Haiku
          by “Clear Dew” Ibuse

Within the branches
of the leafless red oak tree,
an empty nest sits.

 

Haiku
          by “Clear Dew” Ibuse

This winter morning,
a hungry vulture ventured
to a dead carcass.

“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a haiku poet.

~~~

Haiku
          by “Wired Clues” Abe

The infant lingers
beside the plastic bottles
filled with perfumed soap.

 

Haiku
          by “Wired Clues” Abe

Yesterday he saw,
on the college campus lawn,
bright cherry blossoms.

“Wired Clues” Abe is a NewMillennial haiku writer.

~~~

Newsreel:
The first commercial rocket launched from a point in Japan
exploded moments after liftoff, forcing it to land.

~~~

And If
          by Erisbawdle Cue

It is a very dangerous world which we live
in; and one day all may be fine, but then the next
you find your world comes crumbling down. You have to give,
or else you’ll get so taut, in fact, as tight as text,
you will snap at the smallest mishap, and go mad.
be vexed to nightmare by a rocket launcher, hexed.
All of a sudden, everything’s pathetic, sad;
and all those hopes you’ve banked your rivers on are gone.
The sandbags don’t hold up. You only see the bad.
You have to give, and do. You try to cry, but yawn
and sigh. And it’s not that you have become pensive,
but only that you are just barely hanging on
to nothing more than God’s redeeming grace, and if.

Erisbawdle Cue is poet of philosophical meanderings.

~~~

Newsreel:
Around Khartoum and the Darfur, the deadly war goes on,
between the SAF and RSF, inside Sudan.
Since 15 April 2023, last Ramadan,
the civil war proceeds full bore, across that broken land.
More than 12,000 have been killed; so much has been defaced;
more than 5,000,000 individuals have been displaced.

The population of Sudan is around 49,000,000.

~~~

Ariosto Sang
          by Buceli da Werse

No Aristotle, Ariosto sang
of ladies, cavaliers, of arms and loves,
of courtesies and daring deeds that rang
of greatness, flew about like flights of doves.
He sang of the romance of Saracens
and Christian paladins, of giants, dwarfs,
magicians, maidens, kings, and amazons,
in many humors and in many morphs,
and more; for Orlando Furioso
is longer than th’ Aeneid, th’ Odyssey,
or th’ Iliad, its zest touching Tasso
and Spenser with its vituosity,
acceptance and profound serenity
of all life’s bounty and variety.

Buceli da Werse is a poet of Renaissance Italy. Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) was an Italian poet who coined the term umanesimo “humanism” for choosing to focus upon humanity, as opposed to the divine. Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) was an heroic epic poet, Edmund Spenser (1533-1599) was a poet, whose elaborate allegory The Faerie Queene was “an historicall fiction” in a richly rhymed verbal tapestry.

~~~

After Marino
          by Alberdi Ucwese

Upon the golden waves lit by the sun,
how glorious is it to ride, to roll.
to leave behind the marinated bun
upon the shore, and there unwind God’s scroll,
the fish-filled, wish-full net that settles there
beyond the sandy reaches of the beach.
How wonderful is it—the sky, the air,
the mermaids swimming, singing each to each.
So grand is it to float upon this sea
astride arenas, areas so fresh,
beside the dreams of Greece and Italy,
between such purity and love’s sweet mesh.
How ever can one flow upon that tide
and never bless such life—so deep and wide.

Alberdi Ucwese is a poet enamoured of the Italian Renaissance. Giambattista Marino (1569-1625) was a Baroque Italian poet noted as founder of Marinism (Secentismo) and creator of the epic L’Adone. The above two poems are English sonnets.

~~~

On Corcovado Peak
          by Luc Ebrewe Dias

High up, on Corcovado Peak, stonelike
it stands, the Statue, Christ the Redeemer,
against a swirl of cirrus in the sky,
in reinforced concrete, yet seeming more,
a large, vague shadow at the edge of God,
a mirror of eternity—Jesus,
a cross, o’er Rio de Janeiro’s ledge:
skyscrapers, hillsides, Sugar Loaf, beaches,
a figure waiting in time to embrace
the millions dancing, singing, living, all
below, each one and every single face,
from crime-infested streets through Carnival,
that looks above, up to Him open-armed,
warmed by the Sun, and dreams to be unharmed.

Luc Ebrewe Dias is a poet of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is a city in Brazil of around 13,800,000.

