Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
A smile in the night;
the waning crescent moon’s tide
tilted to one side.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is an haikuist.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
The infant points out
wooden slats in the sidewalk,
oak leaves on the ground.
“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).
~~~
Departing Portland, Oregon
by Air Weelbed Suc
Lift off, ascending over PDX’s rising Tow’r,
we mount the skies and soar at 700 miles per hour,
up in a Boeing 737 on our butts,
we passengers, above the clouds, munch on warmed, salty nuts.
The sunlight filters through the windows lightly on our snacks;
we lean against the cushioned seats, supporting heads and backs.
We pass the mountain chains and gleaming rivers winding past.
We play our games, while smiling, penning poems on our laps.
We sip on water bottles as we climb ten thousand feet.
We stretch our legs, our arms, our heads. We feel incomplete.
Air Weelbed Suc is a poet of flight. Portland is a city of around 650,000.
~~~
Zen Metastate in Beige
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He felt a tightening about his abdomen and butt;
his shoulders too were tense, his neck and pecs, as well, somewhat;
and so he thought to meditate, so as to stretch his spine,
his legs, his back, his chest, his head, in sreach of the divine.
He did not like things tight around his waist, so his beige trunks
were just as loose as they could be, yet still be nice and snug.
He needed focusing and balance in this mental state,
to be as light as he liked to be, like a lightweight mate,
who’s supersaturated, dense, and rising like a tree,
not underestimated in throws of eternity.
In statistical mechanics, a metastate is a probability measure on the space of all thermodynamic states for a system with quenched randomness. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “sreach” is a blend of search and reach, not “sREACh”, a darker, green flourescent protein that has high absorption and a low quantum yield, as in the research of Hideji Murakoshi, Akihiro C. E. Shibata, Yosihisha Nakahata, and Junichi Nabekura.
~~~
He Kept On
Erisbawdle Cue
He kept on striving to attain an ideality
connected to the good, but grounded in reality.
He kept on working to achieve perfection in the act,
pragmaticism on the run with satisfaction’s fact.
He kept on pressing to combine both ecstasy and truth,
to do so now, as an adult, as he had done in youth.
He kept it up—this quest for love of knowledge and the true.
He longed to have it deep inside, so beautiful and new.
He kept on reaching to obtain more power all the time.
He longed to rise upon time’s wings and felt it worth the climb.
Erisbawdle Cue is a poesopher.
~~~
Ode on a Roman Urn
by Aedile Cwerbus
Vile potables, like modest Sabine wines, are what
are in my cups, though I myself have tried Greek jars
with Latin Lites when love was in the theatre
and roaring, thuderous applause came to your ears,
Maecenas, Roman knight by birth and father’s streams,
the right bank of the Tiber’s ripples, at the same
time, joyful echoes lauded Vaticanic dreams,
and cross the seas vague images of mountains came.
Greats, like Caecuban, Falernian, Calenus,
you may imbibe at home, but here you have to drink
more mellow wines from lesser vines. No palaces,
no jeweled goblets, mine are watered down and pink.
Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of Ancient Rome. The above quatrains draw from Horace’s The Odes, Book I, XX.
~~~
An Acute Blind Episode
by Ra Bué Weel Disc
“While flashing beames do daze his feeble eyen…”
—Edmund Spenser, “The Faerie Queene”
Although the dawn was freezing cold, the Sun was rising low,
emphatic’lly clear, glowering, with an eye-catching glow,
right at the Highway turn—Was he on Edmund Spenser Road?—
so blatantly it caused him an acute blind episode.
He couldn’t see the traffic light; the Sun was glaring so.
The visor hardly helped to shield him from its streaming flow.
How could he go? He could not see if it was red or not.
Was he doomed to be stuck there in that way-too-brilliant spot?
He used the rear view mirror to protect his eyes…a bit…
and held his hand to block the glare that flared wherein it hit.
Interminate, it seemed to him; his hand was wearying;
and then the green go-arrow showed, and he was scurrying.
Ra Bué Weel Disc is a poet of the Sun. Edmund Spenser (1553-1599) was an Elizabethan English poet.
~~~
Diana and Acteon by Giuseppe Cesari
by Alberdi Ucwese
He painted Ovid’s playfulness, in myth and piquant wit,
with his Diana-Acteon—Giuseppe Cesari.
His subject rendered comes from Ovid’s “Metamorphosis”.
On copper, it shows he was one of the last Mannerists.
The unexpected woodland hunter, lost, alarms the maids—
the goddess and the nymphs therein the water where they bathe.
Two youthful naked ladies turn away from his firm gaze,
while three are much more pointed as they face him in that space.
Will chaste Diana splash him with spring water grappled near?
Will he then be transformed into an antlered, dappled deer?
Will he then flee in fear, as startled as the women were,
pursued by his own hounds, not recognizing their owner?
Alberdi Ucwese is a poet of Italian Renaissance painting. This particularly lovely late Renaissance painting offended religious pupils in France, and caused French teachers to stage a walkout. Giuseppe Cesari (1568-1640) was an Italian Mannerist painter. Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC – 17 AD) was noted Latin poet.
~~~
In the Statuary
by Basil Drew Eceu
He stood there leathery upon the carpet in the hall.
Where was he going to? It was not to a royal ball.
Was it for exercisizing? Hardly, though one could not tell.
It seemed he had been there before; for he knew his way well.
Was there a magic mirror on the wall that he could ask
some questions to, and then be answered after a quick span?
There were no armoured statues there with clinking metal frames.
