The Fortean Bureau -- A Magazine of Speculative Fiction

Issue # 31 -- September, 2005

The Fortean Bureau is closed to submissions until further notice.

Editor's Note - John Borneman

This issue is an experiment.

Readers of The Fortean Bureau have come to expect outstanding short fiction written with a 'fortean' flair. However, after a bit of cajoling, Jeremy Tolbert agreed that I could edit the September issue, and that I could fill it with speculative and fortean poetry. My goal was to find poems that would read easily and be enjoyable at first blush, yet contain a elements of the unexplained. I think I succeeded. I sincerely hope you agree.

As a bonus for our readers I have included in this issue; "Dog Girls" in order to satisfy your short fiction thirst, a guest commentary by Bruce Boston, Grand Master of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and beautiful artwork by Marge Simon, Rhysling Award winning poet and artist. Enjoy!

Commentary
by Bruce Boston

"A speculative poem weighs nothing at all. It is lighter than the paper it is printed on. Lighter than the pixels that form and reform its letters on a screen. Yet the moment a speculative poem is consumed, when it enters the mind and the body, it will start to take on weight...and the scales it tips within consciousness are different than those tipped by a mainstream poem...or even by most genre poetry."

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Fiction Selection...

Dog Girls
by Gay Partington Terry

"Dog Girls drove four-wheel vehicles and only closed their windows on days when it was raining hard. On other days they drove with their tanned arms outside, hair blowing, and rock 'n roll blasting out of the radio. They were excellent drivers and never went slow. I would stand at the diner window on Saturday mornings, posting the specials and watching for them to come down the mountain in the predawn fog."

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The Werewolf Poet Laureate
by Greg Beatty

...Somewhere in Manhattan
there's a werewolf poet.

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A Stitch In Time
by Elizabeth Keogh

Step back to the day
When he stepped into the street.

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Pumpkin
by W. J. Sander

...An all orange planet is breathtakingly beautiful.
For about two hours.

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Thoughts From A Sin Eater
by Pam McNew

...Sin is small black larvae,
squirming among the vegetables,

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Black Eggs From The Sky
by Kevin James Miller

May 5, 1786, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the first half
Of the year dry, dry, dry in that island nation...