The A-tom
by Basil Drew Eceu

Geiger, geiger, counting fast
in the radiation blast,
what poor mortal cared to see
such a scorching symmetry?

In what distant seas or isles
burnt the atom’s blazing smiles?
What dread hand dare seek the fire
of its holocaustal pyre?

What dark knowledge and black art
found out what it could impart?
Did that magic priest capisce
furies splitting it unleashed?

What was in that crazed-filled brain
contemplating the insane?
What was on that troubled mind
thinking such should be designed?

When Big Bang burst forth with stars,
was its purpose deadly chars?
Did the Maker of the Lamb
lift the flood-gates of His Damn?

Geiger, geiger, counting clicks,
floating down the River Styx,
what poor mortal fared to see
such a fearful symmetry?

Basil Drew Eceu is a parodist, particularly of British poetry.

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Del Wesic Bauer
by Wic E. Ruse Blade
for Little Miss Muffet

Del Wesic Bauer
stood in a shower
washing the hair on his head.
Along came a spider,
a dangling slider,
so he clapped the damn arthropod dead.

Wic E. Ruse Blade is a swashbuckler and pompous ass fond of Vincenzo Bellini’s “Il Pirata,” and esoteric writers, like Wilude Scabere and Beau Ecs Wilder. His literary influences include, inter alia, Baron von Münchhausen, 19th and 20th century hermeticists, Wile E. Coyote, and the Road Runner.

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Sepulchral Dreams
by Aedile Cwerbus

No oft-used wings of silver jets, will bear me through time’s sky,
diviner of no other realms, in envy’s marbled eyes.
I will relinquish urban highways, born not poor or rich,
and I won’t make a name before I raft on river sticks.

I am, I am, now resident of bitter snow-white plumes,
I am transformed into a swan who flies ‘midst azure b)l(ooms.
I am like Icarus and Daedelus up in the clouds,
who hear the traffic’s dull roar in the distant roaring crowds.

I won’t be heard upon the Nile, or known in Delhi’s lights.
I won’t be heard upon the Rhone, or known in Shanghai’s heights.
I won’t be heard upon the vast Columbia, it seems,
and tombs or fun’rals are as useless as sepulchral dreams.

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet fond of Latin literature, particularly Horace.

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Justice Rendered
by Cal Wes Ubideer
“Sanctuary cities help protect undocumented immigrants.”
—”Weird” Ace Blues

July 1st, 2015, Miss Kate Steinle had been shot.
A single bullet struck her in the back, as there she walked
upon Pier 14 with her father, San Francisco Bay.
She died, killed by Jose Ines Garcia Zarate.

But he was not responsible—the bullet ricocheted—
he never meant to kill her on that sunny summer day.
Although he was illegally here and an alien,
his rap sheet did not mean he was a common criminal.

Kate’s brother said he’s “not surprised,” obviously unnerved.
Kate’s father mused, “Justice was rendered but it was not served.
We…want to get this over with and move on with our lives.”
He still remembers Kate’s last words, o, “Help me dad,” she cried.

Cal Wes Ubideer is a poet of California.

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Great Leader Xi Jinping
by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei

The nationwide campaign, in which officialdom competes
across the land to eulogize Great Leader Xi Jinping,
who is attempting to make China great again, bleats out—
great struggle, project, cause and dream—but hard truths it screens out.
It seems as if the autocrat is now on par with Mao,
great teacher, leader, and supreme commander, China’s plow.
As every party member is required to declare
their loyalty to Xi, who does not see that he is “core”?
Who cannot see the country’s need for a dictator’s plan?
Rejuvenation of the nation needs a tyrant’s hand.

Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei is a poet of the Chinese Way.

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Axolotl Parts
by Bud “Weasel” Rice
“…every axolotl thinks like a man inside his rosy stone semblance.”
—Julio Cortázar

With little, Aztec, pinkish faces, axolotls are
endangered salamanders, Mexican, a bit bizarre.
They’re able to regenerate tail, heart, spine, limbs, and eyes;
so scientists at Morgridge Institute research these guys.
Observing bursts in gene-expression change that’s relevant,
they’re looking at their embryonic stage development.
They’re studying their early gut and nervous system forms,
in hopes that they could find out more about life and its norms.
They want to know what genes are used regenerating parts
that could be used in replicating other species’ hearts.

Bud “Weasel” Rice is a poet of flora and fauna.

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Donald Barthelme (1931-1989)
by Wilbur Dee Case

Like Pynchon, Barth, and Vonnegut, Postmodern Barthelme
wrote fragmentary tales in dadaesque-like entropy.
Ashbery-esque he played around life in his jazzy scrawl,
repetitive, hypnotic, parataxic, and banal.
Like other members of his age, he made a lot of noise.
He was a Texan Beckett with a Kafka jackdaw voice.

Wilbur Dee Case is an American poet and literary critic.

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Null Island
by Cu Ebide Aswerl

Null Island is located at the zero-zero point,
awash in an Atlantis sink of geocoding noits.
It’s a default location for all mapping errors made,
an inside cartographic joke for digital mistakes.
Each day, when people on computers or smartphones default,
while searching for whatever it is they are looking for,
Null Island, which does not exist, is where they all are sent,
from satellites, cell towers, wi-fis—in an instant spent.
Bad data flows into Null Island every single day.
Like no place on the planet, it is being blown away.

Cu Ebide Aswerl is a poet of games and gamers, like classy Flemmings Beaubrun, inter alia.