It seemed he had been there before, but could not be the same.
He could not be a prince; he certainly was not a king.
Was this a place wherein he faced a vinyl reckoning?
It could not be, and yet it seemed that leathery, lean man
had been tasked to do something that he did not understand.
Basil Drew Eceu is a poet of British architecture.
~~~
Saint Louis
by Cabe U. Wesderlie
“…they pass the great lights of Saint Louis…”
—Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
On the west bank of the Mississippi River,
ten miles south of the juncture with the Missouri,
lies the city of Saint Louis, a fine sliver
in the pages of American history.
Between the years 1900 and 1910,
it was the United States’ fourth largest city.
It was certainly quite a site and mighty then,
hosting, holding the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, Forest Park’s inviting fen
turned into a World’s Fair. Now, nearby, there perches
the Gateway Arch, a huge, catenary quiver
on the edge of freedom that still onward surges.
Cabe U. Wesderlie is a poet of Missouri. Saint Louis has a population of around 285,000, and is ranked 75th in the USA. Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American Realist proset.
~~~
The Ringing of the Bells
by Waldeci Erebus
“…their merry bosoms swell.”
—Earl Aldon Page
It is that time of year, when Christmas hits the Billboard charts,
and secular songs top it off, and chill th’ online starts.
There’s Brenda Lee, Mariah Carey, Wham! and Burl Ives,
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Darlene Love, and Jackson 5;
Jose Feliciano, Perry Como, The Ronettes,
Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, and others yet;
like Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, Thurl Ravenscroft,
Gene Autry, Michael Bublé, yes, these singers are played oft.
Since 2012, because of streaming, there goes Bobby Helms,
and other ghosts released from graves—their music overwhelms.
One hears the ringing of the bells. For whom do they all toll?
All told, they toll for all of us. We throb, we rock, we roll.
Waldeci Erebus is a poet of ghosts. 20th century hits still dominate the Christmas music scene.
~~~
Steel, Galvanized Utility Poles
by Ib Elecdraw Use
Those shiny, steel, galvanized utility poles climb
up high into the sky, like mighty Titans biding Time.
They march across the landscape, silver in the blazing Sun,
electric-bearing guardians of thé Amazing One.
Impervious to rot and insects, easy to maintain,
not toxic, easy to install, superior in strength;
recyclable and cost effective, they can be reused
like soldiers, uniform and durable, completely fused.
But like all happy, golden races, after years of war,
will they endure but for millennia, or maybe more?
Ib Elecdraw Use is a poet of electricity.
~~~
The Wind
by Clide Wau Brees
“a segreto sillabe nutro”
—Salvatore Quasimodo
Oh how I wish the wind was calm, and silent too,
that all this raging blowing would recede, retreat.
I long for quiet days beneath the sunny blue,
where I am well at peace with no new need, nor beat.
But ever does the wind proceed. Never will it pause.
It rages on. It races on. It has no seat
to sit upon and stop. My longing is as gauze,
a futile whisper, whining in the stormy blast.
So who cares when a soul slows down or follows laws;
because, in the great scheme of things, those do not last?
Oh, please send me a breeze or two. I’ll take a few.
I yearn to rest my bones before this too has passed.
Clide Wau Brees is a poet of wind. Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968) was an Italian Modernist poet.
~~~
Kilmer Remilk
by Wic E. Ruse Blade
I know that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree;
nor shall I ever come to know
a tree that talks or thinks to go.
Wic E. Ruse Blade is a poet of off humour. Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) was a Modernist poet who died in World War I.
~~~
The Man Playing Pool
by Wes Cuebal Reid
“Billiards is a great game. It requires intelligence, skill, and precision.”
—Albert Einstein
He held the cuestick in his right hand, aiming at the ball.
Bent over at his waist, he stretched his left hand out in sprawl.
Extending his left arm, he made it straight all of the way,
to guide the cuestick to the ball upon the table’s lay.
His form was awesome, every body part was firmly placed.
He’d knock those balls into the pockets, like a firing ace.
He didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat. He wore light clothes.
His concentrated pose showed that he was one of the pros.
I longed to follow suit. O, how I longed to do as well,
to be in competition with a soul who so excelled.
Wes Cuebal Reid is a poet of pool.
~~~
He Kept On
Erisbawdle Cue
He kept on striving to attain an ideality
connected to the good, but grounded in reality.
He kept on working to achieve perfection in the act,
pragmaticism on the run with satisfaction’s fact.
He kept on pressing to combine both ecstasy and truth,
to do so now, as an adult, as he had done in youth.
He kept it up—this quest for love of knowledge and the true.
He longed to have it deep inside, so beautiful and new.
He kept on reaching to obtain more power all the time.
He longed to rise upon time’s wings and felt it worth the climb.
Erisbawdle Cue is a poet of philosophy.
~~~
Dry Leaves
by Abele Seric Wud
Dry leaves are flying from the limbs; they flee their former twigs.
They leap into the winds that blow; they let loose of their sprigs.
Red, orange, yellow, brown—in fall they fall in gravity,
in sloping arcs above parked cars, in slight concavity.
The winds continue sweeping them up concrete lane and street.
Dry leaves are covering the lawns of many houses deep.
The rakers on the ground pile them up high in crinkly sounds,
and liberate them into sacks from off the grassy grounds.
From ordinary circumstances, these leaves carry us
beneath the beautiful blue skies in urban areas.
Abele Seric Wud is a poet of trees.
~~~
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
An infant ponders
the acorn that he rolls round
in his little hand.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a composer of haiku.
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