Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
The World’s all pink
After a morning with the,
ophthalmologist.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a trad haiku writer, following on the work of writers, such as Nakamura Kusatao (1901-1983), Kaneko Tôta (1919-2018), Nagata Kôi (1900-1997), Nakamura Sonoko (1911-2001), and Akao Tôshi (1925-1981).
~~~
New Perceptivity
by Éclair Dub W. See
I saw a man the other day, who seemed to be
inside a room and at the same time outside ‘t too.
He stood inside a warp of space-time energy.
He was stout, stocky, slightly flabby, but buff, fit.
He wore dark socks and tennis shoes with a gray suit.
He was inside a loop that bothered not a bit.
He was about to do some thing he had to do,
an undertaking onerous, yet wonderful.
It was surreal seeing him, but groovy too,
because reality was heightened, mighty, full.
I felt like I had reached new perceptivity.
I longed to be swept up into its undertow.
Éclair Dub W. See is a poet of vision. The above photograph is in the form of a bilding [sic].
~~~
Newsreel:
Did China lose a nuclear sub in the Taiwan Strait?
Some fifty-five aboard that ship have died, some speculate.
~~~
This Land
by Curdise Belawe
“These Carducians…dwelt up among the mountains…”
Xenophon, Anabasis, book 3, Chapter 5, Section 16
Their temples were destroyed, the fires killed their just,
the greatest of the sirs was hided in his herds.
The cruel Arabs had destroyed their villages,
and conquered people all the way to Sharezur.
Females were enslaved, brave men dived in their blood;
the Zoroastrians lost many followers.
Ahuramazda felt no pity in that flood;
those words of truth—who will remember—Hurmizgan?
The centuries go by; they pass through Hezar Mêrd
in Sulaimani, in Iraqi Kurdistan;
and yet despite the murdering, the pillages,
this land won’t be destroyed until the earth is gone.
Curdise Belawe is a poet of the Kurds. This week Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes on suspected military site, after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the heart of the Turkish capital Ankara.
~~~
The Truth James Foley Stood For, a Ten-nos
by Cid Wa’eeb El Sur
James Foley, searching for the truth, a photo journalist,
was murdered in cold blood by a masked IS jihadist,
beheaded on a video in deserts of Iraq,
mercilessly, cruelly, by a killer dressed in black.
The guy who only wanted to expose the suffering
was executed brutally without a covering,
his evil butcher camouflaged behind a veiled cloth,
his vicious killer shrouded as a grim and reaping Goth,
believing in the triumph of a cult of hate and death.
The truth James Foley stood for is clearly under threat.
Cid Wa’eeb El Sur is a poet of Iraq. James Foley (1973-2014) was an American journalist.
~~~
Down the Paved Gray Roadway in Ukraine
By Radice Lebewsu
“Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate.”
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, iv, Siward
Its driver’s speeding down the paved gray roadway in Ukraine.
It’s a drab gray T-72BM on its way.
Its Kontakt-5 explosive and reactive armoured plate
sits squat and hot upon the turret’s front, a grayish slate.
It quickly moves around a bend with great authority,
past sunlit, yellow-greenish bushes and a dark green tree.
The sun is shining quietly; there will not come soft rains;
the smoothbore gun, composite-steel sides, are shaded gray.
The booming rumble of the convoy drowns out singing birds.
Ear-splitting, roaring sounds dispel the hope for any words.
Radice Lebewsu is a poet of Ukraine. It has been 590 days since Russia attacked Ukraine.
~~~
Each Day of Life
by Bard Eucewelis
Each day of life’s a miracle, empirical in deed,
despite a blocked tear duct, or something else; it’s a big deal.
The flaking skin, an aching disc, some virus on the loose;
life still binds ligands to its cells and signals are transduced.
To see such sheer complexity in action ‘s wonderful,
like blinding lightning brightening the sky, and thunder-full.
It’s like a household, neighbourhood, or city government,
despite dissent and malcontent, still works together well.
Awake to Venus thankful and enjoy Urania,
Each day the Macedonian says, from Albania.
Bard Eucewelis is a poet of life. The Macedonia-American plumber from Connecticut, has been plumbing for half a century.
