Posted at 01:25 PM in Books, Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Past Issues, Poetry | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
We are currently in the process of putting together issue #3 of Dark Matter. It should be available by the middle of July.
We will no longer be able to consider new submissions for issue #3 as of today, June 20th. We will continue to accept submissions for issue #4, to be published in early 2014, however.
To get everyone excited for issue #3, here is a sample poem from Lori Lamothe -
Dance of the Unsquared Circles
To lure the taste of chocolate
out of chocolate, add salt.
It’s not the old equation,
only a recipe for sensibility.
Opposites don’t attract, just end up
like the couple that set fire to civility
and chalked a faultline down the center
of possession. Or it’s the other way around—
two people wearing their anger inside out
for twenty years—all that electricity
trapped behind a flickering of false lives.
Call it cold fusion, or misery, or lightning
minus light. Call it whatever you like.
The trick is to find out what charges what—
to know the differences that revolve
in imaginary spaces—
Andromeda and The Milky Way
caught in a waltz of mutual gravity.
Let cardinals bring out the snow in snow.
Let the tree behind bullet-proof glass,
its leaves spindling toward sun,
make you crave an infinity of ocean.
If you want me to love you
write a graffitti of rain-slick roads
across the Sahara of my distance,
tattoo a dusting of particles
onto the terra incognita of my fear.
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There are currently some problems with the server that keeps our archived issues of Dark Matter. While we are working to repair or replace it, we have provided a direct link below. We will have the issue with the server fixed before the second issue of DM comes out next month. Thanks for being patient with us.
Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here is one more new poem before we start to prepare for issue number 2 of Dark Matter which will be out in December. This poem, and the previous poems and story published on this blog since the first issue will be included in issue #2. It's not too late to submit new work, however.
Thanks to Janet Butler for this poem which was originally published in Blinking Cursor Anthology, Spring, 2012.
Why I Love the Moon
I love her best when I catch her
dreaming her private dreams
aloof, a distant Buddha
far enough to tempt to fancy
near enough to cast her anchor
hard in our hearts.
We adore her, poised against endless night
magnet to immensities beyond us.
Janet Butler relocated to the Bay Area in 2005 after many years in central Italy. She teaches ESL in San Francisco and lives in Alameda with Fulmi, a lovely Spaniel mix she rescued in Italy and brought back with her. Some current or forthcoming publications are The Blue Bear Review, The Chaffey Review, Miller's Pond, Town Creek Poetry, and Red Ochre Lit. Her most recent chapbook is "Searching for Eden" from Finishing Line Press.
Posted at 07:56 AM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
We are gearing up for our big Fall season. Our ad will appear in the Nov./Dec. issue of Poets & Writers, and we're expecting a lot of great submissions. We accepted a few over the summer too, and we've been showcasing some of them here. Our latest featured poem is Vacuity by Steve Broidy. Enjoy -
Up close,
Most of an atom is
Ether. Through space
Unending, dark
Matter dominates.
The tangible is tenuous
And lonely;
And so we seem
To see that if we
Speed on, heedless,
We may dodge through
Walls and galaxies, without
Contact:
Truth, like the wind,
Finds form in
What is moved.
There is so much
That is nothing, we can
Barely believe
That we may
Touch.
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*
Its grain widening
fills with islands and tides
-sandpaper alone! a beach
and the light that found its way home
grows heavier :each morning
I polish a wood bowl
the way the mist will wait
face up for water almost tissue paper
innocent, smelling from acorns and Fall
and my hands, once grasses and clumps.
The sun must be wood
made from an old sea left out to dry
never sure it will burn
or why the air somehow shines
-I have to hold it close
and the horizon so smoothly
into dust and emptiness
I have to slow the rim, my tears
already falling through the afternoon light
–I dread rainbows! hate flowers
–only sand, sand and worn down paper.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, photo, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.
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We apologize for the formatting issues that have bugged the page for the past week. Our domain name server updated their servers which knocked out our CName address that this blog uses to redirect the name to this blog. That messed up the formatting until we could get the CName address updated and redirected again. Sorry it took so long.
Any way, let's forget about all of that and enjoy this new poem from Jack Foster (his bio follows the poem):
There's this relationship,
This inherent love, between space
and time - as if they're folded
in on each other like linen place-settings.
Really, though, it's more like French bread
sliced up by vectors and velocities.
And it occurs to me that things happen
not at the same time, but in the same planar moment.
Right now, we're sitting outside
of Les Deux Magots, wondering
if we'll ever be in this place again.
But we're so quick to forget
that time and space do not run
like a projector or a slide panel
or some ubiquitous hologram. Someone
somewhere - neither in the past, present, nor future -
is painting, so deftly, a scene of
us on the canvas of the cosmos,
and as I down the last of my Bordeaux, I smile as
your form is watermarked into the setting of the sun.
Jack Foster is a Ted Pugh Poetry Prize winning author from Southern California where he serves as the production editor for A Few Lines Magazine and the lead editor for Wormwood Chapbooks. His work can be found in various journals such as The Adroit Journal, Pomona Valley Review, Cavalier Literary Couture, and Yes, Poetry. Jack maintains a blog at www.jackfosterpoetry.blogspot.com
Posted at 12:48 PM in Poetry | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
First, the comment (from Brad Hoge, managing editor of Dark Matter).
