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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Sunday, October 13, 2024

RHAPSODY FOR RAFA

by Dick Altman




A lefty,

with bulging muscles

of terror,

for those unfortunate

enough to be playing

on the other side

of the net.

So strong,

it is said,

his top spin was

clocked at three

thousand revolutions

a minute.

No one else

in the pro game

came close.

 

I once ranked high

in the amateurs.

With his speed of ball,

playing him

would have been

less play,

than chasing

after a sphere

expelled

from a tornado.

 

So fast did the ball

come at you,

you hardly had time

to swing.

So fast,

you spent

most of the time

running deep

into corners,

that left you

breathless

after each point.

And he hardly

taking a breath.

 

Against Federer’s

eternal calm,

his face

was a study

in rictus,

every point,

so it seemed,

a matter of life

and tennis death—

a lost point

he should never

have lost.

 

Only late

in his career

did a smile grace

his face.

Was he letting up

a little,

I wanted to ask.

He had reached,

as I saw it,

another plain

of happiness,

where few

tennis angels

perched.

 

Rafa,

I might have

hated to play you,

but damned

if I didn’t love

your game.



Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

Saturday, October 12, 2024

ZEUS REDUX

by Steve Deutsch




We do it by ionizing

the radiation and shifting

the polarization of the earth’s

magnetic core

 

millions of times per second.

We control it

from a basement apartment

in Hoboken—

 

that bluest of blue towns,

paid for by the DNC.

The four of us

do the weathering

 

on two old Apple laptops.

Our biggest concern

is the intermittent loss of the internet.

Damn Comcast.

 

We do our best

to make the heat and storms

believable—

blamable on climate change.

 

What a hoax.

Few have noticed

it is only the red areas

suffering the ill effects.


But now, one or two of the wise

have picked up on it,

I assure you that will end

with completion of our next project.

 

Lightening bolts.



Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and was the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. Steve was nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and once for The Best of the Net Anthology. He has published six books of poetry. One, Brooklyn, was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press.

Friday, October 11, 2024

VOTING IS FAR MORE POWERFUL

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman


with apologies to Emily Dickinson




Who is leading national polls?
Harris has been ahead of Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July, as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.
Kamala Harris: 49%
Donald Trump: 46% BBC, October 9, 2024

 

Voting is far more powerful
Than Trump's attempt to rise.
So many times this sinking man
Attempts to reach the skies.
So push him down forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company—
His dreams morosely stowed.
The felon's sneering visage,
Most odious to see,

Let's shun without compunction
As an adversity.





Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Options (Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ magazine), Politics/Letters, The Providence Journal, Scientific American, Sparks of Calliope, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had nine previous poems in The New Verse News.

Thursday, October 10, 2024

ADMONITORY ODE TO MOUNT RANIER

by Joel Savishinsky


The top of Mount Rainier is no longer the top of Mount Rainier. The frozen ice cap on top of Washington’s iconic mountain—recognized for generations as the tippy top—is melting as the atmosphere warms. Now, that frozen dome has sunk below a rocky patch on the mountain’s southwest rim, crowning that spot as the new highest point. —Seattle Times, October 6, 2024. Photo: Eric Gilbertson poses Sept. 21 on Mount Rainier’s southwest rim, the new highest point of the mountain, with the Columbia Crest, the mountain’s former highest point, in the background. (Courtesy of Ross Wallette)



Perhaps it is too much 
to expect any of us to
stand tall in these times,
to measure up to what
we once were at 
the peak of our reputations.
 
Maybe this is what happens
when you’ve stood for ages
with your head in the clouds,
unaware of how each year
grinds you down a bit,
too busy looking down on
everyone else to notice
that people don’t 
look up at you quite 
in the way they used to.
 
Yes, your admirers will still
grapple with your magnitude,
admire your posture and
profile, but as the decades 
wear on and wear you down, 
like the rest of us you will
probably need to learn
to get over yourself.
 
