Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Lightning and thunder—
finally they are quiet—
cicada voices.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet of natural settings and Japanese poetic forms. This haiku draws on one by Yamaguchi Seishi (1901-1994), an important influence on “Wired Clues” Abe.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
From the bath-tub faucet,
the sound of water p-o-u-r-i-n-g
moves the baby forth.
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
He had a short term
as a war correspondent—
massive oak Shiki.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet using Japanese forms united with technology. The phrase “the sound of water” in Japanese is “mizu no oto”—水の音. Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) was a late 19th century haiku writer.
~~~
The Kite
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He got into the lotus pose upon the cushioned couch.
He closed his eyes, but opened up his inner eye—mind’s cOach.
He lifted up his spine, o, yes, and spread his thighs apart.
His head rose up above his back, he heard his beating heart.
He felt like he was on a magic carpet in the sky.
He felt like as a kite up in the clouds. O, ciao. Good-bye.
O, could he reach tranquility, a momentary peace.
O, Lord, he prayed he would not be afraid…that fear would cease.
But he was simply sitting there in this time and this place.
He held the string in th’ whirlwind as the kite went off in space.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of cosmic meditation.
~~~
Attack Upon Salman Rushdie
by Sree Leci Budwa
“Satanic Verses” got Khomeini’s fatwa on his life;
in 1989, the tyrant wanted him to die;
and in 2005, Khamenei reconfirmed the hit
upon the writer from Mumbai, that deadly edict’s grit.
So Salman Rushdie valued more the things he loved before…
the literary arts, the freedom to say what he’s for.
For decades he’s been fighting hard against intolerance,
fanaticism, bigotry, and censorship’s advance.
In August 2022, Chatauqua, in New York,
he was repeatedly stabbed in his abdomen and neck.
Sree Leci Budwa is a poet of literature. Indian born Salman Rushdie is a contemporary British-American writer. Chatauqua is a town of around 4,000 in New York.
~~~
Newsreel:
Explosions were reported in Crimea Tuesday last.
The Russians blamed some saboteurs for th’ ammo storage blasts.
Whatever was the cause, it caused two-thousand souls to flee;
they didn’t want to stay to see compounded misery.
~~~
In the Big Top
by Sirc de Wee Balu
There were so many circus freaks around the big top tent.
He did not know what he should do. Yes, he himself felt bent.
He saw the shining spotlight on the spectacle at hand,
a lion tamer dressed in black with firm form and command.
He watched him as he cracked his whip, as hard as needed, o,
to keep that beast at bay, obedient and in control.
He concentrated on that fulsome leonine let loose,
like as a wild mustang or a wolf-chased, rugged moose.
He saw the silver, black and blue background beyond the pair;
but what he focused most upon was them, death’s threat and there.
O it was very satisfying watching that curt show,
the actors playing well-know parts, all in an amber glow.
Sirc de Wee Balu is a poet of the circus.
~~~
Newsreel:
It’s rich, the present government imposing sanctions on
corruption in Liberia. The irony is gone.
It’s hard t’ imagine a government that is itself corrupt,
expecting others to take seriously its own krup.
According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “krup” is a neologism understood in context.
~~~
Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, #45
by Ewald E. Eisbruc
From his Sturm und Drang period, Haydn’s
“Farewell” Symphony, #45
in F-Sharp Minor, begins tense, strident,
and the allegro assai is alive
with its impassioned arpeggio themes,
after which an adagio next appears,
followed by a minuet’s swift streams,
honing only what one hears as one nears.
Finally, one comes to the Fourth Movement,
one of the most surprising finales,
what one doesn’t dare call an improvement,
nor one of the composer’s follies:
one by one the instruments peel off to
the last two violins, and then silence…
Ewald E. Eisbruc is a poet of Austro-GerManic music. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) was a noted Austrian Classical composer.
~~~
Martinů
by Waldi Berceuse
In his delight of the Italian madrigal,
in his joy of the French chanson, in his lectures
nearly unattended, in his long, sad exile,
in his deep, longing for the fine, airy textures
of the Renaissance, in his fondness for rhythmic
animation, in his happy, striking mixtures,
in his desire for the peaceful and the innig,
in his searching of the foundations of culture,
in his admiring of pre-Beethoven music,
in his liking of Haydn’s humor, staid and sure,
along with finesses, free and contrapuntal,
Martinů embodied the ideal of mesure.
Waldi Berceuse is a poet of Slavic music. Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) was a Czech Modernist composer.
~~~
The Hanging Picture on the Wall
by Red Was Iceblue
The walls were beige, the bed was blue; the World seemed askew.
The hanging picture on the wall was on its side in view.
It seemed like he was falling off when he was lying flat,
and at the same time seemed like he was upright where he sat.
How could this be? He closed his eyes. He felt like he was up,
above a fountain that he rode into th’ eternal pull.
His heart was pounding, o, resoundingly where he was at.
He didn’t dare to turn around to read that turbo tach.
How did he find himself here where there wasn’t any grip
to hold on to…the World turned…upon unbalanced hip?
Cassandre
by Red Was Iceblue
A native of Ukraine, Cassandre was sent off to Paris*,
École des Beaux-Art, and then after, thé Académie.
His first work was Au Bûcheron a poster that was made
for one known cabinet creator, through the streets displayed,
depicting a woodcutter chopping down a tree with axe—
dynamic, futurist, Art Deco, linear, unlax.
Diagonals across the space, the background beige and bright,
the man in black, like as the log, the centre, brilliant white,
rectangular and angular within the posters frame;
a singular design that made his name, and brought him fame.
