A Few of Earth’s Own Languages
by R. Lee Ubicwedas
There are a lot of languages—too numerous to name—
but some of the more populous demographers proclaim
are Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic and Portuguese,
Bengali, Hindi, Russian, German, French and Japanese,
Punjabi, Telugu, Marathi, and Vietnamese,
Italian, Tamil, Thai, Korean, Wu and Javanese,
Dutch, Urdu, Turkish, Yue, Gujurati and Burmese,
Ukranian, Min Nan, Jinyu, and many more than these.
One cannot name all of the languages that people speak;
and even some of their own names run off the tongue like Greek.
R. Lee Ubicwedas is a poet of the universal.
_________________________________________________________________
Democracy
by Brice U. Lawseed
It hardly ever shows itself, it is a furtive elf;
it momentarily turns up in minds or on a shelf.
It’s been around a prolonged time, more than two thousand years,
but it is still amazing every time that it appears.
So many dark and evil forces roaming over Earth
attempt to crush it when they can, and too, deny its birth;
although they also like to claim its power for their own,
for even brutal tyrants do not like to be alone.
It ‘s the worst form of government, except for all the rest,
with which the Earth’s been crushed enough. Compared with them it’s blessed.
Brice U. Lawseed is a poet of the nation’s capital.
_________________________________________________________________
Some Buddy
by Wilbur Dee Case
Some Buddy lived in a Middlesex town,
near Harvard’s arboured Yard endowed.
Dad’s family friends would visit thems,
Rolls-eye-a Royce and William Gems.
He spent his summers on Silver Lake,
on Madison, New Hampshire’s bank,
until the stroke of second noon;
he came to Joy-Farm’s no-more moon.
He leaped toward Transcendental Sun,
le Bon Dieu, Unitarian.
His soul and spirit sang the sky,
as time went up and down and by.
When war encroached, he volunteered,
and injured…ambulances…steered,
with John Dos Passos, forth and back,
until arrested by the Frank.
He lived in an enormous room
for four short months of dim and doom;
yet came back then on New Year’s Day
to sprawling, brawling U.S.A.
He frequently criss-crossed the Sea
to lovely, lively, vile Paree.
He pictured poor-traits, canvased faces,
painted po-e-trees in vases.
He met P-i-c-a-s-s-o, A-r-a-g-o-n,
and took a trip in ’31,
off to the vast Ess-Ess-Ess-Err,
returning with sass and despair.
A nonconformist for mist forms,
the left wing left his word-loft swarms.
He cried, “I am not a machine,”
elf-bubble blushed, self-publishing.
O, straight away, around the bend,
he gave nonlectures to the wind.
Cremated by the critics / cut,
whee! comings, going, stayings, put…
Usa W. Celebride is a poet of American lit. Some Buddy (1894-1962) is one of his favourite American Modernist poets. Ess-Ess-Ess-Err is CCCP, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
_________________________________________________________________
2018 Boston Venture Capital Thus Far
by Cadwel E. Bruise
So far this year, it seems that Boston, Massachusetts, has
received $5,000,000,000—venture capital enmasse.
This makes it second in the country after Silicon,
and just ahead of New York City’s own cash-asset spawn.
Oft Boston is dismissed—a has-been startup town—no splash;
because it doesn’t have the San Fran frisky, flashy cash.
But Boston’s in the running just because of biotech,
the center of the sector’s latest fund and exit boom;
it is the home of MIT, with deep computerese,
of use in diagnosing and the curing of disease.
Cadwel E. Bruise is a poet of New England. He enjoyed Flemmings Beaubrun’s microessay “Food, Glorious Food”, who is right: it is cheaper and tastier to eat unhealthy. The scarcer the item the more expensive it costs; so, of course, organic fruits and vegetables, without all the additives and pesticides, along with the distant, more attentive farming, cost more. And that cheap fast food with all that grease and sugar, tastes so good. Damn! Every day I long for hamburgers and pizza, milk shakes and Panera Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake! Recently I stood behind a woman in a health food store who purchased three small items for over $40.00. She couldn’t believe it, but nevertheless reluctantly put her chipped card in the EFTPOS terminal (magnetic card reader).
_________________________________________________________________
Economics 101
by Brad Lee Suciew
While Nicolas Madura spoke, droned on, droned on, droned on,
about continuing the socialist re-vo-lu-tion,
supposedly a drone attacked—the army scattered fast!
a gas tank in a near apartment blew one big, smoke blast!
Hyperinflation’s hit Venezuela’s take-&-spend.
The IMF expects one-million-per-cent by year’s end.
Their economic miracle continues to unwind;
the government will cut five zeroes off of prices blind
to ease the chronic shortages of medicine and food.
Madura’s learning scarcity’s an economic good.