There is a tendency to categorize speculative fiction into two camps: the mystical, and the existential. We aren't trying to focus on one perspective here at Dark Matter, but we would like to encourage serious consideration of the dichotomy. I tend more towards the existential personally, preferring to define mystical as simply mysterious, undiscovered. I have no trouble imposing beauty and meaning onto the cold universe, red in tooth and claw. I see poetry as the tool we use to fill the void of space with meaning rather than a platform for fantasy that allows us to avoid the fear of nothingness. I worry that allusion to the mystical too often serves this latter purpose by obscuring the values and qualities of myth with fantasy. Don’t’ get me wrong, fantasy is indispensible to exploration of meaning and understanding of our own human nature, if identified as such, if given the power of myth. If mystical is seen as a way to bring fantasy into reality, however, it can become a diversion from true considerations of meaning and self-determination. Speculation about the distinctions I am trying to make is where the value of the two camps come together synergistically. Dismissal of this speculation as beyond our ken opens the specter of delusion. No matter how blissful these delusions may be, I prefer consciousness.
I'll end with a quote I recently heard in a presentation by Nathan Wolfe on TED.com:
"Don't assume that what we currently think is out there is the full story. Go after the dark matter, in whatever field you choose to explore." (Nathan Wolfe)
Now, on to the story. We were very pleased with the first issue of Dark Matter, and with the response it has received. A special thanks to all of the authors who contributed. We are currently accepting submissions for the second issue which will be published in December. Please use the submission link above. As we accept new pieces, we will feature selected poems and stories here, on the blog. Our first featured story for issue number two of Dark Matter is:
Both science and religion have led people astray in determining the origin of man.
Lies, everything has been a lie. For the past three millennia misdirection and half truths have been perpetuated by masters of secrecy in order to distract man from uncovering the real answers.
“Answers which rest before man's eyes every day,” says Richard Carroll, professor of sociology at the University of Florida.
Professor Carroll and his graduates study the seasonal mating rituals of young adults in and around the nightclubs of Miami.
“This meaning is often accentuated by thin straps of elastic and under wires. The answers to our universe are continuously used as a distraction from itself.”
Men are distracted by the answers on film, magazines, and now on the internet. Often they are sought after late at night so our mothers or wives will not discover. These hunts become our quest for the holly grail, our fountain of youth, our last great manifest destiny. Yet man's never ending desire to reveal these secrets has shaped his existence.
Simply put, the universe is a breast.
And now science has definitive proof that the universe is in the size and shape of an actual breast.
INVERTED PHILOSOPHIES:
“The universe is shaped exactly like the earth. If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were.”
Singer and songwriters Isaac Brock, Eric Judy, and Jeremiah Green make up the band Modest Mouse. “Baby cum angels fly around you, reminding you we used to be three and not just two,” they explain in their song, '3rd Planet'. on The Moon & Antarctica album. “And that's how the world began. And that's how the world will end.”
Scientifically speaking the answers to how the universe is a breast are much more complicated. Phillip Portman, a physicist at M.I.S. or the Molecular Institute of Science, studies the similarities between the physics of the cosmos to the physics of microbiology.
“Your body is a complex machine that has been designed from a specific set of laws. The mammary gland, the milk ducts, even the fatty skin tissue act as a mini solar system. The functions are the same, but on a symbiotic infinite/finite scale.”
Portman explains how the planet Earth and our solar system are similar to the hydrogen atom. Earth has one satellite orbiting the planet. Hydrogen has one proton and is the most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass.[1] When we begin this path of reasoning, we see that electrons navigate around the neutron and proton of an atom just as the moon to our planet.[2]
1. Palmer, D. (13 September 1997). “Hydrogen in the Universe”. NASA. Retrieved 2008-02005.
2. The moon can’t be an electron because electrons don’t act like satellites in space. Rather they are seen as clouds of charge spread over the entire orbit. ^To be honest, I don’t remember where I found this… so we’ll pretend this fact doesn’t exist so my theory can remain true.
But Portman and M.I.S. are at odds when it comes to the belief that the universe is a breast. M.I.S. has publicly stated that the corporation does not share in the belief that the universe is a breast.[3]
At a press conference in Phoenix last September, CEO and founding director Sam Serebin stated, “The difficult part to account for is how often we get to fondle the breasts. That, and not all nebulae are galaxies. Many are just clouds of gas. We can therefore not quantitatively prove that the universe has boundaries which formulate in the shape of a female breast.”
Portman still however contests that different clusters of galaxies combine to create different properties within the breast.
John Walters, “When you take this theory and expand on it infinitely you have whole breasts acting supple and perky like unstable molecular compounds. The similarities are astounding.”
Walters is a high school teacher of Physical Science in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey who leads an underground movement in science which is responsible for popularizing the term cosmoboobology.
“Cosmoboobology is as several atoms come together to form a solar system, multiple solar systems create galaxies,” Walters explains. “Galaxies create compounds, compounds create cells, cells create the known universe, and the universe is a breast.”
