Trijunction Tension
          by Waseel Budecir
          “It is I, Lhadar who feel sad…”
              —Ap Chuni Dorji, Yak Legpai Lhadar Gawo

Not far from Thimphu, China’s making one more power grab;
attempting to wrest west Bhutan’s small plateau of Doklam.
Though smaller than the 1950 knifing of Tibet;
with pluck from India, the Chinese have not sliced it yet.
The Chinese want that diamond from that Himalayan crown,
a piece of heaven on the Earth, a peace that they can own.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army ‘s making roads,
a dagger at the neck of India, a vital node,
enhancing Chinese militant logistics in the land;
the massive dragon spreads its wings and claws to greater span.

 

Waseel Budecir is a poet of the Himalayas.

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Apple, Inc. Blinx
          by Esca Webuilder
          for those Chinese who gave their organs and their lives

When FBI officials wanted access to a phone
a terrorist had used in California, Apple groaned,
and would not let the government check out what they possessed,
and so the FBI went elsewhere on their info quest.
But when the Chinese government told Apple to pull down
the VPN apps programs that let users get around,
self-righteous Apple kow-towed, daring not to make a peep,
about the privacy and freedom that the Chinese keep.
When it is easy, they are brave; when it is not, they’re not.
So much for Apple’s cutting-edge integrity in thought.

 

ThoughtControl @ GroupleThink
          by Esca Webuilder

He argued meritocracy against ethnicity,
suggesting gender diff’rences were a reality,
and said that shaming into silence is indeed the fact;
and for these comments he has made, James Damore has been sacked.

And though James Damore claims he has a Harvard PhD,
and Minitrue has not been good in gender parity,
it seems that Damore’s memo proves exactly what he said,
there is a pious Google bias, so he has been shed.

Free speech is not condoned at Google; employees must be
exactly all alike and monocultural PC.
It’s been removed, his pod of love, inside High Google Hall;
James Damore cannot be another brick inside the Wall.

Apparently the motto “Do No Evil” has been changed
to “Stop the Leak: Do Something Fast” when things need rearranged.

 

Esca Webuilder supports competitive search engines, net neutrality, open standards, transparency, lack of Internet censorship, and low barriers to entry.

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The Man in the Back Seat
          by Bud “Weasel” Rice

He sat right at the edge of some gray, shiny car’s back seat.
Both he and the upholstery were kempt and clean, quite neat.
The car was parked, the door was open; he had paused to think.
Without his left hand balanced on the inside top, he’d sink.
He thought about pollution’s bane, but it seemed far away,
and global warming’s heated punch would come another day.
What could he do? He was but one among the multitudes.
Upon his buns, he sat and sat, and sat like lots of dudes.
He touched his tongue to his dry lips and stretched his legs and hips.
He was concerned, but was he prepped for earth’s apocalypse?

 

Bud “Weasel” Rice is a poet of nature’s flora and fauna.

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A Córdoba, España
          by Raúl de Cwesibe

What else remains of once impressive walls
surrounding Córdoba, except some gates
and damaged towers, Calahorra crenellates
beside Guadalquivir’s tan, sandy sprawls.
O fertile plain, o soaring hills, dawn calls
us out into the presence of its greats:
the glory of the sword—Gonzalo Fernández—
and pen—Luis de Góngora—gold scrawls.
Its dullness rides; its brilliant ride commands.
Into this city what has not been hurled?
The Great Cathedral in the Great Mosque stands.
Three hundred thousand dwell amidst a world
of Roman, Visigoth and Moorish strands
out of which Spain’s alloy has been unhurled.

 

Raúl de Cwesibe is a poet of Spain.

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The 3Dvarius When Played by Laurent Bernadac
          by U. Carew Delibes

The 3-Dvarius designed by Laurent Bernadac
is an electric violin that seems a broken gat.
Icicle-like in clarity, echoic in its tone;
it seems a marlin skeleton that’s whittled down to bone.
It was created by some 30,000 layers of
successive plastic builds in 24-long-hour love.
He played like Jimi Hendrix, fingering those frosty frets,
Las Vegas, on his 7,000-euro instrument.
Though not a Strad, it’s kinda rad, if overhyped a bit,
in overdrive, and powered live, its pickup bridge a hit.

 

U. Carew Delibes is a music critic and poet enamoured of France, its art, its music, and
its poetry. His intimate circle of friends include art critic Beau Ecs Wilder and poet Claude I. S.
Weber. His influences include, inter alia, the Impressionists, Les Fauves, Romantic composers
from Berlioz on, and the Parnassians, particularly Stéphane Mallarmé.