Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Rabbits run aground,
while squirrels swirl through trees,
and hawks circle round.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet fond of Japanese haiku.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
They came to the end
of a long, high, wooden fence:
the Hound of Hades.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of trad haiku.
~~~
Newsreel:
“Departing from the Ford of Heaven at dawn”
—Qu Yuan
It was a “sudden geological disaster” in
the Country Gardens high-rise building towers, Tianjin.
More than three-thousand residents were recently removed,
while sinking urban spaces buckled, warped, collapsed, and grooved.
Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC – c. 288 BC) is a Chu Chinese poet. Tianjin is a city of around 11,000,000 in northeastern China.
~~~
Time Item:
“…it is a custom/ More honoured in the breach than the
observance.”
—William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
In India, though dowries are illegal, they still thrive.
They’ve been outlawed since 1961, but they survive.
90% of marriages have them. The custom reigns.
And just because some law is made, not all behaviors change:
female fetuses aborted, from pre-natal screens,
add to more than 300,000 every year, it seems.
~~~
King Dom’s Dream Kingdom
by Radice Lebewsu
“In death’s dream kingdom…”
—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
“Faith is…absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.”
—Stanisław Lem
Ukrainian Victoria Amelina has died
from injuries along with others; it was dinnertime.
It happened in the city Kramatorsk, more death, more grime,
another dozen dead at th’ restaurant where they had dined.
She had been documenting Russian war crimes for a year,
her prose attempting dealing with the horror and the fear,
like as her fellow writer Vakulenko tried to do,
when he was killed in Izium in 2022,
his diary found buried underneath a cherry tree,
unchopped, like those in Chekhov’s arbour…arbitrarily.
Radice Lebewsu is a poet of Ukraine. Victoria Amelina (1986-2023) and Volodymyr Vakulenko (1972-2022) were NewMillennial Ukrainian poets and prosets murdered by Vladimir Putin’s war criminal activity. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Realist Russian proset, Stanisław Lem (1921-2006) was a Polish proset and futurist, and T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was a British-American poet and proset, who some consider the greatest literary critic in English literature.
~~~
The Prisoner of Zen Dada
by E “Blue Screw” Dai
He lay upon the narrow mattress in his cell.
Unseen and doing time for all his nasty sins.
Some were so bad he thought that he would never tell.
Why was it men would push and shove? It made no sense
to him, and yet, he did it too. It wasn’t long
before someone would drop in on him and commence
their sounding, meeting, slapping, pounding, beating, grappling, strong
against the beast, a clashing, crashing, smashing bore.
It could not help but seem crude, rude, hard, raw, and wrong;
yet after one, they would be back again for more.
The flames of fighting roared. It was a living hell.
But there was no escape locked here behind a door.
E “Blue Screw” Dai is a Ruritanian poet of Zen, Dada, and the Tao, the way of nothingness. His poetry is a cross between that of contemporary poet Valerie Oisteanu and Victorian proset Anthony Hope Hopkins (1863-1933).
~~~
On Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi
by Luwese Becardi
There’s much to like about Puccini’s opera,
his lively, one-act Gianni Schicchi lunacy,
that toys with real verismo in its potpourri
by using caustic comment and buffoonery.
It’s spirited commedia dell’ arte farce
entwined along with sweet sentimentality:
its modern tone enchanting, even as it jars,
its striking beauty mixed with coarse brutality.
Like motley Harlequin himself, Puccini takes
a bit of Dante out of hell, and Florence too!
a presto pasta topped off with a sauce he makes
out of Rossini, Verdi, Wagner—derirng-do!
all served up with some sliced-up, modern dissonance.
Oh dearest Papa—scintillating assonance!
Luwese Becardi is a poet of opera. Romantic Italian Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), Realist Italian Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), grandiose German Richard Wagner (1813-1883), and Verismo composer Italian Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) were creators of opera.
~~~
Tesla’s Mother
by Aleš Eduw Rebič
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
—Aesop, “The Crow and the Pitcher”
“Amidin is starch modified by heat.”
—Beau Lecsi Werd
Born in the middle of a lightning storm, around midnight,
the midwife thought it an ill omen, but his mother not.
The difference between the two could not be much more stark.
