WHEN WE ARE THANKFUL

by Tricia Knoll

“‘Sleepwalking toward climate catastrophe:’ World must slash emissions immediately, UN report says.” —USA TODAY, November 26, 2019. Photo: Lightning is seen over the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 4 as Hurricane Dorian approaches Carolina Beach, N.C. (Elijah Nouvelage/For The Washington Post)

We know there is only today
and that yesterday failed
to stop the planet’s demise.

That egos balloon up huge
and denying. Storms twirl
on gusts and blusters.

Whoever named the Black
Friday meant those days
after the forgetting,

the pivoting on spindles
as if the sunrise will always
bring on the chitter of chickadees.

When we are thankful,
we own the worry,
plumb the despair and feel

that today we are breathing.
That today we are breathing
and for this gentle gratitude.

Tricia Knoll acknowledges the irony of the bleak U.N. climate change report coming out during the Thanksgiving week in the United States. With forecasts of a polar bomb on the way, she buckles her boots. She is an eco-poet who lives in Vermont.

THE VISIT

by Devon Balwit

The first days pass in delight. Then
comes irritation, the rift between wish
and world, lacks that leave us too often
lamenting our birth. We are childish,
throwing tantrums because it feels good
to yell and kick our feet. That it disturbs others
is a bonus. It’s worse when it’s understood
that we, ourselves, are the problem, our mothers
and fathers not to blame for who and how
we are. Then, a glance at the calendar
shows the visit’s almost up. Now
a rush to reconcile. We grow fonder
of each other, of the ordinary good that surrounds
us, but there’s scant time to enjoy what we’ve found.


Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in here as well as in Jet Fuel, The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Tule Review, Grist, and Rattle among others.

LITTLE ROHINGYA

by Probal Basak

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to defend her military against allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The army is accused of targeting the country's Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017. A documentary being aired on Al Jazeera sheds new light on the abuses. Al Jazeera's Osama Bin Javaid reports. —Al Jazeera, November 24, 2019

I’m Alfred, Suu, caged
in your dark cabinet. Once
a gilded trophy, now stained
with blood, Suu, I am here,
seeking freedom from fear.

Omar appears in my dreams
as red tears from the beachfront
of Cox’s Bazar flow like a stream,
Suu, do you know little Omar?

Omar met me at the town square at midnight,
waking from nightmares after the family burial,
to share dreams of rowing across the bloody sea.
In the fog of gunpowder, I walked by his side over
bruised sisters, raped mothers, dead fathers,
brothers boot-stamped.

No, Omar didn’t ask me to desert you,
Suu. It’s me, haunted by bloodshed,
your glittering bearded Alfred.
It’s time you loosen my harness.

Oh! Suu, my silent mistress!
I too want to cross over to join
Omar at Cox’s Bazar.

Oh!  The power of powerless
chokes me here, Suu, I am here,
seeking freedom from fear.

Probal Basak is employed as on officer with the Department of Information & Cultural Affairs, Government of West Bengal, India. His parents, refugees from Bangladesh, settled in West Bengal during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. Probal grew up hearing stories of of the suffering of millions of migrated people.

THANKSGIVING 2019

by Anita S. Pulier

Pay attention
to this table
to this gathering
to the fall sky
the people who are here
and the people who are not.

Accept the truth.
Pilgrims did not come for religious freedom
but to insist on the practice of a punitive religion.
Indians not lost to gunfire or smallpox
were vigilant warriors, tribe pitted against tribe.

All this imperfection has
evolved into our holiday
celebrated by feasting,
reworking history,
telling apocryphal tales
as though history can be recast.

But please,
through the din and chatter,
find a moment,
pay attention, and
notice this rare opportunity

to be grateful,
to raise a glass,
with joy and hope,
that against all odds
we can yet become

that Nation,
that one Indivisible Nation,
of decent, fair minded celebrants—
and for that possibilty
we can be truly thankful.

After retiring from her law practice, Anita S. Pulier served as a U. S. representative for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom at the United Nations. Her chapbooks Perfect Diet, The Lovely Mundane, and Sounds Of Morning, as well as her book The Butchers Diamond were published by Finishing Line Press. Anita’s poems have appeared both online and in print in many journals and several anthologies. Recently she has been the featured poet on The Writers Almanac.

