Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Mom and dad are gone.
Grandpas and grandmas are gone.
Winter is so cold.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a trad haikuist.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
A squirrel is stopped
in the middle of the road.
Where are the vultures?
“Wired Clues” Abe is a NewMillennial haiku writer.
~~~
A Lizard, Terrible Amidst Hard Rocks
by Wild Brecesaur
He felt like as a lizard, terrible amidst hard rocks,
Tyrannosaurus Rex galumphing in black shoes and socks,
ungainly, awkward, hawkish, gawkish, lumbering along,
a clumsy, bungling, stumbling, hardly strong or elegant.
He went out stalking for some prey that he could get to eat,
but he would not need to git it fresh fleeing on its feet.
He felt the Sun beat down on him; he longed to get some meat,
but he could also get some seeds or nuts out on the street.
He could git food from groceries; no need to kill it fresh
his prey were olives, eggs, and fruit, cheese, hens, cows, pigs and fish.
He was an omnivore of sorts, who loved delicious food,
a connoisseur of cosmic chaos, both the bad and good.
Wild Brecesaur is a poet of the terrible lizards.
~~~
The Year of the Snake: 2025
by Aw “Curbside” Lee
I saw that black snake, 2025, chasing me,
harassing me, as I proceeded on my way.
I watched its long and slender body racing me,
and almost passing me, sidewinding through each day.
I’d shake my head with too much info overload,
its undulations whipping me up into a
wild frenzy, o, while sliding through red clover fields.
I heard its vulgar whispers in my inner ear,
as it sloughed off another covered lover’s bed.
Yet it pressed on, its movement rectilinear,
and reared its horrid head. Where was it placing me?
I had to flee that vile viper—skinnier.
The Year of the Snake
by Aw “Curbside” Lee
There once came to old Manor farm
a snake that slithered creepily.
“I do not want to cause you harm,”
he told the creatures sn(e)akily.
“I’m tolerant of eggs and ham,
or rather chicks and pigs, I mean;
and you will see how nice I am,
if you’ll just let me in…between.”
They let him in, this lovely snake,
who tolerated other views;
and he was kind, for his own sake,
and then he turned and lit a fuse.
A forkèd tongue may seem quite soft
if you are lulled by its sweet please;
but it is sharp when it’s aloft
in planes, or rains in IEDs.
Aw “Curbside” Lee is a poet of China. 2025 is the year of the snake.
~~~
Newsreel:
Irani dissidents report Iran is working on
a miniaturized plutonium nuclear bomb.
~~~
Upon One Early Morning
by Erisbawdle Cue
Life passes by so quickly, so it seems.
One moment one is rising to the dawn,
and letting fall behind one’s sleep and dreams;
the next, new light is coming to and on.
You reach to grasp the present when it comes,
but as you do, it fades into an end
in morning’s aura. Pausing to take plums,
to break night’s fast, you turn to reascend.
And so, no matter how slow you may go,
each instant travels on in its own way.
You may stand firm, but time’s winds have to blow
you to another place, another day.
Therefore, it’s best t’ appreciate each trice;
for nothing known will stay. Let that suffice.
Erisbawdle Cue is a poet of philosophy.
~~~
Flashback:
Earthquakes keep rat-tl-ing the island, Santorini, Greece,
most powerful volcano since 1613 BC.
~~~
Bach’s Prelude in E Major
Ewald E. Eisbruc
The notes just fly off of the page so rapidly
they hardly seem constrained by either melody
or harmony, and they do so so vapidly,
as if they’d been unleashed in relativity,
portending wild Romantics and vile Modernists,
avoiding th’ antics-slash-modes of their maladies.
Ewald E. Eisbruc is a poet or Germanic musical composition. Johan Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German Baroque composer.
~~~
Two Men Contemplating the Moon
by Uwe Carl Diebes
I.
In Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Two
Men Contemplating the Moon, atmosphere
is all. Brown is the dominant, drab hue
that colors everything, even the air
around the golden, glowing moon. The scene
has an unworldly look about it, as
if it could not be, yet has some meaning,
both enigmatic and mysterious.
The strange unanchored tree roots suggest death.
The viewers appear vulnerable.
It seems a setting lacking life and breath
in amber, there on the rocky rubble.
All is pervaded by an eeriness
that leaves a shivering uneasiness.
II.
Along the curving trail upon a grassy hill
with big, hard rocks, two men have stopped to look upon
the moon in Caspar David Friedrich’s painted still.
The color’s full, though all is muted, pale and wan.
The slender sliver of the moon is like a smile
on edge, bathed in a gold hue in this dusk or dawn.
Two men are contemplating it. They view it, while
we view them contemplating it, distorted tree
limbs reaching out to’rd them, as in a Gothic style.
The men survey the scene, perhaps contentedly.
Below the moon, up at their height, a house sits. Will
they walk to or from it, slowly assuredly?
Uwe Carl Diebes is a poet of Germany. Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was a Romantic German painter.
~~~
Upon a Moving Movie
by Cawb Edius Reel
For me it starts with Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent,
a moving movie, if there has ever been one.
It captures argument, extreme and violent,
the horror and the boring, the dread and the fun,
the comical and the absurd brutality,
the country charm, the city smarm, the shining sun
the dark night, children playing, human cruelty,
the rich, the poverty, the sheer ineptitude
against intelligence, the deadly gravity,
the loving sweetness, kindness, and ingratitude,
dishonesty and evil, with the ignorant,
the smug, the heart-warming, the happy, true and good.
Cawb Edius Reel is a poet of film. Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was a Modernist British film director. The following lyrics were heard in the above 1936 movie, Young and Innocent.
~~~
“When it comes to doin’ tricks,
With a pair of hick’ry sticks,
I’m right here to tell you, sister,
No-one can like the Drummer Man.
Ev’ry man who plays in the band is
Wonderful too,
I’ve got to give credit,
Where credit is due.
But when it comes to make that music hot,
Make you give it all it’s got,
I’m right here to tell you, mister,
No-one can like the Drummer Man.”
—–
~~~
A Rose Arose Near Mister Kurtz
by Walice Du Beers
“The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.”
—Wallace Stevens, “The Emperor of Ice Cream”
It’s horrible. It’s horrible. It’s horrible.
A rose arose near Mister Kurtz. There is no hope.
He keeps his clothing tidy. It’s deplorable.
That’s all I can recall. He had the will to cope.
The funeral was grand, expensive, neat and nice.
The casket was surrounded by a slender rope.
The questions all revolved around what was the price.
Somehow one makes it work despite the messiness.
The lovely moments in the garden do suffice.
when one’s expecting little more than nothingness.
Somebody thinks the clothing’s cut’s adorable.
The dirt flies past my face, the air’s compressing less.
Walice Du Beers is a poet of the surreal. Joseph Konrad (1857-1925) was a Modernist Polish-English poet; Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was an American Modernist poet; T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was a Modernist American-Anglo poet and proset.
~~~
An Indian-Caucasian Woman
by Usa W. Celebride
“But no one knows the woman’s name, and no one cares.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”
The Indian-Caucasian lady had been drinking some;
she was not Moslem, nor Seventh-Day Adventist, in sum.
She was not African, but she was an American,
though someone said she was Jamaican, or Canadian?
It was a night scene by El Greco, overhanging sky,
the Moon was lustreless above; her evening dress was white.
She was alive, but drunk, atop a stretcher, hand bejeweled;
four solemn men in suits took her away, but they were fooled—
that was the wrong house they went to—M K Ultra drool.
Perhaps the psy-op didn’t work, and yet they kept their cool.
Usa W. Celebride is a poet of American experiences. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was a Modernist American proset.
~~~
Newsreel:
It isn’t quiet on Potomac River on this night—
some sixty-seven dead from that collision of those flights:
th’ American Airlines plane and the Black Hawk’s brutal strike,
a deadly flash above the Washington DC skyline.
