Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe

A windy rainstorm
sweeps through the dark night’s funnel:
two fence sections down.

“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of Japanese forms in English.

~~~

Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan
by Sri Wele Cebuda

The poet Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan
was a devotional linguístique in Malayalam.
Born near the present-day Turir, he roamed South India,
until he built a monastery near Palakkadu.
Translating Ramayama and Mahabharata at
that barren land, that forest gateway in the Western Ghats,
thus mingling Sanskrit and Dravidian expressive runs,
establishing an alphabet that grew to fifty-one.
For kanda, he used kalakanchi, keka, kakali
for cantos in the bird-song, kilippattu, singing free.

Inside a Quiet, Nocturnal Meditation
by Sri Wele Cebuda

He woke up in the night. He was a miserable guy.
He had an upset stomach, prodded by a god on high.
He got into the lotus pose; he stretched out calf and thigh.
Though all was dark around, he opened up his inner eye.
He drank a carbonated drink to quell the squall so nigh.
He meditated on his fate. He couldn’t help but sigh.
He tightened abdomen; he lifted head and neck. O, my.
Each tiny burp relieved his plight, though he was not quite spry.
At times he felt like he could climb the walls, yet could not fly.
O, Lord, he was so glad when finally he reached the sky.

Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of Indian literature. Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan is a 16th century Indian poet, linguist and translator.

~~~

Night, Street, Lamp, Pharmacy
by Rus Ciel Badeew

It is now night here on this street, the lamp light glowing o’er.
Outside the pharmacy some loiter there before the door..
They want some drugs to fix what ails their dim and senseless souls.
They want to live another quarter century or more.
No way will everything then be okay. There is no way.
O, they will start again from the beginning of the day.
They will repeat their same mistakes here on this urban block.
How old the mystery of night, which no one can unlock.
The icy channel ripples sparkle in the dark and damp.
The drugstore stands, the street goes by…the lighting of their lamp.

Rus Ciel Badeew is a poet of Russia. One of his favourite poets is Modern Russian Symbolist Alexander Blok (1880-1921), whose poetry he refers to in this tennos.

~~~

Rude Ennius
by Aedile Cwerbus
“Nemo me dacrumis decoret nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? Volito vivu’ per ora virum.”
—Quintus Ennius

He dreamed that Homer’s spirit had awakened within him,
perhaps at Rudiae, rude Ennius, of rustic hymn.
Greek, Latin, ancient Oscan, three strong hearts within him beat,
above the heel of Italy, of proud and pounding feet.
While in the Second Punic War, as a centurion,
he crossed the path of elder Cato in Sardinia.
He came to Rome, and in due time became a citizen,
who dwelled upon the Aventine, a private denizen.
Composing plays and Annales, his epic claim to fame,
he ended like a gallant steed, Olympian and plain.
His long-lost tomb, in golden muck, perhaps near some crude cove,
with but an old and aged tree, fades in some sacred grove.

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of ancient Rome. Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of ancient Rome. Ennius (c. 239 BC – c. 169 BC) is the father of Latin letters writ large.

~~~

Apostrophe to Christopher Columbus, October 2020
By Raúl de Cwesibe

Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, o.
So few appreciated what you did, where you did go.
You crossed th’ Atlantic Ocean in October’s sober Sun.
No one cared for your carrying forth each and everyone.
None wanted a New World turning, or Orb orbiting.
Your Spanish backers even placed yourself in quarantine.
Now dead a half millennium, mobs long to knock you down.
They do not want your global memory to hang around.
They want you gone from history, to disappear your soul,
the man who dared to show Earth what it did not want to know.

Raúl de Cwesibe is a poet of Spain. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was ranked the sixth most inluential individual of the previous millennium among academics across the Globe in the year 2000. After Gutenburg, Newto, Luther, Darwin, and Shakespeare, and before Marx, Einstein, Copernicus, and Galileo.

~~~

“Leyenda” by Isaac Albéniz
by Ewald E. Eisbruc

First written for piano with G minor as its key,
“Leyenda” is a piece composed by Isaac Albéniz.
The name “Asturias” came from a German publisher,
who laboured in the store begun by Friedrich Hofmeister.
If not suggestive of that northern Spanish area,
it’s rather more flamencoesque from Andalusia.
The theme, like a twelve-beat bulería, takes off, and goes,
its strong staccato markings like the footwork of quick toes.
The second section, like a copla, then is followed by
a malagueña, and a dismount from the dancing fly.

Ewald E. Eisbruc is a poet of artistic musical composition. Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) was a late-19th-century Spanish composer.

~~~

The Violence in Philadelphia
by Urbawel Cidese
“Par le regne des maleureux chetis“
—Eustache Deschamps

Say first what caused the violence in Philadelphia;
a man named Walter Wallace, Junior, with a knife in hand,
advanced upon police, who ordered him to drop the knife.
But he would not, and so two shot. Alas, he lost his life.

Protesters started forming, foaming, turning violent,
across the city’s neighbourhoods; all brotherly love spent.
At first, the target was police, wherever they might be.
Protesters fought with bricks, paint buckets, pallets and debris.

Stirred up with envy and revenge, the looting then began,
store windows smashed and portals crashed; they rolled, they stole, they ran.
The Pennsylvania National Guard then was mobilized,
To help the local agencies, protecting goods and lives.

Some dozens were arrested; many cops were injured too;
Eternal justice had prepared a battleground anew.
The BLM, the Socialists, and Black Bloc Anarchists,
had argued who should lead and where they should proceed in this.

They pressed the press back actively; they didn’t want it filmed,
a tactic common to prevent bad-optic, melt-down spilled.
A newsman by the BLM was bloodied up a bit,
but strangely Corp’rate Media refused to cover it.

The widespread rioting continued on through Tuesday night,
as vandals loaded up on big-screen TVs and the like.
Store after store was left in shambles, making spirits bright.
How would this help to rectify the death and urban blight?

Urbawel Cidese is a poet of urban spaces. Eustache Deschamps (c. 1346 – 1406) was the author of L’Art de dictier, the first work on French versification.

~~~

How Strange It Is
By Brice U. Lawseed

How strange it is the media attempts to hide the news;
The mainstream presses do not want to look at varied views.
It would be one thing if they thought that it was too uncouth,
but oddly they are doing what they can to hide the truth.

They’re partisans for Pravda, propaganda is their game.
Controlled by high tech oligarchs they really have no shame.
They’re happy to dispense half-truths if they support their cause.
Bald-faced they lie between the pages covered up with gauze.

The New York Times, WaPo, and television companies,
like ABC and NBC, as well as CBS.
How strange it is to grow up in a land where truth was king
to find out later that that very thought’s diminishing.

Brice U. Lawseed is a poet who likes to see at least two sides to every issue of political concern.