A DAY WITHOUT

by Joe Cottonwood

Children never shut the door
except when they slam it.
Wet-footed dogs run through the house.
A dove lost, confused, flaps against the skylight.
From the turkey in the oven we hear
spits and gurgles. No gobbles.

In broad daylight Uncle Olaf and Aunt Gerta
strip and soak in the hot tub.
The children want to join them. We say no.
They say why not. We say BECAUSE!
They whine. We say okay.

Grampa and his girlfriend Jennifer arrive
on a two-seater bicycle from fifteen miles away.
Grampa is eighty and has no hair.
Jennifer hugs everybody, especially the dogs.

The children in the hot tub are naked.
Neighbor children are watching, pointing.
Neighbor mother says something.
She’s always saying something.
We smile. We bring towels.

Uncle Simon on a stepladder catches
the dove in a hanky. We all make calming
coo-coo-coo sounds as he carries it gently,
so gently outside. Unclasps his fingers.
The dove flies to the nearest tree. Clutches
a branch. Head-bobs toward us. Thankful.

Now let’s hold hands around the table,
close our eyes. Do not think of That Man.
Squeeze (gently) the hand you’re holding.
Let go, like a dove.
Amen.


Joe Cottonwood wants every day to be a Day Without.

ODE TO CYBERTRUCK

by Alejandro Escudé

If indeed there is a future. If the soul
Is made of the foreskin of god. A calf-metal,
Geometry of heart. One single part
For body. Angled, unremitting as the stars.
You who stalled. Screwed slugs. “We’ll make
A more conventional truck in the future,” says
Musk. But there are no later-lines on this vehicle,
Soldiering over the homeless-lined boulevards
Of Los Angeles. Forget forty-thousand dollars.
What matters is that this wheeled rocket is
Turbine-ing toward work, early mornings,
When love is most raw, when hands are stiff,
When the ocean is the color of coffee.
I’ll purchase Cybertruck and drive to meet
My Ford truck-driving father in the underworld.
And he will say to me, “I was who I am.”
And I will say to him, “We’re what we will be.”
Then, conventionally, I’ll drive it on the beach
At sunset time, its MSRP listed in bold white font.
My long lost car-dreams afloat in the sea.


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.

A COLLECTION OF SHORTS ON CHURROS

by Jen Schneider



Handcuffed for Selling Churros: Inside the World of Illegal Food Vendors —The New York Times, November 12, 2019


Salt and Tears

Tears of sweet
salty goodness
wrapped
in a 99 cent
pastry
served hot
on a cold
city corner

Tears of sour
salty numbness
wrapped
in a 99 dollar
fine
served hot
in a cold
city jail

Small Change

I’ll take three. Please,
keep the change.

Sweet, heavenly steam
on cheeks
as flaky pastry
with a hint
of cinnamon and sugar
melt in my mouth.

A small taste of heaven
on Earth, purchased
daily for a mere 99 cents.

Suffocating Fines

My simple
guilty pleasure,
her lifeline—dough for
milk, denim, rent—
silenced
with fines
that tally
a month’s worth
of churros and
violation of a permit
system
that permits no entry.

Seeking
a seat—if not
at the table—on the subway.

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Her work appears in The Coil, The Popular Culture Studies Journal, unstamatic, Zingara Poetry Review, 42 Stories Anthology (forthcoming), Voices on the Move (forthcoming), Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals.

SCHOOL SHOOTING IN CALIFORNIA

by Rachel Mallalieu




School Shooting in California
briefly topped my computer screen last Thursday.
The numbers didn’t add up—
     only two children died.
The headline quickly fell below more pressing news.

I didn’t argue with my dad.
The carnage wasn’t grand enough
to warrant our familiar discussion.
I usually recount the horrors I’ve seen in the ER.
He quips that more gun laws
won’t change outcomes.
I remind him that I’m out of school;
he’ll never know what it feels like
to pray every day
     that your child comes home.
I rarely finish this last sentence
because my throat seizes and I
stop before I cry.

On Thursday, my children had
     active shooter training.
The  school sent the email weeks ago.
Don’t worry, there will be no pretend
active shooter, no “gun,”
no simulated injury scenes.

