One Last Little Cry
by “Clear Dews” Ibuse
One last little cry,
it was hard for him to eat;
but he still purred when petted,
then Shoshei came to his end.
Good bye, Mr. Kitty.
“Clear Dews” Ibuse is a poet influenced by such writers as Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902).
~~~
Riff on a Harry S. Miller (1867-1934) Lyric
by Educable Wires
We thought he was a goner, and he was.
The cat did not come back.
Educable Wires is a poet of American music. Harry S. Miller (1867-1934) was an American lyricist, composer, and playwright.
~~~
Newsreel:
The Communists are censoring the Argentine Messi,
for they despise what they hate—individuality.
The World Cup, more than 6,000,000 fans attend the games,
and watching through all streams it seems 6,000,000,000 are engaged.
~~~
In Galilee
by Crise de Abu Wel
In Galilee at Cana, there was a marriage;
but the wine ran out; and the mother of one guest,
said, “They do not have wine.” He, with an upright carriage,
retorted, “What’s that to us? My hour hasn’t
yet come.” Nevertheless, she said to the servants,
“Whatever my son tells you, do at his behest.”
So he said, “Fill the six jars with an abundance
of water, and then, draw off some of the liquid,”
which they did [There is eternal significance
even in small events.]; and after they this did,
the Master of the Feast did not know from where it
came; but, having drawn the water, the servants did.
Crise de Abu Wel is a poet of the blessing of water.
~~~
Sudan and Us
by Luwi Recs Abede
This is the seventy-year anniversary
of Sudan—2026, an African
land that has been at war with itself for nearly
all that time, a clash between tan calf and caftan,
the Arab Muslims ridding themselves of millions,
the ethnic cleansing of animist and Christian,
the top of their flag dipped in bloody vermillion.
It once had been great Africa’s largest nation,
this vast emptiness, famine and crucifixion,
this wide hollowness, murder and desecration.
So many millions of people displaced, clearly,
from the North, it is a season of migration.
Luwi Recs Abede is a poet of East Africa. Tayeb Salih (1929-2009) was a Sudanese Postmodern novelist.
~~~
Newsreel:
It seems that friendly fire blasted the refinery
a massive flying saucer top flew off in Muscovy.
~~~
Lucian of Samosata
by Aedile Cwerbus
Lucian of Samosata shows to what depths
Greek had fallen; and yet how powerful a vehicle
for the transmission of ideas. Menippus
seems to have helped shape his style, which is critical,
philosophical, and rhetorical in dialogs
and diatribes, with tones that are satirical
and skeptical. His range moves from that of the dogs,
id est, the Cynics, to that of the moralists.
But his was a strange world of Roman and Greek bogs.
He does seem to come out of those swirling, whirled mists
between Socrates and Diogenes’ Athens
when tragedy turns bitter and comedy twists.
Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of Ancient writings. Lucien (c. 120 – c. 165) was an Ancient Greek author of comic dialogs. Menippus (fl. 3rd century BC) was an Ancient Greek Cynic satirist.
~~~
Of All the Possibilities
by R. Lee Ubicwedas
Why, of all the possibilities in the universe,
do you arrive here at this place? Is it not doable?
What’s the problem of ending up here at this time? A curse?
Is there a fear that your spirit is not renewable,
and by visiting you will be sucked in to a great void,
or are you worried that you do not have the energy
to embrace another? Are you too easily annoyed,
or do you dread another degenerate synergy?
Are you dealing with an inability of meeting
the future head on, or are you drowning in the present?
Do you lack the strength of making a personal greeting
one more time, or do you find it more tiring than pleasant?
Do you not understand what you are missing, because you
fail to appreciate the beautiful, the good, the true?
R. Lee Ubicwedas is a poet of Ubiquity.
~~~
A Rags-to-Riches Story
by Usa W. Celebride
Horatio Alger’s life hardly seems
believable, so fantastic is it.
