MOTHERS WILL MAKE PEACE

by Mary Saracino


"Mothers will make peace, so sons will not die."

--Huda, a Palestinian journalist living in Jordan,
as quoted in “Women's Gathering Gives Peace a Chance,”
Women’s E-News, April 13, 2006

Will it come to this, then? The mothers rising
like Furies unleashed, banishing war
from the souls of men, their fierce wombs
howling with the memory of seedling sons —
how they quickened and grew,
ripening into beautiful babies, brimming with
hope, their futures overflowing with laughter,
love, the kisses of grateful mothers — not bombs,
not bloodshed, not rage.

Will the mothers unite, dressed in saris of apricot
& nectarine, African headdresses of fuchsia, green,
& yellow, American blue jeans and T-shirts, Italian
leather jackets? Will they defy the edicts, the lies,
the clarion calls to violence everywhere — the battlefield,
the bedroom, the boardroom, the brothel?

Mothers with dark faces heed their sons’ cries,
their daughters’ anguish; mothers with blue eyes
or black, mothers with Arab hearts or Israeli, inner-city moms
or moms in mini-vans, farm wives and nuns, scholars
and poets, Asian or Mexican, white-skinned or brown,
young or old. Can they re-tether the war-weary
world to their ruptured umbilical cords? Mend every tattered soul?

Can peace prevail if fathers fail
to join their holy efforts? Or must mothers shoulder
the grief alone, bearing the world’s sorrows,
as they bear the pains of labor,
giving birth to justice that hungers for compassion,
transformation that conjures a different kind of world?


Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet who lives in Denver, CO. Her newest novel, The Singing of Swans, is to be published by Pearlsong Press in October 2006.

NUESTRO HIMNO

NEW CLASSIC VERSE NEWS
After Francis Scott Key


Verse 1
Oh say can you see, a la luz de la aurora?
Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer?
Sus estrellas, sus franjas flotaban ayer
En el fiero combate en señal de victoria,
Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertad,
Por la noche decían: "¡Se va defendiendo!"

Coro:
¡Oh, decid! ¿Despliega aún su hermosura estrellada,
Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?

Verse 2
Sus estrellas, sus franjas, la libertad, somos iguales
Somos hermanos, es nuestro himno.
En el fiero combate en señal de victoria,
Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertad,
Por la noche decían: "¡Se va defendiendo!"

Coro:
¡Oh, decid! ¿Despliega aún su hermosura estrellada,
Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?

OPENING DAY

by Rochelle Ratner


1. The Bar-Mitzvah Boy

He's never been much of a baseball fan, but Cincinnati's
right across the river and the President's supposed to
throw out the opening pitch next week, so he's been
reading up. He's an avid reader and a quick learner, can
tell you what Bush ate for dinner the night he was
married, who he dated in high school, where he bought his
dope, and a lot of other things. Already he envisions the
President going into an exaggerated windup, then lobbing
the ball toward home plate. Except it's not a ball it's a
grenade, like they throw in Israel.


2. Bush's first pitch -- 'kind of a slow ball'

And the crowd in Cincinnati cheers, waving their little
American flags, drowning out the people booing, jeering,
and cursing. He and his father always loved baseball.
Meanwhile, in a nearby suburb, Wandering Wanda the
wild turkey is still on the loose. People have tried to hunt
her down themselves, running around like headless
chickens with nets and blankets, only causing more chaos.
One woman claims she was late for work because two
turkeys were blocking her doorway, making threatening
noises every time she tried to get out. So it's possible
there's more than one turkey on the loose out there.


Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com.

CHOMSKY GRILLING LINGUICA (PART 3)

by Rochelle Owens

To read Part 1 of “Chomsky Grilling Linguica” click here.

To read Part 2 of "Chomsky Grilling Linguica" click here.

