Haiku
          by “Clear Dew” Ibuse

One-time stroller-bound,
the toddler now walks around,
past brown fence and.

“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet fond of Japanese haiku.

~~~

Haiku
          by “Wired Clues” Abe

For a moment, perched
on the reserved parking sign—
the great-tailed grackle.

“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of trad haiku.

~~~

Newsreel:
Extreme and dangerous heat toppled records round the Globe,
from India and China, to US and Mexico.
The heat domes covered billions, from the south, east, west and north;
beneath high pressure, hot trapped air kept clouds from coming forth.
El Niño was in overdrive to drive away the cold;
so many air conditioners were working, cooling folks.

~~~

A Nes, a Sign
          by Israel W. Ebecud

At Asia’s edge, it borders Lebanon and Syria up north; while, at the east, are West Bank and the kingdom of Jordan; Gaza and Egypt south; all enemies, but the blue Mediterranean Sea due west; this eretz Israel, beset upon by many waves of misery: Assyria, Babylon, and Persia; Greece, Rome, the Sassanids; Byzantium, the Umayyads, the Abbasids; and then, Crusaders and the Mamluk Sultinate; followed by the Ottomans and Britain. It is indeed a miracle, a nes, t’ hang on this long—for four millenia.

Israel W. Ebecud is a poet of Israel, a nation of around 9,700,000. The above prosepoem, contains one-hundred-forty syllables, the sum of the squares of the first seven numbers.

~~~

Newsreel:
Two drones with clout, two lanes knocked out, the bridge was
          vandalized;
a second time, the Kerch Bridge to Crimea compromised.
Two parents dead, two blasts dispread, a train’s fuel-tanks burnt up;
the sabotage caused traffic flow a long-time interrupt.

~~~

An Invocation of Sorts
          by Aedile Cwerbus

I will not sing of what keeps wheat fields happy. No, not I.
Nor will I fret about the gluten in my diet. Why?
I do not think of when to plow the soil of the Earth.
I do not watch the stars that closely. That is not my turf.

I will not fasten vines to elms, though I will drive Elm Street.
Here is no ox, yet I can see the happy cattle eat.
I do like grass-fed beef, and yet I am not paleo;
I like both hamburger and steaks, especi’lly tenderloin.

I won’t address Maecenas, as he died some time ago,
nor Vergil either, though I’ll follow his fine, streamline flow.
Though I once did, these days I do not purchase honey bears;
I love the taste, but I avoid those sugar-spiking carbs.

I won’t invoke the stars that draw the seasons cross the sky,
nor god of wine, or goddess of grain crops. They’re not in sight.
Chaonian acorns will not appear in these keystrokes;
though squirrels scurry to get acorns from my tall, red oaks.

I won’t drink water from Achelous mixed with new wine,
though I’ll drink lots of bottled water. I think it’s divine.
And I’ll drink filtered water, making coffee or green tea,
as well as richest herbals—fauns and dryads not near me.

I will not sing a tune for Neptune, nor his trident’s stab
producing horses whinnying in this grand planet’s lab;
but Aristaeus is most excellent. He gets my vote.
I love his herding, making cheese, that planter of the grove.

Nor will I call on goat-legged Pan in his Lycaean dells;
I’ll leave him there beneath Mount Maenalus whereat he dwells;
but wise Minerva, bringer of the olive, I will thank;
her fruit so savoury, her oil my favourite—point-blank.

But I can sing for all the guardians and gods of fields,
if what they grow is what is good, nutritious, fresh food yields;
yet not for Caesar mid-July, before hot August nears,
although his dressing, if its keto, on green, leafy biers.

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of Ancient Rome.

~~~

A Trümmerpoem
          by Waldeci Erebus

Who was the third man walking by him in the Josefsplatz?
or were there only two men there upon that white road’s knots?
He gazed upon the one in a brown mantle up ahead—
that hooded one with the two others walking with the dead.

The city had been bombed to hell—Vienna was no more
than but a palimpsest of what it was before…the War
unreal after so much death, destruction and alarms;
more than three thousand craters had been counted from the bombs.

The oil depots and refineries were hit and turned
to rubble, like the opera; Burgtheatre was burned.
That World was black and white—what greenery was there
were falling leaves beside the cemetery in the air.

The cold war was beginning…to grate ón a person’s nerves…
divided by France, England, US and USSR…
the city, so unreal, shadowy, surreal, dark,
the narrow and nocturnal streets, contorted, crooked, stark.

