Wise Words with Bruce Wise

Haiku
          by W. “Cured Eel” Sabi

The fisherman drops
his line with bated breath down
to a certain depth.

The Pacific Bluefin Tuna
          by W. “Cured Eel” Sabi

Pacific Bluefin tuna, oceanic predator,
speeds through the water, even if it weighs a half a ton.
It has retractable pectoral fins, flush, set-in eyes,
and is hydrodynamical in shape, topedo-wise.
It breeds off of Japan, and spans from Russia’s Sakhalin
down to New Zealand, though it can reach Baja in its swims.
But it’s endangered, and in 2017 the World
made quotas to rebuild its stocks, depleted, eaten, hurled.
But then this week, when rest’ranteur Kiyoshi Kimura
paid out 330,000,000 ¥, jaws dropped in awe.

W. “Cured Eel” Sabi is a poet of Japan and sea life. Sabi “寂” in Japanese aethetics suggests beauty in the poor and the forlorn, as in this poem by Priest Saigyō (1118-1190):

which American scholar Burton Watson (1925-2017) translated as “Was it a dream that spring in Naniwa in the land of Tsu? Now the wind blows over the dead leaves of the reeds.”

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From Tong’an, Looking at the Vast Blue Sea
          by Wu “Sacred Bee” Li

Upon the East face of Jieshi Mountain, I, Cao Cao,
am gazing at the vast blue sea—the waters dancing now,
so gently down below this mountain island towering,
lush, thick with growing trees, a hundred grasses flowering.
I hear the rushing autumn soughs the big waves rise up to,
within the splendid Milky Way, from which I see this view.
As if from deep within they come, the paths of sun and moon ,
so beautiful and new, from which I too have come, a boon.
O, I am very lucky, very lucky, Cao Song’s son,
to be here now and singing, singing this my wish, my song.

Wu “Sacred Bee” Li is a poet of ancient China. Cao Cao (155-210) was a general at the end of the Han dynasty.

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With Us or Without Us
          Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei

I heard them talking, o, how hard it is to understand
mind transformation centers all across Red China’s land.
If only they could see the light, hold up their paper lamps
to come and join with those in these reeducation camps.

If only they’d embrace indoctrination, can they see
and be compatable with socialist society.
How many in this blizzard of illusion have been hurled?
Come see. One size fits all. We’d love to sinicize the World.

They fear detention, execution, other clearances.
They fret about the torture and the disappearances.
But they should not be worried, if they just will leave behind,
all that they were, or they might be, and sigh no sighs…the Mind.

Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei is a poet of the Way—Dao…n.

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The Petronas Towers
          by Basir Uswedeec

Amidst Kuala Lumpur’s large and busy urban sprawl,
Petronas Towers rise together, tethered there and tall.
A high, two-story bridge connects the buildings going up,
between the verticality, a quiet interrupt.
As the skyscrapers upward climb they step back six times each,
and at the setbacks, walls tip slightly outwards from their reach,
traditional Malaysian architecture signatures,
in panels made of glass and stainless steel ligatures,
reflecting sunlight softly as they sway above the street,
two-meter radius, with high-strength reinforced con-crete.

Basir Uswedeec is a poet of Malaysia. The two-story bridge is at the 41st and 42nd floors.

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Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920)
          by Euclidrew Base

He, Srinivasa Ramanujan, was a sickly child.
At two he got smallpox, but lived. In manner he was mild.
With G. S. Carr’s Synopsis, he worked through its arguments,
containing theorems and short proofs, as well as formulae.
He studied Euler’s constant and Bernoulli numbers too;
continued fractions and divergent series came to view.
Hard illness hit at twenty-one, but he recovered, and
elliptic modular equations came to his command.
In Madras, he was soon becoming well known for his work,
as On the Distribution of the Primes, Aiyar observed.

