SAME SCRIPTURE, DIFFERENT DEITY

by Tom Russell

The Bible gets used like a Swiss Army Knife
by sanctimonious cherubs thrashing about
with defective right wings.
Every time they decide to open
another vessel of anger, hate, or judgment
they turn to these writings
for a blade, a corkscrew, or pliers
to open it and allow the toxin therein
to contaminate the conversation.

They see God as a cantankerous old white man
who throws thunderbolts at kids who
get too close to His lawn.

Here’s the church, here’s the steeple.
Here’s God threatening to smite the people.

These same zealots say there is legitimate rape
that is a gift from Him
on this 5,000-year-old Earth.

Remember, you were put here to suffer.

Boy Scouts shall surely have a Heavenly Reward
but Satan walks door-to-door with those little girls
who sell lesbianism, communism, and abortion
at three-fifty a box.

The Raging Right says the God they created in their own image
loves you so much
that you’re going straight to Hell.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for them to preach compassion and hope
instead of fire and damnation.
Inclusion instead of exclusion.

Resist the darkness and
let there be light.


Tom Russell works at the Omaha Public Library in the extremely red state of Nebraska. Extremely red. Extremely.

DON'T CALL IT A COUP, JUST SING TRALALA

by Siham Karami

Egypt: Rape and sexual violence perpetrated by security forces 'surges' under el-Sisi's regime in campaign to 'eliminate public protest' —The Independent (UK), May 19, 2015

Hail to the army! All hail the police!
Stay out of trouble and give us a piece!
Of what, you'll find out—meanwhile, we own the street!
Our weapons are loaded. You're lucky to eat.
To us, you are sugar, and we are the ants.
So get in the station, and pull down your pants!

We round up the students, professors, the doctors,
the girls in hijab, the sons and the daughters,
with Al-Sisi's blessing and superpower bucks,
we barrel-bomb neighborhoods, get free-for-all fucks,
make everyone watch so they'll know in advance
how bad things can get when they pull down their pants!!

No one can touch us! We do as we please!
The law says you're guilty, so crush you like fleas!
We grab you from classes, dispose you at will.
Then parents go looking—their spines feel the chill!
So scream—and we'll charge there's a bomb in your hands—
c'mon little terrorists, pull down your pants!!

We'll fuck you at your place in front of your man.
Your daddy's on death row, so get in the van!
We write up the charges, the judge slams his gavel:
Guilty as charged! Tomorrow the gallows!
The tears of the mourning will only enhance
the pleasure we get when you pull down your pants!!

We're the new god in town. How we barged through the door,
told a Brotherhood bitch to get down on the floor.
She carried her baby and dared to talk back!
So we threw the kid out of the window, like smack!
And we tore off her clothes and we told her to dance
with police stations ringing out: Pull down your pants!!


Siham Karami's recent work is or will be published in such places as The Comstock Review, The Rotary Dial, Möbius, Measure, Unsplendid, and The Raintown Review. She works in the tech industry by day, and spends nights with poetry, owls, and medicinal herbs.

DEAD END

by Michelle Marie

Photo by Bob Chwedyk | Staff Photographer | The Daily Herald

"Anyone is too good to be a waitress," she told him,
after he asked if she thought her new job was beneath
her. "At 30, I never saw myself making minimum wage

working multiple pink collar jobs." The thought made
her cringe. It was a slap in the face. An affront to her
dignity, her values, everything she stood for. Like her,

I didn't believe in wage slavery. If it kept up with some
combination of inflation, worker productivity and executive
pay raise, minimum wage would be $20 an hour today.

It's not the work, it's the pay that's the problem, we agreed.
She is in a perpetual state of amnesia, trying to forget the
hard facts of her life while maintaining a small degree of

hope. Which is easily dashed when male customers call
her honey or proposition her, like when the amateur
photographer offered to take "professional" photos of her.

He got a strange pleasure from watching her fill orders
and waterglasses and empty the bus bin because there
was no busboy, only her. Like an intrepid reporter in

search of a sad story he asked her nagging questions that
haunted her, that he wrongly assumed would help her see
his depth. But there was no depth to a man who dined with

his camera, toting it around like some big statement. She
knew she was nothing but a walking plot device in this
man's pathetic universe, a keeper of his manhood, a

mirror that doubled his virility. She hated him. And hated
me too. As a patron, I could never be fully on her side
even though I threw a fist up and railed against the system,

even though we exchanged world-weary, knowing glances
as she went about the room fulfilling the obligations of
her dead-end trade, smiling and tolerating stupid questions,

like if she was too good for her job.


