“The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus” by Judith Solano Mayer


To find yourself in the infinite, you must distinguish and then unite- Goethe

Voco Vocare Vocavi Vocatus
vox verve vent vocalize
Verbum verbī verbō
visualize verbalize vitalize
and there you have it.

Inspiration derived itself and surged through sacred byways depositing mass and dimension, time splayed flat against the front bumper just ahead of the breach where whimsy swallowed a unified creation and spit it back out in eleven dimensions; before-[time/space] cataclysmically sliced, and He who knows the end from the beginning knew the complications of a multiverse and played it.

Luminous Lucifer: to what end? It’s what comes from trying to budget inspiration, compress leftovers into a one sublime creature: a magnificence so startling it unhinged fidelities and induced a gobsmacked stupor, zealots incapable of anything but a drooling reverence; they failed the breath test and fell
ahead of the fracture, and

calculus
is what
they fell
through.
Esperanto of the gods, cosmic taxi driver/tour guide/translator (roughly, very roughly)
of enigmata, desiderata.
No matter which axis you slice
an/infinite/number/of/slices/sandwiched/together/make/the/loaf
and there’s always room for one more.


Calculus—that traitorous Frankenstein accreting its legends and limbs across the centuries, unveiling every hiding place, pointing its decrepit finger at every entrance and exit. This was the infinite sum they rode to safety; and at its edge, cutting the trail of its unfurling, was light—pulling the ethereal decoder by its v-v-vagaries, trailing footprints as big as stars.

The Fundamental Theorem of Reckoning warns that the perfected integral of inspiration between the fracture and the fusion as t → zero hour is equal to the derived imagination of the multiverse minus politicians, poets, hubris.

And then shall The Theory of Everything appear, the mother of all antiderivatives casually scrawled across his thigh like a crib note, the badass integral that will cause black holes to belch their booty and Stephen Hawking to rise from the dead, the rebound that will pull gravity back onto its spools, and collapse wormholes into paving tiles in His foyer.

And this galactic gansta, this cosmological commander, shall peg rebellion to the hem of the cosmos with a shout, and the burning you smell will be the brakes as light decelerates from c2 to zero, and the BANG that you hear will be calculus meeting its limits, guts flayed, as light, that great usurper, succumbs in a universe without shadow, without sun, without moon. And the gentle trickle of tiles as the periodic table collapses into its single pre-elemental glory will be the last sound you hear from these former days.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/calculus


Judith Solano Mayer is a Pacific Northwest transplant with an ancient history in physical science. She enjoys the porosity of the multiverse and tries to incorporate its character into her poetry whenever possible.

“l’esprit d’escalier” by Andy Betz


My mother warned me not to. I rarely heed sound advice.

A week too late, I dress for what should have been my wedding
Gown, veil, garters, and shoes – all in white
My friends excused themselves from what they insist is merely an exercise in futility or folly
Taken as an excuse to burn calories, they are indeed correct
Taken as an activity for my well-being, only I stand without blemish in this assessment

Now, I walk from the bottom the spiral staircase in both literal and figurative fashion. Today, only the latter suffices.

With each step, bouquet in hand
I ponder what might have been said
What might have been accomplished
What might have come to be
But, what never came to pass

Up the spiral staircase, I am using borrowed time I can never reimburse to make whole.

I scoffed at the adage of not seeing or being seen
The night prior to the nuptials
Weddings are for the bride
And this one
Might have been as proposed

Unless quoted, history (unfortunately) bypasses Jacques Necker.

I had nerves, concerns, anxiety, and reflections
He had the strength for two
I wanted an immediate respite
He wanted an immediate future
Our argument included all that should never be remembered

Except how he concluded it, “You are a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there”.

The staircase has but one more spiral
One more turn to think
Not about the last sentence I ever heard him speak
Only about how I needed to reply
And how I failed to do so


Andy Betz has tutored and taught in excess of 30 years. He lives in 1974, and has been married for 27 years. His works are found everywhere a search engine operates.

Two Poems by Abasiama Udom


Bleating Down

Filling before the throne and not of grace,
a bleat is risen from the sacrifice you bring
yet the king will not hear your plea
for a gift he seeks, perfect and blameless.
You beside your one-eyed goat
poor father that you be,
coming to plead the cause of your snatched land.
Why bring a goat bleating down?
Go! Go from here for this will never do,
the king will not hear this case.


