Haiku
“Clear Dew” Ibuse
Cherry trees in bloom,
as birds sing, are blossoming,
far from Cher-ni-hiv.
Haiku
“Clear Dew” Ibuse
Aboard the boat, o,
I hazard forth on all fours.
A dragonfly flies…past!
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet of natural settings and Japanese poetic forms. Chernihiv is a city in Ukraine of about 285,000. The city is a site attacked by by Putin’s Russian soldiers, who killed 47 people, many in a bread line on March 3rd, perhaps with unguided aerial bombs. On March 16th, Russian forces killed another 10 queued up to purchase bread. The second poem draws on a haiku by the French Modernist philosopher and doctor Paul-Louis Couchoud (1879-1959).
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Haiku
“Wired Clues” Abe
Fascinated by
the translucent water stream,
the babe jerks his head.
Haiku
“Wired Clues” Abe
An unexploded,
five-hundred kilogram bomb
in black Chernihiv.
“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. Putin’s Russian military is bombing the hell out of the people of Chernihiv, etc.
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Newsreel:
In the US, on Wednesday, Chinese agent Lin Qiming,
from China’s deadly ministry of state security,
was formally accused of smearing New York candidate,
campaigner Yan Xiong and Beijing law school graduate.
With zero tolerance, because of rising covid infections, China has locked down all residents in Shenzhen (17,000,000), Changchun (9,000,000) and Jilin province (24,000,000), the most severe lockdowns in China since the Wuhan lockdown, where the virus first appeared. Total World covid deaths number 6,000,000.
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In Padmasana Pose
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He sat upon the army bunk, the blanket, olive green;
the corners tucked in neatly underneath where he was seen.
Beneath his knees the mattress pad was firm and tight, yes, so.
He opened up his inner eye in padmasana pose.
He longed to reach nirvana on that piece of furniture,
that cubehead jarhead seated there, unburnished, but secure.
He sat there at the edge of ecstasy and peacefulness,
his arms extended and appended to his torso, yes.
He seemed to have the shadow of a smile on his lips,
there sitting quite contentedly upon his spreading hips.
Upon the Sofa’s Cush
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He got into the lotus pose upon the sofa’s cush,
to f-e-e-l peace, free from time’s beast’s continued pull and push.
His head was high, he kissed the sky, his spine extended up;
he deeply breathed in calming air, he felt like as a pudd.
Eyes closed, he didn’t see the ladder in the corner niche,
nor abstract picture on the wall, a beautiful pastiche;
and yet his inner eye was active; he could see such things,
as he had never seen before, such gorgeous, forging scenes.
He felt, like as a magi bearing gifts of hope for men,
who’d traveled long and hard just to get to Jerusalem.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of yoga. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, in addition to a trunc, “pudd” carries its own meanings. Ever since 1000 BC, when the psalmist King David (c. 1040 BC – c. 970 B. C.) made it his capital and his son, the composer of countless proverbs and songs King Solomon (c. 990 BC – c. 931 BC) built the Holy Temple, Jews have considered it their spiritual home. Since then, both Christians, upon the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (c. 33 AD), and later, Muslims, have also paid homage to it.
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Newsreel:
The Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran attacked
Erbil, with ballistic missiles, Kurds in north Iraq.
The Kurds condemned the gross attack on the civilian site,
a local station for the news Iranians don’t like.
IRGC is the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps. Erbil is a city of northern Iraq of about 1,200,000.
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New Rorschach News Displays
by Rus Ciel Badeew
Day after day I seem to face new Rorschach news displays,
safe in my town so far away from Russia and Ukraine.
Why must it be the children and the mothers who must pay
the bitter price of shock and awe, the raining missiles’ reign?
As cities crumble from the rumble of the pounding tanks,
I see the broken bridges humbled from the river banks.
So many fly to television movies for escape;
but many can’t, the children and the mothers who must pay.
Vladimir Putin is a ruler not of peace but war,
the follower of Eris, o, the sower of discord.
Rus Ciel Badeew is a poet of Russia. Swiss Modernist Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922) was a psychoanalist, fascinated by Russian culture, who developed the inkblot test. Eris was the Greek goddess of strife and discord.