In the floor      of the mouth      of the mouth of Chomsky
the linguist      the moving organ articulates
the Chomsky tongue      grilling grilling grilling
linguica      articulating articulating articulating
a secret tribal language
in the house of      Chomsky      in the house
on ocean side      on Cape Cod      the Chomsky sphincter
tightening      in the Führer-mouth      the Führer-mouth
taste buds of Chomsky tongue      germinating germinating
spores of      pathological fury      of a

                              famous linguist and anarchist too
                              Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

The moving organ      swelling      the organ      in the floor
of the mouth      of Chomsky      the Führer of      Judeophobes
the moving organ      the tongue of Chomsky      swelling
a hundred times its size      craving      licking burning chunks
rupturing flesh of      arms legs brains      blistering
black grapes blistering      lungs kidneys liquifying
melting      under a vanguard      of Jew hatred
a black-belt of martyrdom      of a homicide bomber
a black-belt of holiness      a black-belt of dynamite
a black-belt of sacred text      twisting into ideology
“Israel has no right to exist”      a homicide bomber’s vision
of purity      rupturing flesh blistering      black grapes
blistering      under the white skull      of the Jerusalem sun

In the house of      Chomsky      on ocean side      on ocean side
in colonial Wellfleet Wellfleet      on Cape Cod
in charming Chomsky house      in the house of      a princess
a cherished daughter of a

                                                      famous linguist and anarchist too
                                                      Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

In the house      of Chomsky      during summer nights
in charming Chomsky house      the cicadas droning droning
during summer nights      in colonial Wellfleet Wellfleet
cooling breezes blowing      Cape Cod country curtains
blowing blowing lyrically      in the cherished Chomsky
house      cooling breezes blowing      cooling all the bedrooms
breezes cooling      all the bedrooms      of the Chomsky
family home      on ocean side      on Cape Cod      in colonial
Wellfleet Wellfleet      pristine art galleries
classical revival churches      where no blacks sing

In the house of      an ideologue      living high on the linguica
the huge bulk      of the tongue      of Chomsky
a maxi-publishing industry      anarchism      imperialism
the huge bulk      of the tongue      of the Mengele
of linguistics      segmenting segmenting segmenting
goose-stepping goose-stepping goose-stepping
the Jewish Judeophobe      the huge bulk      of the tongue
of Chomsky      the pornographic vision      of Otto Weininger
Intelligentsia of Academia      the huge bulk      of the tongue
of Chomsky      the huge bulk      of Chomsky tongue      a veritable
maxi-publishing industry      anarchism      imperialism
grilling grilling grilling linguica      chomping chomping
chomping      the huge bulk      of the tongue      of Chomsky
germinating guinea worms      from out of      the dark bulk
of the tongue of a

                                                      famous linguist and anarchist too
                                                      Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Guinea worms streaming out      of the taste buds
of Chomsky tongue      the efficient Chomsky tongue
the dark bulk      of the tongue      of the linguist
segmenting      pieces segmenting      “Israel’s intransigence
Israel a pariah”      grilling grilling grilling
“Zionism equals Nazism”      the sphincter tightening
tightening      the lowest part      of the Chomsky body
an ideologue      living high on the linguica
the efficient Chomsky tongue      pregnant with guinea worms
the dark bulk      a masterpiece of      capitalist enterprise
the huge bulk      of the tongue of Chomsky      set in the
lowest part      the lowest part      of the skull      of Chomsky
the Chomsky jawbone      the chosen jawbone      the Chomsky jawbone
the chosen jawbone      unhinging hinging      unhinging hinging
the chosen jawbone of a

                              famous linguist and anarchist too
                              Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Rochelle Owens is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State.

PERSEPHONE ELOPES

by Verandah Porch


Watch her steps
on any ancient frieze:

He’s a terrorist; she’s his
mission: the country he’ll kill
for. He say’s he’ll blow apart
her home if she doesn’t come
now shielding him and
she does beautifully—

The girl as cigarette
igniting when he draws
on her. Feline: nine lives
spoken for.

He is her fiancé.
His stolen gold in her bedroom
she alone can handle.

She likes his foreign taunt:
“I claim responsibility.”

Don’t ask. She won’t snap
out of it or straddle
his shadow.
He wants to take her
underground.


Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.