Brad Lee Suciew (pronounced “Suck You”) is a poet of economics.
_________________________________________________________________
Cartagena, Colombia
by Lud Wes Caribee
At dusk, the Caribbean Sea goes to th’ horizon’s plies
of lavender cloud-streams in fire-golden-orange skies.
Like as a treasure chest of jewels, set in the aqua sheen,
crepuscular and glittering, clear Cartagena seems.
Desde el Cerro de la Popa, Stern Hill, one sees rise
skyscrapered brilliant silver bars in shimmering surprise.
Like closing eyes, two black ships sit amidst the tiny boats.
Asleep in dreamy incandescent time, the city floats,
like as a gorgeous painting through reality’s designs;
its gleaming, brimming sweeps and rims of elegance aligns.
Lud Wes Caribee is a poet of the Caribbean.
_________________________________________________________________
A Man Eating a Grapefruit
by Carb Deliseuwe
He grasps the golden globule in his hand
and slowly peels off the appealing skin.
A yellow grapefruit is his to command.
His lips ope’ up, as he takes it all in.
The bitter, sour juice is biting, sweet.
He takes another piece. It is quite nice.
It spikes his appetite. He likes to eat
it up—each succulent delicious slice.
He does not stop, except to pause to feel
the joy that journeys down his hardened throat.
He pulls apart the pinkish parts; a wheel
of happiness surrounds his aural float.
So brief it passes by. It’s hard to think
where it has gone, into where it must sink.
Carb Deliseuwe is a connoisseur of simple, natural foods and life.
_________________________________________________________________
Upon a Book by Robert Hooke
by Ira “Dweeb” Scule
In 1665, the British wizard Robert Hooke,
while working with a microscope, sliced cork and took a look.
The pores reminded him of cells in monastery halls,
and so began cell theory with the images he saw.
He placed a sample of blue mould beneath his microscope,
discovering what seemed to him like mushrooms on thin rope.
Detailed dronefly eyes were far too worrisome for some,
while finding out that beestings have barbed ends left others dumb.
His observations were a veritable, fecund grove.
O, Micrographia was an important treasure trove.
Ira “Dweeb” Scule is a poet of knowledge. One of his favourite 17th century British natural philosophers was architect and polymath Robert Hooke (1635-1703).
_________________________________________________________________
Hypercomplexivity
by Euclidrew Base
One day in 1843, along Royal Canal,
he had a flash both hypercomplex and numerical:
abandon the commutativity of products law!
thus William Rowan Hamilton brought forth new algebra.
With i2 = j2 = k2, ijk,
his formed quaternions forged forth fresh arithmetica.
He stopped his walk, with knife he carved it into Brougham Bridge;
although his work was for a while eclipsed by that of Gibbs.
Today it ‘s found a place to stay in spatial algebra;
and too, in quantum theory’s realms it has proved valu’ble.
Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. As per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Hamiltonian is a function to describe a dynamic function in terms of components of momentum and coordinates of space and time and that is equal to the total energy of the system when time is not explicitly part of the function.
_________________________________________________________________
The Central European Customer
by Aleš Eduw Rebič
Upon the wall, the cans and canisters were stacked.
The rows rose seven feet above the two men’s heights,
who had gone over to the cooler that was packed
with drinks of many colors: greens, reds, blues, and whites.
It’s obviously summertime, because the men
wore only shoes and shorts. They paused beneath the lights,
their hair as short as rats’ inside a maze or pen.
The stockier one of the two ope’d up the door
of the refrigerated drinks. He picked out one,
although it looked as though he really wanted more.
He turned back round, an ample, but a simple, act,
and vanished in a crack behind a rifle’s bore.
_________________________________________________________________
Pamêť
by Aleš Eduw Rebič
Upon his way from nature to his being, walls appeared,
enclosing everything, including shaking)) hors d’oeuvres ((speared,
Vladimír Holan lived obscurely, darkly p(essim)ist,
like Stéphane Mallarmé as a Decembrist in the mist.
He rode the horror of the march to 1939,
and through the war, and afterwards, to 1949.
Once he was on the Index, he left Party for the Church,
and spent an endless night with Hamlet at his Kampa perch,
in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in awkward poverty,
until he was interred in Olŝanské hřbitovy.
Aleš Eduw Rebič is a poet of the Czech Republic. Perhaps the most famous poem of the Postmodernist Czech poet Vladimír Holan (1905-1980) is “Noc s Hamletem”, “Night With Hamlet”.
_________________________________________________________________
Embattled Buea
by Bacweris Udele
West of Douala and Yaounde, Buea’s a commune,
the capital of Southern Region of the Cameroon,
a place of happenings, located on the eastern slopes,
where Bakweri resistance clashed with German Empire troops.