~~~
There Would Be More
by B. S. Eliud Acrewe
“Humankind cannor bear very much reality.”
—T. S. Eliot, “Four Quartets”
He sat upon the plain and basic plastic outdoor bench.
He wasn’t feeling that adventurous, that perching Mensch.
The dark brown slats were hard and flat. He didn’t feel aloof.
He heard the pleasant birdsong of house sparrows on a roof.
He saw skyscrapers tower in the distant atmosphere.
He heard and saw the giant jets above him in the air.
He heard a distant train that rumbled on a railway track,
and smelled the near crepe myrtle blossoms, faintly at his back.
The garden here was ordinary, roses rose in rows;
green hedges lined the edges; spiders, geckos, ants and crows.
He heard the crickets and cicadas chirping in the trees.
It was so warm. He saw a dorm. There wasn’t any breeze.
Is this what he had came to after half a century—
from free verse writing to reciting metric poetry?
He loved the unexciting, his two feet upon the ground.
A buzzing, hovering mosquito drove him mad with sound.
He fled the tranquil spot, remembering the “Four Quartets,”
It was reality’s analysis that he liked best.
He heard the footfalls on the sidewalk, going to the door,
and entered in the air-conditioned room. There would be more.
B. S. Eliud Acrewe is a poet and literary critic. T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was a Modernist American-English poet.
~~~
The Splendid Railway Bridge Upon the Silver Tay
by Alec Subre Wide
The splendid railway bridge upon the Silver Tay, December 28, 1879, collapsed in a fierce gale, and part was shorn away, the number dying there—perhaps seventy-five. The Scottish poet William T. McGonagill, acclaimed by some to write as fine as file or knife, commemorated its demise in doggerel, which is, like the foundations of that bridge, still there, where, like a Roman aqueduct in foggy swill, its sweep of pillars stays out in the open air, in ruins not too far removed fro’ th’ new railway, remembered for a very long time…hard to bear.
Alec Subre Wide is a poet of bridges. In the above proset, William T. McGonagill (1825-1902) was a Scottish poet noted for doggerel.
~~~
The Lad Feel Glee
by LaCribe Eudews
He felt the tears well up in him; he was so very sad.
Did none of all these people understand he felt this bad?
They wanted to give him a day of joy and happiness,
but this did not achieve its purpose—only crappiness.
Could they not see this birthday party was too much for him?
He wanted less loud singing, something muted, with less vim.
And then the tears poured out; they flowed profusely and profound.
Just how he’s feeling ill at ease, an infant can’t expound.
And so he must resort to tears—emotionally streamed—
when all that people wanted was to make the lad feel glee.
LaCribe Eudews is a poet of tears.
~~~
Beyond the Grooved Street’s Light Gray Slope
by Urbawel Cidese
It’s thirty-five degrees in Celsius; this dusk is warm.
It’s seven-fifteen of the clock; the street lamp lights are on.
One walks around the block. One sees one’s fellow walkers pass.
The light is slowly fading in a steady-light collapse.
The sidewalks are light gray and flat, the sloping streets are grooved.
As his young legs are moved, an infant likes to scuff his shoes.
One hears some baseball cheers, a rumbling train, a jet plane fly.
The golden-orange-scarlet Sun is setting in the sky.
This is the treasure of the greatest wealth, this shining glare,
too hard to watch, impossible to stare at through clear air.
Endurable in only the reflection on a pole,
or in a window’s gleam, beyond the grooved street’s light gray slope.
Urbawel Cidese is a poet of urban spaces.
~~~
The End of Pym, a Tennos
by Waldeci Erebus
Perhaps in his delirium, he called out Reynolds’ name,
one source of Arthur Gordon Pym’s masonic claim to fame,
succumbing as did Nu-Nu, when he saw the giant shape,
a huge, white, shrouded figure, rising o’er his wind-swept cape.
He lay back on the brown pirogue, like Hamlet at the end,
his feet extended out in air, beginning to descend.
And there upon the far horizon, dipping in the sea,
where Moby-Dick and Ahab’s corpse fell through eternity,
he tried to hold to Beauty’s form, ideal and perverse,
unleashed in quiche, the biche-de-mer, and rounded with a curse.
Waldeci Erebus is a poet charmed by the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).
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