ANITA BRYANT’S LAST CHRISTMAS WISH

by Chad Parenteau

The problem with wishes 

is that anyone can make them.

On her last day alive, she 

proclaims, I want the world

to become an orange, with skin

so hard nobody can access its

golden treasures by way of bit, 

blade or begging. A hard swallow.

She continues. But before that, 

a pie! I want a pie to strike 

this nation with a crust of fire

and a filling of ice. And every

child of God who ever stopped 

calling or writing their righteous

mothers will finally feel shame

we could never teach. 

A final gasp. And let my last

words before joining an eternal

choir of praise in paradise 

be a whisper in God’s ear, 

a show of appreciation and 

word of advice to His design.

With that, her soul departs so fast

it would have knocked Jesus’ 

family aside on their way to Egypt.

Then in the morning, from 

Christmas to New Year’s and

beyond, the grave dancers guild

develops restless leg syndrome,

kicking under tables and blankets,

unaware they’re missing their number.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Crossroads, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

AN ODE TO DAVE (DAVID LYNCH)

by Christian Ray

Author’s note: The quotation from Lynch in this image has always resonated with me and inspired the final line of my poem.

Mystery, movies, murder, music,

the lens was the paint Dave used to show something surreal,

I still scratch my head at why he called it Eraserhead.

Dave was taught in my school, 

we learned nothing is smoother than Blue Velvet, 

and in the 80s Kyle MacLachlan was a hunk. 

Thanks for the weird stories, and unique writing Dave. 

The unreal used to seem more real when you were here. 

Watch over Twin Peaks,

your films will keep speaking to the rest of us.

Christian Ray is a third-year literature student in the heart of Western North Carolina. He loves fantasy stories and beat poetry. One can rely on Christian to watch some television or play with his dog. 

ON EDGE

by Beth Paulson

NYT, January 14, 2025

It always was where urban met the wild
hilly interface of forest land and city
where on a clear day you could see the sea, 
where roads rose up or meandered into
the steeper, southern side of the San Gabriels. 
 
Today smoky air hangs heavy, sun’s blotted out
where avenues lined with old deodar cedars
grown tall, a firebreak for lucky residents
where we walk uphill from our saved home 
amid downed branches, dangling power lines.
 
The fireman on one corner let us pass
if we promised to head back to our car
down the next road. We don’t talk much,
know sirens in the distance signal fires
still spark and smolder east of Lake Avenue. 
 
Our block of Santa Anita escaped the fire
where this morning knots of neighbors gather
who surely know the line is thin and tenuous
between being a victim or survivor.
We bend to scoop up embers from the grass
 
yet around the corner a home burned to the ground.
A plume of burning gas marks the backyard,
ash pile with charred beams, blackened bricks,
twisted metal, a chimney all that’s standing,
a concrete driveway leading in and out.

Beth Paulson moved recently to Altadena, California from Ouray County, Colorado where she founded the Poetica Workshop, directed Poetry at the Tavern, and served as Poet Laureate. Her poems have been published nationally in over 200 journals and have four times been nominated for Pushcart Prizes.  Luminous (Kelsay Books, 2021) is her sixth collection.  

MUSEUM OF CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY

by Kenneth Arthur

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

When we paid the entrance fee

the sign promised “a glimpse

into the stable genius of our future”

but when the tour guide

led us into a room

dreary, dark and a little damp,

brushed away giant cobwebs,

expounded upon the macabre exhibit,

Kitty For Dinner in water colors,

I had my doubts.

When we were issued

rubber gloves

raincoats

knee-high boots

led deep down into the building’s bowels

I knew we’d been swindled.

As tour progressed through gallery

of beautiful asses and large breasts

with interactive display

a soft mewl crept into awareness.

Before I could discover its source

we were whisked away

to view the prison full of Mexicans,

then film of disabled with full laugh track

I wanted to cry

masked people shooting up disinfectant,

forest rangers raking leaves

I wanted to cackle

golden throne atop a hill of green land,

orange statue straddling a canal

I wanted to scream

then that sound again, a whimpering,

young boy crying 

chained to the wall

just beyond his reach a door and sign:

Now leaving Trump’s brain.

Sorry, Donny. I have to save myself.

I ran for the exit.

