The Perseids
by I. E. Sbace Weruld
“Each time I see the Perseids; I’m reaching out for Percy Bysshe.”
—Basil Drew Eceu
Across the August sky the Perseids are flying blind
through trails of debris an ancient comet left behind.
Each shooting meteor is a Swift-Tuttle’s tiny piece,
that’s orbiting the Sun each one-and one-third centuries.
Each swing it takes, throughout the inner solar system, leaves
small particles within its wake, some trillion bits of these.
These shooting stars are called the Perseids because they seem
to stream out of the constellation Perseus agleam.
The meteors seen now are really hundreds of years old,
and may have traveled billions of kilometres, or more.
Mr. I. E. Sbace Weruld is a poet of the Cosmic Universe.
~~~
Haiku
by “Clear Dew” Ibuse
Before the Sun rose,
Jupiter and Venus soared
o’erhead with the stars.
“Clear Dew” Ibuse is a poet of traditional haiku.
~~~
Haiku
by “Wired Clues” Abe
They fly overhead,
jets landing one after one—
the will to power.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of Japanese haiku in a postShiki world.
~~~
The Pokemonument
by Cause Bewilder
Down in New Orleans in a Lower Garden District park,
out in the middle of a broken fount is fresh found art.
It’s Pikachu, arms folded, arrowed tail, standing squat,
upon a cement base, ears back, but hollow as a pot.
The bronze-like, fibreglass stands on a thick, gray trapezoid,
like as a blobby, lapin prop, Gaston-Lachaise obloid.
Amidst the fad of the augmented Pokémon Go game
it burst forth at the Coliseum Square its claim to fame;
for that is where you’ll find it, if you’re looking for a hint,
the insolent, iconic block—the Pokemonument.
Cause Bewilder is a poet of the South. New Orleans, Louisiana, is a city of around 380,000.
~~~
Newsreel:
Drought and mismanagement have made a crisis in Iran;
the country may run out of water. Do they have no plan?
The country’s reservoirs are low. The heat is very high.
Massoud Pezeshkian has warned the nation of this plight.
~~~
The
by Israel W. Ebecud
Arma virumque cano,
Armageddon, where the
Army of God will at
Har Magiddo destroy the
forces of evil with the
force of good—love.
For God so loved the
World He gave His only Son.
Israel W. Ebecud is a poet of apocalypse.
~~~
“We want to make music, to drink and chat, and not fear the War of the Medes.”
—anonymous Megarian poet, Theognidea
~~~
A Meeting
by SubCIA Weedler
There was a meeting—so clandestine—What was it about?
Although he had a good idea, he still had some doubt.
It took place at the bottom of the stairs. It was discreet.
Although surrounded by concrete, he couldn’t see the street.
They stood around. One could not hear what they were saying there.
But each of them had much to say to each within that air.
He stood up tall. He lifted up his spine. He stretched his legs.
He did not feel like he was amongst the tofu dregs.
He focused on the leader. He would do what he was told.
He put up with the others, the recorder and the bold.
A member of the rent-a-protest, though he had no sign.
With all his fellow co-conspirators, he was aligned.
SubCIA Weedler is a poet of clandestine messages.
~~~
On Miltiades and Marathon
by “Crude” Abe Lewis
In about 514 BC, Miltiades
became head autocrat in Thracian Cheronese.
Shortly thereafter he promoted destruction
of the Danube Bridge, Darius and his Persian
army cut off in Scythia. But the bridge stayed,
and in 511, he was chased off, way laid.
At the time of the Ionian Revolt, he was
reinstated, but had to flee when resistance
collapsed, only just escaping Darius’ fleet,
making for Athens, arriving 493,
the year Phrynichus’ The Capture of Miletus
was banned and the author fined 1000 drachmas.
Charges militated against Miltiades
were dropped, perhaps by Chief Archon Themistocles,
and he was elected division general,
this field-commander, seasoned and venerable.
