MONO NO AWARE
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
It comes—the cherry-blossom front, at th’ end of March
in Tokyo and Kyoto. The blossomings,
hanami, flower viewing, at the river’s marge,
alerts one to th’ awareness o’ th’ pathos o’ things.
Blossoms of purest white, tinged with the palest pink,
the Prunus yedoensis flower blooms, and flings
its petals to the air before leaves reach their brink,
and fall within a week; it is called Sakura,
Sakura by the Japanese, whose scent they drink.
Like billowing willowy clouds all occurring
en masse, across the heavenly azure they arch,
enduring even if only ephemeral…ly…
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet of Japan. Mono no aware, the pathos of things, is similar to Vergil’s lacrimae rerum, the tears of things, found in Book 1 of the Aeneid. One of Ibuse’s favourite “folk” songs is Sakura, Sakura, which was actually an urban song of the Edo period (1603-1867).
________________________________________________________________
Australia
by Walibee Scrude
With all my heart, I love Australia; I can’t help myself,
a golden, sprawling mass, lined with a continental shelf.
I love its cities on its rim; it’s where I long to loll.
I love its flora, fauna, but the people most of all:
the swimmers, surfers, cyclists and soccer players too,
retail sales workers, carers of the old and new,
school teachers, electricians, nurses, managers and clerks,
accountants, medical providers, truckers, and the works.
Australia is an arid land between two oceans set,
a brilliant coloured opal, time won’t easily forget.
The Australian Gamer
by Walibee Scrude
He had a man cave in his house that he loved to be in.
He loved to play computer games. He really loved to win.
He lay upon his gray couch with controller in his hands
manipulating his device with steady, thumbed commands.
His short cropped head, with neat trimmed beard, was focused on the screen;
he stretched his legs out from behind, o, gripped by the machine.
He rested on his elbows, mesmerized by figures seen.
His concentration was pronounced. He pounced upon each scene.
O, there he was, and long would be, within pale light-green walls,
there playing with his game’s device, as serious as balls.
Walibee Scrude is a poet of Australia. With all the problems in the World, is it any wonder how so many flee to relaxing pursuits?
________________________________________________________________
Shakti
by Sri Wele Cebuda
On Wednesday, a live satellite in space had been shot down
from Earth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced.
The operation Mission Shakti gave to India
fourth place in space, aft China, Russia, and the USA.
The target, in low orbit, had been sent a month before,
though there was no announcement then to know what it was for,
a lower orbit to ensure that all of the debris
that’s generated will decay and fall to Earth in weeks.
Pursuit of Asat weaponry gave Modi space and time
to leave behind mundane concerns by pointing to the sky.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of India. Shakti derives from the Sanskrit root shak, divine feminine might. So Shakti is the mother goddess, the source of all, the universal principle of energy. The worship of Shakti is a central objective of Tantra Yoga. Shakti-man, the Universal father was called Brahman in the Upanishads, and Shiva in the Tantric tradition. China did its first Asat (Antisatellite) Test in 2007, Russia and the USA in the 1980s.
________________________________________________________________
A Pointing Man, Some Flowers, and a Fence
by Waseel Budecir
I saw some guy was standing by a tan, plank, wooden fence,
and he was pointing toward some flowers. He was so instense.
I wondered what those lovely, large and climbing flowers were.
I also wondered what it was that he was doing there.
But I had to demur; for I knew neither. Just the same,
I wished I did; for there was nothing lame about his aim.
I gazed upon that backyard scene for just the briefest time;
yet there was something grand about it, something so sublime.
Though it was just a pointing man, some flowers and a fence,
I’d stumbled on to something rich and strange, and likewise, dense.
Waseel Budecir is a poet of South Asia, particularly Pakistan and Western India. At times, just the simplest garden scene, strikes him as unbelievably gorgeous.
________________________________________________________________
The Man Back From Iraq
by War di Belecuse
“the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering my tongues explosives for the rifling I have inside of me.”
