THE AUTHOR OF THIS POEM IS A TEACHER

by Skye

Because I can’t breathe—

Crammed with my knees 

Pressed to my chest, 

Hiding in a closet. 

I have to leave teaching 

Because I can’t breathe—

With the tables and desks 

Stacked and pushed against 

The walls of my lungs. 

Every shadow, sliding underneath 

The tip of my tongue 

Is a flinch–a clenched jaw. 

I can’t breathe 

Through the announcements, 

Through the text messages, 

The ‘I love you’s, 

The ‘We’re on lockdown’s, 

The ‘Is this a drill?’s. 

Does anyone know if this is a drill? 

I can’t breathe because 

Whispering pulls the air tight—

Stay quiet.

Get down, 

Away from the door.

If they come in the room, 

Be prepared to fight. 

I have to leave teaching because 

the desks have become barricades,

The books act as bullet proof vests, 

And in the hallways, 

There are monsters 

That steal away my breath.

Author's note: I wrote this poem after a lockdown drill we had last week, in contemplation of reactions, our teacher group messages, and my messages to my loved ones, along with, unfortunately, the many other drills and scares that I have been involved in as a teacher. When I was in high school, I facilitated a protest against gun violence and have now found myself a decade older as a teacher and still very much afraid of and resisting the same things. 

Skye has been a public school, secondary ELA teacher in North Carolina for the past four years. She recently graduated with a Master of Arts in Teaching Secondary ELA and was named her university's Student Teacher of the Year for 2025-2026. 

BEGINNING WITH THE WISDOM OF MY FATHER

by J.D. Smith

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

Sometimes you’ve got to kick the bully in the balls.

He started—but you’ll end—his little war

Of body-checking you in high school halls

Or calling you a cunt on bathroom stalls.

Keep kicking till he doubles up and falls,

And he won’t be a problem anymore.

Sometimes you’ve got to kick the bully in the balls.

He started—but you’ll end—his little war. 

J.D. Smith’s seventh collection of poetry, The Place That Is Coming to Us, is now available from Broadstone Books. His first fiction collection, Transit, was published in 2022 by Unsolicited Press. His other books include the formal verse collection The Killing Tree, the light verse collection Catalogs for Food Lovers, and the essay collection Dowsing and Science. Individual poems have appeared in publications including The Awl, Harvard Review Online, Nimrod, and Tar River Poetry.  

BLUE BLUE BLUE

11/03/2026

by K. Alma Peterson

while the vote is closing closing 
closing close to the hearts of those 
opposing where the country has been 
going going going down and gone 
the clock keeps counting counting 
its second-hand sticking jammed sticking 
glue and moss holding democracy 
together scissor scissor while the pleas 
for money money many finally stop 
the text invasion email cramming cramming
claiming to need every dollar measured 
treasure tethered to the winners blue 
wave or bloody foam seeping weeping 
creeping while one’s loss is another’s 
colossal victory      while the vote has 
closed the outcome isn’t over over over 
where dividing lines keep deepening 
skip the silk and drink the poison


K. Alma Peterson is a poet and visual artist living in Florida. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Two books of her poetry are published by Blaze Vox Books and one by Finishing Line Press.

WE CAN CHANGE THE STORY

by Elizabeth P. Glixman 

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News

First there was a war

than another war
There is always a war somewhere

even if it is in your mind
against he she they them we us

who
Once there were concentration camps
mass migration from Europe
to Europe the Middle East
Once there were bombs
and ships
once a blast Hiroshima
then there were parades and applause
then there were boomers
and Vietnam
conscientious objectors
people hanging out in the country there

was Jane Fonda
and Easy Rider 
Than there was ICE
It is like a movie where
one thing happens and another

They may all seem to be out of sequence
it is hard to keep
track of of dates and time and decades and epochs

It is hard to keep track of hate
Now there is the Donald  
the world keeps shaking 
he wants to interior decorate the world
We are in a snow globe of his making
everything moving
Obliterate demolish
like you've never seen before

The globe is shaking vigorously

Some world leaders shake the globe
every day every hour
they take a nap or golf 
or write posts
on social media
They shake shake shake the globe

shake it again
Stop shaking people plead
We need kindness and Gaza needs food
The world crumbles like a stale cupcake
and there is nothing left to shake
crumbs fleeing into space

Vote November 3rd to stop the shaking

Elizabeth P. Glixman is a poet, writer and artist who like many is hoping for peace on earth.