CURRENT THEORY:
How do scientists know, with all of the planets, stars, and cosmos inside are the design of a gigantic breast?
This question can be answered, but not before (like any true scientific venture) creating the paradox of asking more questions.
Who's breast?
Where is the rest of her body?
Is heaven a woman or she hell?
13.7 billion years ago the distance between neighboring galaxies was zero.[4] The theory which deduces a cataclysmic birth of the universe (big bang) resulted in an abundance of elements big and small through the laws of physics.[5] Over time the universe has undergone a complex evolution. It is this evolution that has made it possible for planets such as the Earth and beings such as humans to exist as a breast.
Tyler White, writer/director of the documentary Confusing, a Film about Women, “Imagine the universe as we know it to exist in a Petri dish lined with a thin coating of oily water. The grand designer, whoever she was, added a drop of soap to the mix and the oil darted out to the edges.”
White believes that if there is a god she is a woman.
“They are the most beautiful things on the planet, but make absolutely no sense. If that doesn't describe women, god, and our universe, I don't know what will.”
Yet, the universe is infinite in size and unlike the Petri dish there are no conceived glass walls. But scientists have theorized that there are boundaries.
Sarah Cook, PhD. has designed a model of the universe based on the principles derived from a boundary condition. A boundary condition in space is the state of universe in its outer boundary.[6] Based on these set of laws, her model shows the exact curvature mimics the shape of a female breast.
“A 17 year old female to be precise,” she says. “Obviously race and weight play a factor, but between the end of stage four and beginning of stage five breast developments are where we generally see the period when a woman's breasts reflect the boundaries of our universe.”
3. See: World News clip, Molecular Institute of Science (M.I.S.) press conference in Phoenix, AZ – http://sites.google.com/site/taylorsharpmedia/
4. Komatsu, E.; Dunkley, J.; Nolta, M. R.; Bennett, C. L.; Gold, B.; Hinshaw, G.; Jarosik, N.; Larson, D. et al. (2009). “Five-Year Wilinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations: Cosmological Interpretation”. Astrophysical Journal Supplement 180: 330.
5. Big Bang: Made this up from a bunch of different definitions I stole from books and the web. Sounds pretty smart, doesn’t it?
6. Compiled from: Stephen Hawkins with Leonard Mlodinow, A Briefer History of Time, The Science Classic Made More Accessible. (New York: Random House, November 2005), audio book.
THE BIG BUST:
“So why the cover up?
“You let something as beautiful as these ideas hang out there and mass hysteria would erupt.” Katherine Kellman is dean of the history department at the University California Davis and author of The History of Science. Kellman is concerned that knowledge leads to chaos.
“To accept that the existence of life equates to a breast is humbling,” says Kellman. “Personally, it makes me want to crawl into a hole.”
For people who feel like Kellman it gets worse.
In 1964 the discovery of particles called quarks changed science's understanding of space and time. Quarks are hypothetical elementary particles which make up the protons and neutrons of an atom.[7] They allowed scientist to look past the two conflicting unrealities of space and time and discover that inside each of these particles there exists an anti-particle. The theory of alternate universes was no longer science fiction, it became science fact.
“What we've discovered is that there are two; two breasts.” Thomas Reynolds of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). “Resting just outside our own existence is another equally beautiful specimen.”
SLAC discovered the other breast, nearly the same size and make up to our own, mimics our universe. Sensitive to the other's existence, like consciousness in a dream or fantasy, both universes phase over one another every so often while never completely capable of occupying the same temporal space.
“Side by side universes working independently of one another,” Reynolds says. “The discovery was breathtaking.”
It wasn't until several years later when SLAC attempted to publish these findings did they discover resistance.
“The existence of another universe, basically identical to our own, and sitting next to ours frightened even the science community,” Reynolds remembers. “Just the mention of the universe as a pair of breasts brought on the claim 'misogynistic'.”
After repeated backlash from women's leagues such as the Amazonian Group and the Pink Ribbon Club, scientists covered up the truth once again. The same truth which continues to be hidden right in front of man's face. Perhaps a man feels more comfortable when he is less distracted.
7. Merriam-Webster Children’s Dictionary, 2008.
_
Definitions:
Atom – planets
Black Hole – the hypothesis usually referred to as the “vagina theory”
Cosmology – the study of the universe as a whole; not to be confused with cosmetology, the study of women.s things
Cosmoboobology – the study of the universe as a breast
Duality – two breasts
Electron – moons
Galaxies – possible formation of cells
Nucleosynthesis - the process of creating new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons (protons & neutrons) and is thought that the primordial nucleons themselves were formed from the quark-gluon plasma from the Big Bang as it cooled below 2 trillion degrees and perhaps influenced by a concentration of dark matter
Photon - light energy which comes in the form of another type of particle; a massless particle called a
photon (the nearby nuclear furnace of the sun is the greatest source of photons for the earth)
Quarks – you, me, people
Space Time – see: dark energy and dark matter
Spatial Dimension – this factor depends on the female; usually referred to a “breast size”
Theory – something that can.t be proven
Universe – a breast
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