At the Future’s Edge
          Bruc “Diesel” Awe

I feel as though I’m at the future’s edge on cloverleafs,
at fifty, sixty, seventy, when rounding concrete heaps.
I feel the present’s presence most intensely when I’m there
on rising ramps, and falling slants, up so high in the air.
There is no place to go but forward, following those curves;
though I am cir-cle-ing about, there is no room to swerve.
I drive, relying on my auto’s capabilities
let loose from any peaceful human sensibilities.
The brave new world is here before me, as the past is passed.
O, I am at the future’s edge and going very fast.

Bruc “Diesel” Awe is a poet of transportation.

________________________________________________________________

February 22nd, Hayabusa2
          by “Wired Clues” Abe

On February 22nd, Hayabusa2
touched down upon the rocky asteroid that’s called Ryugu.
It made its first of three attempts to get a bit of dust,
then lifted off to keep a safe and distant, focused spot,
awaiting for its next descent onto the asteroid,
when it could grab more dust, and problems possibly avoid.
‘Yatta!’ somebody cried, ‘We did it’—in pandemonium—
it shot the surface with a bullet made of tantalum;
then gathering some dust up from a long and flared-out horn,
that if it worked, the JAXA crew must wait till it comes home.

“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of Japanese technologies.

________________________________________________________________

Haiku
          by “Lice Brews” Ueda

A nearby alert,
a thin, buzzing mosquito:
kamikaze splat.

“Lice Brews” Ueda is a poet of Japan and miniature perfection.

________________________________________________________________

An Indian Airstrike
          by Badri Suwecele

Near Balakot in Pakistan, an Indian airstrike
of warplanes may have killed a lot of fighting terrorists.
Some claimed they hit a militant encampment of Jaish,
the group who claimed that they had killed policemen in Kashmir.
A suicide car bomb on February 14 killed:
some forty paramilitary in a convoy stilled.
The Pakistanis said that nothing really had been hit;
however, tensions in the region amplified a bit.
Though many Indians responded in a clime of bliss;
some Pakistanis said they would respond in time to this.
On We’n’sday Pakistan claimed two planes they shot had been downed,
and they had picked up an Indían pilot from the ground.
Khan called for mediation, so that “better sense…prevail”;
but Modi did not quickly speak. Most hoped peace wouldn’t fail.

Badri Suwecele is a poet of India.

________________________________________________________________

The Pilot
          by War did Belecuse

I saw him flying overhead, a pilot in a plane,
and looking down, he gazed upon the anguish and the pain.
Although I saw compassion in his eyes, as he flew on,
he still prepared to launch the missile loaded with a bomb.
It was his job, the orders came from someone down below.
He had been told to open up the hatch and let it go.
O, I believe he felt remorse, but he continued on.
He shoved the lever forward in that armageddon spawn.
He let it go and watched it drop down through those distant skies,
but I could see he felt remorse in those phlegmatic eyes.

War di Belecuse is a poet of war.

________________________________________________________________

A Postcard from Suzdal
          by Rus Ciel Badeew
          for Alex Markovich

A thousand years have traced their fingers over Suzdal’s forms:
the monasteries, churches, ordinary houses, farms;
a history of storms, th’ invasions of the Mongols, and the Poles,
Crimean Tatars, pestilences, fires, ice and snow.
O, how the little town did suffer over centuries,
a place of white and silver buildings in a Perman frieze.
Yet still it lingers on, a myriad of people who
continue through the pages of the ages, bright and blue.
The sky wide open on a settled land, both hard and cold,
upsetting and unsettling in the setting Ring of Gold.

Rus Ciel Badeew is a poet of Russia, old and new. Perm, probably a Finno-Ugric term, Finnish, perämaa, far away land, or Hungarian, perem, verge, edge.

________________________________________________________________

Independent Estonia
          by Eedu Sci-web Ira

It’s as unpopulated as is Patagonia,
the tiny, Baltic, wooded nation of Estonia.
Days can be short in winter; summer days can be so long;
though mainly it’s just cloudy, maybe rainy, often fog.
Potatoes are a favourite, in all their many forms,
as alcohol and saunas, anything to keep one warm.
Its capital is Tallinn, all in all a lovely place,
from bustling city to old town’s medieval charm and grace.
There’s Dome Church, Town Hall Square, Kiek in de Kök, Saint Nicholas’,
Fat Margaret, Church of the Holy Spirit, Saint Olaf’s class,
Toompea castle, Alexander Nevski Cathedral,
the TV Tower, Seaplane Harbour’s spot, and Kumu Art.
A wi-fi friendly city; it’s where Skype made its debut,
tech savvy, green and free, the city’s point of view is new.

