The Parker Solar Probe
          by I. E. Sbace Weruld

The Parker-Solar-Probe lift-off from Cape Canaveral,
off-blasted to the Sun’s corona where none ‘s ever gone.
About the size of a small car, it’s travelling for years
in hopes of gaining info on the Sun’s vast atmosphere,
where temp’ratures exceed 1,000,000 Fahrenheit degrees,
some 90,000,000 miles from Earth’s soiled air and seas.
Built to withstand the radiation of the solar climes,
the plan’s to pass through the corona some two dozen times.
Launched on a Delta IV, a mighty rocket in the night,
it shot into the dark, a shiny line, a tiny light.

I. E. Sbace Weruld is a poet of the cosmos.

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“A Broken Guy” Who Had “a Few Screws Loose”
          by Air Weelbed Suc

Nobody saw it coming—Beebo—o, it was insane,
a 29-year-old airline employee stole a plane,
and crashed it into Ketron Island in the Puget Sound;
he flew in barrel rolls, then hit the forest on the ground.
He tractored to the runway a twin-engine turboprop,
and took it to the air, like it was just another hop.

With no experience, it is amazing what he did,
he flew about about an hour up there off the grid.
He said he was “a broken guy” who had “a few screws loose”.
Too bad he hadn’t tightened them before he hit the news.
He said he could put down the landing gear, but never tried,
so Richard Russell stole a Sea-Tac plane, and then he died.

 

The Pilots
          by Air Weelbed Suc

We were pilot and copilot in the cockpit,
preparing for lift-off, our hands on the levers,
our eyes on the horizon. We talked but a bit;
we were at one of life’s serious endeavours.
Our actions were automatic, each in his seat.
We fingered the dials, remembered Our Fathers,
scanned the screens, and had just a little bit to eat.
We were about to take that plane to the heavens.
We radioed the Tower, monitored the Heat,
and proceeded to taxi down the runway tens.
The engines were revving. We shot like a rocket.

Air Weelbed Suc is a poet of flight. One of his favourite movies is the film “Flight”.

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The Canadian
          by Wes Caribu Deel

It was a draw for him—that lone Canadian,
who longed to lie upon the land, the scrub-brush plains,
below the snow-capped mounts, a new Arcadian,
who lay his clothes and self upon the grass and grains,
his brown beard blending in the gorgeous, floral forge.
In thick brown boots and gray, red-lined wool socks, he gains
some peace, kicked-back, his hair on back and head touched or’nge.
He lifts his head above his shoulders to the right,
upon his elbows and his abs, beyond Prince George,
that realm that Robert Service served, that lovely light,
so beautiful, a booty of the radiant
he longed to bathe in for forever—golden bright.

 

On Farley Mowat (1921-2014)
          by Wes Caribu Deel

His métier lay somewhere between the vast grey void
of fact and fiction, Farley Mowat, th’ author of
books, such as, Never Cry Wolf, a fine work enjoyed
by many avid readers, who have come to love
his stance in nature and his story-telling skills.
Although the truths that he’s portayed are very rough;
exaggeration fills his pages up; he still
is able to express in animated prose
word pictures that are fresh and bring forth thoughtful thrills.
Although at times, one finds one differs from his pose,
the energy he tells his tale can leave one buoyed,
insouciant, and glad to follow where he goes.

Wes Caribu Deel is a reticent Canadian poet and literary critic caught in a time warp. Influenced by writers such as Robert Service, John McCrae, John Gillespie Magee, Jr., and Farley Mowat, he is a friend of Canadian poet “Blue Cedar” Siew and an acquaintance of the extremely reticent Canadian hermit, Arc Elbew Uside.

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Midsummer Window Boxes
          by Ileac Burweeds

Above the blue lobelias,
bright, red geraniums
bloom orblike, as big as tea cups
against some tiny crumbs.

The large and crimsom flowers grow
beside their grand, green leaves;
the wee, white-centered florets blow
about in summer’s breeze.