Mom thought that he would be a child of light, and not the dark.
Aleš Eduw Rebič is a poet of Serbia. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was an American inventor, Đuka Mandić (1822-1892) was his mother, Aesop (c. 620 BC – c. 564 BC) was an Archaic Greek writer.
~~~
The Lesson in Anatomy
by Sir Bac de Leuew
One sees the lesson in anatomy of Doctor Tulp,
portraying flexors of th’ pale cadaver, with his pull,
to seven members of the surgeon’s guild of Amsterdam,
a complicated composition painted by Rembrandt.
In this group portrait are no tulips; the praelector stands;
the only man who wears a hat, the lecturer commands.
He demonstrates, while colleagues gaze, or stare, or peek askance,
the book De humani corporis…of Vesalius?
Nine figures are revealed within this mise-en-scène display,
a dominance of black and white, along with shades of gray.
So much excluded there, including the preparator,
as well as the framed picture’s famous painter narrator.
Sir Bac de Leuew is a poet of the Netherlands. Nicolaes Tulp (1593-1674) was a noted Dutch surgeon, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was a Dutch realist painter, and Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was a noted Flemish physician.
~~~
Beside a Turning Windmill
by Raúl de Cwesibe
I saw him on a distant road—nearby a horse.
He’d been summarily dismounted from some clash.
It seemed as though he’d been diverted from his course,
and he’d received a rather terrifying bash;
for he was flat upon the ground, and I could see,
was slowly rising up. He had a striking gash.
A shorter, stouter fellow helped put him at ease,
and seemed solicitous. The flattened gentleman
was getting his composure back. He seemed to be
serene, controlled, neat, as he straightened up again.
He was a Spaniard, elegant, refined, of force.
It did not seem this episode would be his end.
Raúl de Cwesibe is a poet of Spain. Miguel de Cervantes was a noted Spanish Siglo de Oro proset and poet.
~~~
EED
by Lew Icarus Bede
“…add my ire…”
—Acwiles Berude
“Il mio nome è Nessuno.”
—Ernesto Gastaldi
She was nobody in her life; that was okay for her.
To not be someone or somebody was what she preferred.
She didn’t want to advertise herself, to prod and bilk,
like Blarney Google, Ham Azón, and others of that ill-k.
She felt it would be drearisome to be a pub-lick blog,
to croak one’s fame through June’s blue flame in pondscumdatasmog.
But of all of the talk of guv and ox love in the mire,
hers was the foxglove in that scuzz one could at least admire.
Lew Icarus Bede is a poet and literary critic. Ernesto Gastaldi is a contemporary Italian screenwriter.
~~~
The Lightning in the Skies
by Caderius E. Blew
He still remembers seeing it—the lightning in the skies—
a frightening, enlightening, electrical surprise.
What God could make it crackle so, so powerful its charge?
What mighty, forceful energy could be so great and large?
What kind of memory is this that shakes one to one’s core,
that leaves one wondering about what once was here before?
It does not go away as easily as it appears—
this crazy atmosphere that stays amazing, raising fears.
Cold air and warm, meet up, and arm; the thunderstorm clouds form,
ice crystals and the water drops colliding as they swarm,
their rubbing causing static, while the bolt goes through the air.
It zigzags with a striking jolt; then packs a roaring blare.
Caderius E. Blew is a poet of the weather.
~~~
Upon the Lawn of Bowling Green
by Wre Eucalibdes
Beside the trails, grass and fountain, one sees trees in rows;
and on the lawn of Bowling Green, a fruit-tree orchard grows,
with Harvester and Red Globe peaches, also Moonglow pears,
as well as Gala apples and Delicious Mollie’s, spare,
some Spanish Sweet and Salavatski Pomegranates too,
amidst the hybrid apriums, the Methley plums and Bruce.
Nearby some benches, swings and slides, a nuttree orchard stands,
of which there are some native and some paper-shell pecans.
Yet what will happen to this park with its updated plans
with half-a-million dollars to be spent upon its lawns?
Will this park lose its stark and simple scenic emptiness
with parking, canopies, new trails, and raised planting beds?
Wre Eucalibdes is a poet of trees.
~~~
Sheltering Beneath a Tree
by Caleb Wuri Seed
At Daymin Gardner’s farm in Alabama, lightning struck.
