WATERBOARDED

by Ben Evering

Cartoon by Ann Telnaes

Today

She’s a man, she said, sue her.

Epstein in the Trump files, sue them.

Climate change damages? Sue each other.

Not her, too thin.

Today

Too thin

Seven month old babies look like newborns

Promised food and shot

Limbless

Shot in the places they said were safe

By the weapons you sold to them

And you wrote a letter

the drip drip drip of the news waterboards me 

I wish I was drowning 

but I can swim

Ben Evering seeks clarity in complexity. They are a scientist in London, reading fiction and hoping for change.  

THE LOWEST CUT

by Darcy Grabenstein

Most folks mispronounce Wilkes-Barre, PA.
While the town is actually pronounced like “berry”
it now is living up to its butchered version: “bar” 
(the Diamond City ain’t shining so bright right now…)

That’s because Luzerne County has barred
Low Cut Connie from performing at the town’s 
Rockin’ the River event for “political” reasons (wink, wink)

Methinks it’s due to his song, “Livin in the USA.”
It’s about deportations, making people disappear
and now Luzerne County has made him disappear (their loss)

The irony is that the band was banned, replaced
by Halfway to Hell, whose leader was convicted
of raping a teenager (sound familiar?)

The irony continues.
At Low Cut Connie concerts, frontman Adam Weiner
waxes poetic about love and diversity (oops, strike that word)

I’ll admit that cutting Low Cut Connie can’t be equated
with cutting Medicaid, free school lunches, and other “woke” programs
Yet it still cuts me to the core. (I am gutted)

We certainly are halfway to hell.

A marketing writer by profession, Darcy Grabenstein turns to poetry as a creative and cathartic outlet. The theme of social (in)justice runs through many of her poems, and she longs for the day where her page will finally be blank.

IT’S NOT (YET) TOO LATE (MAYBE)

by Katy Z. Allen

Gazans Are Dying of Starvation. —The New York Times, July 24, 2025

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

A monarch butterfly flutters among the bushes and flowers beside the pond.

Memories rise up: 

a transformational summer in Jerusalem studying Hebrew;

the power of my first experience of the Kotel;

a summer rabbinic seminar at the Shalom Hartman Institute;

visits with my future mother-in-law in Tel Aviv, and later, in Kfar Saba; 

bicycling the shaded byways of the Hula Valley and quiet desert roads of the Negev in support of “nature knows no borders.”

A pond blanketed with giant American Lotus leaves and blossoms spreads out before the eye.

Netanyahu, State of Israel,

it’s not yet too late. (Maybe.)

You still have time to change course,

to save your souls, 

and the souls of all Israelis,

and the souls all the Jews spread out 

around the planet;

you still have time to remember that G?d created every single human being on this planet

and that they are all sacred 

in the eyes of the Holy One of Blessing;

you still have time.

Tall spikes of purple and white showy tick-trefoil mingle with abundant Queen Anne’s lace.

You have the power, the knowledge, and the ability 

to send massive amounts of medical supplies and food to Gaza,

to guard them from Hamas with your troops,

and to feed and treat 

and save the lives of thousands of ordinary starving Gazans,

who are trapped by your inhumanity.

You still have time.

A great blue heron stands silently, gazing into the water, listening, waiting.

It’s not too late. Yet.

But before long it will be.

And then you will have not only 

the blood of many, many more children, women, and men on your hands and your hearts,

but you will have desecrated all that is sacred and holy of Eretz Yisrael;

you will have violated every one of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah,

if not by the letter of the law,

then most certainly by its spirit;

you will have lost and abandoned your humanity,

as individuals and as a country;

you will be deserving, 

(painful as it will be to watch), 

of every single bit of retribution that will come your way;

you will have destroyed the Jewish people and state more completely 

than Hamas could ever have dreamed of doing by itself;

you will have deserted your people,

your country,

and your G!d.

A pair of black and yellow swallowtail butterflies spiral upward in a dance of unity.

Katy Z. Allen is a lover of the more-than-human world, retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, co-founder of a Jewish climate organization, eco-chaplain, and writer since the age of eight. Her poetry has appeared in The New Verse News and The Jewish Poets Collective Journal. Her poetic book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text was published by Strong Voices Publishing.

