As I’ve mentioned several times this year already, 2020 was a dry desert as far as new writing from me after the four years before that increasingly produced all types of work from short stories to poetry. It was just a hard year for everyone, and our home was no less struck in certain ways. On a positive, I also had a lot of work come in as far as editing as well, but it did limit my writing time as much of my free time went to family situations.
I did write a couple poems in 2020, and two I’m proud of were published on the Spreading the Writer’s Word website, during the monthly Ladies of Horror Fiction writing prompt project. I wanted to share them here with my followers as well as mention that they are two of my poems eligible for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s annual Rhysling Award. I would be happy for any fellow SFPA members and readers to also give them a read for consideration. I’ve been enjoying reading through all the posted eligible works myself in the last few months.
But my hope is for all to enjoy my celestial thoughts and mind. Let me know if you liked them! And keep your eyes peeled because I’m writing more already in 2021, as least poetry wise, and I have plans to publish some of my work from the stacks I wrote in 2019! I hope that my writing freeze is over, but keep the inspiration and motivation coming please!
___________________________________
Tentacled Stars and Madness
I twisted the handle,
and I floated toward the stars,
toward the particles,
toward the tiny fires,
and I landed with one foot upon
the twinkling glow.
I outstretched my arm to the abyss,
and a tentacle clasped my hand,
and I laughed, being pulled away
into the midnight expanse of iridescent
nothingness
or is it encompassing, life painted as a cerebral hemorrhage,
an image emblazoned on our mind of what God is or the gods are,
of our existence.
I rotate through the soft air, looking upward from my back
as the sky creature pulls me toward oblivion,
as if I don’t even care to know where I go,
but enjoy the spontaneity.
The symbols etched in the stars as I go by – I finger them,
the runes of the galaxy;
my brain on fire, each synapse bursting open,
and yet, I’m unburdened.
In its lair, finally, it wraps its long arms around me and crushes,
bright lights flash before me, around me,
my mind downloading all of humanity’s curses and wishes,
and then,
I’m gone, floating in some communal stomach cavity, disintegrating to smaller pieces,
but becoming part of a bigger cosmos we could only dream of understanding…
…from our tiny window below.
–Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi / Nov 2020
__________________________________________
If interested, I also had another prose poem on Spreading the Writer’s Word that would be eligible as well. I was able to write it to my good friend and exceptional poet Christina Sng’s beautiful artwork.
General Loss
The night was chilly. Foggy. I pulled my wrap tighter around my shoulders as I rocked in my chair and watched my daughters from the porch.
They traveled, little feet and big minds, down the valley and through the woods, then up the mountain. We lived in this place where anything could be imagined, except health.
They were in search of miracles in the twinkling, night sky. Even the cat, who had tagged along behind them knew to look above to the skies and ask the right questions, fib the right lies.
Summoning gods or demons or angels or creatures, they had no preference. Brave souls with hearts like a fortress and energy like a magnet. The clouds swirled above and the fog dissipated below, and the sounds of far off waves suddenly became war drums.
My young ladies, my hope, my solace, plead in our tongue to the blackened sky that was illuminated by an unnatural light. Asked for their life-giver to be spared the disease of this Earth, to endeavor together to another vastly realm where resolute ladies (and their cats, their protectors) reigned immortal.
Where no tears were cried for death or cough, no graves buried or mourning of loss. Where people worked and lived with passion and grace, mercy and empathy, a true human race.
–Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi / 2020
If you’re interested in the SFPA, click to get details, or HERE, to learn about Rhysling and other awards.
Lucy A. Snyder is the five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of over 100 published short stories and 14 books. Chaosium will release her novel The Girl With the Star-Stained Soulsometime in 2021. She also wrote the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, and Switchblade Goddess, the nonfiction book Shooting Yourself in the Head for Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide, and the collections Garden of Eldritch Delights, While the Black Stars Burn, Soft Apocalypses, Orchid Carousals, Sparks and Shadows, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. Her writing has been translated into French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Czech, and Japanese editions and has appeared in publications such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, and Best Horror of the Year.
Steve Stred is a dark horror author. He’s the author of the novel Invisible, the novellas Wagon Buddy, Yuri, and Jane: the 816 Chronicles, and two collections of short stories—Frostbitten: 12 Hymns of Misery and Left Hand Path: 13 More Tales of Black Magick. He’s also released the dark poetry collection Dim the Sun.
Dim the Sun is a collection of 14 dark poems and one bleak horror short story. Focusing on pain, fear, anger, depression and anxiety Steve Stred brings you deep into his mind to share some truly unnerving moments.
Linda D. Addison born in Philadelphia, PA is an American poet and writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Addison is the first African-American winner of the HWA Bram Stoker Award®, which she won five times for her collections Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (2001) and Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (2007) and How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (2011), Four Elements (2014), and The Place of Broken Things, written with Alessandro Manzetti (2019). In 2016 Addison received the HWA Mentor of the Year Award and in 2018 she received the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Alessandro Manzetti lives in Rome, Italy and is a three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, and translator of horror fiction and dark poetry whose work has been published extensively in Italian, including novels, short and long fiction, poetry, essays, graphic novels and collections.
Sonora Taylor is the author of 
Seeing Things –
Patrick Tumblety has been published in a variety of anthologies, including Tales of JackThe Ripper by Word Horde Press, Flame Tree Publishing’s Gothic Fantasy series, Fossil Lake, edited by Christine Morgan, and the historic Weirdbook Magazine. His work has been described as being able to deliver both “genuine fear and genuine hope.” (Amy H. Sturgis – Award Winning Author and Professor of Narrative Studies).
Shane is a poet, columnist, podcaster, and professional curser living in Portland, Oregon, where he was born and periodically raised. He is the co-founder and editor of Ink Heist and one of three hosts on the Ink Heist podcast. He hates long walks on the beach, playing with puppies, and romantic candlelit dinners, but he does love a good glass of scotch, a good book, and good music playing in the background.
Donna Lynch is a dark fiction writer and the co-founder—along with her husband–artist, and musician 
Donna Lynch’s poetry explores the horror of losing control of mind, body, and autonomy. Whether it be through death, hauntings, violation, mental illness, violence, or the demons in our brains that terrorize and tempt us all, no one is immune to the nasty surprises of life. Yet somehow we must go on. Choking Back the Devil documents the attempt to get through the worst of what life can through at us.
Oh, for the HOOK of a BOOK! 