Michelle Marie has written for Infita7 and Bluestockings Magazine and is currently a Stop Street Harassment blog correspondent.

YOUR HANDS WILL BE PREGNANT IN THE AFTERLIFE

by Luisa A. Igloria

After claiming that a man would meet his masturbating hand “pregnant in the afterlife” and “asking for its rights,” a Muslim televangelist has set Turkish social media aflame. Self-styled televangelist Mücahid Cihad Han . . . claimed that Islam strictly prohibits masturbation as a “haram” (forbidden) act. “Moreover, one hadith states that those who have sexual intercourse with their hands will find their hands pregnant in the afterlife, complaining against them to God over its rights,” he said, referring to what he claimed to be a saying of Prophet Muhammad. . . . “Istimna,” the Arabic term for masturbation that Han also referred to, is a controversial issue in Islam, as there have been varying opinions on its permissibility throughout history. The Quran has no clear reference to masturbation and the authenticity of many hadiths is questionable. —Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey), May 25, 2015. Image source: MemeCenter

Your hands will be pregnant in the afterlife,
warns the televangelist to men who masturbate,
which makes me put my coffee cup down in alarm and stare hard

at my own hands. What about women? What happens to women's hands?
I mean, not necessarily from masturbating, but from all the things
our hands ​so frequently and ​lovingly do? I know a carver who couldn't stop

touching​ ​any surface of wood he happened across: flotsam on the beach,
the rails​ ​along a ship's boarding ramp on which his fingers could have lingered
for hours if not for the porter's brusque Come on, hurry it up will ya?​ 

I know a weaver who'll smooth and finger each tensile fiber on ​her loom,​ ​
each shuttle's pass setting off ​hundreds of indistinct vibrations that give
​the resulting garment its patterns of flushed color and shade.

If indeed hands could get pregnant in this or in ​the afterlife,
would that provide relief for women who have up to now borne
the brunt of each sexual​ ​aftermath, ​9 months housing a growing body

until it's really time​ ​to ​count out the rent? Think of ​the ​revisions
we'd have to make​ ​in the histories of our science and art, ​including
fashion---​ ​buttoned elbow-length gloves back in style, the idiom peek-

a-boo once more in circulation; artists commissioned to paint
fig leaves like giant Band-Aids over the hands of both Adam and Eve​,
in a garden cordoned off with signs saying Absolutely do not touch.


Luisa A. Igloria’s most recent publication credits include Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014) and Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014).

OIL SPILL

by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

Last Tuesday, an onshore pipeline belonging to the Texas-based oil company Plains All American burst, spewing roughly 105,000 gallons of crude down a storm drain and into an undeveloped stretch of coastline just north of Santa Barbara. Roughly a fifth of that oil made its way into open water. It may be the worst oil disaster the California coast has seen since a devastating 1969 spill in the very same region sparked a national wave of environmental legislation. This photo provided by the Santa Barbara County Fire Department shows an oil slick from the broken pipeline near Santa Barbara on Tuesday, May 19, 2015. Photo credit: Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP —Gizmodo, May 24, 2015

The water
paints the shoreline
black.

No.

We did this to ourselves.


Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California's Central Valley. Her poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, The Kentucky Review, Paper Nautilus, The Tule Review, Right Hand Pointing and The Lake, among others.

MEMORIAL DAY HAIKU

by Jimmy Pappas

Image source: Aftertaste

Memorial Day.
Eating burgers and fries. How
quickly we forget.


Jimmy Pappas is currently finishing a collection of poetry and stories about his experiences in the Vietnam War. He is an active member of the Poetry Society of NH. 

UNKNOWN SOLDIERS

by Paul Smith

Photography by David Jay from The Unknown Soldier. The Unknown Soldier is a series of large scale photographs of severely wounded young soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shot by photographer, David Jay, The Unknown Soldier documents the lives and stories of these young men upon their return home. The Unknown Soldier will culminate in a nationally traveling exhibition. A documentary is currently in production.

