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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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com.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.
Sunday, September 08, 2024
POWER OF THE VOTE
Saturday, September 07, 2024
ONE IN FOUR
A study in the journal PLOS ONE found that extreme temperatures resulting from climate change could cause one in four steel bridges in the United States to collapse by 2050. By 2040, failures caused by extreme heat could require widespread bridge repairs and closures, the researchers found. Photo: A bridge connecting North Sioux City, S.D., and Sioux City, Iowa, collapsed in June after flooding. Credit: KC McGinnis —The New York Times, September 2, 2024 |
Squire Whipple's careful pen strokes flickered in the candlelight. A self-taught engineer, he drew his new design, the bowstring truss bridge built of iron, not unreliable wood. From the 1870s to the 1930s, his bridges arched across rural and urban American rivers knitting together a growing nation.
(Houu-hou-wit. Mourning doves mate for life. All the tiny parts, unseen, unnamed, unloved, holding together whole worlds. Houu-hou-wit.)
Bowstring truss bridges feature sturdy arches and bracing studded with innumerable round-headed rivets set by teams of three men. A good team could set fifteen rivets a minute, all day long. The first man heated each bolt in portable coal forges cranking the fan and setting the bolts in the white-hot coals. When a bolt glowed cherry-red, he tossed it up to the next man who caught it in a tin cup, grabbed it with long-handled tongs, and set it against the milled holes. The last man formed the head with the ringing blows of a ball-peen hammer.
(Kraa-kraa. Ravens remember the faces of their enemies and teach their young. Did the ravens scold the men who brought rank smoke and sharp sounds to quiet rivers? Kraa-kraa.)
For decades, dutiful communities painted these bridges a patient flat grey, fending off creeping rust. Now, these bridges strain under the weight of modern cars and trucks delivering our endless needs and whims. Through the winter the metal freezes, draped in icicles. In our scorching days, triple-digit weather silently heats each rivet and expands each joint and slab. Rivets shear, expansion joints twist, concrete buckles, and bridges collapse.
(Tchew, tchip, tchup. In one day, hummingbirds can eat up to 2,000 small bugs and mosquitos. They are slowly disappearing. All the tiny parts, unseen, unnamed, unloved, once weaving our world together. Tchew, tchip, tchup.)
A writer and artist, Deborah Kennedy’s work has been presented in the United States and Europe. Her recent book Nature Speaks: Art and Poetry for the Earth (White Cloud Press) combines poetry and illustrations to capture the bond between ourselves and the larger natural world. Nature Speaks won several national awards including the 2017 Eric Hoffer Poetry Book Award and Silver Nautilus Poetry Book Award. Her writing has recently appeared in great weather for MEDIA, First Literary Review-East, and Canary: A Literary Journal of the Environmental Crisis. Kennedy lives in San Jose, California where she teaches college classes and poetry workshops. She presents poetry readings with multimedia slide lectures to poetry, ecology and spiritual groups. Kennedy lives in San José, California, and is a Creative Ambassador for the City of San José working to advance creativity in her community with her innovative Broadside Art and Poetry Project.
Friday, September 06, 2024
PINK ROLLERBLADES
Wounded people, including nine-year-old Tala Abu Ajwan, who died of the injuries she sustained as she skated near a park, are seen in the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City after an Israeli army attack on a residential building, Sept. 3, 2024. Credit: DAWOUD ABO ALKAS/ANADOLU/GETTY via CBS News. |
Brian Forehand is a creative polymath with too many interests and too little time. A late bloomer, he only recently embarked upon the cathartic practice of writing poetry. He lives in Washington, DC with his husband and their stripy cat.
