A Father’s Hope
          by Beaudiwel Cres

I hope your life will offer you new opportunities,
that you will find contentment in the choices that you seize.
Remember family’s important. You can count on us,
especially when the way of life is hard and mountainous.
Remember to believe in goodness, when you’re down and out.
Remember never to give in to misery and doubt.
Remember wisdom comes with love and flourishes in life,
but it takes strength for father, mother, husband, child or wife.
The world has enormous wealth, but it takes eyes to see…
that…each of us is only part of all…humanity.

Beaudiwel Cres is a contemplative connoisseur of ordinary living.

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The Lindsay Gordon Leap
          by Walibee Scrude

He came to South Australia back in 1853,
when he was twenty years of age, and joined the horsed police.
They stationed him, Mount Gambier, for two years there about;
and when he left he bought some land that had a two-room hut.
Then he became colt-breaker for the district squatters there,
occasionally steeple-chasing in the open air.
Once, when a trooper, he had met a rider in a ring;
his name was Billy Trainor, an adroit horse-riding king.
The two became the best of friends and shared that little hut.
They rode and raced and broke the colts for miles round the mount.
Once when they were out riding, after hunting kangaroos,
and they were in a “pounding” competition to amuse,
they came upon the railing fence that stretched along Blue Lake.
As Gordon was behind, he thought he would attempt the stake.
Red Lancer was his horse; they jumped, and then hopped back again.
There’s nothing in that high a jump, been done by scads of men.
But there’s not many feet out to the steep banks of the lake,
which fall three hundred feet. There’s little room for a mistake.
But Gordon jumped and made it back from off that deadly steep;
and thus began the legend of the Lindsay Gordon Leap.

Walibee Scrude, a mate of Sbede Cawlie Ru, is a poet of Australia. One of his favourite Australian poets was the balladeer Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870).

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The APEC Fracas
          by DeBuis Lawrece

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that it was a lie,
Chinese officials forced their way to change the APEC sigh.
The Chinese delegation was polite and well-behaved.
Police were not required. No, they didn’t misbehave.
They didn’t mind the statement on unfair trade practices.
That wasn’t Chinese diplomats in Pato’s offices.
Police from Papua New Guinea were not called to halt
the possibility of more intrusions—the assault.
Geng said that anger takes a toll upon the body’s health;
and knocking PNG doors down will not bring greater wealth.

DeBuis Lawrece is a poet of Southeast Asia and Oceania.

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In China
          by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei

In China, it is not surprising some are made to leave,
and frequently it is because of what they dare believe.
Ironic’lly this year young Marxist activists have been
arrested, put in prison, and “erased” by black-clad men.

This has occurred in Beijing, Shenzheng, Guangzhou, and Shanghai;
Their social media accounts have been expunged, clean wiped.
It’s not surprising witnesses to these events hide out.
If they did not, what they would get, does anybody doubt?

Though Mao ‘s still revered in China, Xi Jinping now dreads
Mao could become a figurehead for disaffected reds,
whose websites now are disappearing with their managed staffs;
it seems that what is wanted is an abject echograph.

Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei is a poet of China.

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Armistice, 2018
          by War di Belecuse
          “…if ye break faith with us who die/ We shall not sleep, though poppies grown/ In Flanders fields.”
              —John McCrae, “In Fladers Fields”

He went out in the bitter chill; it was still dark and night.
He didn’t wake a single soul to face the morning’s bite.
There was no fanfare, no regard. Nobody joined him there,
as he stood on the little patio in piercing air.
It was one hundred years ago; the people were all dead;
but there was something in him from the pages he had read
that led him out into that raw and frigid, freezing cold,
on Armistice, in 2018, four o’clock, alone,
at peace within the Central Time Zone, there without a gun,
remembering the millions who had died in World War One.

War did Belecuse is a poet of war.

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Oswald Veblen (1890-1960)
          by Euclidrew Base
          “Mathematics is…a thing to be valued…like art or poetry.”
              —Oswald Veblen

Inspired by Bolza, Moore, and Maschke, Oswald Veblen toiled
on geometric axioms, Pasch and Peano oiled.
He then went on to studies in analysis situs,
the field of topology, as it was labeled once.
It’s not surprising that appreciation for his work
evaporated into time, much like the Jordan curve.
The notion of a manifold no longer is big news.
Who cares about its evolution, pioneers we lose?
His name did not stick to a theorem, or an integral.
His uncle was more noted in fame’s harsh unbending law.

The Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem
          by Euclidrew Base

The Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem states continued function f,
which sends a compact convex set right back onto itself,
and has at least one point that’s fixed, then there must be a point
that represents the same place on both maps collapsed, conjoint;
like a closed interval upon the reals, or closed disk,
or any convex region in the plane; these all exist.
It can be useful in a number of unforeseen ways,
like in game theory and cake cutting, where it can amaze;
but it is rather fundamental in topology
of topologic manifolds or Jordan curving sea.