One cannot count how many
Unknown soldiers lie hidden
Nor their monuments
From Arlington to Vitkov Hill
To Shevchenko Park
There are more unknown soldiers
Than poetry slams
More unknown soldiers
Than tattoo parlors
More than churches
Their voices silenced
Their bones
White and intumescent
If they could talk
They’d say
‘You don’t know us
But we know you
And we know each other
The earth has joined us
By a seam of metamorphosed rock
Running from Verdun to Leningrad
And all the places in between
And outside of
A road map of futility
That you think leads to
War memorials and museums
But instead
Leads to cemeteries
You don’t visit
Where the known among us are
And to libraries full of books
You don’t read
Pages white and visceral
Inviolate and untouched

Paul Smith lives near Chicago.  He writes fiction & poetry.  He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo.  He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

ON MEMORIAL DAY

by Gil Hoy

In the 1960s and 70s, DC Comics added a slug with the legend "Make War No More" to its war-story comic books. Source: Lady, That's My Skull

  Remember Tens
 of Thousands with
    fervent   frightened
prayers to
Pray       Ringing morning
bells to ring,  remember
Hundreds
    of Thousands with
  tender Flowers to
grow and
    nurture and
       Place on dry
   white bones
at the bottom
   of the Sky blue
watery Sea, remember
   Millions more souls
their Deaths finally
     justified
Heroic Happy
      dead   the
  Deathofdeath on
abandoned brutal
 Battlefields,
remember Memorial
Day
as America’s
    no more
 wars day


Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in Philosophy and Political Science, and received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Gil started writing his own poetry in February last year. His poems have been published most recently in The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, and The Zodiac Review.

MEMORIAL DAY MUSINGS

by George Salamon

This April 1865 photo shows the graves of Union soldiers who died at the Race Course prison camp in Charleston, which would later become Hampton Park. On May 1 of that year, former slaves gave the fallen a daylong funeral. Source: The Library of Congress via The Post and Courier

"Thus, the men and women we honor this Memorial Day are all those who have served this nation from its founding 239 years ago--since the Revolutionary War, we have lost 1,010,485 men and women in combat--as well as all those who defend us now against the threat of global terrorism." --Robert L. Dilenschneider, The Huffington Post, May 19, 2015

Once it was a  day of memory  to celebrate
The valiant art of war for just cause.
Today we march to bad music,
Civilization's enlightenment a puny seed
As the strong wipe out the weak and
The tyrants of the earth annihilate
Human work and sweat.
From desert in Africa to wheat field in Ukraine
The victors are not liberators
But bitter fear, hunger, fire and death.
         
On Memorial Days past did wise men speak to us?
Today we hear small men with big voices.
Men who know not what they are
And will not become what we know.


George Salamon taught German at several East Coast colleges, served as reporter on the St. Louis Business Journal and Sr. Editor for Defense Systems Review. He contributes regularly to the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News.

AND SO IT GOES

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer 

Dating back 40,000 years to the Denisovan species of early humans, new pictures show beauty and craftsmanship of prehistoric jewellery. It is intricately made with polished green stone and is thought to have adorned a very important woman or child on only special occasions. Yet this is no modern-day fashion accessory and is instead believed to be the oldest stone bracelet in the world, dating to as long ago as 40,000 years. Unearthed in the Altai region of Siberia in 2008, after detailed analysis Russian experts now accept its remarkable age as correct.  New pictures show this ancient piece of jewellery in its full glory with scientists concluding it was made by our prehistoric human ancestors, the Denisovans, and shows them to have been far more advanced than ever realised. 'The bracelet is stunning - in bright sunlight it reflects the sun rays, at night by the fire it casts a deep shade of green,' said Anatoly Derevyanko, Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk, part of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. —Anna Liesowska, The Siberian Times, May 7, 2015. Photo: Vera Salnitskaya

Thirty thousand years before the Stone Age,
someone made a bracelet of chlorite.
In the sun, the same sun that we know,
the bracelet glittered and reflected the rays.
In the night, just as dark and steep
as our night, the bracelet cast a deep shade
of green. Green, even then, was the color
of growth and new life. And the bracelet,
say the scientists, would have been worn
as protection from evil spirits. Not much has changed,
really, though the Denisovan people are long,
long gone from the caves in Siberia, gone
from the planet forever. But I think of how they,
like the homo sapiens, were moved
to make beauty. How they, too, perhaps stood
outside on a clear spring night
and felt the wind, the bright slap of the stars,
the possibility that art might save us.


Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives in Southwest Colorado. Her poems have appeared in O Magazine, on A Prairie Home Companion, in back alleys and on river rocks. One-word mantra: Adjust. 

BAN ON MILITARY GEAR . . .

by Marjorie Maddox

except here? Last call
for chain-gangs-
in-training at this chain
bar and grill where each chain-
clad cult sparks shootouts
in a city of brotherly bonds
($1 million and counting),
as bloody as that 90’s Waco,
or trying, nine dead but riding
too fast toward that other road
block, those blasted
and blasting seventy-six bodies
in the siege that inspired
McVeigh, another chain-
reaction of cult-carnage.

History is heavy
on our backs
as are tire tread on a biker’s foot,
muscle-imposed taxes,
rival-enforced respect;
knives, ammo;
as are Bandidos and Cossacks lighting up
the ticking bombs of their lives,
revving up revenge in this parking lot
of smashed-in faces,
bashed-up corpses;
this past of bloody sorrow
and linked pain, ongoing narrative
of chains, chains, chains.


Director of Creative Writing and professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox’s book, Local News from Someplace Else (Wipf & Stock 2013), focuses on living in an unsafe world. In addition, she has a new ebook, Perpendicular As I (Kindle version, Nook version).

THE ROAD BACK TO YEMEN FROM A BROOKLYN LAUNDROMAT GOES UP IN SMOKE

by Linda Lerner

                                                     
separate, he asks, as he puts my laundry
on the scale.  Yes, separate, I say
still . . . week after week, tries to make
this American woman understand
what it feels like, no, make me smell
the smoke of mortar & rocket fire politics
keeping him from getting his wife & daughter
everything so carefully arranged, end of
June, his graduation from college, and then . . . puff
do you see?
                what I see is the road
twisting and turning  in his mind
teasing him  now it’s here, now it’s gone
he says of a promised cease fire;

when he speaks of his birth country
of things getting worse
I see frightened people imprisoned
in their homes  being deprived of basic necessities

I see a country being raped…
I do not see his wife and daughter
he will not let me

Internally displaced people bathe and wash clothes in a local river close to the Al-Mazraq IDP camps, Al-Mazraq, Yemen. Source: Daily Mail

Linda Lerner’s latest  collection "Yes, the Ducks Were Real" (NYQ books) and her chapbook "Ding Dong the Bell  Pussy in the Well" (Lummox Press) were published recently. 

AS THE HEAVY JAGGED

by Gil Hoy

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, right, with his attorney William Fick. Credit: AP via Boston Herald

As the heavy jagged
wheels of justice grind on in macabre
cadence an impenitent brutal man awaits
execution which will come in years if ever after
appeals repeating grotesque images lawyers
news stories while young parents of youngest
killed relive the explosions of pressure cookers
shrapnel the ripping flesh the shrill screams
caked blood on sidewalks the police sirens
burning smoke to awaken each night
in a cold sweat for the memory

Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy, where he won a silver medal in the New England University Wrestling Championships at 177 pounds. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction in February last year.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, ThirdWednesday, The Potomac and The Zodiac Review.

THE PEDICURE CUSTOMER'S DILEMMA

by Catherine Wald

Across the country, countless workers in the nail salon industry, mainly immigrant women, toil in misery and ill health for meager pay, usually with no overtime, abused by employers who show little or no consideration for their safety and well-being. It is a world of long days and toxic chemicals, where the usual protections of government have failed, at all levels. —NY Times, May 11, 2015; Photo: A pedicure at a salon on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times. 

Time to choose: should I deprive you of your
livelihood or your unborn children?

Do your lungs need air as badly as my toes need to be
decked out in glorious colors that never existed in nature?

Is it frivolous to pay another human being to caress the
arches and balls of my feet in a way no lover ever will?

In your hands, oh modest Korean or Chinese or Thai woman,
shy, unsightly appendages, emboldened, grab the spotlight.

For two dollars apiece, you give me ten hand-crafted
oriental miniatures, perfect and miniscule as gemstones,

sparkling harbingers of summer, delightful butterflies
birthed in a cloud of formaldehyde, ethanol and XX.

Pedicurists, like most winged creatures, enjoy a short
lifespan: but we all know beauty demands sacrifice.

In this world where gainful employment is hard to come by,
where aesthetic pleasure is so desperately needed, is it

time to turn off the tap?