At twenty-five, he wrote to Hardy, who with Littlewood,
invited him to come to England, since he was so good.
From what they saw, he had known theroems, easily deduced,
but also new, important work; the two were truly juiced.
In 1914, England on the brink of World War I,
was hard in rations for a Brahmin vegetarian.
He studied still, though very ill, and lived in nursing homes;
but by War’s end he had improved, and prizes came to him.
and died in 1920—a great mathemátician.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics.

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She’s Leaving Home
          by Saudi Becrewel

Rahaf Mohammad al-Qunun, the Saudi woman who
was barricaded in Bangkok within an airport room,
said she did not want to be forced back to her family.
Decidedly, emphatic’lly, she cried, “They will kill me.”
“My life’s in danger,” she cried out to Thai authorities.
“They threaten to kill me for the most trivial of things.”
Met by the U. N. High Commissioner of Refugees,
she was told she won’t be placed under Saudi scutiny,
like journalist Khashoggi in the Turkish embassy,
who had been ordered murdered by high-level royalty.

Saudi Becrewel is a poet of Saudi Arabia.

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Tshisekedi Named Winner in DR Congo Poll
          by Eric Wsede Bula

Today it was announced that Felix Tshisekedi won
the presidential poll, surprising nearly everyone.
Joseph Kabila had been president for eighteen years;
he’s had control of DR Congo for this century.
If the e-lec-tor-al com-mis-sion holds, this will be news:
the first election where the Congolese were let to choose.
It will be the first orderly transfer of power if
the losing parties can accept the vote without a fit.
It isn’t easy to embrace majorities of souls,
when their objectives do not coincide with one’s own goals.

Eric Wsede Bula is a poet of the Francophone Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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On Lines of Marcus Manilius
          by Aedile Cwerbus

Just as I gaze in wonder at the starry skies above,
so, too, I gaze in wonder at lines of Manilius
First, for the myriads he wrote, the thousands that he made,
impressively concocted, and impressively arrayed.
Next, for his concentration on a single topic’s realms,
so many lines upon a topic that can overwhelm.
And, I’m amazed it’s in hexametre dactylic verse,
didactic, not an epic, which he thought would be much worse.
And last, although he’s had translators, Creech and Housman, too,
he has been relegated to globs of leftover stew.

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of ancient Rome.

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Leo Yankevich (1961-2018)
          by Ludiew E. Sarceb

From Pennsylvania, through many lands, o’er ocean miles,
he went to study and to live in Poland, where he died.
He left his wife and three sons in December’s winter chill.
It would be vain to speak to unresponsive bones, and ill.
For Fortune snapped his life away, it took him from our time,
as it has taken parents and their parents from our side.
All I can do is offer some regret, and take note of
the metric and syllabic poetry he wrought with love.
How can a slender tribute triumph? Time can only tell.
And now I take my leave of him…forever and farewell.

Ludiew E. Sarceb is a poet of Poland.

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Upon a Book by Robert Hooke
          by Ira “Dweeb” Scule

In 1665, the British wizard Robert Hooke,
while working with a microscope, sliced cork and took a look.
The pores reminded him of cells in monastery halls,
and so began cell theory with the images he saw.
He placed a sample of blue mould beneath his microscope,
discovering what seemed to him like mushrooms on thin rope.
Detailed dronefly eyes were far too worrisome for some,
while finding out that beestings have barbed ends left others dumb.
His observations were a veritable, fecund grove.
O, Micrographia was an important treasure trove.

Ira “Dweeb” Scule is a poet of scientific knowledge. Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was a noted English physicist, who was also the discoverer of cells.

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In Santa Cruz de Tenerife
          by Raúl de Cwesibe

He stood in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the sun,
devouring a ripe banana on the hill above.
He looked down to the waterfront beside the ocean’s blue.
O, yes, the view was beautiful—so re-al, good, and true.

He gazed down to the Adan Martin Auditorio,
the concrete building rising, like a thrusting waving flow,
then curving downward, narrowing to one firm, final point,
that ends up o’er the structure’s roof, to which it’s never joined.

