Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Evening fog hovers
over gaps between the hills.
The old lovers dream.
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Sweeping past my eyes,
flying through the open sky,
the clouds aren’t weeping.
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Silica dunes shift,
sifted by eonic drifts,
below an old moon.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet of Japanese poetic forms.
~~~
With No Sad Steps
by Wilude Scabere
With no sad steps, the Moon arises in the distant skies,
unheard by human ears, a pale colour to these eyes,
there in the heavens where no Cupid shoots his arrows forth,
nor long-with-love-acquainted eyes attempts to find true North.
Here is no love. No languished grace can be read in such looks.
Its state descries naught where it f-lies, though it be found in books.
The Moon can’t speak of constant love, as Juliet made clear,
nor are proud beauties loved as here they are, o, loved so dear.
Possessing neither love, scorn, virtue or ungratefulness,
I wonder even if the Moon displays indifference.
Wilude Scabere is a poet of British literature. The opening four words, “With How Sad Steps”, are those of Elizabethan poet Philip Sidney (1554-1586). Juliet is a character from Elizabethan William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
A pumpkin seed lost
in the carpet’s curved design
has been vacuumed up.
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
New covid records
set in Tokyo, Japan,
during th’ Olympics.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of technology in English, using Japanese forms. For the first time, new covid cases rose over 5,000 in Tokyo, with medical advisors saying it could double.
~~~
Mrinalini Raj
by Sree Leci Budwa
By wood-brown, blue-embroidered chairs where lots of books are lodged,
in skin-close, vee-neck, neat, red shirt is Mrinalini Raj.
She sits upon the floor beside those chairs filled up with books;
her slightly-wavy, dark hair falling down in ebon brooks.
She looks excited as she brooks the Booker Prize Long List,
and animatedly discusses each named novelist.
She reads from opened, flat note-book, that she has written in,
and says she still researches some things with a pen in hand.
Though young, commendably one notes her productivity,
and youthful, straining-and-maintaining positivity.
Sree Leci Budwa is a poet of India. Unlike Roberto Calasso, who wrote only by pen, Sree Leci Budwa uses both pen and computer. He finds there is a greater intimacy with Reality, when he writes by hand on various media: from napkins to notebooks; from notecards to the narrow margins of novels; and…on and on.
~~~
Newsreel:
An asphalt tanker was attacked and boarded—Oman Gulf.
It seems hijackers were supported by the waiting Wolf.
~~~
O, Atlas
by Esiad L. Werecub
He focused on the Absolute each careful step he took,
while hoping that the glutinous somehow was overlooked.
He sucked his stomach in, while he was stretching shoulders out.
O, Atlas was afraid he could not carry Earth with clout.
He stood up tall there at the ends of Earth’s extremest West
beyond his island in the sea, mapped by Mercator’s zest.
Astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics too:
o, Atlas brought them all together in his cosmic view.
But Perseus turned him to stone, as Polyides said,
a mountain range, in fact, according to great Ovid’s breadth.
And so, despite attention to feet, leg, chest, neck and head,
o, Atlas, had to hold the sky forever, never dead.
Esiad L. Werecub is a poet of Ancient Greek myths. His favourite didactic poet is Hesiod (c. 700 BC). Polyides (c. 400 BC) was a Greek poet. Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD) was a Silver Age Roman poet. Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) was a noted 16th century geographer, cosmographer, and cartographer
~~~
Roberto Calasso
by Alberdi Ucwese
“The gods are fugitive guests of literature.”
—Roberto Calasso
He ne’er composed on a computer, never wrote a book,
Each work he wrote was a mosaic, constant overlook.
He wrote in fountain pen, black ink, o, always in longhand.
At twelve he penned his first memoir. What did he understand?
The myths are waiting for us still when we are open-eyed.
His best friend—Bobi Bazlen—died in 1965—
said “People once were born alive, and then they slowly died;
but now one is born dead and slowly has to come to life.”
His Ph.D. was on the esoteric Thomas Browne.
He started working at Adelphi—publisher renown—
for forty years directing it, and focusing on this:
the ties between myth and emerging modern consciousness.
Alberdi Ucwese is a poet of Italian literature. Italian PostModernist writer Roberto Calasso (1941-2021), though no polyglot, like Mario Pei (1901-1978), still was fluent in Italian, English, French, German, Greek, Latin, and Spanish, with forays into Sanskrit.
~~~
The R Tist
by Éclair Dub W. See
“Try to explain the art of starving to someone.”
—Franz Kafka, “The Hunger Artist.”
The R Tist got upon the stAge and stArted reading words.
They did not fly like birds. They were absurd. They didn’t rhyme.
He didn’t have a lot of Time. The audience would sleep.