—Brian Turner, Here, Bullet
He stands against the rough, hard, brown, bark of a tree
far from the hills of Bosnia and dry Iraq,
bathed in a brilliant solar-white supremacy
beneath wide California skies. He has come back.
The eyes are not the same. [Are they in anyone?]
They peer in somber umbrage o’er a dark blue-black
elastic top that seems a plastic sack. The sun
alone reigns here supreme above the tree-filled hills
that move from green to blue to the horizon. He
is facing us with graying sideburns and war’s ills.
The edges of his mouth go down to misery;
but there beneath his cropped, brown hair is more and still.
War di Belecuse is a poet of war. Two Americans recently died in Afghanistan, SFC Will Lindsay and SPC Joseph Collette.
________________________________________________________________
Senegalese Hip-hop
by Lebu Seric Wade
In Senegal, the beats and rhymes of hip-hop songs have come
to politics, where each side has a rapper with a drum.
Though some say it is cynical to tap the younger vote
with hip-hop slogans, simple log-ins, and newsworthy notes,
the politicians use such songs to charge their voters up
and shake the status quo with rhythms that the parties push.
Thiaf, a Keur Gui rapper who co-founded Y’En a Marre,
says hip-hop helps to make his country’s people more aware.
Enough they said in 2012 to Wade’s long decade rule;
and after mbalakh, hip-hop keeps up with its music pool.
Lebu Seric Wade is a poet of West Africa. Though French is the official language of Senegal, in Dakar, Wolof is the lingua franca, and the language of hip-hop. Y’En a Marre means Enough.
________________________________________________________________
The Russian, Raw Recruits
by Alecsei Burdew
They stood, all in a line, one reading letters in
a row, another being weighed upon a scale,
occasionally an unemployed veteran,
one’s knee was tapped, one coughed out at a finger nail;
one got a shot, a hypodermic needle’s prick.
This was a healthy lot; not one managed to fail.
The doc signed off on all, pro forma, nice and quick.
They moved along from station x on to the next
without a big to-do, the operation slick;
and everything was done according to the text.
The whole thing couldn’t have gone any better than
if it had been a magic show perfectly hexed.
Alecsei Burdew is a poet of Russia. Two Russian military planes have landed near Caracas, with troops (about a hundred) and equipment (over 30 tonnes).
________________________________________________________________
Bard in the Garden
by Bard Eucewelis
“Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take,
towards the
door we never opened, into the rose garden.”
—T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
A man was sitting on a seat; he was a sunlit bard.
He looked like he was quite content, although his seat was hard.
He wore loose sandals on his feet; he seemed to be relaxed.
It seemed as if he were at peace, quite pleased, in fact, untaxed.
He seemed to be quite focused on a nearby growing plant,
a beautiful, hot-house variety, up at a slant.
Absorbed upon the gorgeous plant, and at one with the sky,
he loved the climbing shrubbery that rose before his eyes.
He was excited to be there, to be so high on life.
It was one of those few times he was glad to be alive.
Bard Eucewelis is a poet of Britain, but particularly of Wales.
________________________________________________________________
District E
by Eric Awesud Ble
It always was at night when people simply disappeared.
Names were removed from registers; such memories were seared.
The record of what one had done was wiped out and denied.
One-time existence was forgotten, thoroughly applied.
One was abolished, hence annihilated from the rolls.
The word they used was ‘vaporized’, policed by all the trolls.
This was the Party’s way of dealing with subversive types:
to make them disappear, and then with dedicated swipes,
remove them altogether, place their names in District E,
Elimination for forever and from history.
Eric Awesud Ble is a poet of Orwellian nightmares.
________________________________________________________________
The Fallen Man
by Raúl de Cwesibe
I saw him falling in a stairwell, flat against his ass.
He held himself upon the railing, with both hands he grasped.
In black boots and black pants, his skin a shiny copper brown,
he tried to keep himself afloat, from further falling down.
He was a pile of frustration on those light gray steps.
Next to the drab and light green walls, one saw that he was spent.