Though the lobelia is small,
there are a lot of them,
inviting to the little bees,
if fragile, thin of stem;

while huge geraniums, though few,
take up most of the space;
there insects generally do
not care to pause apace.

Ileac Burweeds is a botanist-leaning poet.

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V. S. Naipaul (1932-2018)
          by Lud Wes Caribee

A man who never felt at home wherever he was at,
in a large family, when growing up in Trinidad,
a man of Indian stock critical of India,
who lived in England, an eccentric individual,
a man who saw the world’s what it is, but didn’t flinch,
who, though he had no place in it, would not give it an inch,
a man approaching Conrad in his ken of cruelty,
and Kipling in his seamy picture of humanity,
a man who wrote both fiction and nonfiction, long and small,
in short, a man—Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul.

Lud Wes Caribee is a poet of the Caribbean. V. S. Naipaul once wrote that an “autobiography can distort, facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies. It reveals the writer totally.”

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The Kenyatta International Conference Center
          by Dicase Lebweru

It stands tall in Nairobi, Kenya, the KICC;
it soars some twenty-eight floors up in lush humidity.
A teracotta, flush facade, it kicks the lovely sky,
like as a giant cylinder upturned to catch the eye.
At night it glows deep in the city with a shiny sheen;
yet still it throbs with life, though from the 1970s.
Distinctively its top extends into a helipad,
from which breathtaking views can be experienced and had.
It’s so spectacular a spot one can’t forget the time
when one is there! o, definitely worth the rugged climb.

Dicase Lebweru is a poet of East Africa. The earliest written record of the word “Kenya” was noted by Johann Ludwig Krapf. Chief Kivoi told him it was called “Kï-Nyaa” or “Kïïma Kïïnyaa” possibly because the black rock and the white snow reminded the various tribes of the feathers of the cock ostrich, the biggest bird in the World. They can grow up to 2.7 meters tall and weigh up to 145 kilograms. It is the fastest biped on the planet, and can run at speeds of 70 kilometres/hour, covering 5 meters in a single stride. Since 1988, 21 Kenyan males and 13 females have won the Boston Marathon, more than any other nation in each case.

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Ode on a Roman Book Collector
          by “Crude” Abe Lewis

You icky beaut, do you long for Arabian
rich oils? Are you preparing for a foray to
subdue insane terrorists in Saba, Yemen,
and battle holocaust-denying Persians too?

You may as well forge chains for the barbarians,
for virgin wives whose husbands have been slain by slaves,
or boys who want to blast their capillaries’ runs
to smitherines for some crazed seer’s vicious knaves.

You ask what is the Chinese arrow pointing at.
You say I can’t deny the bow string is pulled out.
Once it’s released it can’t be taken back, What’s that?
no more than Tiber could the Appenines surmount?

You, of all men, who bought from all your storied name,
you sell Panaeti’s books, and tomes on Socrates,
exchanged for armor formed by hot Hispanic flame,
you, yes, who gave such promise of much better things.

“Crude” Abe Lewis is a “translator” of Ancient Greek and Latin writers. The above is a free wheeling “translation” of Horace, The Odes, Book I, XXIX.

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Caspar Wessel (1745-1818)
          by Euclidrew Base

He was a Danish-Norse surveyor and cartographer,
who started drawing maps that showed where town and churches were,
mills, castles, woods, roads, streams and coastlines, islands, clear and culled,
methodical, meticulous, and mathematical.
His one lone mathematics paper wasn’t valued much;
and his interpretations were not valued first as such;
triangulating Denmark, he brought vectors to the fore
and complex numbers to a graph, a rich, more gorgeous core.
Yes, Caspar Wessel was not noticed for his work in math,
though both Argand and Gauss repeated his noteworthy path.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. My dad loved making maps and playing made-up games with them. He bequeathed to me my keen interest in the nations of the World. Even now I miss playing maps with him. Caspar Wessel’s brother, Johan Herman (1742-1785), was a poet of epigrammatic verse and a parodist of neoclassical tragedy.