They’d go into a sleep so deep they couldn’t hear the peals.
The R Tist still continued reading, breeding sentences.
The other actors made their exits and their entrances.
The audience was not entranced. They wanted something else.
They’d go away into the day; they couldn’t hear the bells.
The R Tist kept reciting and resighting what he saw.
The audience was odd; they were not awed—just at a loss.
He didn’t understand or overstate his many lines.
He simply read in silence, nicely…and then left the stAge.
Éclair Dub W. See is a poet of double vision. He is so happy he can see again. Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a German Modernist short story writer and novelist.
~~~
Newsreel:
Both Germany and France plan covid booster shots next month,
protecting people from th’ infectious Delta variant.
Macron’s attempting balancing a virulent fourth wave
with new constraints & new phase of street anti-lockdown rage.
~~~
Kautokeino Facts
by Lars U. Ice Bedew
In Norway, it’s the largest of municipalities,
at ninety-seven-hundred square-kilometers in size.
It ís one of the coldest places in the Nordic freeze;
its all-time-low is -50 centigrade-degrees.
Because of all the thousand lakes, some wetland species thrive,
like whooper swans and spotted redshank, birds that like to dive.
Its Sámi High School is the only one across the Globe
that has a reindeer class in herding—Go, to be enrolled.
Occasionally one sees there the reindeer cyclones where
the reindeer run in circles when they’re threatened—Then, beware.
Lars U. Ice Bedew is a poet of Nordic lands.
~~~
One Wondered
by War di Belecuse
Up, at attention, olive-drab, in dog-tags, hanging down,
he stood in line, neat and aligned, his shoulders square, not bound.
Where was he going to? pray tell, what was he gonna do?
Was it nearby or far? and was it something good or rude?
Or both? One wondered, as he traveled past, which would it be.
O, it could be so many things. One watched, but mutedly.
His shoulders back, chest out, his stomach in, his hips were tight.
Though things seemed very neat and tidy, something wasn’t right,
left in the desert, or the mountains, for a little while?
His face was grim. One did not see…the shadow of a smile.
War di Belecuse is a poet of the military. One of his favourite PostModernist short stories is “Game” by American proset Donald Barthelme (1931-1989).
~~~
Donald Barthelme
by Wilbur Dee Case
“I effuse my flesh in eddies…”
—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
What was he trying to accomplish—Donald Barthelme—
in hardly rosy prose, o, at least somewhat partially?
What was he going for in Texas? and his other states?
O, what was he attempting to attain at tainted gates?
With wedding band upon his finger, letters at his hand,
what were the marshalled data he endeavoured to command?
Did he lie by his light at night to meditate upon
the coming and the rising of the early morning Dawn?
What stern decorum of his stern had guided his great boat?
What seas had he thus seized upon to keep his craft afloat?
He left his messages bereft of m(an)y ref’rences.
What rude and rugged effervescence did he leave for us?
Wilber Dee Case is a poet and literary critic.
~~~
In the Cabin
by Bud “Weasel” Rice
“But who is that on the other side of you?”
—T. S. Eliot, “The Wasteland”
I saw him vaguely in the morning in the cabin space,
reflected in the dirty windows, foggy webs apace.
He sat upon the cushioned chair, with head of silver hair,
the gauze of silken curtains, like old ghosts, passed in the air.
Who was that striding there behind him, reaching for his soul,
the white refrigerator purring in that off-beat hole.
He grabbed his seat, not wanting to be ferreted away,
so seriously holding on, embracing lovely day.
His cheeks were dented, like some old car, in some auto dump.
He felt like as a jeep jalopy, sloppy, flopping, p-lump.
The Setting of a Tale
by Bud “Weasel” Rice
The rifleman had targeted the animal, in fact,
there in the crosshairs of the circle lined upon his back.
Was he a sniper practicing out in the grass-lined rocks?
How close would he be to the heart of that sleek silver fox?
So sinuous, cinereous, its tail fluffed and out,
his glossy fur as soft and fine as the pine marten’s tout.
This marksman shooting—did he know that Audobon assessed
the richness and the beauty of his skin ranked with the best?
He felt it better than the beaver or sea-otter pelt,
before the heyday when the price of silver foxes swelled.
But now to hunt these foxes in the wilderness is banned,
yet farmed, these black-brown, silver beasts remain in great demand.
Bud “Weasel” Rice is a poet of Animalia. His favourite tale of a silver fox is that by American Naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946): “Domino Reynard of GoldurTown”, illustrated partly by himself. Seton, a lover of Native American legends and lore, and varied artistic crafts, was a co-founding pioneer of the Boy Scouts. One of his two daughters was the American Postmodernist biographical-fiction writer Anya Seton (1904-1990). American Romantic painter John James Audobon (1785-1851) was likewise a naturalist, specializing in ornithology.