By Santiago Calatrava Valls, it stands in style,
beside th’ Atlantic Ocean in Spain’s bright Canary Isles;
but he since vanished into yesterday some time ago.
Who was he, and what was he doing there? I do not know.

Raúl de Cwesibe is a poet of Spain.

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Archie & His Flying Circus Freaks
          by Beadle Crew USI

Was it fifty years ago today,
when I heard the rockus music play,
that’s been going in an’ out of tune
ever since that best forgotten June?

Should I pause to introduce the geeks,
Archie & his Flying Circus freaks,
pounding hell upon the countryside,
with their revved-up, loud, electric ride?

Were they irritating to the max,
with their dubbing down on to four tracks,
with their synchronizing and their takes,
and dynamic range compression brakes?

Were they drugged up high on LSD,
Lulu in the Sea with Dolphins—See!
getting worse and worse each verse they wrote,
till they all began to drift and float?

A Dolphin in the Wind
          by Beadle Crew USI
          “The speedy Dolphin, that outstrips the wind…”
              John Dryden’s Aeneid translation,” Book V, line 153

I saw it flying past the small, green, sand-edged isles,
the bright red US Coast Guard HH-65.
Below the sea was aqua, clear and clean. The sky
above was azure, touched with tiny white cloud puffs.
Perhaps the helicopter was enroute to aid
some stranded submerged person trying to keep alive;
perhaps it was a rescure training mission’s day,
I could not say, nor could I see the pilot in
the cockpit. On top, long, flat and black rotor blades
whirled round, while the tail rotor kept a counter spin.
A logo, numbers, words, adorned the tail boom’s side,
above long, metal skids—this dolphin in the wind.

Beadle Crew USI is a group of four, whose motto is “We R U & U Is I”. Educable Wires is a guitarist who occasionally plays with the Crew.

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Karl “King” Wenclas (Reprise)
          by Web Reediculas

I saw him flying in the sky,
on spoofy, puffy clouds up high, bold Kingly K.
He flew with love, far up above,
Publicity Director of…the ULA,

which went defunct and was debunked,
but that would not stop Mr. Skunk, oh, no.
He strode into the Storm upon a whimmmmmmm.

He rode atop his AgitProp,
and piloted his HeliCopt low overhead.
Because he dared fly through the air
with less than just a meagre fare, most thought him mad.

But he would not give up the ship,
and he continued on his trip, o, yeh…
wrought synergy with vinegar and vimmmmmmm.

So in the blue, with ballyhoo,
from Philly to Detroit he flew, past solar disk.
Long after ceasing publishing
his plucky zeen New Philistine, he took a risk.

In daily jogs upon his blogs,
he vented rants in monologues, uh huh.
And perforce, General Horse advances the Wal)l)l)l)l)l)l)s.

He thought he’d try to make it by,
and rode a cannonball, oh my, that crazy git.
He leapt thru hoops, and made great loops,
like Snoopy facing poet-poops, with New Pop Lit.

It was his latest and his greatest hit
that lit the iterary Net, hurrah.
The elevated Kingly K. will cha(lle)nge them Alllllll.

Web Reediculas is an avid netizen.

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The Acrobats
          by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”

The tent was vast, in canvas cast, and coloured tan.
Right at its top in spot light swung two acrobats.
One lean but stocky guy stretched out in quite a span;
he hung from some thick rope by bending knees held fast.
He wore a flesh-toned tank-top, tight upon his chest,
and slippers on his feet, up past the tent post mast.
The other slimmer guy was similarly dressed.
He’d just released the bar and rolled up in a ball.
He soared unbound, in peril, high above no net.
One saw in awe the danger and the risk involved,
relying on the strength and placement of one man.
His ass was on the line. One hoped he wouldn’t fall.

Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”, is a poet of gymnastics.

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High Coup
          by Educable Wires

I’m fixing no hole
in the cosmic bowl,
to let my mind go
wandering, and wondering…
on this rocky roll, o.

Educable Wires is a poet who sometimes plays with Beadle Crew USI.