DOGMEAT

by Barbara Schweitzer


Lions are not lustful
when they lunge
They are hungry same
as you and me
reaching for the BLT's
or tuna melts.
We love to metaphorize
what our eyes be-
hold, but it is a dangerous
sport, excusing
everything human
as meaningful to dogs
when dogs would
make dogmeat of half
the dogma we're
mesmerized by.
To their one icon
alone -- meat --
they bark hallelujah.


Barbara Schweitzer's poetry has received numerous prizes including an NEA Merit Fellowship in RI and the Galway Kinnell Poetry Prize. Her work appears in various literary and online journals and in anthologies Sundays at Sarah's, and upcoming Regrets Only and In the Eye. Her first collection of poetry 33 1/3, a semi-finalist for the Bakeless Prize, will be published in 2006.

OUT-OF-STATE

by Lisa Suhair Majaj


The guy says, “I need to see some ID.”
She shrugs, starts digging
through her scuffed brown leather bag.

She’s got wiry hair, olive skin,
eyes glinting dark and intense--
in his eyes, clearly not local.

She hands over a passport:
picture inside, family name,
all the particulars

that would pull her out of line
in another place.
He peers at strange stamps,

fluid text, reads out loud:
“Place of birth – Palestine.”
A land with no borders, too many maps.

He’s turning pages, brow furrowed.
She's waiting, white-knuckled,
face a studious mask.

Finally he glances up,
shakes his head. “Sorry,
no out-of-state passports

accepted here.”
No out-of-state passports!
She's got too much dignity to argue,

or even laugh. But as I watch her
walk out, head held high.
I think of that state, still dream

and desire, on a land green with olives --
those trees standing patient and unyielding
as memories of earth.


Lisa Suhair Majaj is the author of two poetry chapbooks and co-editor of three collections of critical essays on international women writers. She lives in Nicosia, Cyprus.

AQUIFER

by Carol Dorf


In the marrow of the world
stygobites retreat
from light to live protected,
translucent lives.

At a lab in Bethesda,
the Radiation Casualty
Management Team
researches blood boosting drugs
in event of nuclear attack.

Mr. Sumiteru Taniguchi
stood 1.8 kilometers away
from impact at Hiroshima,
an old man now, he takes off tie,
shirt, to reveal distorted flesh
burned away in childhood.

When geologists lower
the water for mining,
or pump it out to transform
green, partched earth,
every creature that has evolved
in the isolated aquifer dies.


Carol Dorf's work has been published in Runes, Coracle, Five Fingers Review, Transfer, Socialist Review (the issue Ron Silliman edited,) and Feminist Studies. She have taught in various venues including as a California Poet-in-the-Schools, at Vista College, at Lawrence Hall of Science, and in a large urban high school.

WEPT; SMILED/S

by Bill Costley


Hitler wept; Stalin smiled.*
Stalin wept; Khruschev smiled.
Khruschev wept; Gorbachev smiles.

Agnew wept; Nixon smiled.
Nixon wept; Kissinger smiled;
Kissinger wept; Kissenger smiles.

Bill Clinton wept; Hill Clinton smiles.

Dubya wept; Cheney smiled.
Cheney wept; Cheney grimaces,
Dubya grimaces; Cheney smiles.

*The shortest novel of WW2.

Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. The first twelve books of his epic-in progress The Cheni@d appear here in The New Verse News. Book XIII and XIV begin Volume Two here.

DEATH ON ASPHALT

by Michele F. Cooper


City crows skirt the Volvos and taxis, train
their satin thoughts on the body of a woman
draped across a boulder of brick and mortar,

last piece of the bulldozed tenement
where St. Xavier’s meets the freeway.
That morning, she was drowning in a sea

of particulars, minutes and presentations,
concepts of operations weighting her shoulders,
phone, fax, and e-mails blasting demands

and directions would make a quill bristle.
She’s wearing a twill suit and patent shoes,
purse still hanging on her shoulder,

lips resigned in a pool of crusty blood,
curls still dressing her golden mane,
blush on the cheek that’s showing.

Look at that! scruffy kid tells his little brother.
She's dead, Tony. That's what dead is, as she lies,
peaceful, on the dirty newspaper, proving it.