Catherine Wald's books include poetry (Distant, burned-out stars, Finishing Line Press, 2011), nonfiction (The Resilient Writer: Stories of Rejection and Triumph From 23 Top Authors, Persea Books, 2005) and a translation from French of Valery Larbaud’s Childish Things (Sun & Moon Press). Her poems have been published in American Journal of Nursing, Buddhist Poetry Review, Chronogram, Exit 13, Friends Journal, Jewish Literary Journal, The New Poet, Society of Classical Poets, The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly and Westchester Review.

ALL CREATED EQUAL EXCEPT

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Rohingya migrants with airdropped food. A boat carrying them and scores of others, including young children, was found floating in Thai waters; passengers said several people had died. Credit Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via NY Times, May 15, 2015

Pitiful bane of subhuman existence
Despised by masses spewing contempt
Rohingya without nationality precarious allegiance
Leaky boats sunken nightmares capsized

No destined port of call
No place to be somebody
Homeless hapless hopeless leper outcasts
Unwelcome turned away nobody cares

Bedraggled bastards barely hanging on
Dysfunctional once upon family angst
Bony ghosts haunted by skeletons
Wronged inhuman rights constantly betrayed

Blind justice labeling terrorized victims
Raped pillaged occupation unanswered queries
Haunted by Islamophobia anti-Moslem bashing
Hateful demons lacking compassionate kindness

Unanchored adrift dead man’s float
Bloated corpses buried at sea
Long-festering festering wound abscessed
Help beyond intensive care horizon


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 

M-MOMENTS

by Lind Grant-Oyeye

Around 1,600 refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh were rescued off the coast of Indonesia on Sunday and detained in Malaysia on Monday. Malaysian officials said Monday that 1,081 Bangladeshi and Rohingya refugees landed on the country’s Langkawi Island. On Sunday, 600 “sad, tired and distressed” migrants were stranded off the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh. On Monday, another 400 were found aboard a ship, the BBC reports. Hundreds of those people are believed to be Rohingya, the ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar who for decades have faced discrimination and persecution in the majority-Buddhist country. The government of Myanmar considers the country’s approximately 1.33 million Rohingya illegal settlers, and the United Nations classifies them as one of the most persecuted refugee groups in the world. —Newsweek, May 11, 2015

With silvery hair, bones thinned in-out, of life the silver screen speaks.
The letter M, embossed in audacious colors. It had begun long before her time,

time when clay pots were sanded out to shimmer. She had seen it and felt it.
It starts by falling- falling in love. Minute carts tenderly packed,
full of moments, full of memories delicately put together.

It moves with fantasies of prized certificates, a desire for a stamp-the majestic seal of approval.
It flows to the stage of self- journey through dark subways, tunnels to the unfamiliar,
untested promise lands. She heard some had swam bellied-up in wavy pools,
Chillin’ to the historic tempest.

Others swim to “bien venue”  cat-calls, to honeymoons filled with French kisses,
flowers and fresh caresses, beauty and beautiful feet planted on cozy carpets,
romance lasting into wintery and the hurricane hugging days.

On strange lands were some feet planted. They kissed strangers
and slept with enemies -red juices pressed against their lips,
with the firm force of a heavy weight boxer’s strength, kissing Judas’ doppelgänger
to the sweet sound of the language from Babel, spoken with a lover’s passion.

Faint memories show M in the alphabet song, is for Migration, for marriage.


Lind Grant-Oyeye is an Irish-Nigerian poet and has work published in several countries. Her work discusses issues related to culture, social justice and equality.

DECONSTRUCTING TEXAS

by James Penha

Jim Love’s homage to Texas, “Area Code” (1962) steel, cast iron and lead,
presently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX.

“The Texas takeover is like Obamacare death panels, or Sharia law coming to a court near you, or fluoride in the water supply. It doesn’t matter if the particular charge is proven to be completely false. Just getting the larger idea (don’t trust Obama’s feds, they want to un-cling you from your guns and religion) into the mainstream media is a victory. It validates the paranoia.” —Leslie Savan, The Nation, May 8, 2015

"Nearly every Republican in the Texas House is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit state and local officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples." —AP, May 13, 2015 

The every-which-wayness of tomahawking
oil drills, like Fred Astaire twerking against gravity
on walls and ceiling, does not surprise: Pan pipes after all
and the broad ten-gallon of a new Hermes
wings just above a bookend pedestal. Nor does a
chain-saw tumbleweed, nest of baby crankcases, wild
pig, arrowhead, milk bottle, longhorns and loblolly.
And at center stage a lone Rainmaker curries favor from his Lizzie;
it’s 110 in the shade on a stage a Broadway baby understands.