~~~
Matthew Wildermuth
by Lew Icraus Bede
He brings his love of ancient lit to gamework that he does,
from hymns of the Rig Veda to the Ancient Greek savants.
He is a narrative designer, poet, essayist,
who specializes in world-building and the choice-based quest;
with OnceLost Games, providing in-game books and documents,
and more for the upcoming RPG, the Wayward Realms.
Is he the acting editor of Call of Saregnar?
Is his first poem-book “The Ruin” from The Red Salon?
Is he a literary critic at odds with his times,
a valiant, mighty knight in fields of dread, explosive mines?
Did he who found rhymed couplets in Herr Gottfried’s poetry
turn “Tristan” into blank verse near Missouri’s banks, ND?
Lew Icarus Bede is a poet and literary critic, as is New Millennial American Matthew Wildermuth. RPG is a role-playing game, ND is North Dakota, and Middle High German poet Gottfried von Strassburg (c. 1165 – c. 1215) is the author of the courtly romance “Tristan” in iambic rhymed couplets.
~~~
Lieutenant Lepper’s Lowly Arts cLub Band
by Brice U. Lawseed
“ἣ μυρί᾽”
—Homer, “Iliad”
Among the myriads who went on January 6th,
protesting fraudulent November 3rd’s election fix,
some lingering in limbo still past Independence Day,
include the following who’ve been charged for the part they played,
like Abual-Rahgeb, Alam, Alvear Gonzalez,
Baranyi, Ballesteros, Black, Brown, White, Bishai, Baez,
like Castro, Crosby, Chwiesiuk, Creek, Curzio, Cortez,
Duong, Dasilva, Dillon, Doolin, Donohoe and Dresch,
Egtvedt, Ehmke, Ehrke, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Fairlamb, Fee,
Garcia, Goodwyn, Gosjankowski, Grace, Gold, Gray and Greene,
George, Gordon, Grover, Grider, Grods, Gionet, Gallagher,
Hernandez, Harding, Harrison, Hughes, Hendrix, Head and Hart,
Harkrider, Irizarry, Isaacs, Ivey, Ibrahim,
Jurlina, Johnatakis, Jackson, Johnson, Jones and James,
Kidd, Kulas, Khater, Keller, Kuehne, Kotolsky, Klein, Laurens,
Lazar, Larocca, Lazo, Lyons, Lesperance and Lentz,
Montoya, Mels, McHugh, Marquez, Mcauliffe, Miller, Mink,
like Norwood, Nichols, Neumann, Nelson, Nordean and Nassif,
O’Malley, Nalley, Owens, Ochs, Orangias, Ortiz,
Padilla, Presley, Rosa, Parks, Petrosh, Pope, Pham and Phipps.
Q Shaman, Quaglin, Quick, Rivera, Roche and Robertson,
Rodriguez, Ryan, Ryals, Riley, Riddle, Ridge, Rusyn,
Suarez, Sahady, Strand, Sywak, St. Cyr and Sullivan,
and Mr. Smith was also one who went to Washington,
Taake, Tanios, Timbrook, Todisco, Torre, Torrens, Tuck,
Uptmore, Vikich, Von Bernewitz, and Vargas Santos, Cudd,
Wright, Walden, Webster, Williams, Wilson, Winn, Wood, Woods, and Weeks,
X-military, yes, Yazdani, Youngers, Zlab and Zink.
Brice U. Lawseed is a poet of Washington DC. Over 500 people have been criminally charged for their part in the Insurrection. Since then, four DC policemen, who responded to the Insurrection, have committed suicide: in January, Jeffrey Smith and Howard Liebengood; in July, Kyle DeFreytag and Gunther Hashida.
~~~
A New Dimension
by Earl W. Sidecube
It was as if he’d stepped in/to a new dimension, but
he didn’t care at all; it would not be the ultimate.
Yet still he felt renewed; his energy increased; he grew.
Somehow he managed to achieve another plane\askew.
He turned to check if he was still the same. He thought he was;
despite the changing stage, despite the charge, despite the buzz.
He tried to understand. How could this happen now to him?
What roller coaster did he find himself upon this min?
He rode beneath the Sun—o, hydrogen to helium—
What had he really come to here? he asked a medium.
O, Madame Sosostressed, I do not understand this plane.
How can it be that I am here alive in this domain?
Earl W. Sidecube is a poet of alternate realities. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “min” is a shortening of minute, a unit of time. Madame Sosostressed is a New Millennial clairvoyant.
I’m a sucker for flattery.
-Wildermuth