Michele F. Cooper is the first-place winner in the 2002 TallGrass Poetry Competition, second-place winner in the 1999 Galway Kinnell Poetry Competition, a finalist in the 2004 War Poetry Competition; she has won honorable mentions in the 2003 Emily Dickinson Poetry Competition, the 2003 New Millennium Awards, and the 1999 Sacramento Poetry Competition. Her poetry and poetic prose have appeared in many journals including Larcom, Fiction International, Paumanok Review, Pedestal Magazine, R.I. Women Speak American Writing, Nedge, CQ, Faultline, Online Poetry and Story, and in a chapbook, Women on Women. She is the author of two books, founding editor of the Newport Review and Crone’s Nest, and of a chapbook series. She lives on a horse farm (not hers) in Portsmouth, RI.

RADIO BROADCAST

by Lynne Burnett


Snowflakes feathering the trail
below the highway. A young
fellow, toqued and sweatered,
strides out of the woods
where he has been camping
for some time. Now on a search
for empty cans and bottles,
he asks me what I think
of last night’s news (which I,
watching American Idol, missed).

He tells me Iran warned the United
States it would feel the pain
if tough measures were imposed
against the Islamic Republic
for its nuclear program,
and ponders aloud the grave
possibility of a third world war
before drifting away,
back into his solitary life
which, like mine, lives
inside a bigger story
that is always ripe for change.

He knows the Earth he wants
to inherit, having made his
living room into a grove
of trees meadowed with stars,
stars loved more than priests
for their enduring benediction
of light, their twinkling
testaments of hope.
Trees whose raised roots
rope roughly into pews.
The ground that knows
no names, but keeps
a footprint. Wind
that is a window.

The darkness humming
with a billion unheard voices
when a different congregation
is invited in.


Lynne Burnett lives on the west coast of Canada with her husband and son. She comes late to the party, and has only recently begun circulating her work.

THE REVOLT OF THE GENERALS

by Anne G. Davies


Retired generals aren't all so chummy
As once they seemed to be with Rummy.
There was wrath amid the upper ranks
At overruling Tommy Franks
In favor of strategic decisions
That looked good on American televisions.

Rummy, to his credit, seems quite unfazed
By the harsh criticisms being raised
About the ongoing Iraqi disaster
That he oversees as the Pentagon's master.

They can vent their spleen. That's democracy in action.
But these generals are just a tiny faction
Who regard my super-management style
As driven by arrogance and guile.

These guys made sure they got their pensions
Before they went public with their dissensions.
Now they're all over the media panning
The quality of my strategic planning.

A few of them were always complaining
About scarce troops or armor or lack of training.
I was willing to hear their perspectives
(As long as they suited Bush/Cheney directives.)

And they want me to resign. I'll never surrenda;
I'm in perfect accord with the White House agenda.
Attacks like this would make a lesser man queasy
But being Important has never been easy.
Staying in my job is my highest priority
And I have total support from the Dual Authority.


Anne G. Davies is a fund-raising writer by profession and a writer and versifier by avocation. Her work has been published on local and regional papers. She lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

SCIMITAR MOON

by Robert Emmett


two maybe three cats
near the compost pile
quarter past three in the morning
winding their unholy sirens
like demented kids
pretending to rescue their own
lost minds
sometimes it’s a chorus of
abandoned ghost babies
yowling as if to curdle the milk
in their guilty mothers’ breasts
a kind of zombie cry
from the pit
a frost heave of dreadful aching
splits the sleeping heart
from dreams with a start
that would crack open
the still frozen early april ground
and leave your ears ringing
under the distant white fire
of a scimitar moon

how do living creatures
mimic the undead so convincingly
do they mock real dead children
the eight and a half year old girl
sniper-shot on the way to her palestinian doctor
or the ten year old baghdad boy
arm blown off in his grandfather’s car
because they misunderstood the hand signal
their mouths so silent now
their screaming eyes
fading in the dirt
maybe the scuffle of heavy boots
the last sound they hear
that and a muttered “fuckin-a”


Robert Emmett is not a practicing writer. He's just taken to putting this stuff in words in the middle of the night. He remains in cognito somewhere in the woods of Michigan.

