Contributor Posts

The political system is broken.
Big money rules the game.
No more being a good guy,
for only the crooks remain.

What costs, so much,
we lose the love
and pray to heaven
to the one above?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's causing those unusual sky arcs? Ice crystals. While crossing a field of fresh snow near Füssen, Bavaria, Germany, earlier this month, the photographer noticed that he had entered an ice fog. For suspended water to freeze into an ice fog requires quite cold temperatures, and indeed the air temperature on this day was measured at well below zero. The ice fog reflected light from the Sun setting behind St. Coleman Church. The result was one of the greatest spectacles the photographer has ever seen. First, the spots in the featured picture are not background stars but suspended ice and snow. Next, two prominent ice halos are visible: the 22-degree halo and the 46-degree halo. Multiple arcs are also visible, including, from top to bottom, antisolar (subsun), circumzenithal, Parry, tangent, and parhelic (horizontal). Finally, the balloon shaped curve connecting the top arc to the Sun is the rarest of all: it is the heliac arc, created by reflection from the sides of hexagonally shaped ice crystals suspended in a horizontal orientation.

Photo by Bastian Werner

"To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literature of the present comprises only a tiny fraction of my own reading, here are a handful of books published this year that moved me with their tendrils of timelessness, with their questions and their consolations — selections neither exhaustive nor universal, as subjective as a shade of blue". Read more at the Marginalian

I don't believe I need you,
at least not now.
You don't talk to me,
Do you not know how?

You ask me to do things,
which will help you now,
but you don't listen,
Do you not know how?

I've known you for a while,
but why is it now?
You won't listen,
Do you not know how?

A faraway look
in her eyes.
Tears from me as
I hear her sighs.

Long were we married,
we were on a roll
until the ravages of
Alzheimer took its toll.

The Sun reflected off the Pond's mirrored surface,
as I thought about you.
My memories, come and go, so I feel fortunate
to recall the time, we first met.

Sitting in a lounge, alone, thinking about the
morrow and the business calls facing me.
I was travelling for my Company, in a capacity
requiring me to measure each unit's operational
functionality.

I saw you enter, alone, sitting at a small table.
Why didn't she sit at the bar, crossed my mind,
but thought she was meeting someone. I noticed
no one had joined her.

I hesitated before approaching you. I was lonely
and hoped I would find someone to talk with.
I was not seeking romance, as I had lost my wife
recently and was still uncertain if I could talk to
anyone without breaking down.

I approached the table and you smiled. "May I join
You?", was my question. We began talking about
our lives, joys, and sorrows. Talking about our life
events and how we feel now, in this new environment of
loneliness.
We ended taking contact information and sought
a new relationship where we could learn about each
other, to decide if we wish to pursue further.

Words making sounds,
like rain on a roof.
A rat, a tat, tat,
as if they were aloof.

Word sounds pierce my ears,
when shouted at me.
No matter what happens,
I'll take care of thee.

Don't yell, I appealed,
amongst the word din,
as I looked outside,
directly at him.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Could Queen Calafia's mythical island exist in space? Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California, USA. Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way's Orion Arm, only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long. On the featured image, the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. The star most likely providing the energetic starlight that ionizes much of the nebular gas is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A regular target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be spotted with a wide-field telescope under a dark sky toward the constellation of Perseus, not far from the Pleiades. Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator

Photo by Steven Powell