When news arrived that the Persian fleet had anchored
upon Schoinia Beach, inside Cynosura,
Dog Tail Peninsula, runner Pheidippides
left Athens in darkness, proceeded rapidly
to Sparta, reaching it the very next evening,
140 miles! the god Pan perceiving!
and dropped down dead. Meanwhile, Miltiades proposed
an army take provisions and go forth opposed.
Lead by Callimachus of Aphidna, they marched
to Heracles’ sacred grove past Brexisa Marsh.
At this point they were joined by a Plataean force
unexpectedly, but gladly received, of course.
For several days little transpired. The two groups
sat tight, Greek hoplites, Persian cavalry and troops.
Then Persian Datis left, leaving Artaphernes,
taking much of the cavalry under darkness,
hoping to attack an unprotected Athens.
However, Persian scouts, who were Ionians,
slipped across Athenian lines and there did say
that Datis’ ships and “the cavalry are away.”
Miltiades convinced Callimachus, warning
the time to attack was now, that hot summer morning.
So the Greeks began: Callimachus on the right,
Plataeans on the left, and a thinned central might.
The hope was to knock out the wings, and then adjourn
to reinforce the middle, to battle return.
It worked. There in the middle the Greeks had the worst
of it; but on the sides the Persian flanks disbursed.
Having achieved this, they let the Persians escape
and returned to the middle, till the Persian line caved,
and chased them to the shore, where seven ships were burned.
Aeschylus’ brother died while getting a ship’s stern.
Then, but for Aristeides and Antiochids,
the rest high-tailed it back to Athens, as fast as
their feet could carry them. When came Datis’ squadron
and saw Marathon’s warriors at Cynosarges,
they retreated from their unconquerable foe
and sailed for home. They had no other place to go.
Miltiades was the hero of the hour,
and Athens praised his courage, foresight, and power.
It was his vision that saved the day, and his fire
that kept Greece free and halted the Persian Empire.
“Crude” Abe Lewis is a translator of Ancient Greece. This poem draws from Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC), an Ancient Greek historian and geographer and Peter Morris Green (1924-2024), a PostModern English historian of the Ancient World. Miltiades (c. 550 BC – 489 BC) was a Greek statesman known for his role in the Battle of Marathon.
~~~
Wonders
by Erisbawdle Cue
One wonders what is knowledge; and then how is it attained?
and what is reasoning itself? How then is it obtained?
And what about the attitude of free will in the mix?
What program can a manufactured actor solve or fix?
How does an individual act independently
without some common sense and working-well philosophy?
Without a mind, how could a feeling being have beliefs?
Intentions too require mental motions and motifs?
Erisbawdle Cue is a poet of philosophy.
~~~
The Struggle Against Paralysis
by Ewald E. Eisbruc
Handel handled it—
the struggle against paralysis
and eventual blindness—
with his oratorios
and the accompanying keyboard concertos.
They were enough, it seems,
for the lengthy coda of his existence,
connecting him.
as they did to God,
even as they ended his stay with us.
After Oral Surgery
by Ewald E. Eisbruc
Lying down on the sofa
after oral surgery,
an ice pack placed upon the
right side of my face, verging
on unconsciousness, from the
pain medication—codeine,
and who knows what else, something
or other, the blood floating,
clotting, coagulating,
while listening to Baroque
composers, like Scarlatti,
Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach:
a most delightful method
for enduring suffering,
here in one’s life bed—
such exquisite hovering—
as if one were on a spaceship
with Stanley Kubrick’s Hal,
no real relationship,
back in 2001—Excel.
note: noted PostModernist film-maker Stanley Kubrick died in 1999.
Gródek
by Ewald E. Eisbruk
At evening, autumn woodlands ring with deadly weaponry.
O’er golden plains and lakes of blue, the Sun more darkly reels.
The night surrounds the soldiers dying and their wild lament
of their fragmented mouths and unilateral descent.
Yet silently they gather in the willow combe at night.
The red clouds, dwelled by angry gods, shed blood in Moon’s chill light.