It hit a tree, where thirty-one cows huddled from the storm.
But as luck would have it, or fate, all those beef cattle died.
Though they took shelter, they were killed, stilled. Hera was cow-eyed.
She did not cry, but, how she sighed. They needed burial.
It was a waste of life; the meat was not salvageable.
But this was not a crime of humans, no, Immortals, like
as in Thrinacia centuries ago; Zeus sent this strike.
When Fahrenheit degrees hit 50,000, tree sap cooks;
electrocution is conducted, zapped down through the roots,
some 50,000 miles per second, its velocity,
a harsh reminder of the natural world’s ferocity.
CPA
by Caleb Wuri Seed
Controlled environmental agriculture {CPA}
is growing, using vertical greenhousing tech today,
with hydroponic microclimate farming, just as well,
that’s good for the environment, and better for one’s health.
There’s less food waste, and transportation costs are not as great;
a lot less land and water used for safer, better taste.
The herbs and cooking greens possess a higher quality,
and can be customized as to desired jollity.
The growing “season” is quite quick, without the pesticides,
as well as any fungicides or wretched herbicides.
Is this the future wave that’s coming, Eden’s garden greens,
at distribution centers far from the Middle East
Caleb Wuri Seed is a poet of farming.
~~~
On Shiloh
by War di Belecuse
“What like a bullet can undeceive!”
—Herman Melville
Near Pittsburg Landing in southwestern Tennessee
on April 6th and April 7th, 1862,
Confederate soldiers attacked the Federal army
in hopes of driving them away, pursuing them into
the drab, forbidding swamps of Owl Creek to the west.
They wanted to prevent Grant’s linking up with Buell’s force.
Instead they fell into a fire-storm, the Hornet’s Nest,
a wild barage of bullets, shrapnel, shells, shouts, screams, and more.
It was the Battle of Shiloh. The guns shot high and low;
and myriads dropped to the dirt, the blood flowed everywhere.
Some fled into the brush; the birds had scattered long ago;
and some cried out in pain, while others gasped for their last air.
War di Belecuse is a poet of war. Herman Melville (1819-1891) was a Romantic American proset and poet. Ulysses S. Grant was an American general and US President, Don Carlos Buell (1818-1898) was an American major general.
~~~
July 4th Celebrations
by Usa W. Celebride
July 4th celebrations in North Richland Hills displayed
a record-breaking drone-show of one-thousand-two arrayed.
Sky Elements used drones with LEDs to light the sky,
enacting moments in their pictures of America,
including the Moon landing, jets, and Paul Revere’s famed ride,
as well as other transportation esoterica.
The intricate formations of the brief ten-minute show
created pictures with their multi-rotor ordered drones,
which are a greener, safer choice than the traditional
fireworks exploding, or imploding unpredictably.
Usa W. Celebride is a poet of the United States of America. North Richland Hills is a city of around 70,000. Paul Revere (1735-1818) was a Massachusetts patriot, silversmith and engraver.
~~~
The T380 AMR
by Brad Lee Suciew
He saw the T380 AMR upon the floor,
autonomously cleaning aisles through the groc’ry store.
At first, it startled him. What was it doing there and then—
in spacetime traveling along, among obesogens—
that scrubber polishing there where the rubber meets cement,
and passes customers and crews, with, ór without, consent.
It navigated round the obstacles it came upon,
this AI and robotic technological platform.
What was its power source? He did not know its mattery—
a high capacity lithium-ion battery?
or was it acid-flooded lead? Whatever was the case, it was
a fairly unobtrusive hunk that packed a finespun buzz.
Brad Lee Suciew is a poet of business.
~~~
To Dawn
by I Warble Seduce
The good upon the Earth are very far between and few.
This is a letter from that World that never wrote to you.
Unlike the news, sweet tender majesty is spare and rare,
like California poppies, paper-thin in arid air.
And so your fellow countryman, a city-dweller now,
bestows this gentle message to you in another Town,
you who were loneliest and best of blessed angels known,
that I remember well with each and every day bestown,
your messages committed to this soul you never saw,
that holds them closely, yes, and therefore, for forever, ah.
I Warble Seduce is a poet of love.
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