Haiku
          by “Clear Dew” Ibuse

The distant mountain
catches the sunlight above
the desolate field.

“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a haiku poet in English. The above haiku draws from Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959), a Japanese Modernist haiku poet, who followed traditional patterns.

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Haiku
          by “Wired Clues” Abe

Winter crows “caw-caw”.
No Takahama Kyoshi
is there to report.

“Wired Clues” Abe is a haikuist combining traditional poetry with technology.

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Newsreel:
The surge of Chinese covid cases has the World on edge.
Across the Globe it seems that the disease is being spread.

~~~

At Makiivka: January 1, 2023
          by Alecsei Durbew

Just minutes after ushering the New Year in, the pesk
Ukrainians released a massive strike in the Donetsk.
Although the figures are contested by both sides, it seems,
more than one-hundred Russian soldiers basic’lly were screamed.
American-supplied HIMARS is what Ukraine has used;
equipment placed near barracks caused such concentrated death
By Putin and commanders, Russian soldiers were abused,
as if they were no more than cannon fodder, battle breath.
Another horrible and wretched footnote to this war:
Was Makiivka Russia’s single biggest loss so far?

Alecsei Durbew is a poet who focuses on Russian concerns. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “pesk” is a trunc, meaning rebarative. Dead soldiers found could only be ID’d by DNA.

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On a Battle of 331 BC
          by Acwiles Berude

The flat plain, where Darius placed his groups,
by some called Camel’s House, Gaugamela,
was filled with an array of sorted troops,
one hundred twenty miles from Arbela,
in that part of Iraq, qua Kurdistan,
331 BC. The total size
of Persia’s army or the Macedon
may ne’er be known, still they were grand. The prize
was nothing less than all the Middle East,
those lands that held the spells of Babylon,
Assyria, and minions of the Beast,
as well as all the seed of Abraham.
Here Alexander marched and put his stamp
on history’s long, royal road and map.

Acwiles Berude is a poet of Greece. Abraham (flourished 2nd millennium BC), father of a multitude, was the first of many Hebrew patriarchs. Alexander III (356 BC – 323 BC) was a noted Macedonian military commander.

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A Great-Grandfather’s Daytime Story
          by B. Surlee Adwice

In olden days, when there was neither film
nor television, entertainment came
in books, like the imaginary realm
found in the books of Dickens, Charles, by name.
A Christmas Carol, for example, is
one of his tales, wherein in leisure, we
met Marley, spirits of the Christmas Past,
Present and Future. Such things one did see.
But then those days of heartfelt moral thought
were tossed away along with other things
Victoriana. Hardness took their spot,
and shoved out sentiment and angels’ wings.
And we were left with movies and TV,
the sweet exchanged for new technology.

B. Surlee Adwice is a poet of the Victorian Era, and Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was a noted Victorian novelist.

~~~

The Shooting Star
          by Ed “Bear” C. U. Lewis

Too late for heavy use in World War II, and yet
outdated in five years for the Korean War,
Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, one could forget
so easily, despite the fact that it could soar
five hundred miles per hour at twenty thousand feet
with General Electric motor that did roar.
But the appearance of the MiG-15 did beat
it to obliged oblivion and obloquy;
so by the 1960s its story was complete:
the sleek, low-wing with a 360 canopy
was relegated to the ash heap of the jet,
a passing meteor we met and then let be.

Ed “Bear” C. U. Lewis is a poet of military gear.

~~~

Those Brightly-Lit Gas Stations
          by Bruc “Diesel” Awe

Those brightly-lit gas stations off the road
are mostly gone now, like the ’50s. They
have changed, like everything. Oh, how they glowed
in those dark nights. As friendly as the day,
a man in pointed hat and neat bow tie
would greet you with “Good evening!” and a smile.
He would say, “Can I fill ‘er up?” He’d try
to make you feel at ease, and all the while,
he’d wipe your windshield clean and check the oil.
“Ding-ding,” the driveway air hose sounded out,
and you would leave behind the grimy soil,
the smell of gas, the shout of shiny foil.
And you would take free folded maps that showed
you where you were and then where you could go.

Bruc “Diesel” Awe is a poet of the history of transportation.

~~~

Song of My Elf
          by Bic Uwel, “Erased”
          “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged.”
              —Walt Whitman

He doesn’t know he can’t exist.
He follows me, like shadows, dogs.
He’s little more than trace or mist,
as unsubstantial as faint fogs.

Like Ariel, he darts about,
as quickly as a dragonfly.
One hardly knows he’s in or out
or if he’s just a piece of sky.

Bic Uwel, “Erased”, is a poet of the hard to see or know.

~~~

These Woods Are
          by Ileac Burweeds

These woods are beautiful and bright.
The snow has covered them with white.
They sparkle and delight the eye
in morning’s fresh, suffusing light.

They glisten from the sun on high
beneath the pure and azure sky.
In day’s new dawn they undo doom
and cause the soul to give a sigh.

Above a passing car they loom
and chase away the moody gloom.
The lightly traveled road below
is open to enormous room.

This is a lovely scenic show,
to pass the forest’s brilliant glow
enroute to where we’d like to go,
which we would like to reach, and so…

 

Still Proceeding
          by Ileac Burweeds

The Christmas parties have receded, as has New Year’s Eve,
and time is still proceeding, even as it has to leave.
The presents have been put away with past and passive goals;
and news continues with the old in spirit, light and soul.
The gray of winter disinters the fall of discontent
and moves forthwith reality in myth, disinterest.
Some brown leaves cling to barren trees above tan, grassy lawns,
while Janus, at the Gate, looks out upon the scene, and yawns.
The gnarly elms, the twisting evergreens, the pale shrubs:
the beauty of the dawn sits near the dead and dying brush.

Ileac Burweeds is a poet of plants. The first poem uses a rhyme scheme of Modernist American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) and a quote from American Realist hymnist John Henry Hopkins, Jr. (1820-1891).

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Nightmare’s Harsh Scenario
          by Waldeci Erebus
          “And when they reared, the elfish light
          Fell off in hoary flakes…
          They coiled and swam; and every track
          Was a flash of golden fire.”
              —Samuel Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Asleep in nightmare’s harsh scenario, without a bib,
he felt like as an infant Hercules within his crib;
for Janus sent two serpents to his soft bed to get him;
but with a killing spray, he manged to get rid of them.
O, he was glad when they were dead. He was free from their s-p-i-t-e,
so slimy, vile, grimy, full of vitriol and vice.

And then, it seems, someone had sent, some other agent to
attack him where he slept. O, woe was he. What could he do?
Where was the peace he longed to have? How much more could he take,
unsure how much he could endure—such agony and ache?
And then he woke. He was awake, free from this mental trip,
unleashed from anguish by dawn’s light and entered into print.

Waldeci Erebus is a poet of darkness.