If not, you’ll only get more
upset, lose your cool,
blow your top, and
shrink even more
in our estimation.
 

Joel Savishinsky moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2014 at the age of 70. In the years since then, he has lost at least 1 ¼ inches of height. He is a retired professor of anthropology and gerontology, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and author of Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, winner of the Gerontological Society of America’s book-of-the-year prize. In 2023, The Poetry Box published his collection Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging. His work has also appeared in Beyond WordsBlink-InkThe Decolonial PassageThe New York TimesThe New Verse NewsPassager, and Willawaw.

EAGLE ELEGY

by Susan J. Wurtzburg


Once an endangered species, bald eagles, including at Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota, came roaring back to life. They now confront a new foe: avian flu. —The Washington Post, October 5, 2024



Iconic American bald eagle, feathered vigilance,

predatory golden gaze far-focused 

across the valley, where coyotes jump-kill 

mice and voles. Fur-encased small prey,

meaty morsels for white-headed sea eagles.

 

Yellow hooked beaks prominent on the Great Seal,

where bald eagles unfurl their wings, a defiant

symbol of the USA. Environmental laws nurtured

these raptors, saved from harms: DDT, hunters,

lead bullets. Biologists lauded their soaring story.

 

Exaltation for these wide-winged fliers slumps 

with the advent of avian influenza. 2021: year

that birds begin to fall from the sky, falling, falling,

across the USA. Now, 2024: talons clench, beaks twist,

wings flail: collapse of iconic bald eagles widespread.

 

Emblematic birds, do you auger an apocalypse?

 


Susan J. Wurtzburg received 1st place in the Land of Enchantment Award, 2024, the Save Our Earth Award, 2024, and the Elizabeth M. Campbell Poetry Award, 2022, and was a semi-finalist in the Crab Creek Review Poetry Competition 2022, and in the Naugatuck River Review's 14th Narrative Poetry Contest, 2022. She was a Community Poet in the Spring 2023 Poetry Workshop, Westminster College, Salt Lake City. Wurtzburg is a Commissioned Artist in Sidewalk Poetry: Senses of Salt Lake City, 2024. Her poetry book, Ravenous Words, with Lisa Lucas will appear in spring, 2025.

Wednesday, October 09, 2024

EPITAPH FOR AN ELOQUENT: REMEMBERING KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

by W. Barrett Munn




Above are marble figures,
unmoving angels' wings,
with pale and polished faces
that will fade and flatten over ages
like forgotten wax on summer shelves,
and there, below those two
future faded vestiges,
lies a troubadour,
with nothing more to sing
and an epitaph hard to accept—
Here Lies Me and Bobby McGee.


W. Barrett Munn is a graduate of The Institute of Children's Literature where he studied writing under Larry Callen. His adult poetry has appeared in Awakenings Review, San Antonio Review, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Volney Road Review, Speckled Trout Review, Book of Matches, and many others. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tuesday, October 08, 2024

THE WEATHERMAN CRIED

by Stella Graham-Landau




how many years has he 

shared warned cajoled explained

the likelihoods percentages and possibilities

where storms could land


still they argue

point to past failures and misses

their anecdotes and myths raised to the status of fact


he looks at his maps

the tiny mass of whirling white

swirling counterclockwise


this one is a monster


he apologizes for his tears

he is still in the throes of trauma

knowing how many folks died two weeks ago

when dire pleadings went unheeded

maybe he realizes that

his friends who will not leave their cats 

may not survive this storm


he wipes his eyes

he has no life preservers to toss

no life jackets to dispense

no paddleboards or inflatable rafts to offer

he only has science

and statistics

and words he hopes will save lives


he takes off his glasses

holds his head in his hands


i hope i’m wrong this time



Stella Graham-Landau has lived in hurricane territory most of her life. She has great respect for the power of these named storms and much gratitude for the meteorologists who share their insights in an effort to keep us safe.