My second grader cried
before bed. He says he can’t go to
college because someone might shoot
him there. He intends to live
with me forever.
The fourth grader was unbothered. He
learned to stay quiet, put paper
over the windows and barricade the door.
He is certain rules will save him.
The sixth grader was quiet.
He only wondered which classmate might
bring a gun to school.
The ninth grader, an old hand, did not
mention the training.
He scanned the news on his phone.
Hey Mom, did you see there was another
school shooting?
     Only two students died.

Editor’s note: Rachel’s poem recalls the Saugus High School shooting that happened on November 14. As we go to press, there is news from Union City about a shooting on Saturday, November 23: Two boys, 11 and 14, killed in shooting in elementary school parking lot in California.

Rachel Mallalieu is an Emergency Physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. Her work has been featured in TheNewVerse.News, Blood and Thunder and is upcoming in Haunted Waters Press.

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MAD KING

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"There are cases which cannot be overdone by language,
and this is one."

—Thomas Paine, "The Crisis," December 23, 1776

Our Petition as it stands now:

He has refused the rule of law,
which is most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

He has forbidden governance
of pressing importance,
and when so suspended,
has utterly neglected to attend to it.

He has refused to move forward
for the accommodation of large districts of people.
He has endeavored to prevent the population
of the states,
obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners,
refusing to encourage migrations here.

He has made judges dependent on his will
alone,
slandering and calling out publicly
or selecting them by loyalty.

He has erected a multitude of new offices,
and sent away swarms of officers
to far locations, away from governance.

He has kept among us
in times of peace
standing armies
rabble-rousers and tweeters
firing on the masses
without the consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution
and unacknowledged by our laws,
giving his assent to their acts
of interference in our elections.

He is known for
cutting off trade
with other parts of the world,
destroying alliances
cozying with despots.

He has abducted real governance
by declaring the media
enemies of the people and
out of his protection,
waging war on journalists.

His rollbacks have plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts,
flooded our cities,
burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us.

In every stage of these oppressions
we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms:
our repeated petitions
have been answered
by repeated injury.

A mad king, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant
is unfit
to be the leader
of a free people.

Our Petition is clear:

The words like bombs
exploding in our faces,
we must all
reread our Constitution.
uphold the laws therein.

Author's Note: Adapted from "The Declaration of Independence" in which King George is indicted for his "injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States."

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, October, 2019).

C0LDER (S0NNET 0) AND C0LDER, BERKELEY

by Ron Riekki

“Arrests made as hundreds protest Ann Coulter speech” 

—Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2019

Walking to the grocery store, I turn a corner to see
dozens of cops in riot gear, them loading vans
with weapons, the militarization of the police
where I see more of them in this minute—as I walk
nervously through their bulletproof everything—
than I had seen in a decade of small-town life,
but this is the time of riots and gear, of fire and fear,
and I remember walking to the same store just after
the last riot where the ground held footprints in blood
where I could see the exact path where someone had run
for their life, and my neighbor told me, "I bet today
was the hottest day it’s ever been here,” and there’s
a streetlight gone, the post yanked out of the ground.


Ron Riekki’s most recent book is Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

A LA MAISON DE TOLERANCE

by Bruce Robinson

with apologies, and homage, to Sandra Boynton  

". . . as the question of how to re-create humanity becomes a live question." —Hans Keilson, 1944 Diary (Damion Searls, Translator)

". . . they mistook his lies for truth, and his hysteria for sincerity." —Vasily Grossman, Stalingrad (Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler, Translators)


One despot, enthralled by thrones,
calls two despots with his gilded phone,
Three despots, reigns insecure,
bring along another four;    
Five despots become distressed
when six despots decline to invest;
Seven despots who have gotten the sack
join eight despots and sneak in the back.
Nine despots have no need to work:
they do what despots do, they skulk for perks.

All through the despot night
despots pardon with great delight
and despot forty-five decides
to stop just shy of infanticide.  

Nine despots, it’s a beast,
join eight despots glancing east
while seven despots look to infest
at least six children quite distressed
and five despots then decamp
with four despots for summer camp.
Three despots go awry
alas, two despots don’t know why:
One despot, his throne uncertain,
dismisses the prior forty-four . . ..
Curtain.


Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Mobius, Pangyrus, Spectrum, Common Ground, The Maynard, and Connecticut Poetry Review.

I WANT NOTHING

a found poem by Donald J. T***p

I want nothing.
I want nothing.
I want no
quid pro quo.
Tell Zellinsky (sic)
to do the
right thing.
This is the
final word
from the Pres
of the U.S.

