In Paris With Joe
by U. Carew Delibes
I was once in the city of love.
I walked down the Champs-Elysées.
I went all the way
to the Arc de Triomphe
without a cell phone.
I also went into the Louvre,
ablazoned in millions of rimmed suns—
bursting vermilions and crimsons—
reminding me now of the giclées
of Leonid Afremov.
I went over too
to the Centre Georges Pompidou
with its exoskeleton
of brightly coloured tubes:
red, yellow, green and blue.
At Les Invalides, you
went straight for Napoleon’s Tomb.
I still remember the room,
colossal, and filled with my gloom
and your awe,
like Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris,
grand and vast, such an enormity.
I sat in it
a minute…
It seemed an eternity.
I walked to La tour Eiffel,
and leaning on the iron lattice on the Champ de Mars,
I fell
under the spell of Marc Chagall
and Guy de Maupassant.
You went to the Basilica, Sacré-Couer,
on Montmartre’s curve,
while I sat in a Station of the Metro,
waiting, on a cold, hard, gray bench in
la réalité ciment,
and later that night,
amidst a rainbow of light,
after exquisite champagne,
I was mugged in Pigalle,
and my train ticket to Heilbronn stolen.
U. Carew Delibes is a music critic and poet enamoured of France, its art, its music, and its poetry.
His intimate circle of friends include art critic Beau Ecs Wilder and poet Claude I. S.Weber. His influences include, inter alia, the Impressionists, Les Fauves, Romantic composers from Berlioz on, and the Parnassians, particularly Stéphane Mallarmé. Joe was a military buddy of his from Minnesota.
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Emily Dickinson Footnote
by Cadwel E. Bruise
in memory of Thomas Wentworth Higginson
The ballerina spins around
in shiny, frilly clothes.
The only point she touches ground
is on her iron toes.
She spins about in circling swirls,
then floats firm as a cloud,
a flower opening unfurls
its petals for the crowd.
She takes a leap across the stage,
a pirouette in space,
then drops into what seems an age
her faint and painted face.
And on it goes, she does not stoop,
it seems she will not pause,
until she flops, and sepals droop
to thunderous applause.
Cadwel E. Bruise is a poet surprisingly at home intellectually in New England, and is particularly thankful to the poet Jason Wright, who kindly shares his rugged thoughts with the likes of him, and other oddballs.
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Thomas Wolfe
by Usa W. Celebride
Carl Perkins may have been the one who brought his work to light;
although at times he did his damnedest, to cut down his write,
while William Faulkner thought the lengthy books of Thomas Wolfe
were like a hootchie-kootchie line of dancing elephants.
Competitor E. Hemingway considered that Wolfe was
an over-bloated, Little Abner literary buzz;
yet Malcolm Cowley thought that only Wolfe could be compared
with Dostoevsky, or with Dickens, in America.
In 1938, he came out west to Washington:
pneumonia hit—Seattle spit—and then his sprite was gone.
Usa Celebride is a poet of America. Some influences include Whitman, Melville, Twain, Hart Crane, Dos Passos, Jeffers, Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe.
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I’m Not a Kurd
by Curdise Belawe
You ask me who I am. I’m not a Kurd of Kurdistan.
There is no Kurdistan. I only am one lonely man,
who’s not on fire with dynamite, nor in my foe’s hard face.
When furious I shake, but not like a volcanic mace.
I shake no mountain peaks, nor kill my dreaded enemies.
My fury leaves behind it no inspiring memories.
With rocks and boulders, towns and hamlets, I rise in the east,
but can not save the Middle East from raging Turk or beast.
These plains and deserts are my friends, and ancient emperors,
who ruled withdrawing empires with knowledge, death and wars.
You ask me who I am. I am not proud of what I see.
I am not noble, nor at peace, but I want to be free.
I wish I weren’t forever beaten down and so oppressed;
but I’m not like my stout ancestors, nor am I so blessed.
I will not liberate the parks and meadows from Iran,
from Turkish and Iraqi despots, or mad Syrian.
I want to live in my own land, there’s much I want to build,
contributing to all humanity; yet I am killed.
The halter of my horse is gone, as is my paladin.
I am not Richard Lion-Heart, nor Sultan Saladin.
You ask me who I am. I am not Noshi Rawan’s ghost,
nor spirit of Ardasher dashing stones against the coast.
I don’t exist, nowhere between great India and Greece.
I pay my timely tributes to insanity and geese.
I have no forts or castles. Time has taken them away.
I have no name. I have no fame. I live from day to day.
I have no friends or nation. I am paralyzed by strife.
I’m swindled by assailants; germs attack my very life.
Despite it all, I’m not unyielding, nor formidible.
No long-haired Medes have ever thought my valour terrible.
You ask me who I am. I am not Blacksmith Kawa, no,
who slew notorious and dark Dahak; I’m not Newroz.
I’m not Ahirman, god of wisdom, who defeats Ormazd,
that vile, evil god, nor am I Zoroastra’s dad.
I don’t enjoy my orchards, or the green hills filled with vines.
I do not relish pomegranates, nor red sacred wines.
I am not now nor have I ever been friend to Kelhor.
I do not speak Kurmanji, nor do I know Lor and Gor.
I never had a crown, nor ruled a mighty nation state.
I never, in religion’s name, became a potentate.
You ask me who I am. I am not waking from deep sleep.
I will not march proud as a lion, like a leopard leap.
I will not learn from great ones flourishing in every age.
I will not make a vow to shake the tyrants from the stage.
I will not struggle endlessly, nor will my will survive.
I will not live forever, it’s enough to be alive.
I do not hold a tiger’s tail. I’m not Cigerxwîn.
I do not long to shed blood, nor wait for a bigger wind.
I long for peace, but I have foes. I’m only one lone man,
who thinks that maybe some day there will be a Kurdistan.
Curdise Belawe is a poet inspired by the history and people of Kurdistan.
