| Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand Pirie, Mark and Jones, Tim (eds) This anthology captures the essence of science fiction. There are aliens, space travel, time travel, the end of the world — and a few concepts not previously thought of as science fiction. Editors Pirie and Jones present some of New Zealand's best poets — past and present — and present their work in sections: Back to the Future, Apocalypse Now, Altered States, ET, When Worlds Collide and The Final Frontier. Work is from Robert Sullivan, Louis Johnson, Janet Charman, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Meg Campbell, Fleur Adcock, Owen Marshall, Cliff Fell and others. | | | | |
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Einstein's Theory Simply Explained
by David Gregory
When I returned
I went to see myself,
still working on the motor of the thing.
We had a pleasant chat,
so startling.
We talked of time, Einstein and you.
Then I went out,
denounced the project
and bought the weapon.
Knowing how he sleeps,
I shall kill him in the night,
so he will not have you
again.
The End of the World
by Meg Campbell
The shining cuckoo sings,
‘It will surely be like this.
Just an ordinary day
suddenly turned nasty.
Grey sky and an oily sea.
The sun will suddenly move
in a crazy fashion.
You won’t
believe your eyes. But, then,
free falling you’ll die
without a murmur.
The end
of the world is brief,’ sings
the bird in its whoops-a-daisy
voice. It has gone.
We think we hear it singing
from a distant tree.
Since when
have birds the gift of prophecy?
Metastasis
by Mary Cresswell
Tiny and trapped – the littlest name
a bit of a buzz, a wing of flame
melts amber back into waves
unleashing ten thousand years:
dragons and fire flies, damsels and may
flies spring from resin to molten seas
in their turn, no longer pinned down
but going where wide fast rivers
flurries, freshets, fly, leap, sing
down the sides of all the world
to swamps to standing water
where the minutes start again.
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Gifts 