Donald J. T***p has sold steaks, vodka, mortgages, university degrees, bottled water, and vitamins, and put his name on a travel agency, airline, board game, and magazine among other failed enterprises. This is his first published poem as far as we know . . . well, maybe not even his first.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT AN IMPEACHMENT DEFENSE

by Edmund Conti

13 or so Republican whitebirds.

I
Among the Carpathian Mountains
The only moving thing
Was Hunter Biden.

II
I was of three minds
Like a Congress
In which there are Republicans, women and blacks.

III
The blackbird whistled in the autumn winds.
Someone find out who he is.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A quid and a quo and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blower whistling
Or just after.

VI
Reporters filled the White House
Listening,
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood?
The blackbird cackled
Indecipherable caws.

VII
O thin men of CNN,
Why do imagine golden birds?
Do you not see the corruption?
Where is my lawyer?
Rudy. Rudy. Rudy!

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
A beautiful phone call when I hear one
Is what I know.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light
I cry out for a red light
To stop everything.

XI
He rode over Connecticut Avenue
In his limousine,
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The Washington Wizards
For blackbirds.


XII
The river is moving.
Get over it!

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The Democrats sat
Waiting.


There are many ways of looking at Edmund Conti’s poetry. Right side up is best

WHAT THIS WHITE MOTHER TELLS HER BLACK CHILD

by Rachel Mallalieu

Whatever you do, check
your tail lights before you leave
the neighborhood. And while
we’re on the subject of driving,
I know your dad doesn’t always
use his blinkers, but it’s imperative
that you signal when changing lanes.
When you are inevitably

Pulled over, please keep
both hands on the wheel while
you quietly wait. Calmly announce
what you’re doing before you
move. I know you’ve seen me
reach for my license and registration,
but you should not do this without
warning. Make sure to look him
in the eye, and say sir.
At all costs, you must

Show respect. If you are in a car
with friends and officers approach,
I forbid you to run—even if you are afraid.
In general, it’s better
not to hold your cell phone.
Someone may mistake it
for a gun. And speaking of

Guns, I’m afraid the Second Amendment
might not apply to you. Yes, your grandfather
keeps them, but I think it’s safer for you
to stay away. Sometimes, I think

It would be easier if you never
left home. Inside, you can
wear a hoodie without causing
undue fear. But when you’re home, please
double check to make sure the door
is not ajar. Lock it so no one
enters by mistake. Even then,

If in the middle of the night
you hear someone whispering
outside your window, while a flashlight
flickers on the glass, do not go
near the window. Please, whatever
you do, stay away from the window.
Instead, drop to the floor,
crawl under the bed, call
me and tell me you’re okay.

Rachel Mallalieu is an Emergency Physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. Her work has been featured in TheNewVerse.News, Blood and Thunder, and is upcoming in Haunted Waters Press.

SHE'S GOING TO GO THROUGH SOME THINGS

by Alan Walowitz

Marie Yovanovitch at the impeachment inquiry.

From the day she was born, we knew
this would happen—
and kind of figured
that might happen, too.
It even made us smile in anticipation,
as if life might truly be an adventure—
though it’s not always what we believe,
it’s what we want to teach her.
Sure, there’d be the teething, the testing,
the travail of long division,
apartments without heat,
cold floors of unkindness,
plenty of tears—friends moving away, break-ups,
dishonesty in those we’d trusted.
Maybe even losing a job unjustly—
so much might happen
that demands recourse
where the universe offers none.
What’s sort of true:
life’s as sad, as we make it,
and as happy too.
Humans will do evil things,
from indifference or intent—
and still we move on.
It’s in the moving—
and doing what we know is right,
might finally be enough.  


Alan Walowitz has been published various places on the web and off.  His work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2017 and 2018 and he is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook Exactly Like Love is available from Osedax Press, and his full-length book The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. 

CAPO GHAZAL

by Esther Greenleaf Murer

Of course I’ll release the funds.  But first, do me a favor.
No, of course you’re not being coerced—just do me a favor.

Those shitholes out there are trying to undermine me!
They have to be slimed and aspersed, so do me a favor.

Help me out with this and I’ll invite you to the White House.
Just do your best (i.e. worst) and I’ll take it as a favor.