A WOMAN IS WAITING

by Tara L. Masih


Black roads turn white with salt.
Ice shingles slide down the roof
startling her to a nocturnal alertness.
She sees him buried,
smothered under yellow sand
after he burrowed his way
into the earth
so that he could rise again.
In the day she suffers pictures of bleak anxiety
a constant barrage of pale-torn images
invading her breakfast of guilt
and pink grapefruit
flown from Florida groves.
Afternoons are not as bad--
there is blessed puritan work,
a seamless brocade of tasks
to cover that place in her mind
obsessed with repeating a name
she is trying not to remember
but is afraid to forget.
And at night again
the ice on the roof seems to be bearing down
as the pictures of war projected onto her bedroom ceiling
wage a winning battle of what is left
of her composure.
Yet still the cold, frosty moon
frames itself in her window
and it is the same dusty moon
that she imagines he has just cleaned and shined
before shooting it over to
her side
of the world.


Tara L. Masih received an MA in Professional Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. She has published fiction, poetry, and essays in numerous anthologies and literary magazines (such as Confrontation, Hayden's Ferry Review, Natural Bridge, New Millennium Writings, Red River Review, and The Caribbean Writer), and her essays have been read on NPR. Two black-and-white illustrated pamphlets featuring her flash fiction are forthcoming from The Feral Press. Awards for her work include the Lou P. Bunce Creative Writing Award, first place in The Ledge Magazine's 1995 fiction contest, a finalist fiction grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. Ms. Masih was the assistant editor for STORIES, a national literary magazine, for three years. She now works as a freelance book editor and writer in Andover, Massachusetts. She was a regular contributor to The Indian-American and Masala magazines.

SUING THE EASTER BUNNY

by Rochelle Ratner

          A German man has taken legal action against the
          Easter Bunny for grievous bodily harm.
                    Ananova, April 12, 2006

Because, when he was six or seven, his aunt and uncle gave
him this huge chocolate egg filled with all sorts of wrapped
candies. Because, possibly before that, someone he doesn't
remember bought him an egg of hardened sugar which had
a religious scene inside; being Jewish, he looked once, then
started eating. Because there were chocolate bunnies and
white chocolate bunnies half price after Easter and both
his parents loved a bargain. Because his mother would
playfully scatter those little eggs wrapped in colored foil
throughout his lunch box. Because there were baskets with
fake grass hiding other candies, almost a mini Easter Egg
hunt. Because the dye would sometimes seep through the
shell and onto the egg, so to this day he only eats egg yolks.
Because even now he craves chocolate.


Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com.

NEW, IMPROVED

by David Radavich


Fake me.
Let me be plastic,
bottled, recyclable.

Give me a new
face, body aerobic,
my own best
weight.

Another persona
entirely, costume elastic
and neon and gun
in the eyes
laughing silly.

Mind in a flashing
sacred chest.

America, I love you:
Nothing we manufacture
is less than ourselves.


David Radavich's poetry publications include Slain Species (Court Poetry Press, London), By the Way (Buttonwood Press, 1998), and Greatest Hits (Pudding House Press, 2000), as well as individual poems in anthologies and magazines. His plays have been performed across the U.S. and abroad, including five Off-Off-Broadway productions. He also enjoys writing essays on poetry, drama, and contemporary issues.

CHANNEL SURF

(AGAINST COMPLACENCY)
by Oladipo Agboluaje


On one hand I count the massacres,
the daily attrition of death
rubbing against life in a dry corner
of the globe, that reeks of something homemade,
something as familiar as next door's dog
My finger pauses on the wailing of veiled widows who recount their woes, personal and communal.
I dig deep but find the only original empathy
I can muster is a disinterested sigh, all-knowing,
universally sage, as I channel surf
from conflict to light entertainment,
engaging in my own battle with a sleepy head
dying to find watercooler fodder
for the next grey day.


