The Blood Red Moon Eclipse
by Drew U. A. Eclibse
The blood red Moon eclipse takes place in Tuesday morning’s skies.
How many millions watch with wide eyes, as gas prices rise?
Drew U. A. Eclibse is a poet of lunar sites and sighting.
~~~
Haiku
by U. “Bird Claw” Eese
In barren winter,
high atop a leafless tree
a mockingbird sings.
U. “Bird Claw” Eese is a haiku poet of birds.
~~~
Cao Zhi
by Wu “Sacred Bee” Li
Cao Zhi was summoned to the court to face his punishment;
he must produce a verse in seven steps, or banishment.
Cao Pi, his brother, did not trust his brother, so he said
he must produce a poem just to prove his innocence.
So, Cao Zhi spoke, as if his life depended on his lines:
“In order to boil beans, the people char the beanstalk’s vines;
though born of the same root, inside the pot, steamed beans cry out:
Why should we persecute each other, letting hatred sprout?”
In the traditional five-character and quatrain style,
Cao Zhi succeeded, and was not demoted…for a while.
Wu “Sacred Bee” Li is a poet of Ancient Chinese poetry. Cao Zhi (192-232) was affiliated with the Wei Kingdom.
~~~
Newsreel:
Apparently it is an “open war”, says Pakistan,
against the militant aggression from Afghanistan.
~~~
Flashback
by Delir Ecwabeus
for the memory of Nedā Āghā-Soltān
They first began on Thursday in Tehran and Kermanshah,
Sharoud, Yazd, Kashmar, Neyshabour, as well as in Mashhad.
Across Iran, the protests spawned against the government,
state-sponsored rallies marking the suppression of dissent.
They burst against now rising prices, unemployment too,
corruption rampant, and dictatorship that’s gone askew.
They tore some billboards down of Ayatollah Khamenei;
and so supporters of the tyrant came out Saturday.
Perhaps it is the people Iran’s “leaders fear the most,”
a woman waving her white-shawled “hijab” upon a post.
This New Year’s Eve protesters came despite the threatened mood.
What were the names of those protesters murdered in Dorud?
And who were gunned down in the western town of Teyserkan?
Who were the people who were killed in central Shahin Shahr?
Who died in the southwestern town of Izeh in the east?
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed. What is this rough and slouching beast?
As hundreds were arrested for protesting Khamenei,
he said, for that, they could be facing death, on New Year’s Day,
like the half dozen slaughtered in Qahdarijan’s harsh air,
and the eleven-year-old boy shot in Khomeini Shahr,
or, too, the twenty-year-old man there dying on the ground;
one turns to right, to left, no signs of justice can be found.
A man does evil, and the government bestows its praise,
another doing good dies wretched in the brumous haze.
The World was watching as Jafari gave his bulletin:
sedition in the country had been vanquished all at once.
The Revolutionary Guard head spoke of the defeats;
ten thousand people for the government were in the streets.
The “1396 Sedition” has been de-maul-ished,
defeated by security and people’s vigilance.
It wasn’t eighty cities, it was only three, he said.
Does one forget the bird’s flight even after she is dead?
Delir Ecwabeus is a poet of Persia and Iran, who was impressed at the bravery of Nedā Āghā-Soltān (1983-2009), a philosophy student murdered in Iran. The last three lines in stanza three are a paraphrase from Abolqasem Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. The following poem is a poem written in 2009, on the death of Nedā Āghā-Soltān (1983-2009), a philosophy student murdered in Iran during the Green Revolution. Ali Khamenei (1939-2026) was a bloody tyrant of modern Iran, killed by the IAF with support from Israeli, American, and Canadian intelligence.
~~~
Beneath Cleared Skies
by Israel W. Ebecud
Israelis launched more than two-hundred fighter-jets at once,
coordinated in a single operation’s thrust,
dis-man-tl-ing Iran’s defensive air-control net-work,
including key production sites of military worth.
Th’ assault unfolded in less than some ninety minutes long,
with no Israeli aircraft lost, remaining tight and strong.
F-15s and F-16s rolled in careful sequenced waves—
their lights were dimmed, security their foremost thought for saves.
High tankers filled them in the air, as they proceeded on—
the northern corridor of Syria and west Iraq.
Inside Iran, the operation’s open had begun.
Mossad then activated drones, and more, beneath the Sun.
The loitering munitions and quad-copters then arose,
and slammed into their radar, which was easily deposed,
exposing the Iranians to air-to-surface strikes,
thus targeting their missile factories beneath cleared skies.
Israel W. Ebecud is a poet of apocalypse.
~~~
Newsreel:
Iran hit back at Saudis, Cypress, UAE, Iraq,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan—all attacked.
~~~
On Great Events That Take Place in the Middle East
by Cu Ebide Aswerl
There always must be children who aren’t longing so to hear
words of the prophet…targeting the people of the deer.
