Issue 17 of Home Planet is coming at you with poems by Mary Rose Boehm, Aaron Fischer, Steven Fortune, Gabriella Garofalo, Mónica E. Gómez, John Grey, Matt Morris (yup, that’s me), Andy Roberts, Peter A. Witt, Gerald Yelle, & Mark Young; fiction by Chris Daly & R.H. Nicholson; & visual art by Ira Joel Haber. Many thanks to all our contributors—past, present, & future!

Does the future exist?

By definition, no. To argue otherwise serves to resurrect 18^th-century philosopher & skeptic David Hume’s notorious scandal of induction, which, in the long history of scandals, doesn’t seem like much of one, if you ask me. We can assume you did. We can also assume the sun will rise tomorrow when, in fact, the sun doesn’t rise at all. Even babies in their cribs know that! Yet Hume gets all the credit, takes all the blame for pointing it out, depending upon your perspective.

Then there’s the war. Which war? Pick one. They are ubiquitous. 

“War is a racket,” Gen. Smedley Butler said, but you may not have heard him over the racket that war makes “with their tanks & their bombs & their bombs & their guns” (R.I.P. Dolores O’Riordan). It’s not just—no, it’s not just in the least—the instruments of war that are deafeningly loud, but the wholly unholy war machine in toto, including yapping politicians & their uniformly uninformed media partners in crime howling for the dolorous blood of the innocent to quench an insatiable dollar lust, even if it means nuking civilization, whatever that means, back to the Stone Age & reducing the world to Barney, Betty, & Bamm-Bamm Rubble.[1]

After the apocalypse, zombie or not, your favorite online sites (of which I hope Home Planet is one) may be difficult to access, what with all the towers down & nobody alive to repair them. Only Lowelly skunks, who neither scare nor care because, well, they’re skunks, so why the FAO Schwarz should they?

Nevertheless, as history screeches to its speechless end,  I aim to “accentuate the positive,” as the song says, & steadfastly refuse to “mess with Mr. In-between” (Simon Bird, I assume, or possibly Greg Davies). In these darkening days, the responsibility falls upon all of us to nurture hope. Give it plenty of sun, but be careful not to overwater, or it may develop root rot & die.  I certainly hope that doesn’t happen. I hope instead that you enjoy Issue 17 of Home Planet with a mindful eye turned toward the future.

Peace & love!

Matt

[1] As for the Flintstones, it is well-documented that Dino went extinct during the Ice Age. While information about Wilma & Pebbles remains sketchy, Curtis Mayfield confirmed Fred Flintstone’s death in no uncertain terms (“Freddie’s Dead,” Super Fly, Curtom Records, 1972, LP).