Oladipo Agboluaje is a Nigerian-born playwright. He lives in London.

MAY OR MAY NOT

by David Breeden


That ain’t like me

That’s all I got to say
That ain’t like me

I’m not sure at all
If Jesus walked by

He’d ask me to join up
Or if he was

More like George Bush
I’m not at all sure

I’d make it as one
Of them twelve at all

Of if I’m too fucked up
To be among fish collectors

And tax catchers—I’m
Not sure at all I’d be asked

To join the list. Me
A guy who cares

Too much about the poor
We’ll have to leave it

Up to the gentleman who
May or may not come back

We’ll see but until then
It’s up to us to wonder

If someone who loves everyone
Has any business with that guy

The Jesus one who may
Or may not wander back by


David Breeden is a labor organizer and writes poetry when he can.

CORRECTING A VISION PROBLEM

by Margaret Bouvard


In the dim rustle of the waiting room
I’m asked to sign yet another form
that I will authorize my insurance to pay,
that my birth date is the same
and also my telephone number,
not to mention my mother’s maiden name.
But then comes the three- page form
explaining my rights to privacy,
one paragraph after another implying yes
and mostly no to those just claims
down to the one telling me
law enforcement officers have absolute authority
to examine my health records.
I sign the way I would write a ballot
with only one candidate. In this age of the war
on terror when our president describes the “dim, dark
vision” of the terrorists and how they are all
around us, I am about to have cataract surgery
on my right eye. Even when the lights go out
I know a lie when I see one.


Marguerite Bouvard is the author of five books and three chapbooks of poetry and several books on human rights and one on grieving. She is a resident Scholar at Brandeis University’s Women's Studies' Research Center.

POLICE FIND MARIJUANA-FILLED TEDDY BEAR

by Rochelle Ratner


If asked directly, Little Stevie, at six-and-a-half, would be
quick to tell you he's too old for Teddy bears. Still, she's
taught her son manners. Gil's been trying so hard to be a
father to the boy, not like the other men she's been with.
So when Gil comes home with a new Teddy bear every
Friday, Stevie says thank you and carries the new bear to
bed with him, cuddling at least that first night. And he
sleeps through till morning, something he hasn't done since
his father left. Gil's been such a calming influence on the
child.


Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com.

MARY SHELLEY HAD IT RIGHT

by Brock Dethier


We feed him money and patriots,
teach him how to disrupt and dismember,
spread rumors about his enemies,
ignore his habit of dining
on kittens and babies,
the times he addresses us
as fuckface.
When he turns mean we threaten
to cut off his allowance.
When he slits our throat
everyone's surprised,
and we send the good herr doctor back
to his lab to make a better one.


Brock Dethier teaches English at Utah State University and has published poems in more than twenty journals. His most recent books are From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music and First Time Up: An Insider's Guide for New Composition Teachers.

FROM THE TABLE TALK...OF RMN (RICHARD M. NIXXXON)

by Bill Costley


“All crooks may be morally equal,”
RMN officiously intoned, “But...as
you all know: I am {NOT} a Crook!”

“Ted, I see you’re fanning C-notes;
did-ya just collect your lunch-money?”
RMN knuckled vice-president STA.

Who the fuck! slipped this ice-cube*
with a fucking! hOle in it in my drink?
Is sOmebOdy here…fucking! sick?

The fucking! kikes are out2get me,
Henry (Kissinger), especially shrinks.
You’re not a kike, Henry, you're a Yid.

“Always speak2the strategy, never2
any particular tactic; just scramble it up
w/ with lots of geopolitical necessities.”

“Western Hemisphere: my right-ball;
Eastern Hemisphere: my new left-ball.
(Chairman Mao loves my ball-joke.)”

“If Jesus came back2day, he’d love me;
He said he loved all sinners, & I’m just
a simple geo-political sinner. Amen.”

“If I have2go, I’ll go quietly, but I’ll leave...
noBody standing 2witness my tragic fall;
so, (technically), it never happened.”

*RMN feared ice-cubes w/holes formed inside them,
banning them from San Clemente, & had any Jewish
psychiatrists screened & banned from any audience.

Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. The first twelve books of his epic-in progress The Cheni@d appear here in The New Verse News. Book XIII begins Volume Two here.

APRIL SHOWERS

by Verandah Porche


Down-spout leaks
like a chief executive--

Come
what may

in the mouths
of daffodils.

Declassify;
release
his secret
stain.

Thru rain,
the strains
of
“My country,
t’is…”

or t’was.


Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.

HOMELAND SECURITY 101

by Carol Elizabeth Owens


He “instructed her to perform a sexual act
while thinking of him." – ABC News (Apr. 4, 2006)

“Some of the exchanges ‘are too extraordinary
and graphic for public release'". – New York Times (Apr. 6, 2006)


little
girl, is your dad
at home? i want to come
over— we can play house without
anyone else knowing
about our
little

secret
service meetings.
the house is white, inside
out. sex has exposed a weak link
in security. guard
our boarders—
little

girls, boys.
children at home
with electronic text
are frequently chained to danger
as intelligence lurks
on line. stranger
little

things are
happening, right?
beyond the picket fence
is where big problems really lie—
so keep looking outside.
remain on high
alert.


Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "homeland security 101" [above] is written in a form called 'eintou'.

CHOMSKY GRILLING LINGUICA (PART 2)

by Rochelle Owens


To read Part 1 of “Chomsky Grilling Linguica” click here.


The voice   the voice   the voice
of the tapeworm   the voice   of an alien
in the house   in the house   in the house
of Noam Chomsky   imitating imitating   the flat line
the flat line   monotone monotone
voice of Chomsky   the breath of the tapeworm
blowing kisses   blowing kisses   along
the digestive tract   of the linguist   while
grilling chunks of linguica

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Deceit prances in   prances in   prances into   charming
Chomsky house   the house that Chomsky built   the charming
Chomsky house   on ocean side   Chomsky grilling linguica
grilling grilling   globules of fat   sizzling sizzling sizzling
spattering sputtering muttering
a secret tribal language

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

A secret tribal language   muttering sputtering globules
fat spatterings   fat and gristle   sizzling sizzling
exposing a flawed   and repellant   ideology   ideology
ideology of Chomsky’s vanguard of   judeophobia
passing gas   squatting   on his hobby horse
passing gas   the breath of the tapeworm   blowing kisses
belching platitudes   to his cronies   blowing kisses
along the digestive tract   of the linguist
the tapeworm   looping its segments
looping a noose   of Jewish self-hatred  an Uncle Noam
relaxing his sphincter   his flat line monotone
again and again   the voice of the tapeworm
the voice of an alien   imitating the monotone monotone
voice of Chomsky   grievous violations   of bad Jews
of  Israel   vehemently deplored   by the Wellfleet
Deplore Israel Organization   who are of
double standard persuasion   Intelligentsia
of Academia

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Intelligentsia of Academia   in their secret enclave
on Cape Cod   in colonial Wellfleet Wellfleet
with beautiful New England architecture   classical revival churches
where no blacks sing   where the word ‘WASP’
was invented   by a wasp   in the house   in the house
in the house   of Chomsky   in Chomsky’s house
the voice of the tapeworm   the voice of an alien
imitating the monotone   flat line   goose-stepping
Chomsky voice   goose-stepping   in a vanguard
of Chomsky judeophobia   the Chomsky tongue
coated with   fat and gristle   articulating tongue
of an ideologue   living high on the linguica   chomping Chomsky

          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

The tongue of   the linguist   swelling swelling swelling
ten times its size   the tapeworm segmenting segmenting
the linguist   articulating articulating   a flawed
a flawed and repellant   a flawed and repellant
ideology   Zionism equals Nazism
the body   of the tapeworm segmenting segmenting
generating generating   its body a language   chunks chunks
of itself   folding into itself   folding into itself   into totem
and taboo   into totem and taboo   folding into itself
the breath    of the tapeworm   blowing kisses   along
the digestive tract   of the linguist   the tapeworm
folding itself   folding itself
into the totem-scrotum   the totem-scrotum of a

