The Horror Has Begun: 2/22/22
by Radice Lebewsu
The horror has begun. The deaths accrue. The missiles rain.
The Russian butcher Putin has declared war on Ukraine.
Communication’s crashing in this strife and cyber route;
protective military infrastructure taken out;
assaults occurring round Kharkov, Odessa, and Kyiv:
In such a space, how can peace thrive? How can it even live?
The casualties accrue; the massacre of life goes on;
the human suffering continues in this winter dawn.
This stage prepared by the harsh Russian butcher’s hard commands;
no doves are flying over this appalling plot—this land.
Radice Lebewsu is a poet of Ukraine.
~~~
The Swans
by Warsuce Lebedi
“The twain were casting dice.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Upon this quiet lake, the drooping willows hang and faint.
The swans are plash-ing, pad-dl-ing, awaiting their planned fate.
In silence, floating, crossing water, in the winter wind.
Their necks are bent, like long lush vines; another entered end.
Resounding like plate glass that’s breaking, now the frosts have come.
The river glazes, cracking under crystal night-mare’s thumb.
The swimmers shattered by cold sheets, the frozen space between,
o, suddenly the millions cry, the birds can barely sing.
Through sleet and snow, their honking songs pierce faithless icy storms.
Though put in to torment and anguish, life forms still can soar.
They’re guided by the Constellation Lyre in the sky.
Another emptied clip, another shaking of the die.
Warsuce Lebedi is a poet of Ukraine. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “Lebedi” means “Swans” in the Ukrainian language. This poem draws on a sonnet by Ukrainian Modernist Mykhailo Drai-Khmara (1889-1939), who was sent to the Russian Communist labour camp in Kolyma, and executed in 1939 for his poetry. Warsuce is an anagrammatic heteronym of the poet Bruce Dale Wise.
~~~
On O(xyge)n
by Eber L. Aucsidew
An increase in the nutrients and warmth in water cause
some microscopic phytoplankton growth by nature’s laws.
They grow by photosynthesizing solar energy,
converting carbon díoxídes into new mattery.
One key by-product of this process—making oxygen—
is next released into the water, then to air’s demesne?
Of all Earth’s oxygen, half comes from algae wanderers;
the other half from plants on land, which are not squanderers.
Eber L. Aucsidew is a poet of water and air. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, mattery is a neologism meaning materials.
~~~
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
A pond frog splashes.
The baby kicks out his legs
in a small bath tub.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet of Japanese poetic forms, like the haiku, or the katuata (side poem).
~~~
Haiku
by “Leeward Cub” Ise
On the icy roads,
blue and white jewels glitter.
The driver goes slow.
“Leeward Cub” Ise is a poet of nature.
~~~
Haiku
by Cule Biwa Reeds
No bright leaves adorn
the ornamental pear tree.
Twigs sway in the wind.
Cule Biwa Reeds is a poet of winter scenes.
~~~
Haiku
“Wired Clues” Abe
Two fire trucks appear.
Someone is taken away.
The little birds tweet.
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
Around the toilet,
he placed the small, smelly traps.
A lone dead ant lies.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet using Japanese forms united with technology, who although he appreciates the Gendai movement and New Rising Haiku, very much admires traditional haiku.
~~~
2022 Winter Olympics
by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei
As the wIntér oLympics cLOSE for 2022,
the Covid Bubble popped, and Xi Jinping’s Beijing fling’s through,
the teams returned, some to their lands where real snow oft occurs,
remembering the food and quarantines with heartfelt stirs.
Though typical concerns and controversies happened still,
false starts, missed calls, falls, dope disquals, and jumpsuits on the hills,
the WINter Games participants were [free] and far from strife,
Tibet, HongKong and Xinjiang. There was no loss of life.
Bing Dwen Dwen, frozen in his space clothes, with his constant smile,
embodying ice purity, has waved good-bye in style.
Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei is poet of China. “Reed ABCs” is his art name (hào).
~~~
Padmasana on a Couch
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He got into the lotus pose upon the empty couch,
absorbing energy as one might from a bit of chow.
He felt like as a cow in India, composed, but free.
It seemed he took a sip of his drink’s potent energy.
O, the surprise was great, as he sat in his thoughtful seat,
to see such beauty in his mind, so luscious and complete.
His spine rose up divine, o, pumped, inside beyond the pines.
His inner eye was rolling through eternity’s confines.
If he could not reach happiness or bliss, at least he could
approach the realms of ecstasy, be in its neighbourhood.
After Atharva Veda X, 10
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He worshipped the cow’s form from its tail-hair, to hooves, and length;
like many Hindus, singing, that from its neck’s nape sprang strength.
From strong flanks sacrifice had come, and sunlight from its teats;
and from fore-quarters and those thighs, much moving motion gits.
From its entrails came good food, such bellied plants as well;
he called the cow immortal, paying homage to its shell.
He felt the cow was earth and heaven, Vishnu, lord of life,
all that the Sun surveys—this stirring universal strife.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of India. The Atharva Veda was a group of hymns and mantras, poetic knowledge, composed around 1000 BC.
