The Eagle and the Fox
          by Bud “Weasel” Rice

Out on the San Juan Islands, Puget Sound, in Washington,
K. Ebi clicked a pic of fox with rabbit on the run.
A young red fox had nabbed a small brown bunny, tummy white,
and scampered through the green and scarlet meadow with delight.
When all at once—he startled was—an eagle swooped on down,
and lifted up the fox and rabbit ten feet off the ground.
At twenty feet the eagle flew with fox and rabbit clenched,
but inadvertently the fox got snagged—it stretched out wrenched.
It triggered a dramatic airborne struggle….seconds long….
until the eagle dropped the fox; its fight had been too strong.

Bud “Weasel” Rice is a poet of nature. He remembers a camping trip to the San Juan Islands in his youth, and in particular, Orcas Island, where he hiked up Mount Constitution, and got an eagle-eyed view of the surrounding islands and distant mountains. Fortunately the young fox did not end up eaglet food, as in Aesop’s fable.

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Another Sunny Saturday
          by Beaudiwel Cres

Another sunny Saturday comes to the neighbourhood,
sans peignoir ni complaisances, the air is fresh and good;
a cup of coffee by green-carpeted, bermuda grass;
the chirping birds are all about their daily business tasks;
the freedom-reeling swallows wheeling through the azure blue,
far from the sacred sacrifice of cow or cockatoo;
a fenced-in dog barks out arf-arf; cats contemplate the risk;
a voice is heard, a door is closed, prolixity is skipped;
aristocratic, flowering-pear leaves whisp in the breeze;
edenic, paradisal, happy, home in heaven’s ease.

Beaudiwel Cres is a connoisseur of lart.* Lart is a neologism of Beau Lecsi Werd meaning art filled with light.

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On Sleep: After Marcus Cornelius Fronto
          by Aedile Cwerbus

The story goes that father Jove, back in the dawn of time,
created human beings from the depths of the sub-lime,
dividing life into two parts, one dark, the other light,
the day, the stark bright one for work, the one for rest, the night.
At that time, Sleep had not been born, all lived their lives awake,
night spent by watchful souls in a nocturnal give and take.
But as the nature of humanity is restlessness,
so active-eager were they that they had no blessedness.
When Jove saw that disputes and suits were troubling the dark,
and Dis and Neptune wanted neither nightingale nor lark,
Minerva liking watchfulness, and Mars dim subterfuge,
and night-owls Venus-Love and Liber living high and huge;
then he decided he would take things in to his own hands;
it isn’t easy even for a god to give commands.
He first blent sap of herbs for Sleep to soothe the human heart;
and then He put sweet safety’s herbs and pleasure in Sleep’s cart,
those He had harvested from heaven’s forest on his own;
and then He took a drop of death he got from Acheron.
With this sap, he said, wash sleep over all humanity,
who though appearing dead, would soon revive to sanity.
He next tied wings to Sleep, and placed them on Sleep’s shoulders fast,
not rushed like Mercury’s fleet ankles, speeding through the Vast,
with din of chariots and horses driving madly on,
but rather like the swallow, delicate and soft, like dawn.
And then he added pleasing dreams to suit each person’s mind,
so he or she could be spectator of all they divined.

Aedile Cwerbus is a poet of Latin literature.

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A Question to the USGS
          by Cruse Wadibele
          “C12H22O11 → 12C + 11H2O”
              —Acid Burelewes

Jay Furr has asked if it is safe to roast marshmallows o’er
volcanic vents assuming long stick with a solid bore.
If you made smores, at Kilauea would they get too hot?
Would the marshmallows that were cooked be poisonous or not?
The US Geologic Survey recommended no;
it is not safe, so please don’t try, though you might like the glow.
They would taste bad if SO2 or H2S is there;
sulphuric acid, in reaction, is spectacular;
a carbon tower rises up, black, long, and like a snake,
the water goes, escapes as steam, hope there won’t be a quake!

Cruse Wadibele is a poet of Hawaii.

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That Spell
          by Claude I. S. Weber
          “God, not I, willed this.”
              —Robert Mclean

Bassano, Acre, Aspern-Essling, Krasnoi, Leipzig too,
the Battle of La Rothière, Laon, and Waterloo.
Beethoven changed the dedication of Eroica.
and it’s all over, even that stint in Saint Helena.
Like Hannibal, he crossed the Alps, there on a rampant steed,
at least that’s the deciphering of Jacques-Louis David.
There was the coronation, certainly, and then the fall.
But that was not the all. That is not what I mean at all.
For there was Austerlitz against the greater forces of
Tsar Alexander, Francis II, and dreams of governance.

Claude I. S. Weber is a poet of French art, particularly the 19th century.