Nowhere to Go

Beside the heavens or earth,
where else can I inhabit
for time and space will not permit
that I find a home without
even when humans my trust break,
my humour anger,
time and space will not permit
forcing my hand to live this life.
Living, vexing yet laughing all the same
crying, shouting, still dancing as I go.
Beside the earth or heaven,
no where else to inhabit
for time and space will not permit.
So I stand in the face of humanity,
human that I am.


Abasiama Udom is a Poet and Writer with words scattered all over including at Rigorous Magazine and U-rights Magazine. She lives in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria with her family (parents and annoying brother) and finds the time to sleep, dance or watch football. Twitter:@AneuPoet

“Looking for a Publisher” by Leroy B. Vaughn


I read in the Arizona Range News that a well known publisher would be lecturing at the public library in Wilcox on Saturday, and I drove into town to check her out.

There was a good turnout at the library, and I watched as the writer/publisher placed copies of two of the books that she had written on display near the podium where she would be speaking.

The publisher went through her introductions and I was beginning to think that I might have a chance to pitch one of my manuscripts to her, when she began to talk about the mystery/crime division of her company.

An old female hippie wearing a beret saved me the trouble of asking what the publisher was looking for in crime fiction.

My wife elbowed me and shook her head when the publisher told the audience that the strongest “cuss word” she would allow would be “shit.”

The publisher went on to say that there should be very little violence and no sex in the crime fiction novels submitted to her company.

Before the lecture began, I had looked at one of the books on display that she had written. The back cover described her book as a hard hitting crime novel about a retired Marine Sergeant turned homicide detective, on the trail of a serial killer.

I waited for the break to make my get-away from the library. As we drove away my wife said, “I guess she wouldn’t be interested in your books.”

I told her I would just have to keep looking for a publisher. As I drove home, I pictured in my mind the retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant that played the drill instructor in the movie “Full Metal Jacket.”

I could see the gunny with a crew cut wearing a rumpled suit, as he pulls his .357 magnum on a deranged killer holding an axe that is dripping with blood.

The homicide dick says to the killer, “drop that darned axe, you turkey.”

The killer replies, “Why don’t you make me Mr. Funny haircut.”

The homicide dick is really mad now, as he shouts, “What is your major malfunction twinkle toes. Don’t make me cock this gosh darned pistol.”

“OK, OK, I give up. You don’t have to yell Mr. Potty mouth,” the killer tells the detective.

A few hours later, the homicide dick returns home to his young beautiful wife. She greets him at the door with a hearty handshake and a cup of hot chocolate. She is wearing flannel pajamas buttoned up to the top button.

After he drinks his hot chocolate, he tells her, “I got that dog gone serial killer tonight.”

“Gee whiz, that’s great,” she replies before going off to her twin bed.

The homicide dick reclines in his favourite chair and works on a crossword puzzle while watching a Charlie Chan movie from 1942 on the late show.


Leroy B. Vaughn the writer is not the hillbilly singer of the 1950’s, the former motorcycle officer from southern California or the dentist from Los Angeles, all with the same name. This Leroy B. Vaughn is retired and lives in Arizona, U.S.A.

“Pigeons” by Juleigh Howard-Hobson


Grey. Grey. Grey. We are shady, limmering
And fluttering. We don’t stride the air like
Eagles do. We belong to the city:
Small, narrow, crowded, oil stains shimmering
Competing with each feather. We don’t strike
When we fly up in startled bunches, we
Flap, scat, skitter. Grey. Grey. Like the beggars
We have become since there were places to
Beg in, or to beg from. Grey. Grey. Grey. Necks
Ringed with lilac. Wings white tipped. We demur
From taking food from people’s hands. We coo,
We strut. Grey. Grey. Throw the crumbs down. Expect
Us to be delighted. We’ll flit, peck, play
Our part. Rapturously coy. Grey. Grey. Grey.


Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s poetry has appeared in The Comstock Review, Noir Nation, L’Éphémère, Able Muse, The Lyric, Weaving The Terrain (Dos Gatos), Poem Revised (Marion Street), Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea (Great Weather for Media), Lift Every Voice (Kissing Dynamite), and other venues. A Million Writers Award “Notable Story” writer, nominations include “Best of the Net”, The Pushcart Prize and The Rhysling Award. She lives off grid in the Pacific Northwest next to a huge woods filled with shadows and ghosts.

