PAGES OF LIGHT (IN DARK TIMES)

by David Chorlton

(1)

Hard to tell

whether the wind 

last night was social unrest

or coyotes’ dreams as darkness flowing.

The lightness of touch suggested

nature whispering

                                 in the face of human discord

yet in the absence of a moon

and with so few stars

to give direction there were only the neighborhood palms

leaning on the moment

                                            as if time

had taken solid form and claimed

the desert underneath

the city as its first

and only home.

 

(2)

Stone-bright the way ahead

runs true to course, rising by the step

to a view of all things possible

and some

                 forever out of reach. All those things

that never change come what may

are out there, stubborn and holding their ground

through traffic jams and newscasts,

analyses and polls, discussions

that take truth

                           away just as the sun

has stripped first the outer skin

of the saguaro lying

where it fell two summers back

                                                            and subsequently

dried its flesh revealing the core

connecting tip to root, the inner life

revealed in code, an alphabet

surviving after language ends.

(3)

The peaks and dips along the ridge

rest easily this morning

against clouds too closely packed

for news to pass

                               from worlds beyond our own. 

Grey light, pigeon feathers

scattering from the rooftop cooling unit at house

four-three-four-seven

where a hawk endures a mockingbird’s attention

until he stretches out

                                        and eases into day’s grey light.

Nothing exists outside

his range of vision, he’s the headline and the story

circling higher than opinion columns

reach. Doesn’t need words

to know what he knows. Leaves emptiness alone

because the entire sky

                                          isn’t worth

the area he’s taken for a home.

 

(4)

A bright and tranquil morning

on the way around the pond where red-

eared sliders and secrets

move just beneath the sky

that floats across the surface to the reeds

at the farthest edge.

                                      A Black phoebe picks flies

and rumors from the air.

None are too fast for him,

neither the latest out of Hollywood

nor royalty’s ongoing

struggle to be important. What is true tastes no different

from what is not; he keeps dipping

and swerving

                         through politics, finance

and all the way down

to the feathers and bones left on the ground

still with a glaze of moonlight.

 

(5)

Arroyo walk, sidestepping the facts and

speculating whether

the boulder resting on the slope just past

where the trail dips came

to be exactly in position after

falling through space

                                        or was coughed out of the Earth.

Some facts are immoveable, too heavy

to be argued about. But someone’s always

naming parts, allocating

numbers, holding science

to the light and insisting explanations

matter more

                       than the experience

of stopping every time

to contemplate the mystery

that built the world before there was

a truth

             to lie about, when

only the stars kept records. 

 

(6)

Darkness left, light straight

ahead, the first sky of the day can’t decide

which mood to promise. The clouds

are carrying concealed, the sun’s

a lonely heart just waking up. 

One day looks

                          much like another, give or take

the shadows and the low high

in the forecast, rain

this afternoon on a street

for all weathers where showers dance

on asphalt,

                    heat soaks in

and wishes for a better world

go barefoot, once around the cul-de-sac

and back, beyond the visible, beyond

reality, beyond what even

                                                 the hawk can see

from his throne of wind.

David Chorlton lives in Phoenix with a view of a desert mountain and more interesting local bird life than many people expect in a city. The desert still teaches him about poetry in a way academies can never do.

DARK MATTER

by Lavinia Kumar

The early Universe was a strange place. Early in its history—in the first quintillionth of a second—the entire cosmos was nothing more than a stunningly hot plasma. And, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), this soup of quarks and gluons was accompanied by the formation of weird little primordial black holes (PHBs). It’s entirely possible that these long-vanished PHBs could have been the root of dark matter. MIT’s David Kaiser and graduate student Elba Alonso-Monsalve suggest that such early super-charged black holes were very likely a new state of matter that we don’t see in the modern cosmos. “Even though these short-lived, exotic creatures are not around today, they could have affected cosmic history in ways that could show up in subtle signals today,” Kaiser said. “Within the idea that all dark matter could be accounted for by black holes, this gives us new things to look for.” That means a new way to search for the origins of dark matter. (Graphic: Depiction of a primordial black hole forming amid a sea of hot, color-charged quarks and gluons, a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang.) —Universe Today, June 17, 2024

The British gentry are old hands at dark matter,

invisible behind those large gates,

lengthy curved lanes lined by trees

that lead to rumors of manors, 

over-trimmed gardens, and shootable 

deer, duck, and pheasant.