Eedu Sci-web Ira is a poet of Estonia. After WW1 Estonia declared its independence in 1918. This week celebrations were held for their second indepenedence, that is, from the Soviet Socialist Communists, which occurred on February 24, 1989.

________________________________________________________________

Emil Artin (1898-1962)
          by Euclidrew Base

Emil Artin was an outstanding mathematician,
who helped create the art in modern gen’ral algebra.
Along with Noether’s, his works constitute a vital part
of that of van der Waerden in its algebraic heart.
With Schreyer, he, developing the theory of real fields,
solved Hilbert’s Problem 17, one of his famous yields.
His work in algebraic number theory mattered much,
and Galois cohomology, he there applied as such.
He brought to field theory, th’ law of reciprocity,
he of Armenian descent and sheer velocity.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics.

________________________________________________________________

On Trading With Dictators
          by Brad Lee Suciew

How strange it is that Venezuela’s Socialism burns
its people by the millions, many fleeing, some in urns;
whereas in Vietnam the US President extols
East Asian Socialist dictators. He’s okay with those.
That Trump is quite a trader is not a surprise to most,
a Viet head, a Chinese tyrant; he sure likes to boast.
He, after all, helped write the book, his The Art of the Deal;
he seems to have for his horse-trading quite a lot of zeal.
So if he can converse with Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping,
why can’t he trade with crook Maduro, like a Saudi king?

Brad Lee Suciew is a poet of business.

________________________________________________________________

Upon Walt Whitman
          by Usa W. Celebride

I.

He was a victim of his own success, id est,
Walt Whitman, poet of free verse, America.
With vigor, vim and zest in him, he did his best
to live until his very veins were varicose.
His attitude was frumpy, slipshod, and obtuse.
In time, he even did become a characa-
ture of himself, a sprawling growler, rude and loose,
who made the world take notice of his sloppiness.
He swaggered loud, a braggart proud of—what the deuce!
He didn’t give a damn to hide his choppiness
or his pedestrian ways; and, at his behest,
invited any fool to come along and copy him in this.

II.

An old and scrappy individual he was,
his great, long, scraggly, gray, unwieldy beard unleashed,
his floppy hair unkempt beneath his scarecrow hat,
like some odd, sleezy geezer walking down some street
in boots. We’ll find him there beneath those worn-out soles,
a lover of the road, uncovered by time’s sheet.
He makes his presence known, alike to all of those
who happen to be there, aware that something’s raw.
Although he wears such rugged looks and ragged clothes,
he captivates the outcast with his crowing jaw,
because he’s willing to upset the apple cart
and tell the lost his tale of woe and what he saw.

Usa W. Celebride is a poet of America. Walt Whitman (1810-1992) was an American Realist poet.

________________________________________________________________

The Man in the Book-filled Nook
          by Bucalese Werdi

I saw him leaning on a table in the wine-dark room;
but there was not a sense of gloom, nor a foreboding doom.
O, no, in fact, if anything the dude had a glad look,
as if he were on an adventure in that book-filled nook.
For at his back there were a lot of books on sev’ral shelves.
Behind him leaning there, there were neat rows of printed selves.
Behind him was the printed knowledge of so many souls;
and there he was beside them, angled out in rugged rolls.
I wondered why he looked so happy, as if having fun.
Perhaps he was in love with life, and would be till undone.

Bucalese Werdi is a poet of reading books and studying words.

________________________________________________________________

At That Amusement Park
          by Cu Ebide Aswerl

It was so long ago, he hardly could remember it,
that scary roller coaster ride, and all he did was sit.
The thing took off and soared aloft. The force was fast and strong.
He held on tight. He did not fight. He had to go along.
He slowly rose up its high hills, and then raced down its slopes,
like as a speeding, bouncing carousel without the poles.
He zipped around the curves, like as a spinning, twirling top,
and then, like as a rocket, shot in space, a giant hop.
The neon lights zipped past his eyes, in circles through the skies.
He thought that he was going blind, and so he closed my eyes.

Cu Ebide Aswerl is a poet of leisure.

________________________________________________________________

The Salad
          by Carb Deliseuwe

He rises on a dark, uncertain, winter morn;
he makes the fire with twigs and logs to start the new day warm.
He grinds the wheat in olden hand-mill, borne of Italy,
no house keeper helps him with his tasks, nor keeps him company.
He goes outside to wok and cull his herbs and veg’tables;
he plucks the lettuce, fluffs the leaves, all tossed and fetched in bowls.
The pungent odour rises as the pestle pounds the herbs,
and fingers pass around the mortar, cleaning off the curbs.
The farmer’s ready for another day of working late,
secured against the coming hunger ever at the gate.

Carb Deliseuwe is a poet of food.