Red Was Iceblue is a poet of Modernist art. Cassandre, Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron (1901-1968), a French Modernist poster artist, was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, to French expatriots. *According to Beau Lecsi Werd, Paris here is iambic and pronounced Paree.
~~~
A Chance Meeting
by B. S. Eliud Acrewe
It was some time ago, and, it was such a chance
meeting that happened so fast, I cannot be sure
that I have all the facts correct; so, in advance,
I must ask for forgiveness if I have misconstrued
the events as I remember them. Forgive me,
dear reader, for those parts that I am certain to
bungle. In addition, the whole thing was eerie
in itself; for it was as if I met Sherlock Holmes
from beyond the grave, truly an absurdity
in itself. This happened so many years ago
that I cannot be exact as to the precise
year, but it was some time after sighting the Thames
and my arrival in London. Perhaps my eyes
were playing tricks on me when I first saw him in
one of his disguises. He was about my size.
He was in tweed and getting his picture taken.
But that was a fleeting moment, and there was no
communication. That encounter was air-thin.
But then later, a day came; I wanted to go
visit the inimitable Holmes to ask for
help about some trouble that was starting to show.
Anxious, I walked up the flight of stairs to the door,
seventeen steps above Baker Street to his flat.
I can’t remember if I knocked or not, but before
too long he offered me a place to sit. I sat,
id est, upon an upright, rather bumpy chair,
which he quite brusquely shoved forward where I was at.
On the other hand, upon a divan near there,
he sat, so he could stretch out his legs and lean back,
as if, in the entire world, he hadn’t a care.
It was very disconcerting to ask him about the case,
with him so uninterested, as if I talked squack.
Instead of getting answers from out of his face,
I got grilled, and none too pleasantly. When I left,
I felt I’d been ill used, and I quickened my pace.
Afterwards I felt badly, but hardly bereft.
I don’t know if it was because he’d taken drugs,
if he had been too brisk, or if I wasn’t deft
enough to field his repartees. It still bugs
me. Yet I feel nothing but relief that he’s gone.
I don’t ever want to stand upon those old rugs
again and meet with Holmes. How could Dr. Watson
stand it, being harried by such sharp arrogance?
I wondered, but only shortly; then I was done.
B. S. Eliud Acrewe is a poet of British literature. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a LateVictorian and Edwardian proset.
~~~
A Desk Clerk
by Des Wercebauli
His job was at a desk, a corner cubical, gray walled;
he had to take dictation from a suit, in tie and watch.
His desk was flat and white, computer silver with black keys,
surrounded by an in-box and some more accessories.
He did his best to keep up with the flowing mass of words.
He focused on the meaning of the syllables he heard.
There was a dearth of colour at his empty office site;
but he was just a novice, trying hard to get it right.
No windows near, he felt like Bartleby the Scrivener,
who would prefer not doing this, but he was just a clerk.
Des Wercebauli is a poet of work. Bartleby is a character from a Herman Melville (1819-1891) short story.
~~~
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad
by Bruc “Diesel” Awe
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and
Pacific Railroad was just one of the
many lines running across the Northland,
moving faster and further than ever
before in the history of mankind,
traveling along at a shaking clip,
proceeding forward, straight or on a wind-
ing curve without a wind, like a steamship,
taming the prairies with its powerful
gauge, the loud, noisy, snorting and rumbling
sound, raging like a mechanical bull
ready to take any load past crumbling
skyscrapers, brand new billboards, high arching
spans, and farms, chortling, chugging and charging.
Question
by Bruc “Diesel” Awe
Are solar panels optimal at 25°,
and less efficient o’er or under thé temps béyond these?
Bruc “Diesel” Awe is a poet of transportation and energy.
~~~
His First House
by Builder Cee Saw
for Stephen Page
This was his first house near to home, a tent upon the lawn,
in sleeping bag beyond the road that he had once gone down.
The bus was blown clean off the road in one strange moment’s spree.
It was like as he fell beneath the saddle’s silver seat.
O, it was ecstasy he’d see within that sleeping bag,
an angel stirring up his mind without the gift of gab.
The mountains and the hills had vanished in that dream of life,
and they were placed within that file he had deified.
He washed his clothes in whore-house porcelain, hung with noosed hemp.
He had not started reconstructing ancient letters yet.
Builder Cee Saw is a poet of constructing. Stephen Page is a contemporary poet and proset, from whom this poem draws.
~~~
A Cup of Coffee in the Morning
by Carb Deliseuwe
He was so happy for a cup of coffee in the morn.
It helped him focus on the tasks at hand. O, pour some more.
He was rejuvenated sitting in the breakfast nook,
as long as coffee was there too. It was a lovely hook.
He gazed upon the World around with open, clearer eyes.
He loved to watch the sunrise and its radiated skies.
It was like as he was a yogi in the lotus pose,
observing beauty everywhere he could at last suppose.
He didn’t need a paper or a phone to see the news.
It came to him in sweet repose, both sweet songs and the blues.
Brushing His Teeth
by Carb Deliseuwe
He stood before the mirror brushing his teeth once again
with sodium fluoride, an icy blast of whitening.
He seemed like as a dinosaur, a lizard eating plants,
a wrinkled snout, and narrowing, a harrowing long glance.
The bristles whistled up against his molars and canines;
O, keep the Dog, far hence, that’s friend to men. He’s not divine.
I saw him in a book one time—R. Lee Ubicwedas—
and he was gargling, like a brook, with sping-mint rinse mouth wash,
containing eucalyptol and menthyl salycilate,
some thymol and some menthol, like fierce Cerebus Wilade.
Carb Deliseuwe is a poet of food, drink, and tooth brushing.
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