What hope was there for him—that guy? Would he get out of there?
His eyes were dark, his chin was stark, his skin went everywhere.
I wished that I could pull him up, but such was not to be;
for if I dared to help him out, his weight would pull
d(r)own me…
Raúl de Cwesibe is a poet who studied Spanish for five years in secondary school and his first year in college. When he was a first year student in college, in a cement stairwell, one day he started wheezing, as if in a panic mode attack. He couldn’t breathe in breaths and rushed to his dorm room, lay flat on the floor, and eventually his regular breathing returned. He had one more similar event that year; and then they all went away.
________________________________________________________________
The Artist at His Ease-l—the French Photographer
by Cawb Edius Reel
He stood behind his tripod in the middle of the day,
beside the open window in the shadows of the bay.
Black hair, black tats upon his back, but beautiful the ease;
outside the bright white light of sunrise sunray’s sunny seize.
He held his cam’ra closely, bending down his head to see;
he clicked the picture in the bare room, o, so thoughtfully.
He was an artist at his work, and did it carefully.
He got the beauty of the scene, and caught it perfectly.
He longed to get a good shot of the buildings and the trees,
and so he got them all—the structures, limbs, and lovely leaves.
Cawb Edius Reel is a poet of film and photography. He remembers vividly, when he was at the Vatican, looking at the Sistine Chapel, and the picture police were crying out, “No Fotos, No Fotos,” in their thick Italian accents.
________________________________________________________________
On This Date, March 26, 2019
by Aedile Cwerbus
Though one may wonder, one can’t know, no. What will be, will be.
We are not Babylonians, and babies cannot see.
Don’t tempt the numbers, it is better to live patiently.
Praise Jupiter we made this winter. Now face satient spring.
One day Tyrrhenia will cease its sea spray at the rocks,
though still it wrestles through the seasons, wisdom, wine and walks.
It’s time to gather life’s brief space for later, richer fruit.
Enjoy the graceful pacing and appreciate the loot.
So come what may, o, seize the day, none knows tomorrow’s fate,
as we observe the flying ages passing on this date.
Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of ancient Rome. This poem derives from Horace (65 BC – 8 BC)
________________________________________________________________
Henri Cartan
by Euclidrew Base
Henri Cartan brought function theory to math’s centre in
the middle 1900s with his synthesizing spin.
He also worked on sheaves and algebraic theory too,
topology, potential, and his homologic view.
With Weill, Dieudonné, Possel, Desartes, and Chevalley,
he helped launch Bourbaki, a mathematical cafe.
Known for his proofs, which were meticulous, precise and neat;
he liked things to be perfect, never sketchy, but complete.
In homologica algebra, he lit the way with grace,
applying algebra’s techniques to topologic space.
Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. Early members of Bourbaki included Henri Cartan (1904-2008), André Weil (1906-1998), Jean Dieudonné (1906-1992), René de Possel (1905-1974), Jean Delsartes (1903-1968), and Claude Chevalley (1909-1984).
________________________________________________________________
On Winning Pulitzers
by Caud Sewer Bile
Each won a Pulitzer, the WaPo and the New York Times,
for top reporting on collusion in these troubled climes;
they focused on the special counsel’s sifting of the facts,
and demonstrated standards in their journalistic acts.
The WaPo and the New York Times showed how great writers write,
and they received their just awards, reporting truth with bite;
by covering collusion Trump had with the Russian mob,
they proved that they had done their duty, they had done their jobs.
The WaPo and the New York Times, each won a Pulitzer,
in 2018, armed with propaganda howlitzers.
Caud Sewer Bile is a poet of the DC Swamp.
________________________________________________________________
Tanka
by Cal Wes Ubideer
Ten-thousands came to
view vast floral patches of
rain-fed orange blooms
on warm canyon hillside walls,
the poppy apocalypse.
Cal Wes Ubideer is a poet of California. There were so many viewers near Lake Elsinore, officials had to close roads and trails to Walker Canyon.
Leave A Comment