 

A lesser Brit, Stephen Hawking, created

a jigsaw of calculations, found 

what he thought must be the dark matter

in those hidden places—hiding thirty percent

of universe’s riches in those exotic 

out-of-the-way spaces.

 

But now, two scientists agree with him,

have found the hidden more interesting 

than plebian places, like village houses,

like quarks glued together by gluons.  

And, as is proper for dukes, princes, and lords,

each dark piece is far away from another,

with much space between.

 

But, alas, other nosy scientists, stars 

in our universe, are now spying on this matter, 

to find why, how, such riches were achieved.  

And who wouldn’t?   Will it lead to equality?

Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is a reprinting of her short book Beauty. Salon. Art. 

GIVE UNTO CAESAR

by David Chorlton

Tiberius Penny at The Smithsonian

Word comes down from the mountain

that Caesar has awakened

and begun to ask for what is his,

much to the distaste of the next man in line

whose shirt tells everyone he’s tuned

to a radio in the sky and he can tell you

why Washington’s to blame

for the state of all things on Earth. He orders

enchiladas. Says with pride

he’s ex-law enforcement. Smiles

at a passing thought available

only to himself.

                        With taxes comes the time

the ocotillo greens in the front yard

where the first of summer’s orioles

has found her way back

to where she came last year. She’s a flash

between red blossoms

and arrives when the Earth’s clock tells her to:

when the people empty their pockets

and count small change, when they

find news in dark rumors, sign their checks

and send them to Caesar

on the last of winter’s winds.

David Chorlton observes the coming and going of birds in the corner of Phoenix where he lives, near South Mountain. The Mountain became the focus of his short book published by Cholla Needles last year, The Inner Mountain, which featured watercolors and poems.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE

 by Mary K O’Melveny

“Vaccine Wheel of Fortune” by JMbucholtz at Deviant Art.

               In the Circle of Life

                    It's the wheel of fortune

                    It's the leap of faith

                    It's the band of hope

                    Till we find our place…

—“The Circle of Life” (Lyrics by Tim Rice)

No one wants to be the last woman down before the cure.

So everyone is staring at computer screens, leaning into

laptops, cradling cell phones. Legions of faithful vaccine

seekers are as determined as El Camino de Santiago pilgrims.

Or would-be buyers of Hamilton tickets back when Broadway

was still open.  There are waiting lists, rumors, promises.

Appointments made, then cancelled. Lines form, disband.

Recorded messages say don’t call us, we’ll call you.

 

Everyone is at risk. But not enough to be advanced to more

fortunate categories. We reside in data bases far and wide.

We’ve filled out forms as if they were lottery tickets, sent

every scrap of personal data to would-be hackers around

the globe, called doctors we’ve not seen in years, even searched

for fake college IDs that might jump us to new age brackets.

Some neighbors raced to appointments in neighborhoods they

had never seen, forgetting who the odds had already disfavored.

 

As usual, the privileged see serendipity. Everyone else

knows how often the game is rigged. Kismet is a figment.

The carnival barker is gone but his fabrications linger

like smoke from a cheap cigar. Even as chilled vials traverse

the highways like pilgrim caravans, new viral strains mutate,

shapeshift. Before all our waiting arms are raised, half a million

will likely die. So we click and call and cry for our chance

at good fortune. Once again, Lady Luck smiles, then disappoints.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

EXTREMISM

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Whose world is it anyway
Borderless planet flooded azure blue
No deity superior to all
Others praying to whichever listens

Unalterable creed makes tenets sacrosanct
Feminine sexuality emancipating driven women
Barbaric uncivil wrongs ignorance barbarism
Detrimental to everything save war

Universe of pure unadulterated hatred
Without knowing or understanding why
Dogma forced down parched throats
No violent intolerant extreme endures

Faceless weak narrow-minded trapdoor
Freedom of speech slammed shut
Censored opinions intent on recreating
World in own perverted image

Medieval mindsets dominating modern crusade
Bent distorted time-bomb warps confusing
Madness with mission malignant stupidity
Uncommon cause War Crimes Inquisition

Our real enemy is fanaticism
Duped by superstitions rumors black-and-blue lies
Imposing domination controlling underlings’ Fate
Stifling creative freedom of expression


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1