Faneuill Hall
by Cadwel E. Bruise
Between the waterfront and Center of the Government,
it stands low in the high skyscrapered urb environment,
quaint Faneuill Hall, the mouthpiece of the voice of liberty.
Behind, Sam Adams stands with folded-armed effrontery,
in bronze upon unpolished Quincy granite, gray and grim,
Ann Whitney’s finely-chiseled patriotic view of him.
Atop, the weathervane-grasshopper gilded in the sun
looks down upon the passersby, lo, each and everyone,
stabbed like a specimen from some glum entomologist.
Once, Henry D. Thoreau, the transcenvironmentalist,
observed the locust Solidago nemoralis sing—
a field golden with Xerxean army “hot z-ing.”
Cadwel E. Bruise is a poet intrigued by New England. His deepest influences from there include Taylor, Bryant, Hawthorne, Longfellow, J. Lowell, Holmes, Thoreau, Emerson, Dickinson, W. James, Frost, and R. Lowell.
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Venezuela
by Cesar Dwe Uribe
“Your destiny is to create in your land a place where primary colours are not distorted.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I’m thinking now of going, going far away from here,
exiled from this prison, to a strange land free of fear,
where I could then enjoy the freedom of a living soul,
instead of wallowing within this hot and humid hole,
fit only for the craven beasts and vile animals,
who feed upon our freedoms, like mad, wild cannibals.
The violence continues on, as do food shortages.
Inflation’s rise and rationing have made us hostages.
The drop of oil prices has destroyed foreign reserves;
the killing and the jailing, o, is getting on our nerves.
We lack the basic medicines to keep our people well;
malaria is rising, o, we’re on our way to hell.
Yet heaven’s still above us blue, seas round our tortured shore,
and rivers winding through our land remind us there is more.
Above the sun is yellow, as the gold found in our land,
banana trees span many acres to the golden sand.
Within our cochineal trees, a living carmine flows,
within ourselves red blood as well, throughout our country goes.
Cesar Dwe Uribe is a poet of southern North America and northern South America. Among the poems he most admires is Andrés Bello’s Vergilian “Silva a la agricultura de la zona tórrida.”
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“Whistle Stop” by Roger Miller (1936-1992)
by E. Ducabe Wisler
The simple, laid-back tune of Roger Miller’s “Whistle Stop,”
that settles in between soft rockabilly, folk, and pop,
is an infectious melody, a quiet, happy jaunt,
that gets itself inside your head, a feeling that you want.
There are no lyrics to the song, just whistles, grins and hums,
and making funny noises in a catchy, fetching thrum.
The guitar plays the rhythm, like it really likes the beat,
so casual, straightforward, memorable and complete.
It is a quiet little stop upon the railroad—
a momentary pause before another episode.
E. Ducabe Wisler is a poet of South Central USA, from Nashville to Bakersfield. The first songs he latched on to, as a pre-teen, were the historical ballads of Johnny Horton.
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Upon the Campus of Columbia
by Red Was Iceblue
Upon the campus of Columbia, the students gripe,
because a Henry Moore was lately plopped with clunky hype.
The “lumpy hunk of metal,” Moore’s Reclining Figure now
shouts out, before the Morningside library, bold and loud.
The art directors called protesters, “spoil’d,” “lunkhead nitwits.”
and fairly thoughtfully called them “entitled little shits.”
The students, in return, described the big chunk gleefully,
“a pterodactyl poorly formed” or “dying mantis.” Gee.
Upon the campus of Columbia, the wardens gripe
about the students, not this thick, bronze, twisted tailpipe.
Red Was Iceblue is a poet of Modernist and Postmodernist art. The bronze castings he most admires are those of Auguste Rodin, often entitled “Le Penseur,” but originally commissioned for the doorway surround, “The Gates of Hell,” a brush with Dante and a touch of Michelangelo.