Waldeci Erebus is a poet of the dark. Vienna, Austria, is a city of around 2,000,000.

~~~

Strangely Missed
          by Luis de Cawebre

Pessoa was another person…always. Yes, he was.
Because when living he dreamed that he was, not Esiad
L. Werecub, Greek, at a café in Alexandria,
nor drinking caffeine with the likes of C. P. Cavafy,
but merely was a dreaming man, not bronze upon a chair,
a graying individual out in the air, Baudelaire,
who was not ready for reality, though life found him.
He only could be comforted, at night, when light was dim.
And so he took a long time to get ready to exist,
another loveless, unloved person who is strangely missed.

Luis de Cawebre is a poet of Portugal. Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was a Modernist Portuguese poet, and C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933), a Modernist Greek poet, and Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), a French poet, who coined the term modernité to designate life in an urban metropolis, an inspiration for the Modernists.

~~~

The Lightning Map
          by “Wild” E. S. Bucaree
          “He gave them rain, that they may gather grain.”
              —Deuteronomy paraphrase.

The lightning map of Oklahoma state reminded him
of days when he was at Fort Sill—although they still are dim.
It was the first time he had ever seen rain fall so hard,
bombarding them outside the barracks of the provost guard.

He didn’t understand th’ import of cleaning showers then
with a used toothbrush and a toothpick, like a hidden wren,
within the plumage of an eagle flying high above
the tiny kinglet or the gray, long-tailed mourning dove.

He’d scrub and scrub till the drill sergeant said they were relieved,
and they could go forth in to Lawton on that very eve.
Those days were long ago, before he’d ever heard the names
of Aristotle, Pliny, Leibnitz, Kant or William James.

“Wild” E. S. Bucaree is a poet of the central South. Lawton is a city in Oklahoma of around 90,000. The author of “Deuteronomy” was ostensibly Moses (c. 1400 BC) and likely other levitical writers. The following were noted philosophic writers, Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Pliny (23 – 79), Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716), Immanuel Kant (17-24-1804), and William James (1842-1910).

~~~

Nocturne
          by Ra Bué Weel Disc
          “It was the stilm before the storm.”
              —D. B. Eerie Scwaul

The summer evening settles down. The mockingbird retweets.
The swallows swirl about for insects. Mourning doves retreat.
The lighting of the street lamps has occurred. The Sun goes down…
behind the turning of the Earth, still burning, churning round.
The colours of the sunset, purple, orange, pink and red,
are fading past the roofs and treetops, streaming overhead.
The chimneys tower still, the working shutters now are closed,
this is a tranquil coda to a cosmos that won’t doze.
It’s so unreal and surreal, one’s thankful for it.
O, it is nice for the occasional rare respite rest.

Ra Bué Weel Disc is a poet of the Sun. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “stilm” is a blend of still and calm. D. B. Eerie Scwaul was a poet of the weather.

~~~

An Afternoon Siesta
          by Cesal Dwe Uribe

Though it was unintentional, he found that he, each day,
would take an afternoon siesta, sleeping a brief stay.
Perhaps it was because the heat was just so very high,
which sapped him of his energy when two o’clock was nigh;
or maybe it was that he ate but one large meal at noon,
and under those conditions, after eating, he would swoon;
or possibly, the night before he hadn’t slept enough,
and now his body automatic’lly made lost time up;
or finally, it could be simply, age required it,
as one grew older, one desired more and more respite.
Whatever was the reason, or some mix of these—who knows?
he better understood old images of Mexico.

Cesal Dwe Uribe is a poet of Mexico.

~~~

“The South is the land of the sustained sibilant. Everywhere, for the appreciative visitor, the letter s insinuates itself in the scene: in the sound of sea and sand, in the singing shell, in the heat of sun and sky, in the sultriness of the gentle hours, in the siesta, in the stir of birds and insects.”
              —E. B. White

E. B. White (1899-1985) was a Modernist American writer.

~~~

On Timelessness
          by Arcideb Usewel

Three decades back, appearing like an up-and-coming mall,
it’s now deserted but for some light traffic overall.
With tens of thousands of square feet to let retailers rent,
its rates are low, its visibility is excellent.
Around the tree-lined edges, concrete roads are cracking up,
around the shallow, sewer manholes, shifting, gray-pucked ruck.