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Go Now
by Waldi Berseuse
The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra last week removed
Tchaikovsky’s “Overture of 1812”; it was reproved.
Bom-bas-tic can-non vol-leys were too much to be retained,
since Russia has invaded the republic of Ukraine.
Conductor Valery Ger-giev has also been let go;
the Munich Philharmonic has dis-miss’d the ma-es-tro.
Vi-en-na and Mi-lan have dropped him from their repertoire,
because he won’t condemn the Putin govern-Mental war.
Denis Matsuev too won’t be performing—this is no.
a pianist supporting Russia simply has to go.
Waldi Berceuse is a poet of Slavic music. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period in music, approximately (1800-1900).
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When Putin Speaks
Eric Awesud Ble
“…nor did anything terrify…so much as those encomiums on his majesty’s
mercy.”
—Jonathan Swift, “Gulliver’ Travels, Book 1”
When Putin says that he wants peace, he wants your final breath.
Peacekeeping duties mean for him, he’s planning acts of death.
Claims that he is deNazifying means he’s after Jews.
It means he still has his, when he claims someone’s making nukes.
Eric Awesud Ble is a poet of doublespeak, from demonic rats to rolling-tire ants.
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Another Day in Ukraine
by Radice Lebewsu
It is another horrid day of war. It is so hard.
Another day of brand new horrors, death and buildings charred.
New injuries, new horror news, monstrosities unleashed,
new dreads and fears, new heaviness, new weary plateaus reached.
Th’ assault upon the country and the cities going on,
continues with such murderous precision, growing awe,
the hoped-for respite turned to cinders, bodies in the street,
the head hung lower, facing killers in the battle heat.
Here is the outrage of the violence, the heartfelt groan.
O, where is peace? Where is the love of life and fellow man?
Ukrainian Identity
by Radice Lebewsu
The cover of the bed was blue with narrow yellow stripes.
He wore wrist bands of blue and gold. He sat beside a pipe.
He longed to hold Ukrainian identity to him;
but all he had was just a bit of vigour, vim, and skin.
He held it close, like as a host who offers guests his home,
but his Ukrainian identity was prone to roam.
He swiped a moment’s pleasure from the fierce, ferocious front
of which he had to pay the price, to face that blunt, brunt force.
He loved to dream of grand Ukraine, amidst this time of war;
it was the only thing that gave him hope to live and soar.
Via Ivan Kotliarevsky
by Radice Lebewsu
Aeneas was a wanted man, that driven Cossack guy,
above all zealous, mischievous, agile, filled with guile.
But when the Greeks burnt Troy and turned it to a pile of crap,
he craved to take some Trojans, with him from that peat-heap trap.
Their hides were tough and necks were buff, on heels, leaving fast,
lest they become enslaved by blasted Greeks, those dastard rats.
He quickly, with his gang of men, built good and wooden boats,
to sail upon the bluish, wine-dark sea. He hoped they’d float.
Then saturated, full with Trojans, they took off from shore,
and, squatting, hit the foamy waves, where eyes could see them roam.
Radice Lebewsu is a poet fond of Ukraine. Roman Golden Age poet Vergil (70 BC -19 BC) used the refugee Aeneas in his epic poem Aeneid. The above tennos comes from an interpretation of the opening of Vergil’s poem by Ivan Kotliarevsky (1769-1838), a Romantic Ukrainian poet. As of this week, more than 3,000,000 refugees have left Ukraine.
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W-Inter
by Claude I. S Weber
Time lets his mantle go away, in wind and frost and rain,
his vestitured embroidery, appears so pure and plain.
There is no beast nor bird that cries or chants sweet jargoning.
O, time has set aside his mantle; birds have taken wing.
The river, fountain and the stream wear lovely livery,
so clear and beautif’lly displayed, with silver jewelry.
Yes, time has dropped his mantle and his garments to the ground,
returning to his leafless self, brown limbs, bare trunk, unbound.
Instead of pleasing melodies, he sings deep-toned old hymns.
O, time has cast his mantle off into the foggy mist.
Claude I. S. Weber is a poet of France and weather. This poem is a response to a poem by Charles d’Orléans (1394-1465).
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2020 Vision
by “Wild” Rae Buc’ees
He didn’t read them all, but read so many, myriads;
three score and ten, and out of key with his time—period.