Thursday, September 05, 2024
JUST ANOTHER DAY AT SCHOOL
At least four people were killed and multiple people injured after a shooting Wednesday at a Barrow County high school, near Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced, adding that a suspect was in custody. Photo: Women embrace following the shooting. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)—The Washington Post, September 4, 2024 |
along with two teachers, somebody's sons or daughters,
partners or parents, people who will be saddened,
no devasted, as the police call asking
a relative to come to the morgue, the death house,
to identify the body of a child or an adult who rose this morning,
dressed, said goodbye to their loved ones, forever,
and headed out the door to school, where they waited
for a 14 year old with access to a gun to shoot them,
dead, dead, dead. dead.
And the best we'll be able to do is thoughts and prayers,
as the gun lobby mounts another round of efforts
to suppress any reasonable action, as talking heads
are paraded across the TV screen with the same tired
rhetoric, while anti-reform legislators collect 1000s
of dollars to stand pat, do nothing
again, and again, and again, and again.
Soon there will be funerals, with tearful parents,
loved ones, a community of people holding candles,
perhaps a politician speaking truth about killing machines
in the hands of children, young people hugging each other,
while hallways and classrooms are cleaned,
students and community members are offered counseling,
so in a short period of time school can resume,
funds can be raised for a permanent memorial,
and the issue can disappear from the news
until the next young person gains access to a gun,
access to a school and puts out the light
again and again and again and again
in another group of young people
and dedicated teachers’ eyes.
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
THE CON MAN AND THE DEVIL
Graphic via Red Bubble |
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE
Monday, September 02, 2024
WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW
Kids at school were cruel. They’d call her flaky. crazy,
space cadet, airhead. She’d forget their names or where
she was going. School bells and fire alarms would echo
in her head, and her world would blur. The mockery was
momentary. The misery would be incessant.
The last week of school, classmates autographed her
yearbook with the labels and comments they’d hurled
to her at school. The five-minute walk home was endless.
At home, she flopped on her bed and muffled her sobs
with pillows, bursting her dam of tears.
No one knew what she’d been through. No one knew she’d
had brain surgery as a child. No one knew she had epilepsy.
Everyone could see her big head. The boys would flick it and
tug at her hair when the teacher wasn’t looking. She would
wince, but dared not weep. Feigning fearlessness was her
armor that would be rusted by tears. As time passed, the bullies
were gone, but some labels remain.
Gus Walz stands in full view of the nation. His dad is running
for vice-president of the United States. His son has a nonverbal
learning disorder. He has no armor. He needs no armor. His dad
starts to speak. That’s my dad! he yells to the audience. His tears
flow freely. They are borne of pride, not shame. Cameras focus on him.
His tears of pride are posted on computers coast to coast. His
joy is fodder for their jokes.
They knew there was something wrong with him.What they don’t
know is kindness. They have much to learn from people like Gus.
Author’s Note: Gus Walz at the DNC being bullied by adults who should know better reminded me of own experience of being bullied in school for behavior that no one understood
Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband of 44 years. They have two sons, Richard and Joshua, who live in New York and Texas, respectively. They have filled their empty nest with four rescue cats and a dog. Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly with the publication of her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Open Door Magazine, among others.
Sunday, September 01, 2024
CRY OF A HEART IN DISTRESS
Generations follow one another.
Same causes, same effects.
Chained hearts, slaves to hatred.
The wind of fear contaminates thought,
turns it into violence, sows mourning.
Anguished souls, thirsty for peace,
In the middle of a barren desert.
cry for the end of a painful pilgrimage.
Exhausted body, dejected mind
find their peace
in a journey of no return.
Roodly Laurore was born and raised in Haiti. He is an engineer and poet. His poems, widely published, are included in: Spirit Fire Review; Welter University of Baltimore; Taos Journal of Poetry; Kosmos Journal; Autism Parenting Magazine; Solstice Literary Magazine; Synchronized Chaos; The New Verse News; Jerry Jazz Musician and others.
Bichini Laurore, born in Haiti, is the son of Roodly Laurore. He is a lover of accounting and poetry with a passion for writing poetry in English & French. He has recently collaborated with his father Roodly Laurore in Taos Journal of Poetry. Bichini was 3rd place winner of an interschool competition in Port-au-Prince in 2020.