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Poetry

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Eutrema and Other PoemsPoetry

Eutrema and Other Poems

Anastasia JillJune 26, 2018

Read He makes a steaming cup of me to drink alongside the morning paper, then lathers me up to be his accomplice under the…

A Great FuckPoetry

A Great Fuck

Tom RiordanJune 24, 2018

after something Tiko said Not only was I never a great fuck but I never even belonged to that vast class of people who…

Skin ThePoetry

Skin The

Paul BrookesJune 22, 2018

animal day with a pocketpenknife in your fist. Guide the edge with your thumb, peel to bone white. Get a day off as one…

ReprisePoetry, Readings

Reprise

Cameron McClureJune 22, 2018

https://soundcloud.com/user-739698917/reprise From her sleep my grandmother faded through the mesh of supposition that bore the image I had constructed as a child. Her untidy…

Simone Weil and the ugly pianoPoetry

Simone Weil and the ugly piano

Jenn ZedJune 21, 2018

Simone Weil looks out of a black and white photograph set inside a simple silver frame which sits on top of a polished August…

CalibrationsPoetry

Calibrations

Cameron McClureJune 19, 2018

absence has a simple scale nought or one distinct steps like piano notes joy and sorrow are parabolic mirror images glissando exponentials like the…

Giants
The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a "shocking" effect on the surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust as it approaches, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads, which, for this star, are only seen in infrared light.Zeta Ophiuchi is a young, large and hot star located around 370 light-years away. It dwarfs our own sun in many ways -- it is about six times hotter, eight times wider, 20 times more massive, and about 80,000 times as bright. Even at its great distance, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky were it not largely obscured by foreground dust clouds.This massive star is travelling at a snappy pace of about 54,000 mph (24 kilometers per second), fast enough to break the sound barrier in the surrounding interstellar material. Because of this motion, it creates a spectacular bow shock ahead of its direction of travel (to the left). The structure is analogous to the ripples that precede the bow of a ship as it moves through the water, or the sonic boom of an airplane hitting supersonic speeds.The fine filaments of dust surrounding the star glow primarily at shorter infrared wavelengths, rendered here in green. The area of the shock pops out dramatically at longer infrared wavelengths, creating the red highlights.A bright bow shock like this would normally be seen in visible light as well, but because it is hidden behind a curtain of dust, only the longer infrared wavelengths of light seen by Spitzer can reach us.Bow shocks are commonly seen when two different regions of gas and dust slam into one another. Zeta Ophiuchi, like other massive stars, generates a strong wind of hot gas particles flowing out from its surface. This expanding wind collides with the tenuous clouds of interstellar gas and dust about half a light-year away from the star, which is almost 800 times the distance from the sun to
Poetry

Giants

James SpearsJune 18, 2018

We are stars trying to collide, objects caught in our orbits dashed to rocks in process mean nothing; we merge. Made massive, other light…

Everyone Wears BlackPoetry

Everyone Wears Black

Jenn ZedJune 18, 2018

only we had the tickets to get into a Butthole Surfers gig after some idiot in the NME had put it out that tickets…

Commuting: the Sentence
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Poetry

Commuting: the Sentence

Edmund ContiJune 18, 2018

If you're lucky, you catch the early train If you're wise, you're early to bed To get up early to go back again Healthy,…

It’s been so long
since I’ve dreamed anything that was not nightmareThis spring with goslings in the roses, tulipsand crocuses pushing color thru crystal ice, I hardlynotice the wood ducks. I don’t hear geese in flight.I used to dream goos...
Poetry

It’s been so long

Lyn LifshinJune 18, 2018

since I’ve dreamed anything that was not nightmare This spring with goslings in the roses, tulips and crocuses pushing color thru crystal ice, I…

The Bird Outside Our KitchenPoetry

The Bird Outside Our Kitchen

Lance JencksJune 17, 2018

I couldn't help but smile when a bird outside our kitchen trilled "Whew whew whew!" Then it switched to "Wee-oop whee-oop whee-oop!" "Listen to…

Why I have weaponized the thistledownPoetry

Why I have weaponized the thistledown

Ian BadcoeJune 12, 2018

Awake the pollen grains and log each tiny particle gone with the wind onto our most secure of networks. There's notice served. It's time...…