But that dour visage next to the lug wrench monstrance?
(Paul Frank’s simian Julius would worship a monkey wrench,
and snow monkeys swayed only briefly on Texas branches;
Iron Eyes Cody cried crocodiles for this land much later.)

No, within that overseeing mien
a Vitruvian wannabe struggles to set
his face and place the star on which
the whole of this sorry state depends.


James Penha edits The New Verse News.

RUN-UP

by Rachael Stanley






little girls in
communion dresses
Dublin city awash
with marriage -
equality posters


Rachael Stanley's poems have been published in various print and online publications. She also has an interest in shorter form poetry such as Haiku, Haibun and Tanka. She is from Dublin, Ireland where she currently lives.

PILING ON

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Proud heritage pitiful anti-natural disaster

Architectonic rumbling

Daily bread no longer given

Magical dragons entrapped snowbound lairs

Looking down from isolated heights

Precarious existence smothered by ash

Votive lamps churned buttery meltdown

Trackless Sherpa trails left behind

Empty void filled with tenacity

No vacancy guest houses demolished

Children used to nothing strangely

Making do with even less

Thankless volunteers sifting contaminated rubble

Bloodhounds sniffing vital heartbeat signs

Humanitarian relief anonymous god sent

Colorful life savers myriad flavors


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 

WHERE WOULD THE KARDASHIANS BE WITHOUT KRIS JENNER?*

by Ron Riekki

'I will never replace his beloved mom': Kris Jenner promises to 'always love' Kanye West like her own son in touching note for Mother's Day —Justin Enriquez and George Stark, Daily Mail, May 11, 2015

When newspapers died,
their son
took over
the business
and he liked boobs,
so he’d write
obituaries
about boobs
and show boobs playing
golf
and he made the weather report
a boob weather report.

The boobs
appreciated the fame.

In the old days,
boobs couldn’t be
involved in politics,
but now boobs
run for President
every year.

When the newspaper industry
died,
it was from all of those years
of smoking,
or,
excuse me,
sucking,
all of those years
of sucking
all of the air
out of the room
to make room
for the boobs.

Here’s a news
flash.

Here’s a news
peep show.

Here’s a noose.


*NY Times Magazine headline, May 8, 2015

Ron Riekki's books include U.P.: a novel, The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book), and Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (MSU Press).

DREAMING NEPAL

by Valerie Sonnenthal

Saili, 25, from Selang, said that her 2-year-old son died in the earthquake and that her home was destroyed. She and her two surviving children are now living in a shelter with four other families. Credit: Gardiner Harris/The New York Times, May 9, 2015

silencing her words
lips moving
wordless breeze
swallowing syllables
caught like a tumor
growing slowly
her throat aching
hands twisting
body somewhere
dust thickened
eyes blink
between dreams
days
like yesterday
calm carrying on
errands at the market
life a dream
she once was living
thankful
now thick
in the thick
slow stuck time
floating in wait
weighted
by a city
she once knew


Valerie Sonnenthal joined the Cleaveland House Poets when she moved to Martha's Vineyard in 2006. She writes the Chilmark Town Column plus arts and lifestyle stories for the MV Times, Arts & Ideas magazine, and  publishes Errata Editions' Books on Books series. 

WHAT IN THE WORLD

by Howard Winn

Image source: ReverbPress

Is wrong with Arkansas
that cannot decide if it
is Texas or Kansas
where they elect to the Senate
the wise-ass kid everyone
rolls the eyeballs over as
he speaks in class without
raising his hand but just
butts into the middle of
serious conversations as
if only he and his opinions
matter while his elders
and the rest of the group
attend to serious learning
we have all known such
egotists who won’t shut
up and no one will cotton
to as the cliché has it
while he oblivious to
the hidden contempt
goes on and on as if
everyone shared his
own self love posturing
as if he were the rebirth
of Alexander Hamilton
that bastard of history

Howard Winn's poetry and fiction has been published recently in Dalhousie Review, Galway Review, Taj Mahal Review, Descant (Canada), Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, and Blueline. He has a B. A. from Vassar College and an M. A. from the Stanford University Writing Program.

