Life Happens So Fast
by Erisbawdle Cue
“καὶ θεὸς στερίσκεται, ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ᾽ ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα.”
—Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics”
Life happens so fast, there isn’t time to…
If you don’t make comments on whatever
you are thinking about, then they’ll pass you
by, and you may get back to them never.
Those crows’ feet that you can’t see in the air,
before you face the roc up in the rocks,
will remind you that the moment you’re there
lasts only briefly, and then it, like flocks
of birds flying across the open sky,
is gone. Some try to slow everything down,
including themselves, while some others try
to go with the wind, are off at a bound.
But no matter what one does, once it’s passed,
there isn’t time to… Life happens so fast.
Erisbawdle Cue is a poet of philosophy. The Arisotelian quote tersely paraphrased by “Crude” Abe Lewis: “And God himself can’t change the past.”
~~~
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
This life, one wonders,
how much more of it remains?
as the night time fades.
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Sitting and spinning,
the baby brings so much joy
to the old adult.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a follower of Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), from whom this first haiku draws. Shiki was a major contributor to Hototogisu, a haiku magazine created in 1897.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
The first day of fall,
I stare into the mirror.
I miss my father.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a NewMillennial haiku poet. This haiku draws from Murakami Kijo (1865-1938), who helped publish the first edition of Hototogisu. Murakami Kijo’s memorial day is September 17th.
~~~
Ch’i
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He got into the lotus pose upon the firm, grey couch.
He lifted up his head and spine; he didn’t want to slouch.
He felt at home, he droned his OM, beside the fireplace.
Behind him was the brickwork mantle. Lo, he turned his face.
His body bent, he felt content, o, Lord, entirely,
as he prayed for delivery and quick recovery.
He longed to reach that peaceful beach that stretched before his mind.
He closed his outer eyes, but opened up his inner blind.
Could he rise to that rugged sky that rose up high and wide?
Could he float on that lovely tide beneath the Moon, and ride?
He wondered, as he meditated on that sandless beach,
could he approach t’ai chi philosophy by breaching ch’i?
Focused on his Body’s Strengthenings
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He got into the lotus pose upon a cushy chair.
His arms secure, hung down, he raised his head high in the air.
He was surprised at troubles that attacked him from behind,
as he tried hard to integrate synapses in his mind.
He wondered if he could endure outrageous fortune’s slings.
He kept his being focused on his body’s strengthenings,
those things that mattered to him as he went about his day,
those things that brought him closer to the power of the Way.
There was so much to understand; he could not get it All;
but still he strove to learn, discern, truths, good and beautiful.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of simple yoga and qigong.
~~~
Mahsa Amani
by Delir Ecwabeus
“…barbaric regime which kills the daughters of Iran for a piece of
clothing.”
—Ahmed Assid
The demonstrations in Iran began disharmony
upon the death of a young woman—Mahsa Amani.
The Revolutionary Guard had beaten her to death
for violating its dress code—merely for her threads.
As of this day at least ten demonstrators have been killed
by military forces wanting strict hijab instilled.
In her home province, Kurdistan, they murdered five with ease,
and others died across the land from Tehran to Tabriz.
A woman cut her hair out in the main square of Kerman.
Up north the damage was extensive in Mazandaran.
It seemes her name won’t be forgotten quite so easily,
like that of Nedā Āghā-Soltān—Mahsa Amani.
Delir Ecwabeus is a poet of Iran. Mahsa Amini (2000-2022), a Kurdish woman from Saqqez, was beaten on the head with a baton and her head was banged against a vehicle, by the Guidance Patrol, i.e., the morality police, in Tehran, September 16, 2022. Nedā Āghā-Soltān (1983-2009) was an Iranian philosophy student murdered in protests in 2009 during the Green Revolution. Her last words in Farsi were, “I’m burning. I’m burning.” Ahmed Assid is a contemporary Moroccan poet and philosopher. Protests were worldwide, from Dallas to Toronto to Istanbul.
~~~
Newsreel:
Vlad Putin’s recent partial mobilization ukase
has galvanized some Russians to escape the army base.
The desperate are leaving, Turkey to South Africa,
wherever they can go, Armenia to Serbia
some one-way tickets costing up to £15,000,
the panicked thousands want to leave, and want to leave right now.
~~~
Cato the Censor
by Aedile Cwerbus
He was a cynical, indomitable, elder dude,
with narrow statesmanship, rude humour, lots of attitude.
He struggled hard against the hellish Hellenists he found
with mordant wit, discordant spit, and censorship unbound.
Despite the fact he deeply read Greek masterpieces, he
desired purely Latin speech of hardened pedigree.
His fierce orations and his history of Rome are lost;
but from remaining words and texts his language can be glossed.
His wrinkled visage and his sneer of cold command, like stone,
remain in excerpts of his prose that Vergil longed to own.
Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of Ancient Rome. Cato the Censor (234 BC – 149 BC) was a Roman soldier, senator and historian of the Republic, Vergil (70 BC – 19 BC) the noted epic writer of the Golden Age.
~~~
Mantegna
by Buceli da Werse
I.
Mantegna constantly consistently confronts
the way we see things and people. He does not ac-
cept a distant, deatched view. He is blunt, and blunts
our own perceptions with his own detachment. Lack
of expression, however, is not his failing;
for time and again he keeps coming back to back
up his vision of reality, assailing
our senses with salt. He assaults with his rightness,
until what he sees is suddenly prevailing,
and one is assimilated to his tightness.
This is not to say Mantegna never affronts,
only that afterwards one feels one’s been sightless.
II.
Andrea Mantegna dispassionately looks
at life and martyrdom in Saint James Martyr, where
brutality broods, rules throughout. Mategna brooks
naught but an austere grandeur, the casualty bare.
Up front and center, th’ executioner’s ready
to kill the reclining James. Around him, none care.
The soldiers’ and onlookers’ gazes are steady,
but off-handed, as if such a death was minor
or ordinary. The structures, the fence, the spare tree
and the huge hill that rises to the left, find your
eye following their lines, just as one reads a book,
in thought, in order, to make discernment finer.
Buceli da Werse is a poet of Italian Renaissance painting, as in the work of Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506). Saint James, one of the two sons of thunder (boanerges) with younger brother John, was martyred for his beliefs in 44 AD.
~~~
Newsreel:
A Democratic man ran over Cayler Ellingson,
apparently because the teen was a Republican.
~~~
Göltzsch Viaduct
by Alec Subre Wide
It is the World’s largest brick-built bridge—Göltzsch Viaduct—
in Saxony, in Germany, a marvelous con-struct.
Built in the 1840s, with a plethora of bricks;
in fact, in millions, it had slightly over twenty six.
Five-hundred-seventy-four meters was its total length,
supporting r-a-i-l traffic with its granite-loam-brick strength.
Its height was seventy-eight meters, rising to the sky,
a masterpiece of engineering, impressive to the eye.
One may observe the structure on surrounding walking paths,
or from a helium balloon with other philomaths.
Alec Subre Wide is a poet of bridges between places and people, points and positions.
~~~
The Scholar
by Uwe Carl Diebes
“Perfect music has its cause. It
arises from equilibrium. Equilibrium arises from righteousness,
and righteousness arises from the meaning of the cosmos.”
Hermann Hesse, “The Glass Bead Game”
He loved to study in the study with its books and shelves,
so neatly stacked with texts and tomes into which he could delve.
He loved to open up that chest of treasures on his desk,
to read the pages of the sages, yes, o, yes, o, yes.
He loved to contemplate that which he met, which he beheld.
What could he not discern or learn from that which he could meld?
He loved to bear the aegis of the ages in his quest.
It filled him with new knowledge, o, all that which was the best.
He loved to study in the study; that is where he stood;
when he was searching for the gorgeous, grandiose and good.
Uwe Carl Diebes is a poet-scholar in the style of that portrayed by Modernist German writer Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) in “The Glass Bead Game.”
~~~
Bed-Ridden Beach
by Ace Wil Bed-User
He hadn’t gotten out of bed. He wanted to stay there.
He stretched his legs out wide and long. He felt the fan’s soft air.
He loved those days when he could lounge about upon the sheets,
content to be at peace, a piece of sweet serenity.
Perhaps he’d think of something grand, like old Rene Descartes,
who stayed in bed till almost noon, to sense the fleeing dark.
But, o, it seemed there always was some thing to wake him up,
to shake him from tranquility, to make him raise his rump.
Then, in that case, a coffee cup, would come in handy, yes;
and he could rise with energy and fulsome happiness.
Ace Wil Bed-User is a poet of beds. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher and mathematician of the early Baroque.
~~~
Newsreel:
The migrants sent to Martha’s Vinyard weren’t allowed to stay,
but kindly have been relocated to Cape Cod Joint Base.
~~~
Bedside Words of Lewis Wallace
by Wilbur Dee Case
O, Shiloh and its slanders! will the World ne’er acquit me of?
If I were guilty, I would not feel them as keenly, Love.
Wilbur Dee Case is a poet of Midwestern writers. Lew Wallace (1827-1905) was an American general, author, and minister to the Ottoman Empire.
~~~
The Poet Brice U. Lawseed
by Lew Icarus Bede
He is excoriated for his rhymes, ironic’lly,
there are too many and/or they’re not shaped bionic’lly.
For some his style is too newsy, not figurative enough,
and seems quite unpoetic; its heptameters are rough;
or else, he reads too easily, and has a prosy feel,
monotonous, straightforward, and yet still a bit unreal.
Some critics argue that his verse is lacking quality,
it is too barren, plain, he’s thinking more of quantity;
however, others claim his work is too complex and vague,
confusing, weird, an over oozing ornamental plague.
