Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Doing sudoku,
soaking up vitamin D,
a mockingbird sings.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a haiku poet.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
The silent toddler,
becomes a driven power
in his wheeled walker.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a NewMillennial haiku poet.
~~~
Newsreel:
A crowded Halloween street party in Itaewon—Seoul—
caught in a surge; one-hundred-fifty-plus dead was the toll.
Seoul, South Korea, is a city of around 9,700,000.
~~~
Good at Cleaning Up
by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei
Ah, Xi Jinping is good at cleaning up the unsurpassed,
while Li Qiang is good at cleaning up the middle class,
and Cai Qi, yes, is good at cleaning up the lower mass,
it’s over, get out if you can, don’t stay, get off your ass.
Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei is a poet of China. This is a found poem culled from various Chinese netizens.
~~~
Newsreel:
Great Delhi’s residents were breathing smoke on Thursday as
the AQI breached hazardous throughout the city’s labs.
The AQI is the air quality index. Delhi’s urban agglomeration has a population of around 28,000,000, making it the second largest in the World after Tokyo, Japan.
~~~
In an Asana Pose
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He loved to get onto a mat in an asana pose.
Ah, even on the even floor supine, his spine uprose.
Oh, yes, the pressures of the day weighed down and hard on him,
way down within his soul, he felt, like as he was at gym.
Though he was only near his desk computer’s monitor,
in such a pose, he could feel rich, like as a connoisseur.
He faced the harshness of reality with peace and poise,
with very little to his name, but filled with reasoned joys.
His head was dense, his arms were tense, he stretched his legs out wide.
He opened up his inner eye, and took it all in stride.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of meditation.
~~~
Newsreel:
The US and Saudi Arabia are on alert.
Iran might soon attack. Who is there here to controvert?
~~~
Ozimand
by “Scribe” El Uwade
He was the ruler of an antique land,
the Pharaoh Rameses the Second. Grand,
stone temples crossed his kingdom of the sand,
like that at Abu Simbel, now o’erspanned
by th’ Aswan High Dam’s watery command,
or Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. These stand
as monuments, with others, to the hand
that led a nation to the world he scanned.
Such was the empire that his subjects spanned:
it went from Upper Egypt to the strand
along the Delta of the Nile and fanned
up to Kadesh, where with twice ten thousand
he faced the Hittites, twice as many manned.
And afterwards, that bloody act’s demand,
the first peace treaty in the world was planned.
“Scribe” El Uwade is a poet of Egypt and the Nile. This 15-lined qasida is a counter to the sonnet “Ozymandias” by Romantic British poet Percy Shelley (1792-1822). Pharaoh Rameses II (c. 1303 – c. 1213) was a noted figure of the New Kingdom.
~~~
At Naqa
by Bedewi Al-Sercu
He was a free man seeking Musawwarat Es-Sufra,
lost in the desert of Sudan in 1985.
He sought a ruined temple complex—not a pedestal—
and found a reconstructed Temple of Apedemak.
He also saw a strange Greek-looking temple, the Kiosk,
and there beneath the Solar Disk, stuck in the sand, a sphinx.
He later came upon the statue of an elephant,
along with broken pillars, Meroitic relevant.
And gazing on the open sky, beneath the golden Nub,
he looked out thair and he could see naught but the desert scrub.
Bedewi Al-Sercu is a poet of the Meriotic kingdom. This comes from a comment by contemporary poet, novelist, and teacher Paul A. Freeman based in Abu Dhabi.
~~~
In the Desert
by “Lucre” Wadi Seeb
Nowhere is there release from battle strain;
fatigue, like sand, is everywhere one’s bussed.
The unrelenting heat does not refrain,
nor does the sand, the dry and grainy dust.
A palm tree or a truck is all to change
the emptiness of scenery and set.
One understands the camel in this place.
To make one’s grub from scrub is not so strange;
but nothing that one does helps one forget,
and one can see it well on every face.
Here distances are measured not in miles,
but days; success is never posited.
One dare not trust, not ever, in the smiles;
for they are quickly gone, soon lost or dead.
Around one, on the left, off to the right,
ahead, and also just behind, is sand.
It does not quit, but ever blasts, attacks.
It does not matter if it’s day or night.
In light or dark, it follows the command
to ever fight, to penetrate and tax.
And it has many allies at its side
beside the cannons, armored cars and tanks.
It has the mind that calls up foolish pride,
and weakness of the body, bloody thanks.
It’s more sinister than flying planes
that drop their bombs on targets on the ground.
What chance do such raids have? Aerial assaults
can target anybody; but what gains
can they expect or rate? Sand brings all down,
because it cannot stop. There is no halt.
Along with wind, there is the emptiness
that enters each and every person’s mind;
and in the desert there is loneliness.
One’s startled at all that one comes to find.
At times one feels like one’s a rat in rocks;
and skin is not enough protection from
the heat which beats incessantly on one.
It comes with constant sand. It’s in one’s socks
and soul, grating. It is in one’s ear drum.
The sun shines on, an odd automaton.
And, as if that was not enough to fight,
there is the lack of water too. One can
not live without it? And there is the blight
of flies and snakes and stinging scorpions.
“Lucre” Wadi Seeb is a poet of North Africa.
~~~
Newsreel:
Tigray and Ethiopia have recently agreed
to halt the fighting, killing thousands. It’s a longed-for need.
~~~
The Unknown Tourist
by Acwiles Berude
I saw him standing at the Parthenon—that ancient Greek.
It seemed that he was seeking for… Had he misplaced a key?
O, all about the blown-up building, strewn with bright, white rocks,
that looked like as a ruined palace. Was he wearing socks?
He didn’t favour flannel pants, or part his hair behind.
I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. What was on his mind?
