Across The Grimpen Sedge
by Paul Christian Stevens
Editorial
Fix, Do Not Eliminate, The Semiprozine Hugo
Fiction
The Midnight Girls No Cord Or Cable In The Middle of Nowhere With Company Flash Deep Moves
by Wendy S. Delmater, Editor-In-Chief
by Lisa A. Koosis
by Bud Sparhawk
by Aliette de Bodard
by Ruth Nestvold
by William Highsmith
by Howard V. Hendrix
by Paul Christian Stevens
by Marge Ballif Simon
Across the Grimpen sedge the surds are trilling.
Two moons are down, and now the green moon's rising,
And you are restless, Muswae, and I'm willing —
Detach your suckers; come, retract your eyes and
Float, locked with me, towards the soft horizon.
How many moons in sea and surge of fire
Have we swayed here together, you and I,
Our mouth-fronds kissed by wind, like Eiron's lyre,
Lit by the Lesser and the Greater Sky;
Our brain-rays twisted strands of golden wire?
How many years of opal days and leaden,
Together rolled in concords of sweet scent,
Until your carapace began to redden,
Welding you to me with fierce cement —
Our sweet Apotheosis, Armageddon?
I see the Vishnu Fleet make planet-fall:
Come! Let's away; Muswae! — This moon no longer
Stirs our tides. I hear the Grimpen call
Its pixilated yearning, its rank hunger.
Come, melt towards it, as our love grows stronger!
The spectral town of Grytthden-Perrzizk-Gruffyr
Spews forth its denizens in vile cascade!
Before they reach us, let us both pass over
The Grimpen, and be gone, my viscous Lover:
Thus planets, stars and galaxies are made!
Paul Christian Stevens was born in Yorkshire, England but lives in Australia. He has an Honours Degree in English and Archaeology, and teaches literature. He has published poems and prose in print and pixel, most recently or imminently in Mannequin Envy, The Barefoot Muse, Shakespeare's Monkey Revue, The Literary Bohemian, The HyperTexts, London Poetry Review, New Verse News, Contemporary Sonnet, Umbrella, Lucid Rhythms, The New Formalist, Ourobouros Review, Innisfree, Snakeskin, Unlikely 2.0, Centrifugal Eye and The Raintown Review. He edits The Chimaera literary miscellany and The Flea metaphysical broadsheet.