They grew up by the forest where they gathered berries at
the start of fall, and loved to eat them, blood-red and succulent.
There always must be children who aren’t anxiously enthused
to buy the greatest gadgets or to have the latest tunes.
They grew up in the neighbourhood of houses in a row
where they would play tag, hop scotch, hide-and-seek, and puppet show.
There always must be children who aren’t looking for a war,
who grew up in a placid place they loved to live in…more.
Cu Ebide Aswerl is a poet of fun in a World of hell. W. H. Auden (1907-1973) was a British-American Modernist poet.
~~~
Lennox
by Wilude Scabere
This is the thane attending on King Duncan…Is he young?
accompanying brave Macduff…Who else is he among?
He notes he can’t recall a night as stormy as this last;
it was unruly; chimney’s were blown down; night was hard passed.
Although he joins the court of King Macbeth, he’s soon convinced
of the usurper’s guilt; yet stays and speaks—his words now minced.
He tells Macbeth Macduff has fled, but when young Malcolm comes,
he leaves Macbeth for Malcolm’s army, as Macbeth succumbs.
There’s Something in this Will
by Wilude Scabere
Shall I compare his language to a grave? It is more lively and more flowery. His rough-shook words refuse to be death’s slave. No tomb’s as showy or so showery. A sepulchre, though hard as rock, erodes, and shrines do often lose their lustre’s prime, while monuments, though nice, make poor abodes, and sadly catacombs decay in time. But Shakespeare’s language will not go away. Unceasingly, his lines play in the mind. They pop up even on a summer’s day. Unlike a crypt, they will not stay behind. Alas, poor Oracle, his song goes on, despite all efforts of oblivion.
Wilude Scabere is a poet fond of the writings of William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
~~~
Learning to Descry
by U. Were Basic Eld
Zooming in on the helicopter fix, living molecules gathered together to form-force, hark, archaeopterix, producing from the ether, a feather that could breathe in the oxygen environment, that could cut through to harsh sharp cores of existence, of learning to descry what also wiped out the dinosaurs.
U. Were Basic Eld is a poet of Archaic Eras, as in the above prosem.
~~~
Quite Contrary
by Ed U. Cable Wires
“Things as they are/ Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
—Wallace Stevens
I am unhappy with the way things are now in the World.
Like all of us who come here, I must change things as they are.
And though we wrangle, struggle, strive, against each other hurled,
I wildly and savagely play on…my brown guitar.
Combining, fabricating, juggling till something new appears,
a buzzing, twanging banging and experience is pierced;
and when perhaps new idealities are made and neared;
the process is alchemically produced, ferocious, fierce.
The anarchy of waters and the comedy of farce
reveal raging forces we cannot control or parse.
Ed U. Cable Wires is a poet of pop, rock, and soul. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was a Modernist American poet.
~~~
Top 2026 Winter Olympics Medal Counts
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
1. Norway 41
2. USA 35
3. Italy 30
4. Germany 26
5. Japan 24
6. France 23
7. Switzerland 23
8. Canada 21
9. Netherlands 20
10. Sweden 18
11. Austria 18
12. China 15
13. South Korea 10
14. Australia 6
15. Finland 6
The Oarsman
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
He’s panting at the river’s edge, bent at the back.
He has been striving for the gold for, o, so long.
His shirt is black. The pants upon his legs are black.
Despite the fight he has endured, he still is strong.
Along his length, though he is tense, his smile is big.
He plans to keep on fighting till the end. His song
is victory; he reaches deep inside to dig
for more, to go beyond where he has been before.
He gives it everything he’s got to move his gig.
He pulls for all he’s worth beside that tree-lined shore.
He offers all he is and hopes he will not crack,
but with one final, last-ditch effort he will score.
Ruminating in a Field
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
At times he’d rather not be exercising with good eggs,
not working on his abs and glutes, nor on his arms and legs.
In fact, he’d rather be out ruminating in a field,
instead of going to some urban gym. What does that yield?
He’d love to pause to breathe the air, not sucking it in hard.
He’d rather stand in grass than climb up steps and being jarred.
O, yes, he would. But it seems that this will not be his fate.
Instead of ever growing stronger, could he not abate?
or wait, not ever lifting his weight up? or wane, not train?
instead of rushing, running, grunting…maybe just abstain?
Fe-el
by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”
You went out for a walk; it was a sunny seventy.
As you are walking, skies are azure, light-blue, heavenly.
You pause to scratch your back upon a lamppost standing tall.
You gaze and fe-el like some twenty feet above it all.
Though you’re no Hercules, you fe-el strong enough to run
across the wide, broad avenue beneath the blazing Sun.
You see the sidewalk turning through the grass and rising hill.
You fe-el like you’re on the plains and climbing up by will.
You see the litter scattered on the ground, a bird on high.
You turn to go back to your neighbourhood, and then you sigh.
Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”, is a poet of sport.
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