Kenneth Arthur is a queer minister with a background in computer science and who dabbles in poetry. Several of his poems have been published in journals including The New Verse News, The Skinny Poetry Journal, and Pensive. He is also the author of Out of the Ashes: Constructive Theology for Those Burned Out on Christianity and blogs at kenarthur.substack.com. 

THE EMPEROR’S NEW SKIN

by Dana Wall

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

At night, the spray tan must fade
like sunset on sandstone, revealing
the soft animal beneath the mask—
a man who fears his own reflection,
who builds towers to touch the sky
but cannot reach his own heart.

I imagine him alone in gilt rooms,
counting retweets like rosary beads,
his hands small as a child's reaching
for validation through blue light.
The weight of inheritance heavy
as his father's disappointed ghost.

The paper-thin skin of his ego
requires constant tending, like
an endangered orchid that feeds
on camera flashes, on the roar
of crowds that fill the hollow
where love should have grown.

Even his hair tells a story—
how it coils around absence,
a golden nautilus shell hiding
the spiral of ancient fears.
Each morning, he reassembles
himself from fragments of pride.

I wonder about the boy who became
this avalanche of need, this hunger
shaped like a man. How many mirrors
cracked before he learned to replace
reflection with gold leaf, to mistake
attention for the warmth of touch?

Watch how he circles his wounds
like a leopard guarding territory,
how he marks everything mine, mine
as if ownership could fill the space
where meadowlarks should sing,
where truth should root and bloom.

Dana Wall traded balance sheets for prose sheets after years of keeping Hollywood's agents and lawyers in perfect order. Armed with a Psychology degree that finally proved useful when creating complex characters and an MBA/CPA that helps her track plot points with spreadsheet precision, she ventured into the haunted halls of Goddard College's MFA program. Her work in Bending Genres Journal, Mixed Tape Review, Witcraft, 34 Orchard, Eunoia Review, and Sykroniciti confirms that words are more reliable than numbers, though occasionally harder to balance. 

THE GIRL

by tom bauer

Screenshot from Xwitter.

born from the earth and covered in dust
she opens her eyes, hearing shouts
of people seeing her pulled out
calling with astonishment and joy,
under an iron sky of ash
smudged across the ongoing night

tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.

MIRRORED

by Diana Morley

Astronomers studying the murky center of our Milky Way Galaxy have discovered something they never expected: a pair of young stars orbiting each other near the supermassive black hole that is our Galaxy’s dark heart. The observation—reported today in Nature Communications—comes as a surprise because astrophysicists had thought the black hole’s intense gravity would either rip the stars in such a pair apart or squash them together. But the new object, dubbed D9, shows that such a “binary” can survive, at least briefly, near the black hole, and it could help explain other mysterious objects in the vicinity.—Science, December 17, 2024

Black holes, 

viewed as enormous

greedy suckers 

in galaxy centers

swallowing gas, dust, 

anything coming

their way, and 

two stars just sighted

whipping around 

closer to the Milky Way’s 

own black hole 

than any seen before, 

testing laws of physics 

like teenagers

testing sass for the line

just under the nose 

of consequences.

Diana Morley publishes poetry online (The New Verse News, The Ravens Perch, and Exterminating Angel Press), and in County Lines, a literary journal. She's published a chapbook, poetry collection, documentary of photos and poems, and most receently, a short story.

ARRANGED MARRIAGE

by Lavinia Kumar

Pluto and Charon. (Getty Images) “…researchers reported that in the early stages of formation Charon and Pluto came together and orbited as one, swapping some materials before separating. They call this cosmic dance a “kiss and capture” event…” —Yahoo! News, January 9, 2025

It was no secret Charon and Pluto

had an arranged marriage.

Neither knew the other

before the aunties agreed

stars and family were aligned.

 

Charon brought her dowry,

and with much ceremony

they were wed, the entire

Kuiper village at the nuptials

 

But, alas, it was a fraught marriage—

Pluto, unhappy, decided to undo 

this union. Naturally, he decided

to keep the dowry brought by Charon, 

those valuable diamonds,

that cache of ice.

 

Then, unfortunately, the divorce 

was not agreed to, was discouraged,

by families on both sides. And so, 

for eternity, these two unhappy beings 

are together. And apart.  

Both unhappy.

 

They had no children.

See Lavinia Kumar’s three food stories in Issue Five of Ruby Literary Press, The Monsoon Rain winning a 2024 Pushcart nomination.