DAILY BREAD

by Karen Warinsky

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: Feeding the 5000, relief on the door of the Grossmünster, Zurich, Switzerland.

Pope Leo XIV has condemned the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza and the “indiscriminate use of force” as Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food and Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people. —The Guardian, July 20, 2025

Give us this day our daily dose

of violence and war

hunger and strife

that we may see clearly

how the people in charge

truly view others, treat others,

casting their nets

not for sustenance

but to trap us all 

in their ill-imagined world,

how our struggle to untangle the truth

is worthy and righteous.

 

Bake the bread of this poem

with sunflower seeds and sifted powder

yogurt, eggs and oil,

with love, hope,

virtue and decency.

May it counteract the poisonous actions

of mad governments

as they seek their ends with any means

trampling on innocents

born in an unfortunate place

living in a fraught time

caught in an ancient conflict,

whose only crime

is a desire to preserve themselves

with the staff of life.

Karen Warinsky  has published poetry widely since 2011. She is the author of four collections: Gold in Autumn (2020) and Sunrise Ruby (2022 Human Error Publishing,) Dining with War (2023 Alien Buddha Press) and Beauty & Ashes (Kelsay Books, 2025). Her poem “Mirage” won first place in the 2024 Ekphrastic Poetry Trust, she is a 2023 Best of the Net nominee and a former finalist of the Montreal International Poetry Contest. Warinsky coordinates Poets at Large, a group that performs spoken word in MA and CT.

THE INJUSTICE THAT SCREAMS

by Chinedu lhekoronye 

They say we are free—

But chains still rattle in our dreams.

Not of iron, but of law,

Not of shackles, but of schemes.

The gavel strikes, but truth lies slain,

Beneath the cloak of legal pain.

The voices rise, the system scoffs,

While justice sleeps in ivory lofts.

They loot the land, then preach of peace,

While hunger roams and rights decrease.

They jail the bold, reward the sly,

And feed the poor another lie.

Who gave them crowns to crush the weak?

Who taught them power means not to speak?

Who drew the lines where blood must spill—

Then wrote the laws that bless the kill?

But we are fire, born from dust,

Rising now because we must.

Our words are swords, our truth is flame,

And we will set alight your shame.

For every child denied a voice,

For every vote turned into noise,

For every dream beneath your heel—

We stand. We shout. We will not kneel.

So let the tyrants learn at last:

A nation's silence cannot last.

The day will come, the truth will rise—

And justice will unblind her eyes.

Chinedu lhekoronye is a Nigerian, human rights lawyer, and poetic writer. He uses his writings to draw global attention to injustice in different places. He believes that injustice in one place is injustice globally.

SOLIDARITY

by Melissa Balmain

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

“If you’ve noticed more fireflies dancing across your backyard this summer, you’re not imagining things. Experts report that 2025 has been a banner year for these glowing insects.”—WTOP News

Even my ordinarily blank lawn
is flashing this July—no bottle rocket
or Catherine wheel could match the pleasant shock it
gives me each time a tiny lamp turns on
to help a bachelor find a blinding date. 
The bugs can’t read, of course, about pollution
and other woes that might spell dissolution
for all their kind, but as they mate and mate
I like to think they somehow know what’s looming,
deep in their chitin—that their sudden blooming
is nature’s way of putting up a fight,
and that these living fireworks before us
can make us hear, and heed, a timely chorus:
When darkness threatens you, crank up your light.

Melissa Balmain edits Light, America's longest-running journal of comic verse. Her latest book of poetry is Satan Talks to His Therapist (Paul Dry Books).

ABOVE A GRAY FIELD

by Fadel Kishko

Internet photo provided by the poet of the aftermath of the school bombing.