Rudy is coming with an offer you can’t refuse:
end up in the Dnieper feet first, or do me a favor.

This transcript is going to the secret computer system,
so forget that we ever conversed; just do me a favor.

Esther Greenleaf Murer is a longtime contributor to the TheNewVerse.News.  She lives in Philadelphia.

QUID PRO . . . WHAT?

by George Salamon

We can't tell a quid when we hear it,
but we can spot a quo when we don't.

Quid and quo were conceived as twins,
now nobody can tell which is which.

A man asks for a quo by offering a quid,
unless it's a politician caught in the act.

If a quid can be without a quo,
a quo can exist without a quid.

For our leaders faith is the same as proof,
and Tweedledee one with Tweedledum.

George Salamon contributes to The Asses of Parnassus, Dissident Voice, One Sentence Poems and TheNewVerse.News from St. Louis, MO.

EVENING IN VENICE

by Allene Nichols




The water is rising.
The waiter with the red-checked shirt,
eyes darting, is ready to run.
But there is time for red wine,

baccala’ mantecata, and tiramisu.
There is time as the water
laps at our feet
and the sky scowls.

The boat shies nervously against the pier.
Our glasses clink too loudly.
Our laughter echoes
high and clear
like struck porcelain.

We’ve wept over the skeletons
of churches and museums.
St. Mark’s floor is covered
with mud. The Doge’s palace
is listing dangerously.

The statues, paintings, and friezes
are safe in Rome,
But we will never step here again.
No weeping now, though our cheeks are wet
and our eyes bright.

Clowns, wits, and bon vivants
do their best,
but their eyes drift back
to the sinking buildings
and a shadow passes
over their faces.

The air is thick with mosquitos.
Our clothing clings to us.
The smell of decay,
Held at bay for centuries,
creeps in from the alleyways.
The city, empty except for us,
echoes eerily.

All is lost and nothing is lost.
The world will go on.
The waiter cranks an old phonograph.
Vivaldi strains against the silence,
almost lost in it.

We dance as the fish swim at our ankles.
The sun glowers on the horizon.

Allene Nichols lives in Dallas, Texas, where she teaches at Richland College and at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Veils, Halos, and Shackles, and Impossible Archetype. Her poem, “Queer Salt,” was a 2017 winner of OUTSpoken’s creative writing contest.

TRAJECTORIES #7

by David Chorlton

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo and Video by Getty

It’s such a pleasant and deceitful
day, with the afternoon light
lying back on the green
side of the mountain
and quail in a covey scurrying
for cover as the hearings wind
down until tomorrow. The local Red-tail
prowls the atmosphere,
circling the golf course
pond while pigeons
flock for safety in numbers. Witnesses
appear one
at a time, exposed to words
that fly from a questioner’s mouth
and don’t know
where to land. Is good the bright
and bad the shadow, or
the other way around? It all depends
which side a person’s on,
and the small birds know their place.
Seventy-three degrees; not a cloud
in sight; the whistleblower’s name
is still a secret; there is
no wind to turn the turbine
vent that complains every time it blows,
aching as only
metal can.

David Chorlton  is a long time resident of Phoenix, who loves the desert and its wildlife but can't quite stay away from watching public issues unfold. He recently produced a long poem, Speech Scroll, which will surface in the not too distant future thanks to Cholla Needles Press.

AND THEN THE SKY

by Katherine West 

The U.S. Air Force released a much-anticipated draft environmental impact statement for its proposal to modify the boundaries for military air space over southwest New Mexico, including areas that would be used for F-16 training missions out of Holloman Air Force Base over Grant County and the Gila National Forest. … One of the alternatives proposes that low-altitude training — meaning F-16s flying as low as 500 feet above ground level — be allowed over those areas. —Silver City Daily Press, November 1, 2019

Ground level, nothing
enters the wilderness, except feet—
horse feet, human feet. We start
at the river and work our way up
and through how many worlds?
From yellow willows through pink mini-canyons
through tawny and scarlet grasslands made by
fire and decorated with skeletons
to foot-tingling vertigo cliffs dropping
from white heights straight down to
vertical death straight out to horizontal
eye-flight—180 degrees of mountain waves
lapping at the sky.