BEHIND THE SCENE

by Gordon Gilbert

Acknowledging the good use of A.I. for imagery in New Verse News, 

I will not even try to submit an A.I. image, but simply describe it, 

to accompany my words, which are a parody of the motto of three 

characters in a classic novel:   

Donald Trump's image hovering above a traditional image 

of the Three Musketeers, swords pointed upwards, points touching, 

whose faces are those of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.  

The title above is "Donald Trump and the Three Musk-eteers.”

The caption underneath is two lines, the first in French, the 2nd, English: 

"Tous pour un, aucun pour tous." 

"All for one, none for all.”

Editor’s note: En garde. We tried.

Gordon Gilbert is a writer living in the west village in NYC, who finds solace in walks along the Hudson River, even while contemplating with trepidation another new year of climate change and political mayhem.  

ON THE EVE OF A NEW ERA

by Lis Anna-Langston

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

I am waiting for the sun to dip

low over the hilltops in an act of defiance.

I am waiting for our government
to rise up again and say,
Give me liberty or give me death.

I am waiting for the free flow moments
to carry me to the seas that bump against
the belly of Savannah

and I am waiting for the tenderness to return to the night.

I am waiting for the spies to reveal their secrets
and cast aside the masks they’ve
considered identity

waiting for the bells to toll,
announcing the coming of relevance

I am waiting for elementary particles
to create their own game show
challenging anti-matter to a bet.

I am waiting for the Aztecs to conquer the Spaniards
with wit, beguiling them with the crooked smile of Montezuma’s revenge.

I am waiting for the hot neutron glow
of the sun to illuminate our place in the Universe

and I am waiting for the Warlords
to cast off their weapons and disappear into the mist.

I am waiting for the ghost of Elvis
to return to the white house
in Tupelo, Mississippi where his Mama
is standing on the front porch calling for the shadow of him
to return
from the long lines of fans
waiting
at the gates of his grace land.

I am waiting for Thomas Jefferson to bow to the
kindred spirits in the streets of Philadelphia and
walk back to Carpenters Hall to call a meeting
regarding the state of delinquent bets with the Republic
and its people.

I am waiting for the catcher in the rye
to take the hand of John Lennon and pull him back to earth.

I am waiting for my grandmother
to return to this life
so I can tell her I miss her
and I am waiting for the mailman
to bring my new book of poetry.

I am waiting for art to express form,
not just feeling
like the gut of Picasso driven and seeming.

I am waiting for the unmarked grave
of Che Guevarra
to sprout one thousand wild flowers.

I am waiting for God to find the box of crayons
I sent him
special delivery
with the sharpener on the side.

I am waiting for Dorothy to wake up in Oz,
get out of bed
and do something about that pedaling witch
once and for all.

I am waiting for the Disciples to stop serving redemption at the last 
supper.

I am waiting for Truman Capote to stop drinking
and finish another novel
and waiting for the raven
to return weary
back to the door of Edgar’s dreary.

I am waiting for the Romans to take back the Empire
on a Sunday morning
while all the good heathens are praying.

And I am waiting as patiently as a kidnapping plot
hashed out over coffee
for the scavenger angels
to walk out of the alleyways
cloaked in darkness
dragging the age of enlightenment
with their dirty hands
to rise up and startle us
with utter abandon
again.

Hailed as “an author with a genuine flair for originality” by Midwest Book Review and “a lovable, engaging, original voice…” by Publishers Weekly, Lis Anna-Langston is the author of Skinny Dipping in a Dirty Pond, Gobbledy, Tupelo Honey, Maya Loop, Wild Asses of the Mojave Desert, and the short story collection Tolstoy & the Checkout Girl. Raised along the winding current of the Mississippi River on a steady diet of dog-eared books she attended a Creative and Performing Arts School from middle school until graduation, went on to study Literature at Webster University, Creative Writing through the Great Smokies Writing Program through the University of North Carolina at Asheville and recently graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2023. Her novels have won the NYC Big Book Award, Independent Press Awards, and dozens of other book awards. As writer and producer her films screened and won at film festivals around the world. A three-time Pushcart award nominee, her work has been published in dozens of literary journals including The Literary Review, Emerson Review, Hobart, Barely South Review, and Emrys Journal.