My dear, this is not a fictional story,
But one filled with gory.
It was the bleak November,
When death couldn’t be any nearer.
To stay away from bombing’s wrath,
We sheltered in a UNRWA school’s path.
A rocket, for us, caused damnation.
From this horror, there’s no salvation.
The sky turned into red—
From the blood of the dead.
Bodies from head to toe,
Torn, with nowhere to go.
Above a gray field, all is shattered,
And people’s faces deeply battered.
With blood mixed with dust,
They lie on the ground, unjust.
A brain on the wall is fastened,
Arms with legs on the tent dispersed.
In a prone, a little girl sat,
Prostrated is her father in her sight.
A head without a body—
That was what remained of her daddy.
With fixed, white, open eyes she’s gazing.
The true shape of humanity—fading.
From his head, blood is torrential.
“Nadal!” was bleeding from his skull.
Thrown aside, with his eye bulged,
With no one to treat him—he is another victim slaughtered.
A boy leaping to survive without a hinge,
Nowhere to hide, nowhere to dodge.
A shell hit Jihad’s belly, shredded his liver,
And no one is their savior.
 
“Oh God, my mother!” Abdullah screamed.
Among the bodies, we searched.
Amid them, my grandmother—with a shell in her knee.
I knew then there was nowhere to flee.
Holding her hand, I cried, “Thank God! Let’s run!
For here, we can’t anymore endure, or carry on.”
Faint was her voice: “I can’t. I am injured.”
“People are torn. Stand with me! Let’s flee!” Abdullah cried.
With her hands, she unveiled her garment.
Bloodied are her pants—we’re incapacitated.
On his shoulder, he held her.
A cart I found to move her.
In the middle, she was put.
With injured and martyrs, the cart is filled.
We tried to get her to the hospital’s gate,
But the tank rolled in—we couldn’t risk our fate.
The tank was approaching with a killing intent.
Its aim is to destroy wherever it went.
We withdrew, entered a house as a guest.
“A water, for you I plead,” that was my request.
Kind people they were—gave us what we need,
Touched us with their solicitude indeed.
Told us with fear, “In the school there is a succorer.”
Went to the school and stayed in the slaughter.
That night,
We slept in blood’s red light.
“Ow! Anyone! Come and rescue us!”
For they are amputated,
And on the ground devastated.
Above us, F-16s were roaring,
Quadcopters hovered, death adoring.
A tank appeared in the night’s pale glow,
An airstrike loomed below.
Jihad, from the shell, is screaming.
Nadal is bleeding and dying.
My grandmother is crippled.
Were you in my shoes—
What would you do?
 
Al-Fajr prayer we established.
“Martyr,” we wrote on Nadal’s chest.
Wrapped my grandmother’s knee,
In order to the south to flee.
To Nit-Salim we reached.
On the way, the dead are wrapped with red.
Burnt-out cars lined the street,
With blood’s scent rising from the driver’s seat.
Here are they.
Sitting over there.
He’s sitting over there—human like me.
The red blood that runs in his vein runs in mine.
Why does he have a weapon made to kill,
And my only right is to yell?
Armed with every weapon ever made,
Used against me—to fade.
Shrieking at a line of nearly a million,
To stop, and for the tank to move on.
Shouting while pouring his bullets,
Screaming, “Don’t worry!” after he kills.
Kidnapped—behind the tank, they are taken.
Shooting while jeeps inside are moving.
After I almost routed,
“All of you, move!” he shouted.
We reached “the safe zone.”
Again, the story was replicated.
This is not a story just ended,
But our daily life that is being repeated.

Author’s note: “Above a Gray Field” is a harrowing recollection of a fatal incident that forced me to flee south during this genocidal war—an experience I barely survived. I sought safety for myself and my family, only to realize that safety, like humanity, morality, and justice, can be illusions.

     The South of Gaza was labeled a “Safe Zone,” but the horrors I witnessed there—human organs scattered on the ground, relentless violence—continue to haunt me, even in sleep.

     This visceral poem rises from the ashes of the dead and bears witness to the injustice endured by Palestinian civilians. It reflects the daily reality where human life is undervalued, and death is treated as commonplace.

     More than a literary work, this poem is a cry, a memory, and a fragment of a violently torn life. It confronts the reader with urgent emotion and a desperate plea for humanity, exposing death as the cruel rhythm of an endless war—where victims are not only forgotten but neglected.

.

I am Fadel Kishko, a 22-year-old writer from Gaza.