DROUGHT RELIEF

by Jim Gustafson

I have sent California
an 8oz, thin plastic recyclable
bottle filled with water.
The label calls it “Purified.”
I imagine it poured
upon a terracotta potted plant,
the mistress saving the last sip
to savor for herself, while waiting
for the bud to unwrap its face
and seek rain.


Jim Gustafson’s most recent book, Driving Home, was published by Aldrich Press in 2013 and is a 2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee. He holds an MFA from University of Tampa and a M. Div., from Garrett Theological Seminary. He teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University and Florida Southwestern State College.  His work has most recently appeared in Prick of the Spindle, Foliate Oak, Poetry Quarterly. He lives in Fort Myers, Florida, where he reads, writes, and pulls weeds.

DRIVE-BYS AND OTHER DARK TRAGEDIES

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Back in 2008, NPR reported about a 10-year-old fireball pitcher from Connecticut named Jericho Scott. His 40 mile an hour pitches were so good that one youth league decided he shouldn't be allowed to pitch. The story went flying around the Internet faster than Jericho's fastball. Last month, the 16-year old was killed in a drive-by shooting in New Haven. —NPR, May 6, 2015

1 injured in Greenfield (CA) drive-by shooting. 

—KSBW, May 6, 2015

Man wounded in North Oakland drive-by shooting. 

—Contra Costa Times, May 6, 2015

A man is recovering after he was shot in the leg during a drive-by shooting Tuesday in Jacksonville. 

—The Florida Times-Union, May 6, 2015

Two Men Arrested In Suspected Drive-By Shooting. 

—CBS7 (West Texas), May 6, 2015

Police arrested a man Tuesday night suspected of a drive-by shooting last week in Tacoma.  

—News Tribune, May 5, 2015

The father of a toddler who was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Kent says he’s not a gang member, despite the contention of police that the shooting was related to a feud between gangs. 

—The Seattle Times, May 4, 2015 

Two men were wounded in a drive-by shooting in North Hollywood Saturday night, police said. 

—ABC7 (Los Angeles), May 3, 2015

what words of tenderness
for the young mother who heard the window shatter
and the bullet stain her five year old daughter’s black skin
what words of solace
for the grandmother who still mourns a teenager
pimped till she died
what will we say to the single mom family on welfare
who watches and watches story after story on tv
river after river called rage and riot
theirs, too, is the massive ache for justice
and it trickles down dark faces
for their child, their children
for every child
because the ghosts of all children
walk among the flames of another city of rage
                             
                             
Sister Lou Ella Hickman is a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. She has been a teacher on all levels and she has worked in two libraries.  Presently she is a freelance writer as well as a spiritual director. Her poems and articles have been published in numerous magazines as well as a poem in After Shocks: Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo and a poem to be published in Down the Dark River edited by Philp Kolin.  Her first book of poetry, she: robed and wordless, published by Press 53, will be released in the fall.

BALLS

by Douglas G. Brown

In the home of the bean and the cod,

The footballs were some deflated;

Coach Belichick sits at the right hand of God,

And the Patriots fans are elated.

Douglas G. Brown is a former geologist and chemical worker. His light verse has been published in Light, Lightenup Online, The Spectator, and Trinacria. Brown is a lukewarm Red Sox and Bruins fan, but only has an interest in football whan a scandal erupts (or, deflates).

FIELD BOX 54

by Alejandro Escudé



Its come down to this: empty
major league baseball stands
while the game goes on below,


except for the one skeleton
sitting in Field Box 54, wolfing
down a hot dog whole, tossing peanuts
into its open jaw.


The hot dog bun perfectly preserved
and the pristine peanut shells
scattering past the skeleton’s severed
spinal chord.


The lonely announcer
can’t believe his eyes. “It appears
to be enjoying the game!” he says.