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Flying to Dubai
          by Secwer El Dubai

The dentist Ellie Holman, who’s from Sevenoaks in Kent,
had traveled with her daughter to Dubai to visit friends.
She flew on Emirates Airlines, and, while up in the air,
she drank a compliment’ry glass of wine, they gave her there.
O, what could be more wonderful than flying to Dubai?

But when she landed, she was then arrested for that wine.
She and her daughter were imprisoned for a three-day curse
with filthy mattress, food they could not eat, and what is worse,
her daughter had to pee upon the floor; it made her cry.
O, what could be more wonderful than flying to Dubai?

Secwer El Dubai is a poet of Dubai. Not only does Dubai have the World’s tallest man-made structure, the Burj Khalifa, but this year, embroiled in controversy, the Dubai Frame was completed out of glass, steel, aluminum, and reinforced concrete. It is the largest picture frame on the planet, but the conceiver of the project and winner of the design competition, Mexican architect Fernando Donis, has been denied credit for the design.

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The Changing of the Alphabet
          by Erasil Budecew

The President of Kazakhstan Nazarbayev has said
the country is on course for altering its alphabet,
like other Turkic nations, Turkey and Uzbekistan,
including also Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
In their case they are changing the Cyrrilic letters to
the Latin ones, a slap at Russian, quiet, but put through.
Six letters with apostrophes will now be “disappeared”;
while s’ and c’ will now have h’s, elegance is neared.
Electrical devices will now have less pressing keys;
it seems the government decree was taken for its ease.

Erasil Budecew is a poet of the inland Stans, like Kazakhstan.

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The New Frontier
          by Li “Web Crease” Du

The ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar
is being renovated, modernized,
by cash, in Xinjiang¸ the New Frontier.
The old is being changed and energized,
from dun, mud houses and tight alleyways
to straight streets (“openness” is highly prized)
with fine, crisp buildings, neatly placed and spaced.
One finds at People’s Park an oversized
statue of Chairman Mao, his right hand raised,
stretched out before the newly realized
locales, along with Abakh Khoja Tomb
and Id Kah Mosque, as yet not Sinocized.

 

Shanghai
          by Li “Web Crease” Du

Above the sea it sits—the city glittering—Shanghai—
bisected by the Huangpu River—riveting at night—
a treasure chest of lights: white, scarlet, gold and blue,
reflected in the water, shining, ebony and new,
skyscraping towers, brilliant buildings, rising to the stars,
beneath the flowing rows and rows of vehicles and cars,
the gleaming dreams of money, fountains, orange, purple, green,
the World’s capital in steel, glass, and silvery,
like as a diamond diadem, in jewelry encased,
sapphires, rubies, emeralds—fiery gems in bracelets draped.

 

The Great Chinese FireWall: 2018
          by Li “Web Crease” Du

The word “democracy” is inaccessible these days,
as it impinges on the Chinese Socialistic Ways.
If Xi Jinping the tyrant deems a web page dangerous,
it is removed and blocked; without a reason it’s expunged.

X was surprised, that when she came to North America,
the Internet she had been using was so different.
She said most of her friends don’t even know about the Wall
between the Chinese Internet and the rest of the World.
She said a teacher friend had used a VPN in class;
a student squealed on her, she lost her laptop and her “pass”.

Y is an activist for free speech and for equal rights.
She said the Chinese turn in people for their bad websites.
As long as they are happy, most ignore the politics;
they do not mind the overzealous social censorship.
They’ve been taught not to think outside the Socialistic Box;
like woolly sheep they run around in nicely herded flocks.

Z notes accounts are regularly zapped on Weibo’s web;
there’s no such thing—no freedom rings on China’s Internet.
He works with others, but they do not know each other’s names,
distributing and testing VPNs in risky ways.
We must do this anonymous; the danger now is real;
totalitarians don’t want their people to be free.

The Chinese want surveillance to control their people’s minds,
and censorship is just another power for the blind.
It seems the battle for free information in the House,
an unremitting set of skirmishes of cat and mouse.

Li “Web Crease” is a poet of China.