~~~
The Invasion of Ukraine: February 22, 2022
by Radice Lebewsu
The Russians—under Putin—have invaded the Ukraine,
with their so-called peacekeepers, in Donetsk, and in Luhansk.
Crimea was a steal back then upon the money train.
Approximately eight long years ago there was Maidan.
Now Biden says that Russians will be sanctioned—they’ll feel pain.
But it’s a cost that Putin seems he willingly will pay.
One wonders what the deals will be for China and Iran.
It seems much cheaper than the cost to help Afghanistan.
So for a good price, the UN is willing to sell land
that they don’t own, and won’t support, aren’t willing to sustain.
Radice Lebewsu is a poet fond of Ukraine.
~~~
On the Riemann Zeta Function
by Euclidrew Base
The Riemann Zeta Function has a deep connection with
the distribution of the primes in mathematic myth,
which Riemann wrote within his eight page theme—that was so good—
the number of the primes less than a given magnitude.
He stated some conjectures later proved by Hadamard,
de la Vallée Poussin, and von Mangoldt, that were quite hard;
but his hypothesis remains unproven in the main,
though it’s been shown true far as all computers can explain.
If David Hilbert woke one-thousand years from his life’s set,
the one thing he would like to know, of all things he had met,
is has Riemann’s Hypothesis been proven as of yet?
It is indeed math’s greatest problem, Andrew Wiles said.
Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866), David Hilbert (1862-1943), Jacques Hadamard (1865-1963), Charles de la Vallée Poussin (1866-1962), and Hermann von Mangoldt (1895-1953) were noted German and French mathematicians. Andrew Wiles is a contemporary British mathematician who proved Fermat’s “Last Theorem.”
~~~
In Manitoba,
by Wes Caribu Deel
In Manitoba, on the border with the USA,
at North Dakota—Emerson—protesters went away.
They had included semi-trailer trucks, machinery,
from farms, construction, even snowplows, filled the scenery.
Communication with the province ended, in the end,
with no arrests, no injuries, no charges tows or dents.
The Deputy Prime Minister called it the “best” result,
unlike mad tyranny seen in Ontario’s tumult,
where thé Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau invoked
th’ Emergencies Act for the first time…ever…being woke.
Wes Caribu Deel is a poet of Canada. One of his dad’s favourite songs was the heartfelt “Red River Valley”, a song, according to Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke (1913-1996), originating in Manitoba.
~~~
Another Sunday Morning
by Walice du Beers
He barely heard the rooster crow its cock-a-doodle-do.
He poured a cup of coffee, gladly adding creamer too.
He sat up at the table—a round circle, shining black.
O, he was quite content; he stretched his arms, his legs and back.
No peignoir could be seen, no cockatoo was in his mind.
His smile was complacent, but it hardly was divine.
Still, one could sense the holy hush of ancient sacrifice,
and it sufficed beside the nice agreeable gray walls.
He was prepared to drink it all in, wooden paneling,
a silver microwave, and kneeling king with thick, round ring.
Walice du Beers is a poet of sparkling jewels. One of his favourite poets is the American Modernist Wallace Stevens (1879-1955).
~~~
Catching a Taxi
by Bruc “Diesel” Awe
He stood beside the door—that cubehead with a silver top;
dark bottoms from his waist down to his feet—his clothing opt.
The golden light shone on his right, across his front and back.
He was about to hail a cab. He longed to take that hack.
His abs were wrinkled; flabby, tinny, tinkling dog-tags jinged.
He bent his knees, while he went down the steps with zip and zing.
He rushed. He ran. He was a man, who had a purpose to
embrace the bracing windy noon on that new avenue.
He caught that taxi, quickly jumping in to its backseat;
and, leaning back on to it, took off to town down the street.
Bruc “Diesel” Awe is a poet of transportation.
~~~
Remembering Two Georgians
by Cause Bewilder
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that there’s
“no truth” that agent James O’Sullivan, o, this they swear,
was scrutinizing the car crash that killed Harrison Deel,
and the explosion following the crash. There were no leads.
His terse obituary did not say a cause of death,
nor did it link Peach-Guv Kemp’s daughter’s boyfriend’s final breath.
It seems there was no reason for the agent’s suicide.
It was not linked to the crash site, where Harrison had died.
A flatbed hit him from behind. He hit a semi truck.
That multi-vehicle collision seemed to be bad luck.
So many questions, so few answers, what should we believe?
The faith required in this faithless time’s hard to conceive.
Cause Bewilder is a poet of the South.
~~~
Backpacker at the Top
by Carb Deliseuwe
A snow-white mountain’s fluffy cream stood over flap-lanes of
strawberries and blueberries in an early morning shove.
With silver, stainless steel spoon, the fruit was shoveled down
to the white, blue-lined bowl, a disappearing acting mound.
Preceded by a sugar-free and caffeine-rich, tart-drink,
that climber had imbibed before he ever reached the brink,
that cragsman hiked up to the top to gaze out from the view,
like as the finest, high-alpinist ever tried to do.
Carb Deliseuwe is a poet of food and drink. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, flap-lanes are like flat plains beneath airplane flaps.
Keeping the Ukrainian people in prayer….