TheNewVerse.News
Today's News . . . Today's Poem
The New Verse News
presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
Guidelines
Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com.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.
Friday, December 13, 2024
SHORT DIVISION
Thursday, December 12, 2024
A BANANA, A WANNABE OLIGARCH, AND A CONCEPT WALK INTO A BAR
A Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur has followed through on his promise to eat the banana from a $6.2m (£4.9m) artwork he bought last week. Justin Sun outbid six others to claim Maurizio Cattelan's infamous 2019 work Comedian - a banana duct-taped to a wall - at Sotheby's auction house in New York. He ate the fruit during a news conference in Hong Kong where he used the moment to draw parallels between the artwork and cryptocurrency. The banana is regularly replaced before exhibitions, with Mr Sun buying the right to display the installation along with a guide on how to replace the fruit. —BBC, November 29, 2024 |
like all organic things do. He untaped it,
unpeeled it and ate it because he owned it.
Of course, the banana and tape were symbols
for the concept behind the work of art,
the way crypto is a concept for money.
He could have stopped on his way to the auction
and purchased one at the bodega for half a dollar
and not six point two mil. With the excess,
he could have fed a school district or a senior
center. He probably could have purchased
a banana plantation and eaten one every day
for life. It was never about hunger, the way
a cigar is not always a cigar. The idea was bought
on behalf of capitalism, its ravenous appetite
for eating everything in its path and repackaging it,
before selling it to a hungry public and convincing them
there is no climate crisis; Ukraine caused its own
invasion; or the insurrection never was an attempt
to overthrow democracy. It is no joke
an oligarch in-waiting ate the banana from “Comedian.”
For the wealthy, the hoi polloi is always the butt
of the joke. The laughter comes at our expense.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
GIRLY BOY
My little boy blue,
as a child you wore
girl-pink, not the browns
of circus bears and puppies.
Not the beiges of office walls.
Who cares about colors now?
Wear what you like.
As a girl child, my boy snakes hung
down in braids past my fingertips.
They had a sweaty life all their own.
They flicked ribbon tongues at me,
struck me on the back when I ran
away, so I cut them off one day.
I stored them in a box of magic tricks,
decorated the lid with sequins,
like moon disks sparkling in the light.
Who would see them in a dark closet?
I eventually got my girl groove back.
I liked the boys, their hawk heads,
hooded. They blinked in astonishment
that I had actually caught up to them.
Eventually, I grew my braids back,
gave up the girl I used to love.
I opened my legs to the bedposts.
I had you on my favorite night of all.
You were born blue and little.
I think of you now as a girly boy.
A ghost of a boy-girl in a mirror.
Don’t rub off your eyeshadows
with the back of your hand,
with your desert skin, so dry and soft.
Your eyes are the valleys you’ve left
behind in the rearview mirror,
where the hills float away.
The morning moves you,
slides a mountain aside, as you
drive through, around the twists
and turns of your desires.
The mountains widen, deepen
their despair then disappear,
the further into this self-love thing you go.
WE LOVE GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE
We give our boys some guns—long guns like ARs
and shotguns and semi-auto handguns—
which, at first, are really just pointer fingers
and sticks and trigger-controlled hose nozzles
and, really, anything vaguely phallic.
We give our girls baby dolls and plush toys
and encourage them to hug and comfort,
to placate and coo, and, later, aprons
and play kitchens with miniature pots and pans.
We give our boys hammers and nails (of course)
and drills and fucking big four-wheel drive trucks
and dump trucks and fire trucks with screaming sirens
and teach them privilege and damage control
and the righteousness of conquest and noise.
We give our girls sixty watts of light and need
and teach them the virtues of silence and grace
and a thousand and one ways to cook a chicken,
to make repairs, and to turn tears on and off.
We teach them all manifest destiny.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
THE TRUTH ABOUT CYNICISM
The doctor looks at the x-ray
of my little toe and notices
a dip in his
Money Market fund.
He recommends surgery.