And just like being lost at sea, I can feel
the lack of humanity. My human
radar finds nothing to ping against, no
roofs glinting in the sun, no
distant roar of traffic, or guns,
just the last of the falling leaves ticking
against each other like light rain on the roof,
catching the late sun like a flock of distant
birds at five o'clock.

Behind me, the pale half-moon rises silently
in the afternoon east—and I remember
how she rose with Venus on Halloween
when the first cold came and
made them very  bright—still brighter
than the new, too-fast moving, human
Stars that surround them—and I remember
that there is no wilderness in the sky
as the F16s detonate their weekly flight.

Katherine West lives near the Gila Wilderness, several hours from Silver City, New Mexico, where she and her musician husband perform music with poetry about the true meaning of wilderness.  

FIFTY YEARS ACROSS

by Robert E. Petras




A shooting star sparks gold
Across the Ohio.
This night vein dissolves
Fireflies spark.
In the northwest clouds dry-hump heat lightning.
A storm may or may not come.
I palm a firefly and its pumping light.

The first cricket of summer chirps.

For every six bottle rockets
One is a dud,
Our seventh-grade gym teacher
Told us boys, lined up,
As he checked us,
Tight-lipped,
For groin pulls,
His hands in a V.
His eyes smiling

“Dud” I can still hear his grotto voice.

That’s the night Joey Geiger drowned.
That’s the first time I saw a shooting star
Shoot dry.

I open my palm
The firefly flits into the sequined night.
A second cricket chirps.

“Dud.”

Robert E. Petras is a resident of Toronto, Ohio and a graduate of WestLiberty University.  His poems and fiction have appeared in more than 250 publications across the globe.

THE BALLAD OF LINDSEY GRAHAM'S PICKLE

by Janice D. Soderling

Dong, dong, it pealed from each bell tower
until full twelve was said.
Cold, coverless and quivering,
Graham flopped around in bed.

He sat up, did the Senator,
and stared into the night
for at the footboard of his bed
commenced a nebulous light.

A ghastly apparation grew
and softly did it moan.
With trembling hands, it held aloft
a moss-bedecked tombstone.

"Oh, Lindsey," wheezed the ghostly guest.
Oh, Lindsey Graham, behold."
There on the mildewed stone was writ,
Orange glitter is not gold.

"And quid pro quo is not BS.
Go read the damning transcript."
A tortured moan froze Lindsay's blood,
"Far better men than you've flipped.

"Beware the traitorous pumpkin man."
The moan rose to a shout.
"I come to save you from yourself."
The frightened man cried out,

"Who art thou, apparation grim?
Who gives my blood such chill?
The Ghost of Hearings-Yet-To-Come?
Or that socialist, Joe Hill?

The glowing ghost gave mirthless laugh.
"Joe Hill has never died.
Takes more than guns to kill a man,
No matter how they tried.

"John sent me here to wake you up.
You're backing the wrong horse.
The bus is nigh. His game is rigged.
Stay off his damned golf course."

Then Lindsey woke, relieved, and said,
"Joe Hill's a loser Commie.
But that's the last time that I eat
dill pickles with pastrami."

Janice D. Soderling is a previous contributor to TheNewVerse.News. Her work was recently at Light, Better Than Starbucks, and La Libélula Vaga.

DON, JR.

by Mark Williams

“I don’t think they like me much anymore.”

           —Donald Trump, Jr., commenting on the co-hosts of The View

Just to let you know, Don, Jr.,

we have several things in common. 

Both of our fathers were in real estate,

and they took us with them on their showings.

Stepping from his car, a man once told my dad, 

“I like this house already.”

“You might like it on the outside,” young me said, 

“but wait until you see it on the inside.”

Like you, Don, Jr., the inside needed work.

And then there was the antique Steepleton slate-bed 

pool table my father was given as a bonus. 

(He’d sold a house within a week.) I spent 

many hours shooting pool on that table.

And I was good! But who wouldn’t be? Someone 

had rounded off the slate at every leather pocket.

If a ball was within two inches, it dropped in. 

Up until the day you talked to Joy, Whoopi, 

Abby, Meghan and Sunny,

it was as if you’d played your life 

on an antique Steepleton slate-bed

with generous, deep pockets. 

You were on a run. You could not miss. Please know

that when I shot pool on tables at Arc Lanes, the Y 

or the Brunswick at Brett Hart’s house, 

I embarrassed myself badly every time.

