This World
          by R. Lee Ubicwedas

It always—all ways—has been strange—this World—from when I first
experienced it—till now. Till this moment, from that burst.
And I am still…trying…to make sense of it…even now.
It’s just so big—this World—it’s huge—so many—seven—Wow.
The Americas, Europe, Africa, four Asian parts,
West-Central, South, Northeast, and Southeast/Oceania.
How does one make sense of that which is so complicated?
If only I’d a compass, an accomplice, then I could—
But even then I imagine it is impossible.
How could I think that dealing with ‘t was even plausible?

R. Lee Ubicwedas is a poet of the universal.

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The Homeless Man
          by Urbawel Cidese

O, he was thankful…he was not…out on the street this night.
But he was only as content as one one step from blight.
A stranger clad in black has given him a place to stay…
in lurid light, harsh red and black; there was no sign of day.
His host had given him a strap to hold his nothing up.
His host had given him some liquid to put in his cup.
He toasted his dark sponsor, o, he raised his cup on high.
He was so thankful…for this perch…inside , aligned and nigh.
Perhaps some day he could repay such kindness, o, in kind;
but such is fate; the time was late; he’d have to wait to dine.

Urbawel Cidese is a poet of the city scene.

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The Paddy Wagon Came
          by Cadwel E. Bruise

The paddy wagon came to pick the men up off the streets,
repoorted by the varied cops upon their varied beats.
The scraggly men were rounded up and picked up one by one,
each quite a struggle to subdue. O, it was hardly fun.
Some fought arrest as if that were life’s most important thing;
some got a rest, but only after they were made to sing.
They sighed, they yelled, they cursed, rebelled; but all were pacified;
although they felt as though they had been screwed and crucified.
Though some were new at this, most of the others were repeats.
The paddy wagon came to pick the men up off the streets.

Cadwel E. Bruise is a poet of New England. One of his favourite refrains is “With a knick-knack paddywhack,/ Give a dog a bone,/ This old man came rolling home.”

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The Man upon the Beach
          by W. S. “Eel” Bericuda

He stood like as a heron near a pebble on the beach.
He saw a newt on it move quickly; it was out of reach.
He turned his jaundiced eye up to the sun high overhead
in hopes to grasp its raise upon the moist and sandy bed.
He felt the gravity of the vast situation’s curse,
but did not sigh or try to grab waves of the universe.
He simply looked about at other bathers at the scene,
then sat upon the spread-out tow’l to catch the passing breeze.
No soul came by to give him any consolation there,
and so he simply stretched out , o, into the open air.

 

The Ocean Cleanup
          by W. S. “Eel” Bericuda

The Ocean Cleanup organized by Boyen Slat began
with its 2000-foot long System 0-0-1.
Maersh Launcher towed the huge device through San Francisco Bay
out under Golden Gate and out for testing its array.
If tests work, it’s off to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Perhaps they’ll get some 50 tons of plastic in their snatch.
They could at least remove debris from swirling vortices,
but the technology’s unproven in this ocean seize.
Though some are unimpressed, some others are inspired by
attempting the outlandish with a good, old-fashioned try.

W. S. “Eel” Bericuda is a poet of the ocean, Boyen Slat a Dutch Aerospace-Engineering drop-out.

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Converting Plastic Waste to Hydrogen
          by Ira “Dweeb” Scule

Moritz Kuehnel and Erwin Reisner, UK scientists,
use cadmium sulfide quantum dots as photocatalysts,
degrading plastics in their process, pho-to-re-for-ming,
to break the polymers apart for econology.
In sunlit, alkali solutions, polyurethane,
as well as polyethylene terphthalate, can be changed,
and likewise polyactic acid of recycling bane;
it would be wonderful if waste could be so re-ar-ranged.
Of course, more research on bulk plastic solid waste ‘s required;
but light converting plastic waste to hydrogen ‘s desired.

Ira “Dweeb” Scule is a poet of science. Wouldn’t it be nice if plastics could be easily converted to hydrogen fuel?

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The Banning of the Books
          by Bic Uwel, “Erased”

Today we have the banning of the books, while yesterday
we had the daily cleaning of the social media.
Tomorrow morning we shall have the firing of the head.
Japonica, like coral glistens in the garden bed.
Today it seems that Amazon has joined the communists
in banning books Jeff Bezos doesn’t like, and making lists.
Roosh Valizedah has been dropped. Nine books have now been banned.
The banning of the books is back by popular demand.
How soon will Kafka burst in flames, or Orwell tossed to hell?
How soon will “Fahrenheit 451” be torched as well?

Bic Uwel, “Erased”, is a poet of the voices that do not count. Valizedah is a sleazy pickup artist; but there are a lot of sleazy artists all over Amazon. In the 1940s communists attempted to ban Orwell’s dystopian masterpieces.

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The Brazil National Museum Fire: September 2, 2018
          by Luc Ebrewe Dias

Not much remains. The National Museum of Brazil
was gutted recently by fire, in a raging spill.
The smoky, charred exterior, though standing, held within
the little that was left, the rubble piles, an aisled bin.
Researchers now are cataloging what they stilll find there,
amidst the smouldering of ash that permeates the air.
The building has been sealed off; crash barriers enclose,
as do Quinta da Boa Vista centenary groves.
Outside the statues gaze upon the world they survey,
the nice view interrupted by aromas of malaise.

Luc Ebrewe Dias is a poet of Brazil.