~~~
The Sidewalker
by Waulcer Beside
The drab gray of the sidewalk turned to white, as the hill rose
beyond the houses on the straight lanes. See now where it goes.
He saw the distant water tower rising in the sky
beyond the barren hill, but still within range of the eye.
He saw the shiny silver jet-plane flying up above
the gleaming and electrical poles, like Titanic guff.
Along the way, the litter, plastic and aluminum,
would catch Sun rays, as he walked by, divine, fine numinum.
Waulcer Beside is a poet of walking. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “numinum” is a contextual neologism.
~~~
Nocturnal Freight Trains
by Bruc “Diesel” Awe
He heard the moaning train at night, the air-horn in the dark.
It sounded loudly on its tracks above the trucks and cars.
So just what was it hauling, cargos, liquid, food or grain?
What do its intermodal tanks or gondolas contain?
What is it pulling? Is it hazardous material?
wood, metal, sand, cement, construction parts, or cereal?
He heard the nighest train at morning, th’ air-horn sounding off,
that warning call across the pitch-black, foggy moonless loft.
He felt content to hear it rolling: thé Earth still was there,
as well as that required nitro-oxygenized air.
Bruc “Diesel” Awe is a poet of transportation.
~~~
RI
by R. Lee Ubicwedas
Reality, kaleidoscopic, is too hard to catch;
and yet that’s what we want to do is chase its toss, and fetch,
like as a German shepherd does when the round ball is thrown…
into the air…so far and free…and lands down on the lawn.
He picks it up, and brings it back, from where it had been launched,
like as a super heavy booster that’s retrieved from scratch.
How can one snatch its multiplicity from the great sky,
like natural innumerable pieces of AI,
when the complexity is more than one can keep track of,
a real intelligence above an artificial one.
R. Lee Ubicwedas is a poet of ubiquity. According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “RI” is an acronym for “real intelligence” as opposed to artificial intelligence.
~~~
Newsreal:
Three homes have been rebuilt since thé Lahaina, Maui, fire.
In eighteen months how many will be built on LA’s pyre?
~~~
His Breakfast Order
by Carb Deliseuwe
He sat up at the counter waiting for his order. Please.
The diner was not crowded; there were few attendees. See.
He thought to have an om’let, three eggs, meat and cheese, with toast,
a couple chiles and some hash browns. O, yes, he was stoked.
He also had two fluffy pancakes griddled golden brown,
he loved them drenched with lots of butter. He was happy now.
To drink his breakfast order down he had a cup of tea.
Before he had to go to work, he loved a bite to eat.
His baseball cap and pants were tan, his shoes and socks were black.
He would not be alone for long. A pal would come right back.
He waited, and anticipated his arrival soon,
but when he looked outside the diner—there it was—the Moon.
Carb Deliseuwe is a poet of food.
~~~
He Had to Exercise
Rudi, E. Welec, “Abs”
Each day he had to exercise to keep his spirits up.
He didn’t want to be a flabby chump. He had to pump.
He knew it was important to work out to keep his health.
Life ever was a battle to endure these halls of hell.
What hills he had to climb. What rills he had to cross…again.
He had to fight, and fight some more, beneath the golden Sun.
But what a joy it was to see new vistas all the time,
while pressing forth onto new heights—that terrible sublime—
where loveliness kept coming, flowing all about those steps,
hills glittering, Sun never did more beautifully steep.
Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”, is a poet of exercise.
~~~
Yet Have Fun
by Cu Ebide Aswerl
There’s always something else; so even when
you are content with things the way they are,
something or someone will appear, and then
remind you that you’ve only come so far.
If it weren’t so frustrating, it would be
ridiculous; but there it is, and one
has got to come to grips with it–truly.
Abandon hope, accept pain, yet have fun.
Cu Ebide Aswerl is a poet of having fun.