‘Octave’ and Other Poetry by Bruce Dale Wise

Octave

By Erisbawdle Cue

There’s always something going wrong
the pessimistic person thinks.
One moment one is going strong
and then one’s on the blink…and blinks.
There’s always something going right
the optimistic person feels.
One is alive; one sees the light;
one gladly plays the hand fate deals.

Lines Composed on Salmon Creek, 25 May 2015

By Bud “Weasel” Rice

“The blossoms/ Are fragile and motionless…” —Henry Reed, Naming of Parts

A light rain falls upon the Western Hemlocks growing tall.
The alders by the flowing creek range towering to small.
The white clouds overhead are thick and traveling along.
I think of dad and mom who tried to teach me right and wrong.
I turn my eyes from outside to the mica counter top;
and to my slender, silver-hued computer; my eyes drop.
I turn it on and watch the screen light up blue, green and white;
and electronic’lly I’m typing sentences—quite bright—
against the backdrop of the stories on the Internet.
I click my mouse upon the image of a fallen jet.

Yemenis claim they have shot down a Saudi F-16,
which had conducted raids against al-Dailami airbase.
They shot it from the sky as fighting rages on the ground.
The Houthi rebels celebrated th’ aircraft they had downed.
Today’s plane crashed, as Saudi warplanes carried out airstrikes;
since March one thousand non-combatants dead beneath those skies.
This news appears as backdrop to events in Syria;
four hundred women and their children killed in Palmyra,
which follows execution of three hundred soldiers there.
Destructive, vicious IS murderers create despair.

I look outside and see the grass tops touched with silver dew.
Ground cover all around the house is green and white and blue.
Beside the branching maples, salmon-berry stickers rise.
The swallows are enacting Battle-of-Britain dive-bomb fly-bys.
Alyssum flowerets and red geraniums fill up
white oval planters on the railing near a coffee cup.
Memorial Day is a day of peace, away from work;
but not away from all events that round the earth occur.
As Candide noted, “we must cultivate our garden,” for
to cultivate a happy life requires more than war.

My Grandma Was Correct

By Claude I. S. Weber

My grandma was correct to tell me fairy tales,
like Cinderella, for, that is what life is like.
Civility and kindness, each frequently fails,
and lives amidst the viciousness of hate and reich.
The generous is next to avarice and vice;
the virtuous goes riding by upon a bike.
Beside the cruel is the gentle and the nice;
and sorrow’s ev’rywhere, ubiquitous and deep.
The bitter and the sour scour sweetest spice
out of the peaceful and the happiness of sleep.

A Little Anecdote

By Acwiles Berude

Once during the Olympic Games, an old man came
to watch, but could not find a single place to sit.
He worked his way around th’ entire stadium,
but not a soul was willing to give up his seat.
When at the last he came to where the Spartans sat,
all of the younger men, and some old ones too, stood
to offer him their places. Th’ whole crowd cheered at that.
As he sat down, he shook his head and sadly said,
‘It is a tragedy. All of the Greeks know what
is right, but only Spartans will do it.’ Th’ ancient
Greek writer Plutarch tells this story. Through his fame,
this little anedote down centuries has spread.

Bruce Dale Wise is a poet living in Washington State who often writes under anagrammatic pseudonyms.

Featured Image: “Sunset on the Oregon Trail, 1867” by Albert Bierstadt.