It begins with his severe father’s schemes
of study, discipline, and requisite
prayer. At eighteen, he graduated
from Harvard, tutored, and later entered
the Harvard Divinity School against
his wishes. At graduation, he fled
with friends to Paris, around which centered
a youthful love affair, which so incensed
his father, he had it quashed. In Paris,
he became Bohemian and fell in
with a femme fatale. To flee her caress,
the clutches of this Parisian Helen,
he returned to New York City. But she
took the same boat! He lost her at the dock!
and snuck back to Massachusetts, where he
tried to enlist in the Union Army
several times, unsuccessfully, th’ awk-
ward, fat, pale, and little man with cloudy
eyes. This resulted in severe illness,
ordination as a Unitarian
pastor, and resignation. But restless
ambition to write sent him scurryin’
to New York City, where he spent about
three decades. His first, big publication
was a “Ragged Dick” tale. Charles O’Connor
of the Newsboys’ Lodging House sought him out.
Alger became his close friend, House chaplain,
supporter, and publicist of honor.
In addition, he wrote the “Luck and Pluck”
and “Tattered Tom” series: plain piety
displayed in book after book after book
of the rags-to-riches variety.
He was popular, but miserable
with no family; so he adopted
a little Chinese boy named Wing. But Wing died;
and that only added to his trouble;
and, so, to ease his sadness, he opted
to rest, go West, and take a long, long ride.
It didn’t work; and so, sick, and further
insane, he returned East. But in Peekskill,
New York, he was arrested for murder
mistakenly, released, more unstable,
and fell madly in love with Una Garth,
a married woman in a frilly blouse,
who, bored of him, fled to her home in France.
He followed her! She drove him from her hearth!
He crept back to the Newsboys’ Lodging House.
But O’Connor soon died, a final lance.
Alone, with his fame, charities, and clubs,
he went to live with a married sister,
the man who wrote over a hundred books,
at sixty-four, and soon thereafter died.
Usa W. Celebride is a poet of American literature. Horation Alger (1832-1899) was an American fiction writer of the Realist period (1850-1900).
~~~
The Hornets in the Oaks
by Dewie Arbuscle
Who are the people some are trying to destroy, and why?
What are their motives and their purposes? Why do they lie?
Where do they think the truths they hide end up eventu’lly?
When do they learn such lying catches them eventu’lly?
Why do they raise false idols, praise fake reasons fervently?
How long will they continue lying to themselves as well?
Why don’t the powerful want other thoughts upon the net?
Why do they work so hard to get the people to forget?
Do they think people are not smart enough to see their ploys?
Do they think people can’t find truth within the datanoise?
Why do they yawp and howl and never listen to the folks,
whom they disdain, considering the hornets in the oaks?
Dewie Arbuscle is a poet of shrubs and trees.
~~~
That California Couple
by Cal Wes Ubideer
“Listen! A deep and solemn wind on high;
The shafts of shining dust shift to and fro;
The columned trees sway imperceptibly,
And creak as mighty masts when trade-winds blow.
The cloudy sails are set; the earth-ship swings
Along the sea of space to grander things.”
—Edward Rowland Sill
They walked amid the great Sequoia trees,
dwarfed by their towering and shadowed trunks.
The sunlight filtered down. They were at peace
amongst those dark and aged, growing hunks.
They held each other close, within their arms.
Their hearts were beating uncontrollably.
They strolled along, enthralled by thrilling charms,
two lovers under leafy canopy.
They passed a long log lying on the ground.
They felt as if this was a wonderland.
They heard each other only, and the sound
of an occasional bird in that stand,
and stood the test of love; but time moved on,
and passed them by, and now they both are gone.
Cal Wes Ubideer is a poet of California. Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) was an American Realist poet. Gunny Markefka, a contemporary German singer-songwriter has made a song out of Sill’s “Among the Redwoods.”
~~~
Along Elm Street
by Lew Icarus Bede
The fountain’s spray shoots up above the giant pond-like pool.
The trees around are flourishing beside the large-sized school.
The honey locust and the cedar elm provide defense
along with yarrow and the myrtle round the cyclone fence.
The mockingbirds sing out atop utility pole wires,
oblivious of the electric power’s raging fires.
Here is Discovery Park of the University,
continuing the education, in adversity,
computer science, engineering and technology,
materials research with high-strength, microscope 3-D.
Your Critics
by Lew Icarus Bede
Your critics try to knock you out with the first punch they throw,
which means you need to toughen up with a long way to go.
It is important to recover after every blow,
which means you need to keep on fighting at a red-hot glow.
Your critics try to banish you; they want to stop your voice,
which means you need to howl and yawp. Don’t yield to their noise.
It is important to speak out and still retain your poise,
which means you need to disregard the mockers and their ploys.
