Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Thursday, February 02, 2017

DRONES

by Stew Jorgenson




The streets are pink with mud.
Too many people unfriended.
There's a bear shaking the tree.
The hive is pissed off.
It's hard to find peace of mind
in this culture war.
Everyone's buzzing to the sound
of other people's mad noise.  
Take a deep breath.
A little pepper spray
goes a long way,
up close and in your face.
We rage at the machine
but we are the machine.
Just one black swan away
from a social meltdown
of 2nd amendment proportions.
This is your complacency
wake-up call America.
The bees are dying.
Our democracy is stale.
It's a colony collapse disorder.
We like to wave our flags
until everyone tears up
and gets stupid.
Nothing gets done,
but it feels good
to blow off a little steam and
take credit for throwing a hissy fit,
like in the cold war comedy
The Russians Are Coming
where people panic,
the whole town is in an uproar,
mob mentality takes over,
no one listens to reason, and
Jonathan Winters is imploring people,
"We've got to get organized!"
Only this time it isn’t funny.


Stew Jorgenson is a part-time wordsmith who has more words than he knows what to do with each day.  Sometimes he uses the extras for poetry, celestial navigation, or target practice.  He has worked on farms, fishing boats, and in factories.  He is currently employed as a freelance muse wrestler.  He's skilled at mistakes, guilty by association, and suffers from occasional bouts of inspiration.