Orion’s Armament

Orionurania

bistoury hidden in
baldric of tanned cow leather.
malchus sharpend deftly by
acutiator. always
armisonant; on his heels.
roundhead most efficacious.
sword positioned at his hip.

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Written for:

imaginary garden with real toads

 Mini-Challenge for Sunday – It’s written in the stars…

Also Posted on: PurpleTreehouse Poetic Forms Week 6: Back to Basics

Where we were asked to write “Stellar Verse” specifically about the constellation ORION. The simplest for of Orion consists of seven stars (without the Hunter’s shield and club.) The poem had to be 7 lines which had to begin with the initial letter of the names of the 7 stars working in sequence from the celestial zenith, ie, B, B, M, A, A, R, S and each line in the “pure” form of the Orion, must have seven syllables, but flexibility is allowed. There is no set rhyme scheme.

The actual names of the stars from which the letter sequence above has been generated are: Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak, Rigel, Saiph.

Since Orion is a hunter/warrior, I chose weapon words, some of which you might not understand (I didn’t know over half of these) so I am giving you the definitions:
acutiator – person in the Middle Ages who attended armies and knights to sharpen their instruments of war

armisonant – rustling in arms; resounding with arms

baldric – belt worn over one shoulder that is typically used to carry a sword

bistoury – surgical instrument for making incisions

malchus – short sword with a broad tapering blade

roundhead – weapon used as a club

Sonnet XXXVII

Solar Activity Impacts Earth's Magnetic Field

Powerful magnetic forces tangled
in the solar wind, fracture and shatter
then rejoin with vengeance till flares, mangled
and twisted in bits of stellar matter,
pop-off on the solar surface. It’s jazz
played with frenzied brutality. It’s twitching
epileptically toward the poles. Viewed as
dynamic motions, it keeps enriching
catastrophic solar events. The sun
is miasmic. It is a complex beast.
It churns and quivers. It stops for no one.
A ball of hydrogen, to say the least!
Fluids ebb and flow on a disc shaped star,
materials suddenly fling out far.

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 The Sun is a seething ball of ionized gas, called plasma, and has very complex magnetic fields that interact with this plasma.  The Solar activity impacts the magnetic fields of the Earth. It also has significant influence on Earth’s weather.

The picture comes from:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

http://mblogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/14/the-sun-may-be-headed-for-a-little-quiet-time/

Sonnet XXXV

Newly Discovered Supernova in the Whirlpool Galaxy

A superstar stellar celebrity
has appeared in the evening sky. Among
the worldwide observing community,
no one ever saw a starburst this young.
The inner clockwork of this titanic
event, was ranked as a universal
episode of intensity. Cosmic
explosions were seen by professional
digital astroimagers. They prepared
very large aperture telescopes,
then witnessed what the precursor star dared
to do before bursting. Everyone hopes
to glimpse the event with reinforced eyes:
that brilliant whirlpool that lives in dark skies.

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Posted on:

Open Link Night ~ Week 34

This is a hubble space telescope picture. It’s just gorgeous.

Sonnet XXXIV

Ancient Supernova Spits Gamma Ray Fire

Ionic currents light the nebula.
Most lustrous waves of fury in the sky,
growing remains of a supernova.
Super-charged neutron-star. Pulsar. Whereby,
feint gamma rays in a smoky curtain
flash actively in a magnetized state.
Chemiluminescent radiation
blasting ions at a powerful rate.
The most powerful particle sources,
a luminal heart of a shattered star,
spins and lights up stellar resources
in a dragon galaxy spitting fire.
Across the electromagnetic field,
enormous flares are splendidly revealed.

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This comes from

http://www.space.com/11640-ancient-supernova-spits-gamma-ray-fire.html

I don’t have much to say about this. I liked the picture, and I loved the title, thought it was poetic, so I wrote this sonnet.