Your critics try to cut you down; they fear another view;
which means you need to keep on trying, so you can get through.
Your critics try to hem you in; they try to limit you,
which means you need to break free, o, when you are able to.
Lew Icarus Bede is a poet and literary critic.
The Unexpected Journey, a Fragment
by Waldeci Erebus
I
He drove onto the ferry dock in darkest, rainy night,
the water rough, the concrete grey, here there was little light,
the water bleak as that between the Sylt to Rømø trip.
His car was motioned to the boat. Was this the River Styx?
Two figures had been following. He wondered who they were?
He worried. Hurry up it’s time. They drove their car aboard
The pilot grinned with some chagrin, like Charon’s twin, unkempt.
He snuck back to the back, and as the ferry left, he leapt.
He found himself upon the shore, the seagulls overhead,
their cries were like grim incantations meant to raise the dead.
Who was this dude? Was he a ghost of some departed soul,
who wasn’t ready to depart his temporal abode?
For here he was upon this sand within this hour glass,
a revenant in stylish tie and smartly belted pants.
Who was this figure on the beach, this unknown figure here,
who’d heard the sirens, but still managed not to disappear.
Each truck, van, car, all disembarked, onto the paved cement.
The gloomy rain, the pent-up brain, this wasn’t what he meant.
Who snuck him off the ferry; it had been his time to go.
Whose vehicle had carried him off of the giant boat?
II
And then he found himself while seated at a restaurant,
no social distancing, while eating in that Western haunt.
He heard the sounds of people chatting at the counter top,
iced drinks in glasses, forks on plates, the politics nonstop.
Downtown, deciding he would see the publishers of books;
but none was interested in a dead man’s words. Gadzooks!
He’d been unpublished, and that was how it would stay it seemed.
What was he thinking anyway? He was lost in a dream.
He walked along the streets alone, his manuscript in hand.
A dead man’s words would interest nobody in this land.
He climbed a flight of stairs to reach his flat one story up.
He opened his refrigerator. Did he have a cup?
His cellphone rang, he picked it up, and listened to the voice,
the airy words resounded in his ears as so much noise.
He’d missed his trip to Hades, so another one was on;
he’d take a jet across the ocean to oblivion.
He rose through clouds, then fell asleep, though in the aisle seat.
The news droned in his ear buds, as he stretched his cramped-up feet,
When he awoke the jet was sloaring to some unknown port.
The dead man wondered what it was that he was heading toward.
III
What was this place he had come to? Was he in Boston now?
He doubted that this was the case. It seemed not quite…somehow.
Was he upon the coast of the Atlantic? or elsewhere?
It certainly was wet—the cloudy atmosphere and air.
He got into a taxi cab that had come just for him.
No words exchanged as he was carried to the beach front home.
He was dropped off without a suitcase. Had it gone astray?
Did he have one? What would a dead man carry anyway?
He stepped into that overwhelming grey and rainy whirl,
this weather-beaten house that seemed at the end of the World.
The house was flat, rectangular, a white-brick, Bauhaus box.
the blue-trim walls, like as Sumerian mosaic blocks.
The red-twig dogwood seemed like as a burning, flaming bush;
but it was cold, severe, austere, a seeming lifeless shrub.
The door was opened, his credentials checked, and checked again.
He entered in. What was this place that he was going in?
Postmodern paintings, abstract splashes of red, white and blue,
adorned the walls in giant frames, contrasting with the view:
outside the windows, dunes and grasses under cloudy skies,
the desolation of the sand before his open eyes.
IV
He came up to a flight of steps, no railings on its sides.
He climbed up them, a series of flat, dark grey andesite.
When he came to the top, he was amazed at what he saw.
the furniture spectacular, miraculous, and raw.
He walked along, observing vast rooms coming off the hall.
He walked into the study—a huge window was its wall.
Outside he saw a shadow sweeping sand and dead grass blades.
The giant window had no shutters, blinds, no drapes or shades.
He sat down at the desk. There was a book of many leaves.
He started reading it, a mix of prose and poetry.
It was a cross between a Hermann Hesse novel and
an epic panorama by an unknown master hand.
He read enthralled for hour after hour in that room,
occasionally glancing at the figure with the broom.
And then he fell into a sleep, so deep, he dreamed that he
was in a novel movie moving surreptitiously.
He trod along a River. Sticks were floating in a pile.