Beneath red-ti-les, white-washed co-lo-nades are empty of
envisioned shoppers and large stores with useful, tempting stuff:
antiques and martial arts, as well as kid activities
comingle with large movers, office space and civities.
Still, it’s relaxing there, because, amidst the birds and shrubs,
on timelessness, this charming plaza’s slow pace gently rubs.

Arcideb Usewel is a poet of urban spaces and architecture. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, the neologism “civities” is a blend of civic and facilities.

~~~

On to Another Day
          by Bruc “Diesel” Awe

He turned on to the highway; it was early in the morn.
Yet traffic was congested; the commute was on, groundborne.[He flashed back to that mad, high-pressure, pushing ímbróglió,
when he was driving near Seattle many years ago.] Maneuvrering between the lanes, he veered in to the flow
of vehicles, so he would not go down some rabbit hole.

Don’t exit yet! He drove on past the water tower’s height,
a giant, steel and prestressed concrete’s monumental sight,
and slowly turned one-hundred-eighty-plus degrees to meet
another ramp onto a rather busy interstate.
He got onto the frontage road. He passed the plaza mall.
He headed toward the giant flag before the urban sprawl.

Continuing past businesses of tractors and rvs,
motels, and highway signs of gasoline and fast-food eats.
Around him trucks and cars of varied size and colour sped,
from mixes brown and black and white, to yellow, blue and red.
It was the early morning, tens of thousands off to work.
On to another day, who knows what they will all incur?

Bruce “Diesel Awe is a poet of transportation. Seattle, Washington, is a city of around 750,000.

~~~

Light’s Nature
              by I. E. Sbace Werld
          “(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)”
              —E. E. Cummings, “what if a much of a which of a wind”

With all the heavy news of war and children—sobering—
she has been thinking of light’s nature, cities smouldering,
electromagnetism…fly by day and hie by night…
forever to infinity, and never to all right.

And we’re not light, she thinks, for we contain machinery—
in each cell’s cytoplasm, there’s a mighty scenery:
the gel-like substance cytosol, internal organelles,
and various inclusions, water, and whatever else.

So she still packs her daughter’s lunch: or’nge rounds and apples
          peeled…
(in neat, transparent parcels, shiny wrappers tight and sealed)
with toasted sandwich and the cookies, in a zippered bag…
one little present in the future’s cold, vast cosmic slag.

This above dodeca draws from a poem by Patricia Phillips-Batoma, a contemporary translator of French into English. I. E. Sbace Weruld is a poet of the final frontier. E. E. Cummings (1894-1962) was a Modernist American poet and proset. The following prosepoems are brief reminders of Danish scientists Olaus Roemer (1644-1710) and Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851), with a mention of German chemist Johann Ritter (1776-1810), and German philosopher Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854).

 

The Discoverer of the Velocity of Light
          by I. E. Sbace Weruld

Olaus Roemer, Danish astronomer, was born at Aarhus—1644. He was the diligent discoverer of the velocity of light—and more. He had noticed that light from Jupiter varied up to 22 minutes, from furthest to the nearest distance, enroute to Earth. That discrepancy was the difference. He also invented th’ altazimuth, two-axis mount, and transit instrument, for exactness, this professor of math and astronomy, at Copenhagen. And although he died in 1710, it’s still nice now recalling him again.

 

His Father Was a Pharmacist
          by I. E. Sbace Weruld

Hans Christian Ørsted was a Danish physicist and chemist, poet and philosopher, a staid, hard-working scientific Sisyphus who added to our knowledge stores. A follower of Schelling’s thought that all of nature was a whole and electricity and magnetism were one; for some time, he worked with Ritter at this goal. Yet it was not till Copenhagen, April 21, in 1820, that he showed, if current flowed through wire, a circular magnetic force did run around that wire. Apparently, there did exist a force not moved in straight lines, like those of Newton.

 

After Ørsted
          by I. E. Sbace Weruld

Do you perceive naught but machinery in laws which govern heaven’s many paths? Look with a larger view around, and see the cosmos and its multitude of maths revealed in countless, varied forms. Our sun here but a twinkling star in all this space, which holds worlds on worlds, ad infinitum, ubiquity reflecting God’s own face. Behold within this spangled universe, a myriad of miracles that shine into our eyes, a race of beings thirsting for immortal hints and things divine; and, say, have not these living thoughts come from this vast mechanical celestial home?

I. E. Sbace Weruld is a poet of space.