The Lotte World Tower
          by Dae Wi “Scrub” Lee

555, in meters, towering it sits,
the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea, is
designed to stand out from the mountainous topography
unique and tapered, rising sleek, seen individu’lly.
A mixed-use building, it includes a luxury hotel,
an observation deck, retailers, and an officetel.
The residential part lies in the building’s middle floors,
so high above it leaves behind the city’s busy roar.
Combining modern elements along with classic forms,
at dusk, lit up, in purple light, the concrete core wall soar.

Dae Wi “Scrub” Lee is a poet of Korea—North and South.

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My Ship
          by Wu “Sacred Bee” Li

My ship is built of spice-wood with a rudder of mulan.
Musicians play their bamboo flutes and pipes of golden-tan.
Such pleasue of sweet wine and singing girls on the waves;
I’m happier than airy fairies on the yellow crane.
With strokes of my inspired pen, I see Five Mountains rise.
I laugh, and my delight is vaster than the sea and sky.
Enduring poetry, Chu Yuan, loyal minister,
though palaces of the Chu kings have vanished in time’s stir,
your words have lasted centuries, as has the River Han.
The Yangtse tributary still goes on and on and on.

Wu “Sacred Bee” Li is a poet of ancient China. My ship is a “translation” of a poem by Li Bai (602-762). Mulan means wood orchid.

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A Photo of an Execution in China
          by Aw “Curbside” Lee

Against a wall of earth and rock, a pale, brownish gray,
a youngish woman stands in white. It is a sunny day.
A man behind her pulls upon what seems her hand-cuffed hands.
Is he unlocking them pulled back? So patiently she stands.
Her lovely, shiny, black hair pulled back in a pony tail
falls down onto her back. Perhaps she is too shocked to wail.
There are no eyes here. It is as if everything is dead.
She faces dirt. Her executioner is focused on her head.
The two men fidgeting about her back seem unconcerned.
In dark sunglasses, cautious, peeking, a soldier’s head has turned.
The scene with soldiers chatting, hardly caring, has begun.
In uniform, the executioner has aimed his gun.
The rifle, barrel silver-gray, is firmly in his grip.
Its butt is snuggled in his shoulder. One can’t see his lip.
The men are all in smartish jackets, flat and round-topped hats;
there must be dozens loitering. I do not know the stats.

Aw “Curbside” Lee is a poet of China, documenting industry as well as its brutality.

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Ongoing Chinese Government Cyber Attacks
          by Aw “Curbside” Lee

There’s little doubt that China’s hackers were behind attacks
on German tooling firms, tipped off by the Americans.
Cloud-hopper Chinese hackers targeted research concerns
in engineering and materials, in stealing burns.
So far the BSI located scads of incidents;
the Chinese hackers used malicious malware Emotet.
Advanced Persistent Threats infected many networks that
required reinstalling due to China’s constant hacks.
Krauss Maffei was just one of these where Chinese Trojan hits
had crippled lots of its computerized production sets.

Aw “Curbside” Lee is a poet of Chinese industry. His pen name 路边 “curbside” comes from his urban, open air, industrial outlook. BSI stands for Budesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, the Federal Office for Information Security in Germany.

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The Most Polluted Cities in the World
          by Eber L. Aucsidew

Zabol, Iran is worst, 120 days of wind;
next Gwalior, in India, conjested traffic wins;
Allahabad is third, it’s plagued by highly toxic air;
in fourth, Riyadh has desert sandstorms adding to its wear;
the Saudi city Al Jubail is fifth with dust and smoke,
while Patna, India, claims sixth, its people daily choke;
Sponge iron hurts, Raipur is seventh, power units too,
as garbage burning, in eighth-ranked Bamenda, Cameroon;
Ninth, Xingtai, China, deals with plants and petro-industries,
while coal-fired boilers add more smog to tenth-place Baoding.

Eber L. Aucsidew is a poet of air and water. This list was compiled by the World Health Organization. The top ten polluted cities include 2 in China, 4 in India, 1 in Iran, 2 in Saudi Arabia, and 1 in Africa. In each of the top ten cities there are many contributing factors to the pollution.

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From an Amnesty International Report
          by Debare Ilsecwu

We’ve heard about white farmers murdered in South Africa;
but in Nigeria it’s Christian farmers who ‘re attacked.
Fulani Muslim herders have been killing farmers there;
but President Buhari doesn’t deeply seem to care.
Is it because he has Fulani background in his bones?
Is it because he’d like the farmers chased out of their homes?
Whole villages are being razed, grand churches have been burned,
Men, women, children—hundreds, thousands, murdered and interred.
Amazingly nomadic herdsmen from the north have killed
more people than Boko Haran—oh, multitudes now stilled.

Debare Ilsecwu is a poet of Nigeria.

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Lines After Persius
          by Aedile Cwerbus

The troubles of humanity, the emptiness of life:
Who wants to read of such? the struggles and the strife?
If you ask me—no one. Not even mighty Hercules.
And yet that’s what I write about—too frequently, you see.
It is pathetic. I’m a wretched individual.
I have less fans than Attius Labeo’s Iliad.
I’m turbid to a fault. My style is ridiculous.
The gray hairs on my head are nought if not conspicuous.
Now that I’ve left off playing marbles, I smack of pretense.
I have an impudent streak for those who will not make sense.
A million scribble verse, another million scribble prose.
In these chaotic times, what else can I do but compose?

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of ancient Rome, and how it dovetails into the New Millennium.

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George David Birkhoff and Aesthetic Measure
          by Euclidrew Base

Though known more for his formulation of th’ ergodic proof,
George David Birkhoff tried to measure beauty’s order too.
The center of his theory was a formula he made:
M = O/C [M equals O divided by C]—formed back in the day.

M’s the aesthetic Measure; it is beauty’s quantity.
It’s equal to O, Order, over C, complexity.
He placed a high aesthetic value on or-der-li-ness.
In his view, beauty’s increased when complexity’s depressed.

In Birkhoff’s formula for poetry he only counts
alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and the music sounds.
He deprecated consonants, and felt they were a drag;
too much alliteration was a gaggling gaggle’s gag.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. Birkhoff’s formula for poetry was O = aa + 2r + 2m – 2ae – 2ce: O was aesthetic order, aa aliteration and assonance, r was rhyme, m musical sounds, ae alliterative excess and ce consonant excess.

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Notes From the Goolag
          by Eric Awesud Ble

They all looked from Pichai to Xi Jinping, and back again,
but they could not tell which was which, they seemed to be the same,
out speaking lies, behind the scene, devising evil things,
like dragonflies that ride the skies on fabricated wings.
They want to stifle voices that they do not want to hear;
free speech is very dangerous; it’s something that they fear.
They do not really like republican democracy;
but they prefer a global economic tyranny.
And they are not alone. See all the piggies on the farm,
who wish that they were in control, and want to do some harm.

Eric Awesud Ble is a poet who feels a very close kinship to Eric Arthur Blair.

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What If
          by Bic Uwel, “Erased”

What if one were within the Metroplex, and like a tree
that whispered in the wind, nobody heard its melody,
would that one have existence in the rain and thundering
and roaring traffic passing Bishop Berkeley wondering?

What if one were within the billions on the Internet
and one sent out a message to the World of interest,
would that one have existence if no one responded to
the words sent out without a shout into the noisy zoo?

What if one were within a cosmic vortex spiralling
and one was never starring in a stylish viral meme,
would that one have existence if no one acknowledged him,
if he picked up the fallen leaves and put them in a sack?

Bic Uwel, “Erased” is a poet whose very existence seems questionable.