“A Place Beyond Song” by Marianne Lyon


After we younglings
in choir loft
intone our last song
we close our hymnals
wander down uneven steps
kneel beside statues
lit with flickering candles
burning with intentions.
so silent
just listening
smell dripping wax

After awhile
a few fidget
wiggle up
disappear
to backyard
tree forts
Box Car children
adventures
rowdy
hop-scotch

But the rest of us
so silent,
not even a fragment
of hymn begs attention
But the rest of us
so quiet
are here
still listening


Marianne has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews including Ravens Perch, TWJM Magazine, Earth Daughters and Indiana Voice Journal. She was nominated for the Pushcart prize in 2017. She is a member of the California Writers Club and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in California.

“The Universe’s Brain” by John J. Brugaletta


“That ocean,” said Marvell (and meant the mind).
To be half-right is not exactly wrong,
for though the ocean functions as a kind
of hidden wellspring for the careless throng,

there is in fact the land with air and light,
receiving, like an artist, what it’s dealt,
transforming that into a holy rite
at which a bronze-age human would have knelt.

But rites should have a reason that makes sense.
A round and knobby planet without spine,
and lacking verbal person, mood or tense,
reflects on outer space its modest shine.

Here is reason, although logic is still mute.
It rises through the ether as dispute.


John J. Brugaletta is the first member of his family to finish high school and then three degrees from universities. He is now professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton, where he edited South Coast Poetry Journal for ten years. He lives with his wife on the redwood coast of California.

“Cotton Candy” by Judith Solano Mayer


Studying the ceiling
tracing the migration patterns of angels there
along the fractured boundary of imagination
(a place where they love to kneel and drink)
I set traps; yes, I have sunk that low.

But I have to tell you—it is beautiful to see
that torn gossamer streaming like the spun sugar
we used to pull off paper wands at the parish fair, the magic
of its abrupt crimson color when the strands met
the sweat of our eager fingers, our stained tongues.
My sister would pinch off small puffs and brush her nail tips
like we saw mom do, or powder my face
leaving a rouge web across my cheeks.

It’s like that, just like that,
easing their fine wretchedness from the snare
in glittering strands, ingesting their brilliance,
licking my lips with a grotesque sort of satisfaction.


Judith Solano Mayer is a Pacific Northwest transplant with an ancient history in physical science. She enjoys the porosity of the multiverse and tries to incorporate its character into her poetry whenever possible.

“Rain, Like Idle Fingers” by Joseph Hardy


   might sound, tapping a metal bucket,
for all the lack of sun this morning,
the dim gray light, no heavier than that.
As though God’s not into dramatics today.
No fire and brimstone.
No rending of earth as when Jesus died.
No storm lashing Adam and Eve out of Eden.
No cataclysmic meteor striking the Yucatan
to extinguish the dinosaurs.
No glacial sheet of ice overwhelming Europe
to drive the Neanderthals south.
A day of forgiveness perhaps,
or an intermission.


Joseph Hardy is one of a handful of writers that live in Nashville, Tennessee, that does not play a musical instrument; although a friend once asked him to bring his harmonica on a camping trip so they could throw it in the fire. His wife says he cannot leave a room without finding out something about everyone in it, and telling her their stories later.

“岛” by J H Martin


The lake spread out before him in a liquid pool of ink.

This small island that his boat was headed for was no longer a piece of imagination.

Two years ago, it hadn’t even existed. Not even as a passing thought.

Things had been going well back then. Money had stopped being a concern. His wife was everything a man could want. And business had never been better.

And yet what had taken twenty years of hard work to achieve, took only five short seconds for its cables to snap, its brakes to fail and for it to crash headlong into emergency wards, liquidation and trauma.

After his release from hospital, he wandered far and wide in search of something. What that was, he didn’t know. And no matter where he went, he couldn’t find it either. Not in the bullshit of bars, not in the cleansing beach sunsets, nor on the long cold mountain retreats.

But now he had found what he was looking for.

Now he was here, bringing the boat in to land.

He’d found the location on a torn piece of paper in a small hut in the woods.

There was no map. There was no photograph. There were only some words.

They read:

“People eat dirt, dirt eats people.

No matter what you do, you must return to this earth.

None of this is real, everything returns to this.

If you see through this world and let go of it, this is wisdom.

If you see through it but don’t let go, that is just ‘talking Chan’.

Sat on the bank of the island, he nodded to himself and smiled. Kicking the boat away, he watched it drift across the lake and dissolve into its liquid pool of ink.


J H Martin is from London, England but has no fixed abode. His writing has appeared in a number of places in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Website: acoatforamonkey.wordpress.com IG: @jhmartin72 / Twitter: @acoatforamonkey