He strove hard to revive the dead heart of it—poetry;
but he was wrong, wrong from the start to chase that coterie.
In this, his country, he was just a savage animal;
where what was wanted was a mad prosaic cinema,
rhyme only with a beat in some neat, formulaic song,
short, to-the-point, in-tense, as E. P. noted, not too long.
And long ago forgotten with the rotten and the wrought,
from China and Japan, to India and Ararat,
from Persia, hence to Greece, to Italy and points beyond,
so many places, people, here and there across the pond.
“Wild” Rae Buc’ees is a poet of the Lone Star Republic.
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Cragging in the USA
by Rawc E. Sedilube
He was not Victor Frankenstein’s creation, though he had
a cubehead and a jutting jaw, robotic, if not mad;
and yet he was, like as a man in army boots and tags,
beneath the solar disc in sunlit rocky mounts and crags.
O, Lord, what crags, he longed to climb on, from Northeastern Gunks,
to Eldorado, Colorado, with its gorgeous ch-unks,
as Rosy Crucifixion, Naked Edge, and the Bastille,
where Layton Kor and many more, cut teeth—red sandstone heel;
from Wild Iris in Wyoming, beautiful and clean,
to Utah’s Indian Creek and its desert airy scene,
to the Red River Gorge, Kentucky, such fantastic cracks,
its iron rails, pocket crimps, jugs, slopers—o, what tacks;
from West Virginia’s fine New River Gorge, quartzite Nuttall,
with Mango Tango, Proper Soul, as well as Endless Wall
to Index, Washington, Skykomish Valley’s staid up-grade:
patinas, arêtes, slabs, overhangs, sport, trad and aid.
Rawc E. Sedilube is a poet of rocks. Layton Kor (1938-2013) was a PostModern rock climber, active in the 1960s in Colorado, Southwestern Deserts, and California.
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Picking Leaves Up
by Ileac Burweeds
In his back yard beside the fence in black boots on the ground,
he picked up leaves from autumn’s fall, the barrel’s bottom bound.
His belt was silver buckled in the sunlight slanting down,
as he expended energy, the crinkly leaves dark brown.
He felt the pounding of the sunlight, hot upon his back.
Occasionally he could hear the crackling of his sack.
He picked the leaves up, one by one, he’d rather have a rake.
O, that was easier by far. He’d love to have a break.
But, no, he kept on going, picking leaves up off the lawn,
and placed them in his plastic bag between a breath and yawn.
Ileac Burweeds is a poet of lawnwork.
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Product Placement
by Cawb Edius Reel
He noticed a rectangular Cointreau in Hitchcock’s “Thief”;
one of the cast had placed it in a basket carefully.
Cawb Edius Reel is a poet of film. Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was a noted 20th century British-American film director.
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The Fork
by Carb Deliseuwe
The fork is a utensil that some people love to use,
when eating in or dining out or on a river cruise.
The fork is very simple, but it is complex to make,
the four-tined artiform, the commonest shape it may take.
Its greatest quality is in its keeping fingers clean,
when one is chowing down, or supping, o, so daintily.
A valued member of the family of silverware,
placed to the left side of a plate, or right, or anywhere;
though in that group it is perhaps the hardest one to wash,
the lovely fork has made its name known in the land of Nosh.
Carb Deliseuwe is a poet of food. Peter Damian (c. 988 – c. 1072), a Benedictine monk and cardinal in the circle of Pope Leo IX, thought that it was vanity to use a fork.
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To Reach What Is…Desired
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
A cup of coffee: it was time for morning exercise;
bench presses after stretches after early dawn’s sunrise.
Loose fitting clothes, both top and bottom, with or without socks.
What’s key is movement in a groove, and timely, well-placed clocks.
O, bending and distending muscles, going back and forth,
as well as up and down, around, right-angled, anchored, orth.
In reps, biceps, pec deck, neck, delts; hips launched like freighted ships;
up high, down low, arms, legs and more, bent knees, descending dips.
A thorough overall performance is what is required,
until one’s tired and rewired, to reach what is desired.
Rudi E. Welec, “Abs, is a poet of exercise. One of his favourite PostModernist American fitness nutritionists was Jack LaLanne (1914-2011).
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