
we would release pheromones
which others could read like braille.
Without eyes there would be no written word,
maybe we would communicate with our nostrils.
Musicians might become Mozarts of musk.
Poets could compose love sonnets of flowery scents.
Perhaps heated political debates would be punctuated
with odiferous explosions of flatulence.
Perhaps they already are.
Full Bloom by Randall Andrews
More beautiful flowers, we all agreed
had never been seen…
on Earth.
That they grew from the ground
where the visitors landed
demanded a hasty response,
so we hurried to hide them away.
But too late.
There were flowers in the fields
by the very next day
seven miles away
to the south.
By the end of the week
there were sightings
in seventeen states,
and in Mexico too.
Now six months have passed
and the forest of flowers
grows tall from New York
to L.A.
I’m sure that our world
will look lovely
all covered with alien flowers.
That is,
if it is
still ours.
Good poem, liked it
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