Size / / /

Content warning:


from Jobs for Magical People (That Do Not Involve the Military)

 

Magic involves (involutes) memory
one doesn’t (exactly) forget (everything is saved)
it’s akin to state-specific recall—
people remember, it’s (just) stored someplace
else.

Magical diaries were invented
for this (very) reason; yet even with
a diary there’s the moment where one
needs to open it (carefully flip the pages)
and peruse the entries. The action, the
reach and pull (book off shelf, out of
drawer, from notes saved into a
document file).

Hence, your task—to gently point out
you haven’t actually done this yet (only
meant to), or the results of this divination
might be useful to compare to the notes
you took on February 9 (I think), or

when did you last ward this place
(you know) if you forget, that might be
because someone is trying to leverage
this slippery trait of memory to—

we’re not fighting anyone here, (but) we’re
keeping ourselves safe.

If I don’t remember mine (and you don’t
remember yours), maybe together we can be
more than two separately (more than
one together) and

build something (a palace
of mind) jointly—thought by thought.



Bogi Takács (they/them or e/em) started working on the poetry / flash fiction series “Jobs for Magical People (That Do Not Involve the Military)” in response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza. E would like to ask you to consider how authoritarian power manifests the world over (including in the stories we tell), then do something to counteract it. Bogi is a writer, poet, critic and scholar of speculative literature; and also a Hungarian Jewish immigrant to the US, a winner of the Hugo and Lambda awards, and a finalist for other awards like the Ignyte and the Locus. Eir second short story collection Power to Yield and Other Stories was published earlier in 2024 by Broken Eye Books, and eir poetry collection Algorithmic Shapeshifting is available from Aqueduct.
Current Issue
17 Feb 2025

crocodile, crocodile, may we cross your river?
We have always / been a ghosthouse
In this episode of Strange Horizons at 25, Kat Kourbeti sits down with longtime friend and Seattle Worldcon Poet Laureate Brandon O'Brien, chatting all things speculative poetry, and the impact of markets that have many readers and editors—hey wait, that's us!
The city is no place for a spider.
Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
By: River
Issue 20 Jan 2025
Strange Horizons
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 23 Dec 2024
Issue 16 Dec 2024
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Load More