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~ ~ ~ Cadence ~ ~ ~ by A. Arduini, Illinois |
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Chance to transmit symphonic music through the stars, across parsecs yet uncharted. |
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~ ~ Falling Star ~ ~ ~ by Tim Kail, Connecticut |
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Star falls, shatters. Earth to dust. Somewhere deep in space a god grins at his evil deed. |
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Manhattan Swallows Itself
by Mark Joseph Kiewlak
©2008

If I'd been down there where life grew I might have seen it.
If the sidewalk vents blow-dried my hair, if my eyes had been
scanning in the cracks the subtle moss of the brick alley walls,
instead of the subtle perspiration in the valleys of passing
breasts, I might've noticed the carbon dioxide sighs slip-sailing
all through the granite passageways of this Humanity-laden island
beast.
As it was I was caught unawares when the restless earth heaved its
asphalt back, sent us all funhouse tumbling, and shoots sprang
thirty stories high, reaching for the miserly sun.
The tunneling roots wrestled to submission the long metallic worms
gliding on wheels through their intestinal tracts.
Beauty parlors and delis and newspaper stands served as the
appetizer.
The foresty burp of some Eden reclaiming itself shattered my
botanist eardrums, and I knew the main course was yet to come.

~ Mark Joseph Kiewlak,
Pennsylvania ©2009
Since 2008 Mark's fiction has appeared in more than two dozen
magazines, including Bewildering Stories, The
Rose & Thorn, Midnight Times, Black Petals,
Hardboiled, and The Bitter Oleander. He was
privileged to have served as judge of the 2007 Wild Violet
Fiction Contest. He has also written for DC Comics (FLASH
80-PAGE GIANT #2) and counts among his favorite authors Robert
B. Parker, Anne Rice, Ray Bradbury, Alan Moore, and J.M. DeMatteis. |
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