THE CIRCUS: A MUSING

by Howard Richard Debs

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

            —common quotation widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln

 

In Florida of all places there is a circus museum, I’ve been there, many times. I don’t know why, I’ve always thought the famous “fooling some” quote was from “P. T.” Barnum, that is, Phineas Taylor “P. T.” Barnum aka “the Greatest Showman”—I’ve seen the movie by the way and highly recommend it, well worth the time, I didn’t know Barnum was a newspaper man, a publisher in fact, a politician too, who knew?! Anyway, I digress. What’s so attractive about the circus, and I don’t mean Cirque du Soleil? I know it came to be a spectacle of distain, it was dispatched became a relic of the past, a society bent on being better voted “no” but for generations “The Big Top” had appeal. Why “the big top?” I looked it up: it occurred to circus promoters they could take their show anywhere, an open field would do, and pitch a tent, and do the show and move on and be gone and as a boy I marveled as I raptly watched as workers like bees changed a barren plot into a field of dreams. Because that’s what it’s all about.

 

Author note: My 83rd “voyage” around the sun was November 1. I have witnessed a lot. I am a news junkie, my inbox is constantly overflowing with headlines like Trump Cancels Weekend Rallies, Plans to Phone in to Other Midterm Campaign Events I studied philosophy back in the day and have puzzled ever since about the good and the bad, the juxtaposition and connection of things, most often the answer depends on the question raised.

Howard Richard Debs is a recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His essays, fiction, and poetry appear internationally; his art and photography will be found in select publications, including Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words is a 2017 Best Book Awards and 2018 Book Excellence Awards recipient. His chapbook Political is the 2021 American Writing Awards winner in poetry. He is co-editor of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust, a winner of the 2023 International Book Awards. He is listed in Poets & Writers Directory.

APOPHENIA

by Frank Conahan

We believe in Tarot cards
Because we grew up
Being told we should credit

The expertise of
Meteorologists, their
Predictions aside.

So we did as we'd been told,
Believing them when
They'd call for clear skies (despite 

The subsequent rain).
We generalized our stance 
To fortune tellers,

Horoscopes, election polls,
And clairvoyants 
Across the board, as kids would  ...

The Jesuits bragged,
Give us a kid when he's young,
And we will own the adult. 

The pundits are sure
About Tuesday's election.
They predict clear skies. 

Dr. Frank Conahan lives in reclusive retirement outside of Baltimore, Maryland. He follows current events with trepidation and copes by writing verse. He has recently published poems with "Bards of Maryland." His collection Nothing Is Coming was published in April. 

INCANTATION FOR THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Anti-Hex as Duplex, after Jericho Brown

by Kim Harvey

We are a murmuration of starlings.

Millions move as one, alight in a blue wave.

 

A lighted candle’s flame burns blue at its base. 

Yarrow bloom, salt, and rue to bless and protect.

 

Bless the algae bloom in the Reflecting Pool.

Hate reflecting hate becomes its own fate.

 

The Fates awake to rehearse the verse.

Reverse the curse. There’s power in words. 

 

We’ll be heard. There’s power in numbers. We will

be a herd of zebras, a motion-dazzle.

 

Dazzling and transformed. Painted prayers in motion

from house to house, barn stars in the dark. 

 

In the darkness, we will vote them out.

We are a murmuration of starlings. 