He hid behind them as a helicopter flew on by.
Bipolar in his actions, he continued past a cove,
that was quite sibylline in character. Then he awoke.
V
He took a break to eat a bit, and then went down the stairs.
He stepped outside to clear his head, the air fresh with despair.
A hooded figure walked with him across the windswept dunes.
The figure spoke of Jesus and Napoleon’s bleak doom.
Behind, a shadow followed them, as they walked arm in arm.
The shadow seemed innocuous, like it would do no harm.
The skies were ominously grey, as was the sand itself,
there on that distant gusty beach and continental shelf.
Then headed back, where he was picked up by an ebon car,
and taken to a nearby inn, room, restaurant and bar.
He felt like as a ghost upon the moors, a wanderer.
transported to another place and time—stray ponderer.
He came upon the Inn. Was this New England by the sea?
Or was it some mislabeled place in northern Germany?
A lovely clerk in maid-like garb checked him in for the night.
He slumbered on this first day’s stay beneath a beacon’s light.
Why was he here? What was the purpose he had come here for?
How long would he be here upon this ghastly, dismal shore?
At dawn he woke and got into the black car once again,
and off he went back to that Bauhaus house where he had been.
VI
He passed the gazing grasses where no animals had grazed.
He passed the empty schoolhouse where no children laughed and played.
He passed the empty church without a pastor and his flock.
He passed some runners running, overhead a hungry hawk.
The car proceeded unimpeded to the house once more.
The second day began with breakfast on the bottom floor.
And then it was time to return back to the study where
he had been at the day before beyond the rising stair.
Outside it was the same, grey cloudy skies, grey sea, grey land.
Inside large, square, framed paintings, red and blue, abstract and grand.
He went back to the tome. He turned his Dell computer on.
He placed the jump-drive in its side, and typed the password in.
Alarms went off. The room went dark. The lockdown went full bore.
He left the room, that gloomy tomb, and tripped onto the floor.
Around him, all about him, voices filled the atmosphere.
Political and medical, he wished they’d disappear.
He felt like as an ancient mariner plagued by unrest.
He longed for peace and quiet; here upon this eerie quest.
He hated being a receptacle for so much noise.
He longed to go back to the Inn to get again his poise.
VII
But things weren’t quite right at the Inn. He saw that at the bar.
The television on the wall showed news that jounced and jarred.
He heard his own words read upon the screen. It bothered him.
He ordered chowder, had the channel changed, the author grim.
He went up to his room; somebody had been there before.
He found his papers scattered on the furniture and floor.
And yet the clerk told him, when asked, who else was at the Inn,
that there was none but him. It seemed nobody ‘d broken in.
And so he fell asleep, and slept until his smart phone rang,
and brought him back to animation with a Sturm und Drang.
He slipped away from Morpheus, a wakened Orpheus
who sneaked from where he was, Aeneas as Odysseus.
He checked out of the Inn, the whole place loud with clattering.
Outside he heard the clang of van doors, people chattering.
Apparently, some new event had people up in arms,
newscasters and protesters adding to the tense alarms.
He had to run the gauntlet of reporters and the damned.
Insanity was rampant, Dionysian and mad.
Here Hermes showed with Hercules along with Erebus,
a setting hardly peaceful, not at all Elysian.
VIII
He came back to the House where he was given his own room,
where other souls had been before, dark as a gloomy tomb.
Effects of the last of the latest known inhabitant
were still around the place; indeed they had not been cleared yet.
He felt like as a ghost. Would he be able here to write?
He felt like as a shadow when the curtains opened wide.
He paused to take his breath; but it was time to go again.
He felt like he was being shuffled round about. And then,
he joined a meeting that was taking place in space and time.
He heard some words that flew, like birds, but didn’t really chime.
He felt like he was on Olympus. Then the meeting closed.
Was that Niobe crying? or Penelope’s own ghost?
He left Olympus and proceeded down steps to his room.
Who had been there before him in this modest, furnished tomb?
He found a hidden message that was left. He read its text.
he wondered what it meant for him, and what would happen next.
He called someone, but who would answer? Can ghosts have a chat?
He wished that he could find a map of this place he was at.
He got directions to the place where he had come ashore.
So out into the gloomy day, he went off to explore.
Waldeci Erebus is a poet of According to Beau Lecsi Werd, “sloaring” is a neologistic blend.
Leave A Comment