Lew Icarus Bede is an American NewMillennial poet and critic.
~~~
SPLIT SCREEN
by Cawb Edius Reel
In a split second
we move from one side
off to the other,
where we see the two
in love and kissing,
husband and bright bride,
now hugging closely,
then at work, in lieu
of being by, and
very far away:
together happy,
and content apart,
in the morning’s soft light
or in the midday.
Sun setting, dark night
ends another start.
Romance enkindles
ordinary life,
and fades in and out.
Sleep becomes the rule.
The groom takes the room
with his lovely wife.
We reach a nice place
that is warm and cool.
Household chores vanish.
The world disappears.
For one brief moment’s length the distance nears.
Cawb Edius Reel is a poet of film.
~~~
At the Marble Quarry’s Mine
by Rawc E. Sedilube
So what am I to do with one more paradox?
It doesn’t feed the ducks. How does it improve life?
I want beautiful moments now—not some thought-fox,
fiery-red, running through interminable strife.
I am at work, here at the marble quarry’s mine.
You can’t cut this metamorphic rock with a knife,
nor a pickaxe. To get this calcite crystalline,
drills, cables, fabricators, chisels, cutting heads
and who knows what else more are needed. One divine
slab doesn’t happen like that; it must be blasted
apart and polished. It isn’t a cardboard box
I want; I want beautifully cast monuments
that last.
Rawc E. Sedilube is a poet of geology. His first name is spelled “Rawc” and is pronounced like “Rock.”
~~~
Nancy Best Fountain
by Arcideb Usewel
The World’s tallest interactive fountain was unveiled
this month in Dallas, Texas; at Klyde Warren Park displayed.
The large 5000 square-foot splash-pad lies beneath the jets
arising from three stainless-steel, fifteen-feet tree nets,
along with fourteen bubblers, shaped like rosebuds, and as well,
one-hundred-six small nozzles that around the fountain swell.
Each evening for an hour’s half, are shows with coloured lights,
the dancing waters chor-e-o-graphed in varied arcing flights;
nicknamed “Dellagio”, like the Las Vegas water shows,
but here the people can play in them while the fountain goes.
Arcideb Usewel is a poet of architectural structures.
~~~
Getting Down
by Bruc “Diesel” Awe
It’s so nerve-wracking sometimes, driving down the concrete streets,
where vehicles are tail-gating at enormous speeds,
and freeways, too, when trucks and semis fly down narrow lanes,
and interweaving traffic presses on for smallest gains.
One should not let one’s guard down for a minute on those trips;
one has to keep up one’s resolve, one’s focus, and one’s grit;
and one should have down expertise, awareness, and keen ken,
if one finds oneself in such an intense experience.
But set this down, one’s not at peace, while one is in such zones,
and yet they come time and again, as everybody knows.
Bruc “Diesel” Awe is a poet of transportation.
~~~
Newsreel:
The US Federal Reserve hiked int’rest rates again,
3/4ths of a percentage point, inflation their chagrin;
at 8.3% that still remains the highest in
four decades, since the early 1980s—not a win.
~~~
Executive Order 14067
by Brad Lee Suciewe
Joe Biden signed this edict in May, 2022,
allowing for the Government, a vast surveilling view,
controlling bank accounts and purchases of residents,
as well as silencing, when wanted, varied dissidents.
Jim Rickards, an economist, who once was, in the day,
advisor to the US Pentagon and CIA,
says the US today is in for a third dollar storm,
like those of Franklin Roosevelt in 1934,
the confiscation of g(old h)eld in people’s own control,
and Nixon’s drop of the gold standard fifty years ago.
Brad Lee Suciewe is a pot of finance.
~~~
The Man at the Bar
Cale Budweiser
He sat up at the bar, his left hand on the counter’s edge.
Beyond, the bottles standing there were orderly and stacked.
He wasn’t feeling all that good. In fact, he’d come to drink
and to commiserate with fellow patrons, rude and keen.
Upon a stool, his feet hung down. He swung them not at all,
but they weren’t on the floor, because the chairs stood very tall.
His black socks skirted the long legs. On wooden pegs he was.
He felt life’s daily pressures pounding on his beating chest.
The bar was neon dark, but bathed in pale violet.
He cried, “O, Lord, why must this World hold so much violence?”
Cale Budweiser is a poet of alcohol.
~~~
A Morning Jog
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
He went out for a morning jog in black athletic shoes.
He also wore a black cap backwards, to Sun’s strength diffuse.
His breathing heavy, as he ran on white and fleeting soles,
there in the dusky light while passing others on their strolls.
He kept on going up the gentle hills and lower depths.
It was invigourating to him; he was filled with pep.
He felt a tightness in his abs, his shoulders and his legs,
as back and forth they went, and carried him on coffee dregs.
He held on for as long as he could in that twilit realm,
attempting not to let the thoughts of the morning overwhelm.
Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”, is a poet of physical exercise.
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