POET LAUREATE ADA LIMON CREATES A POEM TO BE ENGRAVED ON A SPACESHIP

Others invited to include our own names on a chip

by Alice Campbell Romano

https://europa.nasa.gov/message-in-a-bottle/sign-on/

Years ago I bought you a star.
The framed certificate turns up 
now and then
when I sift a desk, weed a bookshelf.
An undistinguished star 
somewhere 
with your name.
You would better have appreciated
my renaming Mars for you, 
red combatant. 

Earth registers stars 
from Earth’s point of view,
assigns coordinates,
sells naming rights.
Maybe only Earth has this compulsion
to brand the infinite.

Our ambition sends craft 
to search out life
on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
We shall leave Earth’s mark— 
in—be astonished—

a poem 
about Earth. Poets ache.

I am tempted without reason
to piggyback, to add me, 
on a microchip
to Europa. 

You didn’t care when I bought you
a star. I will escape for a billion miles,
to the edge of the infinite, in my 
name alone. 

Alice Campbell Romano lived a dozen years in Italy where she adapted Italian movie scripts into English, married a dashing Italian movie-maker, made children, and moved with the family to the U.S., where they built, she wrote, and the children grew. Her poems have appeared in—among other venues—Prometheus Dreaming, Persimmon Tree, Pink Panther Magazine, Orchards Poetry, New Croton Review; Beyond Words, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Quartet Journal, Instant Noodles Devil's Press, Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press. In January, she was awarded HONORABLE MENTION in The Comstock Review's 2022 Chapbook contest, "...not an award that we give every year, but an honor set aside for a few manuscripts." Alice swooned. 

TELESCOPE WEBB

by Ioanna Gika

Yesterday, President Biden unveiled one of the James Webb Space Telescope's images of deep space (above) as a preview of what's ahead: NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will release the rest of the first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a live broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT today, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Released one by one, these first images from the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope will demonstrate Webb at its full power as it begins its mission to unfold the infrared universe. Each image will simultaneously be made available on social media, as well as on the agency’s website at http://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages .

We spin

polyimide film and beryllium 

into sunshields thin as hair;

set gold mirror to sail on armed ships.

With the river dredged,

the whites of fish eyes look like scattered stars.

Their bodies flop on muddy banks.  

Overshot by billions

rockets launch, ripping into space.

Silver dollars and catfish behold their final sky,

and through the biggest telescope

we will see further than any—

to the vanishing point,

to the infinite,

to ourselves

staring right back.

Ioanna Gika is a Greek American musician and poet. She has performed at festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza, and her work has been covered by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine. Her writing has appeared in places such as The Creative Independent and Oberon Poetry. Recently, her lyrics were quoted by Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy in her best selling book The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness. She is located in California where she is signed to Sargent House.

SPACE-TIME DESIRE

by Art Goodtimes

Tweeted by @SciencepornPics

More than the spark

of the 4th’s faux bombardments

 

it’s the dark

with its slow burn

of thousands of nuclear fires

 

that makes me appreciate

the exploding population of stars

that we imitate

 

That all nature mimics

 

This space-time desire

to expand beyond all limits

 

That colors our lives

vermillion and gold

and speeds our demise

as a billionaire species

 

Beautiful

Deadly

Perplexing

 

Art Goodtimes was an Earth First! poetry editor before getting elected to five terms as a Green county commissioner in Southwestern Colorado, where U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Rifle) now represents the Third Congressional district in Congress. Art is co-director of Talking Gourds, a local and regional poetry program under the non-profit aegis of the Telluride Institute.

THE ASTROPHYSICIST TALKS ABOUT DARK MATTER

by Lewis Gardner

Image source: “How close are we to finding dark matter?” by Jim Al-Khalili, Light & Dark, BBC Four, 18 November 2013

The astrophysicist talks about dark matter
and how it must exist although it hasn't been found,
and I remember hearing that this universe


may be only one of an infinite number of universes,
and then I think that,
despite that practically unimaginable vastness,


we usually think about how much fiber we need to eat daily
and how will we find the money to pay the tax bill
and where did I leave the tack hammer


and how we touched each other
that night in February
years ago.

Lewis Gardner shares verse, fiction, and plays at gardnerspeaks.wordpress.com .