Back in 1909, Mount Cameroon exploded for
more than a month disrupting German admin foreign corps.
The gunfights in the city—90,000 off the streets—
now make a ghost town out of th’ Anglophone community.
They don’t want French forced down their throats—no force-fed phonemes for
downtrodden folk who now envision Amblazonia.
Bacweris Udele is a poet of central Africa.
_________________________________________________________________
Humayun’s Tomb
by Waseel Budecir
Humayun’s Tomb’s in Dehli, India, commissioned by
wife Bega Begum, who had been chief consort to the guy.
Although his name meant “winner, lucky, conqueror”, divine;
he was, in life, unfortunate, and dead at forty-nine.
If there had been a chance for falling, Humayun took it;
he “tumbled through his life and [then] he tumbled out of it”.
He scarcely had enjoyed his throne, when suddenly he slips,
and died from falling down the polished, palace royal steps.
The Mughal monument and regal mausoleum stands
as a reminder of his firm and powerful commands.
Now honoured aft with red sandstone and rubble masonry,
this mighty tomb reminds that history likes irony.
Waseel Budecir is a poet of South Central Asia. The quote comes from Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), British archaeologist and professor of Arabic.
_________________________________________________________________
The Padmasana
by Sri Wele Cebuda
He got into the padmasana, there upon the mat.
He bent his knees and stretched his legs, aware where he was at.
He lifted up his spirit’s spine, from hips up to his head.
He closed his eyes, but opened up his mind; it was wide-spread.
He dreamed of hills, high, rugged, rough, they rose up to the sky.
He longed to see life waterfalling with his inner eye.
He felt his brown-and-white-striped tee shirt, keeping him contained,
so he would not fly off…but still new height could be attained.
His knees were braced. His legs were firm. His neck stretched in the air.
His elbows bent, he was content, as if he wasn’t there.
Sri Wele Cebuda is a poet of India.
_________________________________________________________________
Indonesian Quaking
by Budi Eas Celewr
The tourists flee the Indonesian island of Lombok;
a 6.9 earthquake has sent them running for the dock.
The rescuers used heavy diggers and machinery
to search for more survivors and to clear up the debris.
At least 100 people had been killed within the quake,
as many ran to higher ground. Get gone, for goodness sake.
Leave cultivated lowlands filled with crops of rice and corn,
of coconuts, cacao, and coffee, cloves and cinnamon,
cassavas, copra, cotton, and tobacco; but don’t climb
up Mount Rinjani; where last week at least ten people died.
Budi Eas Celewr is a poet of Indonesia.
_________________________________________________________________
The Somerton Man
by Walibee Scrude
They found him on the beach—the Somerton Man—at Glenelg,
December 1st in ’48, just south of Adelaide.
a man not anybody knew, his cause of death unknown,
about five-foot eleven, dropped onto the sand alone.
In the fob pocket of his trousers, was a paper scrap,
on which was written, tamám shud, or it is ended—zap—
a page torn from the Rubaiyat, that of Omar Khayyám,
on whose back was an undeciphered, coded telegram.
One of Australia’s most profound and striking mysteries,
the Somerton Man—at Glenelg—left life in secrecy.
Walibee Scrude is a poet of Australia.
_________________________________________________________________
The Battle of Leyte Gulf
by War di Belecuse
The battle spanned 100,000 miles-squared of sea.
The largest battleships e’er built shared in the misery.
800 ships and 1800 aircraft did partake.
337,000 tons of shipping sank.
200,000 soldiers fought on both of the two sides.
The Japanese used kamikaze fighters in their dives.
The navy of Japan was paralyzed, brought to its knees.
MacArthur’s personal goal was to reach the Philippines.
Although most will forget what happened in that brutal War,
my mother’s cousin Dorin died in 1944.
War di Belecuse is a poet of war. The Battle of Leyte Gulf is considered by some to be the greatest naval battle in history. Amidst all the statistics, it is the personal ones that people remember most.
_________________________________________________________________
Hiroshima, 73 Years Ago
by “Wired Clues” Abe
Three planes flew overhead—perhaps upon reconnaissance—
the place was cool and pleasant, morning still. Then all at once…
came a tremendous flash of light that cut across the sky.
It seemed a sheet of sun. A man stepped…one-two-three-four-five…
and dived between two big rocks in the garden, belly up
against one of the rocks, and felt a sudden pressure’s punch.
Then tile fragments, splinters and board pieces fell on him.
He heard no roar, nor did he see what happened. All was dim.
However, in a distant sampan on the Inland Sea,
a fisherman near Tsuzu heard the sky shriek—suddenly.
“Wired Clues” Abe is a poet of Japan. Much of this tennos draws from “Hiroshima” by John Hersey (1914-1993), one of the earliest developers of the New Journalism.
Leave A Comment