All roads lead to black, bleak decay, beneath gold stars above.
A sister’s shadow sways within the still and quiet grove.
She greets the heroes’ spirits and their bloody heads unbound,
while softly, in the Autumn reeds, one hears dark flutes resound.
The brazen altars, fed by such enormous pain, proud mourn,
and hot flames of tremendous agony, grandsons unborn.
Ewald E. Eisbruc is a poet of German language moods and music. George Frideric Handel (1685-1749) was a German-British Baroque composer.
~~~
Trakl
by Waldeci Erebus
Trakl
did not endure the debacle:
it was too awful;
and he couldn’t set back
the clock.
Waldeci Erebus is a poet of Austria. Georg Trakl (1887-1914) was a Modernist German language poet.
~~~
Poet A Versus Poet B
by Wilbur Dee Case
The difference is between monuments and fields.
The first one is shallow because of his feelings.
The second one is shallow because he never yields.
The first one is ever finishing up ceilings.
The second one is never finishing anything.
Both can be infuriating in their dealings;
but many prefer yodeling to whinnying.
Wilbur Dee Case is a poet of American literature.
~~~
A NewMillennial Wordwright
by Cadwel E. Bruise
He took a sip of coffee—nothing yet on his first sip.
He took a second one, and there was nothing still—no blip.
What would Bukowski think of him—to smoke and to inhale—
yet there was nothing still with these two drugs—breathe in, exhale.
On his third sip, he felt black as the Moon he could not see;
and on the fourth sip, nothing was inspiring. What would be?
Perhaps there’s something hiding, begging to be written down;
and then another sip—the fifth—verse formed, like a black Moon.
The lucid wordwright, in the Sun’s light, as the screen goes dim,
though sitting nicely, this World’s weight was underwhelming him.
Cadwel E. Bruise is a poet of New England. Jason Wright is a contemporary poet, who has written poems, like “Jagged Thought #582: Coffee Poem”. Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) was a PostModernist American poet and proset.
~~~
Flashback:
A mesoscale convective system flared up in the South—
Louisiana, Mississippi—slammed the delta’s mouth,
like as an inland tropical depression, o, they say,
11 August 2016, at NOAA.
Low pressure near the surface of the Earth occurred; it hit
and shattered river level records, 4 to 6 feet—Quit!
In just a few days, over two feet fell in this del,,,h,,,uge.
The heaviest rainfall amounts were east of Baton Rouge.
Some people lost their lives, more people happily were saved,
o, tens of thousands—people and their pets—were then displaced.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has a population of around 225,000.
~~~
The Dude Upon the Stool
by Cale Budweiser
I saw some stocky dude upon an ornate, white step-stool.
He wore a dark-brown cowboy hat and stretched out like a mule.
It looked like he was reaching for some tool upon a shelf,
but balanced so precariously, he might hurt himself.
I saw his light-brown, scuffed –up boots fly out on both his sides.
It looked like he was falling down, a swan on ess-curved slides.
As he was coming down, his look was one of agony.
Where would he land? how could he land? o, so unhappily?
Near him some lean and lanky guy came by to give a hand,
but what chance did he have to save that falling, sprawling man?
Cale Budweiser, an acquaintance of Walice du Beers, is a poet of beer.
~~~
His Morning Regimen
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
It’s time to do his exercises—sunrise has shown up.
He hears the airhorn of the train, and thé commute hubbub.
He sees the distant water tower and skyscrapers too;
beneath the pink and pale sky, the neon lights subdued.
The dude begins his regimen, his stretches and his thrusts;
but he’s not in a regiment, he has not fussed that much.
He hears the jet planes roar o’erhead, and wakened neighbourhood.
He is not wearing socks upon his feet, just his gym suit.
He does his side-to-sides; he smells fresh air, like as a bear.
He does his bends; he touches toes; he turns in this his lair.
He stretches shoulders, arms and chest; a water cup he sips.
He does his dips, and moves his hips, and into morning slips.
Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”, is a poet focused on exercising his will.
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