The authorization request
is forwarded to the insurance
company examiner who'd
been warned by management
about being too liberal with
approvals.
She reviews the doctor’s
diagnosis, carefully
considering her job security.
After reading the denial
my wife
asks why we pay so much
for insurance if we can’t
use it.
And why doctors go
to medical school to get
all the knowledge
when the insurance
companies
have all the power.
And why do I
go around without shoes
all the time
because that’s what caused
the bump on my toe?
I go for a ride to blow off
steam and my car breaks down.
Bending over the engine,
the mechanic
glances at my expensive shoes
and I say,
Yeah, I know, this is going to be a big job.
Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, awarded the 2022 Rattle Chapbook Prize. Poems appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, 32 Poems, The Sun, The Best New Poets 2024.
ON THE DEATH OF A CEO
ALGORITHM
but I wonder if UnitedHealth factored in
who would rejoice over deadly revenge
a system predisposed to dollars over lives,
what ailing patient is up for that legal battle?
in the roulette wheel of computations;
would my ball stop in the red DENIED pocket?
Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe,The New Verse News, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch,and Panoplyzine. She hosts the Duxbury Poetry Circle, was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. Her first collection of poetry, called Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit is in production at Kelsay Books.
Monday, December 09, 2024
THE JOB INTERVIEW
AI graphic by NightCafe for The New Verse News |
Sunday, December 08, 2024
DRONE SIGHTINGS REPORTED OVER NEW JERSEY
looming through night, leaving by morning.
No one can explain them, not even those
in official suits talking to the cameras.
And for days before they were noticed
people dreamed of large bees pollinating
their minds like open flowers. But the memory
of those wonderlands wilted in the mystery
that consumes their sleep. Now they spend
their nights watching and listening,
the drone of their suspicions growing
larger than all the wishes on all the stars
that they no longer wish on or even
take notice of. It’s all about the drones
and why they’re hovering. Although,
the exhaustion and fear is not
because their faults will be discovered,
that we’re being watched—we already know
there’s no place that does not see us,
though Rilke never imagined it so literally
as we do: cameras buried in Apollo’s hip,
relaying messages about what we mortals
are up to. No, we know we’re being watched
and by nothing numinous, but just people
as flawed as we are, and just as mistaken as us
that there are things we can keep to ourselves.
Saturday, December 07, 2024
MELTING OF ARCTIC SEA ICE
a |
(Image credit: SeppFriedhuber via Getty Images via Live Science.) |
Another warning,
Red flags up in the scientific
Community, sea ice melting
Faster than an ice cube on
An Arizona day. Polar bears
Shifting their weight on legs
The size of tree trunks while
Balancing on the moving chunks
Of frozen water over a million
Years old. With each piece
Of ice shrinking over time,
How will the polar bear find
Food if he can’t travel far
From his glacier home?
Meanwhile, land torn up,
Only a commodity in a world
Based on capitalism. Imbalance
Between humanity and the earth
Causes the dis/ease of fear, anxiety
And consumerism. What comes
From the ground is a commodity,
Something to sell, to buy, to use up.
The air warms the melting masses
But so far away from here, how can
Anyone care about this? No plans
For the future. Carpe Diem without
The seizing. Brain rot eats away at
Sanity and intention. Useless images
And misinformation to distract, to
Entertain, to confuse. Abstract words
Populate the language resulting in
Generalization, stereotypes, prejudice,
Bias, and ignorance. Not enough time
To think. Only to react. Tik Tok goes
The Earth’s clock. The air polluted,
The breath compromised, the ice melting,
Polar bears weeping in a cold puddle
Of water swishing at their feet.
Ron Shapiro, an award-winning teacher, currently mentors college essay writing as well as teaches Memoir Writing through George Mason University. He has published writings in Nova Bards 23 & 24, Gatherings, Poets of the Promise, Poetry X Hunger, Minute Musings, Backchannels, Gezer Kibbutz Gallery, All Your Poems, Paper Cranes Literary Magazine and two chapbooks: Sac