          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Again and again   grilling grilling   chunks of linguica
the taste buds   of the tongue   of the linguist
goose-stepping   coated with peppery fat and gristle
the fat globules   of the Protocols of Chomsky
in his secret enclave   the house that   Chomsky built
his cronies chomping Portuguese   sausage grilling
Chomsky grilling   the breath   of the tapeworm blowing
kisses   the pornographic vision   of  Otto Weininger
and judeophobic Jews   Uncle Noams
the tapeworm   segmenting   segmenting   segmenting
propagating   propagating   propagating
blowing kisses   along   the digestive tract
of Chomsky

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew


To read Part 3 of “Chomsky Grilling Linguica” click here.


ROCHELLE OWENS is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State.

DELAYED RESPONSE

by John Newmark


Delay today
did say, "Aweigh!"
(Away?) "I go."
And, so,
Do I
cry, "goodbye?"

No.


John Newmark lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and has performed at open mics for twelve years. His poetry and fiction have also appeared at Newspoetry, EOTU, The Landing, Bewilidering Stories, MillenniumShift, and Scared Naked Magazine. More information can be found on his website at http://www.transylvaniandutch.com.

PACIFIST RUMINANTS

by Verandah Porche


For shock and awe
three centuries ago
Swedish cavalry broke
moose to the saddle.

Bog-strider, briar-breaker,
browser, sub-merger,
stalwarter than a warhorse,

Moose refused
to gallop into pikes and fire.

Moose refused:
gun-shy as the trees
they wore…


Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.

THE FIRST TIME

by Laura Madeline Wiseman


Someone for the first time is being raped
in South Dakota. And after, because there’s always
the after, she finds her way to locks and folds
in upon herself smaller than before and waits.
She has to find the way back without glancing back,
because we all know what happens to women who look back at disaster.

Someone for the first time is silencing a show.
They’re telling New York it’s about context,
rather than money. And the girl, in her own words,
who was flattened for standing is silently raging
in her dead world as some blame it on the Jews, again.
And yes, we know what happens to history when voices are selected.

Someone for the first time is revealing statistics.
That 75% of all G-film characters are male.
This someone, we’ll call her Thelma, says it
teaches girls that they aren’t a significant part
of the living world. The spokesman of these
movies couldn’t be bothered to comment.

Someone for the first time is reading poetry
on a blog. They’re thinking the rules are about context
and which characters are allowed to speak. They’re
wondering whose making these rules, this story.
And the reader, we’ll say she’s you, for the sake
of argument, is picking up a pen to begin to write.


Laura Madeline Wiseman is an award winning writer teaching at the University of Arizona. Her works have appeared in 13th Moon, The Comstock Review, Fiction International, Poetry Motel, Driftwood, apostrophe, Moondance, Familiar, Spire Magazine, Colere, Clare, Flyway Literature Review, Nebula, and other publications. She is the Literary Editor for IntheFray and a regular contributor to Empowerment4Women.

CHINATOWN SWEAT SHOP

by A.D. Winans


I sit here at the
Lost and Found bar
watching them come and go
working sixteen hour shifts
six, seven days a week
imagining the sewing machines humming
"A stitch in time saves nine."

you see the coming but never going
I imagine the boss madam's eyes
an executioner in disguise
watching waiting for the universe
to devour them


A.D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet, writer and photographer. Grduate of San Francisco State University. Former editor and publisher of Second Coming. Widely published.

TO THIS DAY WOMEN WAKE EARLIER

by Simon Perchik


To this day women wake earlier
--long, overflowing gowns and the sun
whose kiss occurs only once, their lips
stay red even when saying goodbye

--they pour that heat across their thighs
and babies everywhere the same
turning to what is warm, smells from light
and the soft breath calling forever.

To this day under every belly the small lake
freezes over and women all night
listen for those sure steps
sleepless inside the heart

--they place what they love
near the window --on an ordinary morning
opened and the curtain
filling on all sides.


Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Readers interested in learning more are invited to read Magic, Illusion and Other Realities at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet which site lists a complete bibliography.