And why not? The whole stadium
to itself, Orioles against
the White Sox, nothing to worry about,


though it still remembers
the gelid badge pressed to its ear

and the godforsaken fear.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

AMEN YEMEN

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Editor’s note: Key infrastructure in war-torn Yemen, including water supplies, health services and telecommunications, are on the verge of breaking down due to a major fuel shortage, a United Nations humanitarian official has warned. "The services still available in the country in terms of health, water, food are quickly disappearing because fuel is no longer being brought into the country," Johannes van der Klaauw told AFP news agency on Saturday. "Without fuel hospitals can't work, ambulances can't go out. You can't have the water system working because water has to be pumped. The telecommunication network risks shutting down. "If something is not done in the next few days in terms of bringing fuel and food into the country, Yemen is going to come to a complete stand-still," he warned. —AlJazeera, May 2, 2015



No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 

ON WATCHING THE LOCAL EVENING NEWS IN A BAR WITH A WHITE, FORMER COMMUNITY POLICE OFFICER, COMMENTING ON A YOUNG COP’S RESTRAINT DURING AN ARMED CONFRONTATION WITH A BLACK SUSPECT

by Alan Catlin






Red-faced, standing as close
to TV as possible, shaking his
clenched fist at the screen,
former police sergeant screams
at images of young black suspect
in handcuffs, arresting officer
nearby, escorting him to squad
car, “What’s wrong with him?
Is he sick or something?
They should take his gun away
from him now. Suspend his ass
but good.  No, they should have
his badge!  Protocol, my ass.
The only protocol there is, is:
the only good nigger, is a dead
nigger. If I were still on the force,
me and my boys would know what
to do. Hell, there are probably
enough of us left still in the ranks
they’ll take care of business but
good. We should be talking about:
Man killed in armed confrontation,
not some 'exercised remarkable
restraint' bullshit. That asshole
will be out in a couple of years and
he’ll get another gun and someone
else will get killed. Happens all the time.
That’s why we shoot them when we can.
That cop better get his ass to the range
and remember what his weapon is for.”


Author’s note: I wrote this poem in response to recent incidents across the country involving white police officers and black “suspects”.  The actual incident in my poem occurred a few years ago, and I had let it slide thinking, who would want to hear about just another racist cop? The monologue is not an exact transcription of  the former police sergeant’s speech but it comes as close as I can recall. Believe me, though, the substance is the same. In the city of the poem, the police force operated for decades as the private army of the mayor, almost totally without restraint. Of note: There has been one party in charge of the city since the 19th century, and it was only after the death of the longest serving mayor in the history of the state that some restraints were applied to the police force. That was in the middle seventies. This particular officer began his career under the auspices of ”the mayor” so his attitude dies hard. I don’t believe all officers are like that. Maybe not even a lot of them are like that.  I remain grateful to all the cops who saved my butt when I worked in more than one rough tavern, when I really needed help. Some of them are still counted as friends of mine. Still the fact remains: they Do exist, have always existed, and need to be stopped from existing now, and in the future.


Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from March Street Press, is Alien Nation.

WILL: THE

by Gil Hoy

At Freddie Gray's funeral. Image source: CNN



Raw naked truth of
Cell phone videos,

Funeral, funeral,
Police brutality: The
Police murders: The
Play of unjust death,

Rioting in the streets: The
Wrath of young black thugs
Raining down, in reckless disregard,
For authority: The

RapidRingingRagingGunfire: The


Collapsing broken
     Bodies: The
News ritual: The
Speed of the internet: The

Red of blood,

  Pain cries
      At:  The resiliency
         Of Prejudice,

  CHANGE: The

Way things are: The
Way things have always been: The
Way things might otherwise be?


Gil Hoy is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.  He is a Boston trial lawyer and studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction a year ago.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in Third Wednesday, Stepping Stones Magazine, The Potomac and The Zodiac Review.

BALTIMORE CARGO

by Patricia Jakovich VanAmburg

Image source:  A Guide to the History of Slavery in Maryland (The Maryland State Archives, Annapolis MD and the University of Maryland College Park, MD)

Why did we not see cargo arriving
with the first slave ship whose
rotten timber roiled the harbor
leaving tobacco in our pockets…

cargo of manumission’s
low skilled “quasi-freedmen”
filling local factories for
twenty percent cheaper wages
and a city of transient pockets…

cargo of professional
“blood tub” rioters and
Know Nothing fraud
dividing a city until
free Blacks were pocketed
into segregated education…

cargo from World War II
steel Liberty Ships promising
jobs for thousands of poor
white southerners while
expanding corporate pockets…

cargo from decades
of racial blockbusting
depreciating neighborhoods
building heroin ghettos
bulging pockets of crime…

We should keep in mind
what we put in our pockets.


Patricia Jakovich VanAmburg teaches literature at Howard Community College in Columbia Maryland where she is also affiliated with The Little Patuxent Review. Her most recent chapbook is titled Watching for Birds.