~~~

Newsreel:
A Massachusetts beach community is losing land;
a storm has washed away twelve-thousand metric tons of sand.
It’s hard to see $600,000 blown away,
evaporate before one’s very eyes in just a day.
Salisbury’s Saab has said the dunes had done their job to form;
and yet, can they survive by paying after every storm?

~~~

In Deepest Darkest Winter
          by Eb “Walrus” De Ice

In deepest, darkest winter, in his sable, sherpa coat,
he felt like as a slowly-climbing, antique, mountain goat.
His mantic powers minimal, and hardly statuesque,
a bottle of Ícelandic water standing on his desk,
he looked upon a smooth and crystal, glacial surface pond,
and saw he had upon his feet black socks and black shoes donned.
O, what a tale of woe and misery he could observe,
and yet, that man possessed as well some zest, some verve, some nerve,
like as these feeding ducks afloat on these cold water rips
bound on another one of his exasperating trips.
Where was he going to today he had not been before?
What could he hope to find beyond the closing of a door?

Eb “Walrus” De Ice is a poet of winter.

~~~

A Mind of Winter
          by Walice du Beers

He had a mind of winter. He did not want to let go.
But spring insisted breaking out again—that fertile rogue.
The trees burst out in legions, first white blossoms, then some pink,
and then wild green, the breezes keen, the fresh winds on the brink.
He longed to keep simplicity, the pale and cloudy air.
Why did he had to give them up—the beautiful and bare?
Why did he have to hear the birds, each morning singing out,
their liquid whistles whispering or hissing, chirping tout?
Why did he have to fill his world up again with things,
and dance again with all that life in the grand march of things?

Walice du Beers is a poet of poetic contemplation.

~~~

The Mill
          by Des Wercebauli
          “And was Jerusalem builded here
          Among those dark Satanic mills?”
              —William Blake, “Jerusalem”

I remember all that gray.
I remember all that rain.
And I don’t ever wanna
go back to it again.

I remember the factory
making big white puffy clouds
that smelled like chemicals
and money blanketed in shrouds.

I remember the emotions flying
across the dreary skies.
I remember the emotions dying
upon the teary eyes.

I don’t ever wanna go back.
I remember it all too well.
I don’t wanna take that track
back down into that hell.

Des Wercebauli is a poet of work. William Blake (1757-1827) was an English Romantic poet and painter.

~~~

The Matte Tape Dispenser
          by Brad Lee Suciew

How indispensably it serves,
the matte tape dispenser,
a circle clad in plastic curves
unwinding for an answer.

It sticks together many things,
like packages and papers,
including letters, skinny wings,
and other all-night labors.

Although it’s small and not like twill;
it won’t keep two folks clinging;
still, all the live-long day it will
connect the little things.

Brad Lee Suciew is a poet of business.

~~~

A 10th Grade Track Race
          by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
          “All that I am, I am because of my mind.”
              —Paavo Nurmi

In medias res, he raced on, around the last curved turn
of the 800 meters, fighting fierce breaths nearly burnt.
He’d kept on running hard as he could round the oval track,
yet hardly knew what he was doing. He could not go back.

And as he came up through the finish, panting madly fast,
his heart beat pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding to the last.
He can’t remember if he came in second or in third,
and didn’t even give a thought about what had occurred.

But the next day when he was in Geometry he heard
his teacher/football coach speak out about what he observed:
He said the runner who gave most was he, who just lacked this
the strength endurance practice brings, a greater impetus.

Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”, is a poet of sport. Paavo Nurmi (1897-1973) was a noted Finnish long-distance and middle distance runner.