I knew he wasn’t some large sacrificial bull or ox.
But was he like as some philosopher’s proud paradox?
I had to leave. I couldn’t stay. I had to go away.
Yet, still I wondered why…there…in the middle of the day.
Acwiles Berude is a poet of Greece.
~~~
Newsreel:
No windows were available; at least she didn’t fall;
Svetlana Babayeva has been killed, her gun AWOL.
Instead of working on the news, she has become the news.
Another Russian editor has paid her inPut dues.
Unfortunately she will not be able to assent.
Was it a gun-range mishap or convenient accident?
~~~
Nord Stream Gas Leaks
by Eric Albu, “Swede”
The Swedes will not share information on Nord 1 & 2.
Do they know now who blew them up beneath the Baltic blue?
The Danes say that Nord-Stream-2’s pipe’s not leaking methane gas;
but who has done the sabotage? Who knows? No one? alas.
Was it the Russians or Americans who did the deed,
or European eco-terrorists who blew the deep?
Whoever did it, the result is that a giant plume
was looming over large swaths of the Nordic breathing room.
One wondered if the pipelines ever would be used again,
with so much methane leaked into th’ environment back then.
Eric Albu, “Swede”, is a poet of Scandanavia.
~~~
Newsreel:
A climate activist glued his head to “Girl with a Pearl”,
upon the glass protection of the painting by Vermeer;
and also covered in a tossed can of tomato soup,
the goop, a sponsor of the Just Stop Oil grievance group.
~~~
Ubiquitous
by R. Lee Ubicwedas
“Let R ={ x | x ∉ x} then R ∈ R ⇔ R ∉ R”
—Euclidrew Base
The habitude of predication is ubiquitous.
It’s omnipresent, everywhere, pervasive, niquitous.
But also it’s amazing, even fazing when it’s seen
and paradoxes surface in amidst the clear and keen.
The set of all the sets that are not members of themselves
is it a member of itself, or not? Bring on the elves.
Both Russell and Zermelo, but leave Frege on his own.
The knowledge could be devastating stating it alone.
R. Lee Ubicwedas is a poet of ubiquity. The quote of Euclidrew Base is simply Russell’s paradox. Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) and Ernst Zermelo (1871-1953) were German logicians and mathematician, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a British logician, mathematician, and philosopher. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, the neologism “niquitous” is the antonym of wickedness.
~~~
A Note, in the Manner of Albrecht Dürer
by Euclidrew Base
25 21 10 07 02
03 08 12 20 22
09 11 13 15 17
04 06 14 18 23
24 19 16 05 01
Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was a noted German painter and print maker. In his engraving of 1514 “Melencolia I”, he placed the year of his work.
~~~
An Early Morning Cup of Coffee
by Carb Deliseuwe
He had an early morning cup of coffee on the couch.
He needed waking up, ah, yes, lest he would be a slouch.
He needed shaking up; he hoped caffeine would do the trick.
O, he imbibed that dark brown fluid, roasted, whipped and thick.
He slurped it up, that lovely cup, that liquid on his lips,
upon that poofy cushion, near the kitchen, bitter sips.
He dare not slip; he had to make sure that he did not spill;
for he was on an off-white sofa, as he drank his fill.
He quickly drank his fill. He longed to have it nice and fast.
But good effects upon his mood—he hoped that they would last.
Carb Deliseuwe is a poet of food and drink.
~~~
A Seasonal Concoction
by Eualcides Brew
He loved to have a cup of coffee in dawn’s dimmest light.
It helped clear cobwebs from those heavy eyelids of the night.
His narrow pumpkin head could start to gaze with orange eyes.
His skeleton could once again experience surprise.
The ghost-white sheets of sleepy deeps could be left in the bed
with dreams of candy corn and broom-stick witches in his head.
His crow’s feet could begin to move; life’s candles could be lit.
The horrors of the dark could be freed from the cauldon’s spit.
The black cat and the ebon bat could go back with the owl,
and with that bitter drink he could unsmock the frocked monk’s cowl.
Eualcides Brew is a poet of various brews. Eualcides (? – 498 BC) was a Greek athlete and military commander who died in the Battle of Ephesus.
~~~
Ratcheting Up Rhetoric
by Caud Sewer Bile
It seems that Biden blames the MAGA crowd for the attack
on Paul Pelosi in his home. Huh? Something’s out of whack.
Caud Sewer Bile is a poet of politics. MAGA (Make America Great Again) was a button from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign used by supporters of Donald Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign. This story comes from Axios.
~~~
Stark Market Targets
by Brad Lee Suciew
There is no sofa one can hide behind, not equities,
nor bonds, nor any but the US dollar currency.
And then there is the long end of the US treasury,
as well as bonds inflation-linked by g(u)ilt and usury.
What’s going on? I’ll have my bond. The borrowings increase.
The leading indicators do not sleep; they do not cease.
Recession rears its ugly head. Can it be stopped at all?
O, even candy’s going up. When will the prices fall?
The value of investments certainly will fluctuate,
and past performance is no guide to future compensate.
Another Day at Work
by Brad Lee Suciew
It was another day at work. He didn’t like it much.
In fact it looked like he was all alone without a chum.
Outside his window he could see blue skies and rising pines,
but inside he was occupied. He had to stretch his spine.
Although he was white collar, he thought what he did was hard.
Inside the stress was fierce, the labour agonizing, dark.
His eyes were grey beneath his furrowed brown and anxious brow.
He wanted so to quit the office, and to leave it now.
But he knew he would keep on working, life w/as a travail.
Just deal with all of the issues. Bo$$e$ will assail.
He had to disregard pet peeves and other painful griefs.
With zest, he sucked his stomach in, and he rolled up his sleeves.
Brad Lee Suciew is a poet of business.
Leave A Comment