Author’s note: Halloween is hanging in the air along with the midterm elections, and we all know which one is scarier this year. The tight Senate races are leading every news story along with a notable number of Republicans accusing Democrats of being witches. Last week, the Kansas Republican gubernatorial candidate accused his Democratic opponent and her daughter of performing demonic spells on TikTok to try to win the governorship. The same week, when talking about how he's scared the polls look bad for Republicans, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said, "Right now, if you're a left-wing transgender witch, you hate Donald Trump, and you're going to show up. You're energized." It reeks of desperation and made me want to cast my own spell of protection to repel the hateful rhetoric and keep us and our democracy safe. Honestly, I believe the world can use more magic. Witches or not, let's move together as one, like shapeshifting starlings. Let’s all cast our spells, and—most importantly—our votes.

Kim Harvey is a three-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She was Associate Editor at Palette Poetry. You can find her work in Barren Magazine, Black Bough, Cathexis Northwest Press, Poets Reading the News, Rattle, River Mouth Review, SWWIM, The Shore, and elsewhere. She is the 1st Prize winner of the Comstock Review’s 2019 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award and the 3rd Prize winner of the 2019 Barren Press Poetry Contest. She had two microchapbooks published in 2020, Facing Gladstone from Kissing Dynamite Press and They Say in Your Dreams Everyone & Everything is You from Ghost City Press. In 2026, her ekphrastic poem "Sonnet for the Night Shift" was selected for a Best of Rattle Award.

PROGRESS

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

The Arabs in the Jewish state

Turned out in force to vote.

But Israel's right is mired in hate,

So progress is remote.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has around 380 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, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had sixteen previous poems in The New Verse News.

AN IDIOT TURN

by Indran Amirthanayagam

I will take a few deep breaths

and look at the mirror, the ceiling.

I will look outside the window

at the stars. There are only 

two days to go before the vote.

Millions have already mailed

in ballots. I will look again 

at the article, then endorsement 

of the Republican, Rogers, 

by a Democrat, Stevens,

 

who believes that the Republican 

must win because of his fierce

support for Israel and a promise 

that he will invest in black-owned

businesses, even if his victory 

means one more block 

in the Republican wall,  

seeking to hold on to the Senate, 

deny the chance to judge 

the thieves helicoptering currently 

out of the former Rose Garden.

Meanwhile, can one really

tell the color of the owner

of business X or Y? Aren’t

there colorless banks

ready to offer development 

loans to the CEOs? I am still 

keeping calm. To each his own, 

including the right to betray 

your voters and endorse 

the AIPAC ticket. Good 

riddance I say, Ms Stevens. 

Call yourself contradiction, 

maverick, fool. 

I will not be distracted, 

nor will  the many 

on your team who 

have now resigned.

In two days the defender 

in whom we can trust

will make you a part 

of the modern yet 

ancient curse, where money 

and ideology have trumped 

you stone deaf, stone  blind.

Indran Amirthanayagam received Sri Lanka's State Literary Award for White Space Sonnets. He won the Paterson Poetry Prize for The Elephants of Reckoning. His Lettre aux residents du monde is forthcoming from L'Harmattan. Amirthanayagam edits Beltway Poetry, publishes at Beltway Editions. He writes indranmx.substack.com .

SAVING DAYLIGHT

by Howie Good

We have turned back the clocks, and now it’s dark
both when I leave for work and when I leave work
for home. Tantalizing illusions designed to keep us
toiling have dwindled to a tattered few. I see my own
disillusion reflected in other people’s somber faces
and nagging anxiety. Children choose to stay indoors 
on their screens or are forbidden to play by themselves 
outside. Grackles, a type of scavenger bird, gather in a row
on a powerline, shadows of a broken world. I google it
on my phone. A collection of grackles is called a plague.

Howie Good's latest poetry collection, True Crime, was  published by Sacred Parasite this year. He co-edits the journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.