Euclidrew Base is a poet of mathematics. L. E. J. Brouwer (1881-1966) was an idiosyncratic Dutch mathematician, who was the founder of mathematical intuitionism, and was influenced by Schopenhauer’s Romantic pessimism. Among other stances, he refused the law of the excluded middle in logical reasoning.

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The Aqua Tower Building
          by Arcideb Usewel

The Aqua Tower Building in Chicago rises up,
like as a flow of water down Iago’s finest cup.
The undulating balconies and the pools of shining glass,
along the outside of the tall, rectangle vessel, pass.
So inchoate, the curving concrete seems not human made;
free-flowing rip-pl-ing facade and black steel balustrade.
Jeanne Gang, the architect; the storeys, number eighty-two;
striated, limestone, outcropped lines against the fading blue.
And there it stands, filling a void, above the milling noise—
250 North Columbus Drive, Chicago, Illinois.

Arcideb Usewel is a poet of architecture.

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At the Waiting Room
          by Dr. Weslie Ubeca

He sat there waiting patiently upon the office couch
for his appointment; boredom loomed; he opened up his pouch.
He wore a clean, crisp tee shirt. It was bright, a striking blue.
It hung upon his shoulders loose. It seemed to be brand new.
He did his best not to be a fussbudget where he sat;
but still he wondered just how long he could sit there like that.

Nearby by a fellow, rather large, was waiting just the same.
He wondered too how long it would be till his moment came.
There were no windows, yet the man in blue then turned around,
his hands upon the couch’s back, to see what could be found.
His head pressed up against the couch, o, so uncomf’rtable;
but then, ah, luck, it was his turn to leave behind the dull.

He fell across the couch’s back and plummeted down—splat,
though only inches off, he didn’t know where he was at.
He felt like some great ogre had just come into the room
and knocked him, o, just inches from the very edge of doom.
He tried to pick himself up nonchalantly where he lay,
before he was called out in his sad state of disarray.

Dr. Weslie Ubeca is a poet of the medical, dental, and pharmaceutical worlds.

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A Dew-Drop
          by Ileac Burweeds

I saw a tiny dew-drop hanging from a drooping bough;
it glittered in the sunlight with a gleaming, beaming glow.
It was as beautiful as any precious gem or jew’l,
that sparkles in the warm-fresh dawn, in open, gorgeous view.
I longed to touch its shiny orb and take it clean away.
It was the most exciting thing I had yet seen that day.
But when I placed my finger on it, it then disappeared
into a little bit of wet, invisible when neared.
Though most would find this piece of dew quite unremarkable,
to me it gave such peace of mind, it is too hard to tell.

Ileac Burweeds is a poet of flora.

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In Flower Mound
          by Sbider Lace Ewu

A noiseless, patient Argiope Spider is in-bed-
ded in the center of a garden in its sticky web.
In fine, almost invisible, stabilimenta trace,
surrounding black and yellow legs and fiercesome silver face,
it sits unmoved, ensconced, above its zigzag lace unfurled.
It is the Mighty Power in this Miniature World.
Its silky decorations shimmer in the morning light,
amidst the leafy vegetation, golden, green and bright.
Out of itself it launched forth filament o’er filament,
in red and yellow, black and white, designed habiliment.

Sbider Lace Ewu is a poet of spiders. His favourite comic book character is Spiderman.

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Stanley Martin Lieber (1922-2018)
          by Wic E. Ruse Blade

I still remember reading comics at the barbershop,
when I was young and waiting to receive a quick-click crop.
Away from Sunday, mundane thoughts of ordinary life,
I would Ess Cape into each superhero’s urban flight,
like Superman or Spiderman, Green Lantern, Batman—there!
I knew Bruce Wayne was Wise; I followed him through Template Square.
I would absorb the brutal world that lurked behind each scene
and read the bubbled, printed, coloured, brief-speak dream machine.
Today I hear that Stan Lee has flown off and out the door.
I pray that he enjoyed the trip. So long. Excelsior!

Wic E. Ruse Blade is a swashbuckling poet, who enjoyed the films of Errol Flynn as a kid, as Stan Lee also did.

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November 2018
          by Usa W. Celebride

The pilgrims were a persecuted group—for their beliefs—
so they were willing for a chance, a hope for some relief.
They made the dangerous trip to America by ship.
A crew that didn’t care for them, for money took the trip.
But when they got to Massachusetts in New England’s fall,
half died before they made next autumn’s cold and bitter pall.
But those who lived—how could they not be thankful, and God bless?
Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of their gratefulness.
They managed to survive disease, the weather, lack of food—
among the many millions who got here—and found it good.

Usa W. Celebride is a poet who celebrates America.