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At the Chalet
          by Rudi E. Welec, “Abs”

Snowboarders doing aerial maneuvers down their slopes
need to perform so carefully their seasoned loops and lopes.
Today I saw two do their stuff, jumps, quarterpipes and hips,
funboxes, halfpipes, and handrails, along with slaps and slips.

I saw their stances, regular and goofy, back and forth,
frontside and backside, turning spins, soars to achieve true north.
I saw their tricks, stalls, straight-airs, grabs, hand-plants, spins, flips and slides;
at times, I couldn’t help but feel the dangers in their glides.

One time I saw the bigger guy, his board high in the air,
him dan-gl-ing beneath it there about to hit despair,
unlucky, in his swerving curve, to come down hard to Earth,
but managing to land a perfect plop and plumped-up perch.

Such beauty in the shape of flying through those alpine pines,
the curving hills, the swerving thrills, the sett-ling of the spines,
the openness, the sloping ess, the track along the mount:
How could one not wish for forever one could hold that thought?

Rudi E. Welec, “Abs” is a poet of sports.

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Vito Volterra (1860-1946)
          by Euclidrew Base

Vito Volterra founded functional analysis,
and added to the Hamilton-Jacobi palaces,
expanding surveys of the mathematic-physics view,
while striving after beauty in the hot pursuit of true.
He worked upon the theory of equations integral,
developing as well the waves he called cylindrical.
Mechanics crystal dislocations were another boon,
proposing helium use in the flight of big balloons.
And at the end his interests were biological,
as in predator-prey equations, flushed and viable.

 

Pappus (fl. 320 AD)
          by Euclidrew Base

O, he observed the Sun’s eclipse in Alexandria,
the 18th of October in 320 AD. Ah…
And that is nearly all I know of lofty Pappus’ life,
amidst the falling eddies of the ending Grecian strife.
O, he explored the classic curve of Greek geometry,
encyclopaedic in his synagogic synergy.
He thought on lots of writers, Euclid, Apollonius,
as well as Archimedes, and great Eratosthenes.
O, he expained the difference between analysis,
retracing knowledge, and the sought for, golden synthesis.
What most impresses is his range, his strength and clarity,
collected confidence and poised originality.
He was a mountain of a man, transcending centuries,
a mighty mathematic mind of mental venturing.

 

On Geometric Curves
          by Euclidrew Base

He felt as if he’d come upon cissoids of Zahradnik,
as if he’d bumped into two curves and given pole glad-thick,
the locus of some points that was the strophoid of a curve,
o, with respect to pole and fixed point, so right angular.
This strophoid rolling up his logocyclic foliate,
a cubic curve and moving vector, o, coordinate.
The focus of the ivy-shaped, cissoidal, vacuum-packed,
of Dioctes, De Sluze’s conchoid, or Zahradnik’s fact.
He felt like he had come upon a treasure-trove’s bright pools,
so beautiful, like as a pirate’s booty’s gleaming jew’ls.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. Karel Zahradnik (1848-1916) was a Czech mathematician, Diocles (c. 240 BC-c. 180 BC) was a Greek geometer, and René de Sluze (1622-1685) a Benelux mathematician.

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Petrov and Bashirov
          by Alecsei Durbew

Two Russian men flew in to England, scouted round a bit,
and left some deadly Novichok. O, they got down to it.
Petrov and Bashirov, though those are not real names at all,
had come to poison target, former GRU, Skripal.
If others happened to get in the way, they did not care;
those grim, crude brutes had come to get him; that’s why they were there.
Now Putin has put in his two-bits too about these men:
‘They are civilians, hardly criminal, not from some fen’.
The pair, aged fortyish, had traveled quite extensively,
but now with warrants, they’ll stay put in Russia probably.

Alecsei Durbew is a poet of Russia.

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A Phantom Kangaroo Sighting
          by Walibee Scrude

I saw a phantom kangaroo pause from his frisky jumps.
He turned around and looked at me on haunches big as stumps.
He stood upon his powerful hind legs and his strong tail,
and looked as if he wanted to kick, box, o, to assail.
His height was over five feet tall; his feet upon the ground.
I wondered just how far he could leap in a single bound.
Although he was bare but for very little fur at all,
it looked as though he wore a shirt, short hair, au naturel.
I was alerted by his look, and turned away as fast,
as he turned in to marrow and he presently went past.

Walibee Scrude is a poet of Australia.

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After the Battle of Red Cliffs: After Cao Cao
          by Wu “Sacred Bee” Li

I sing of arms and wine-lipped man. How long can he live on?
His yearning song is as ephemeral as dew at dawn.
His generosity is matched by great indignity.
From mania and suffering, o, is he never free?
O, beauteous, green-collared Lord—Who longs for you, o, youth?
For you I sing this song today, Li…Du, o, Red Cliff’s truth.
“Yu, yu,” the deer cry out, that eat together on the plain.
Dear guests pound on the strings and play your flutes, although restrained.
The moon shines bright, Zhou Yu, but will it e’er be grasped by men?
O, sorrow comes from deep within. O, will it never end?
From Salamis to Leyte Gulf, it has been a hard path.
What kindness can there ever be in military math?
The nearer moon outshines far stars. The crows fly to the south,
But will they find rest in these trees, so far from Yangtze’s mouth?
O, Sun Quan and Liu Bei stopped Cao Cao, but could they stop death?
The mountains don’t despise great heights, nor seas despise great depths.

Wu “Sacred Bee” Li is a poet of ancient China.