Mark Williams lives in Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, New Ohio Review, and The American Journal of Poetry. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, and Tuck Magazine. This is his third appearance in TheNewVerse.News.

GODZILLA VS KONG

by George Salamon


Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday officially filed as a candidate for the Alabama Democratic presidential primary … Bloomberg could jolt the Democratic primary race with his late entry and a personal war chest estimated at more than $50 billion.” The Hill, November 8, 2019

If two money monsters will fight
For the nation's greatest might
Yankee Doodle Dandy  has put
A feather of another color in his cap,
The one flying for democracy will
Have given way to one celebrating
The piracy of buying and selling,
Making business the only business
Of our fading political institutions.


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, MO and has most recently contributed to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems, Dissident Voice and TheNewVerse.News.

ABECEDARIAN FOR T***P

by Barbara Lydecker Crane

T***p Playing Cards by Winston Tseng

After babbling collapses,
don’t explode. Forego
grandstanding hubris,
idiotic justifying. Know
less, Mr. Neverwrong,
of prevarication, quid pro quo,
revising spins, talking
ugly. Verbatims’ woe:
explicit. You’re zapped.

Barbara Lydecker Crane is a prize-winning poet published in Light, Think, First Things, Measure, Rattle, The Writer’s Almanac, and many others. She has published three chapbooks: Zero Gravitas, Alphabetricks and BackWords Logic, and is also an artist.

EIGHT HAIKU FALSE-STARTS

by Jenna Lê

Photo: Mykal McEldowney/IndyStar, November 5, 2019

my split ends crackle
in the dry November air

my goose-down coat’s nudged
my cheeks out of existence

my hairy calves scritch
inside my long underwear

the polling place lights
sweat yellow in the distance

the 5 PM sky’s
already blueberry-dark

voters in their booths
crouch walled apart like bento

I mouth my own name
through lips pale as pickled shark

the election judge
smiles sweetly nonjudgmental

Jenna Lê is the author of A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (Indolent Books, 2018), which won 2nd Place in the Elgin Awards, and Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011). She was selected by Marilyn Nelson as winner of Poetry By The Sea’s inaugural sonnet competition. Her poems appear or are forthcoming from AGNI, Bellevue Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Rattle, and West Branch.

TONIGHT IN PORTLAND

by Penelope Scambly Schott






Winds gust.
Rain slashes.
Douglas firs bend.
Pine cones pound my metal roof.
Have I mentioned how much I love my roof?

Have I described cardboard under sleeping bags?
Shopping carts heaped with wet collections?
The meager windscreen of a dumpster?
A wet dog under the only blanket?
Did I say how cold this rain?

In our whole liberal city
there is not enough
hot soup.


Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books are House of the Cardamon Seed and November Quilt.

FLORIDA MAN TO DOMICILE IN FLORIDA

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Cartoon by Dave Granlund

He's on the move
on paper
to the joke state
the harboring state
the hideout state
where he thinks
he blends in better

where the climate is better
for taxes
the climate is better
for asset protection
dodging creditors
hiding dodgy wealth
in protected real estate

—he knows more than anyone
about everything
real estate—

where the climate is better
for laundering
the climate is better
for white collar crime
for avoiding
your dues
—no cap
on deductions
no state tax
on income—
no one cares
what you've done

for a certificate
of domicile
when you live in DC
your business
in New York
you vote
for yourself

in Florida            
a thousand new residents
arrive daily
—immigrants across borders
families from cages
babies without parents—
plus Florida Man:

can we lock him up
so the climate is better
for the rest of us?

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, October, 2019).

SEAN DOOLITTLE JUST CAN'T GO

a poem found in the words of Sean Doolittle

Sean Doolittle decided to decline an invitation to the Washington Nationals' World Series celebration at the White House on Monday. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

I put thought into this:
I just can’t go.

It has to do with rhetoric
enabling conspiracy theories,
widening the divide.

I just can’t go.

People with those beliefs
feel empowered, feel like
they have a path. I don’t want
to hang with somebody
who talks like that.

I just can’t go.

My wife and I
stand for inclusion and acceptance,
and we work with refugees—
people from "shithole" countries.

I just can’t go.

I feel very strongly
about race relations,
the Fair Housing Act,
the Central Park Five,
Charlottesville.

I just can’t go.

My wife has two mothers
in the LGBTQ+ community
I want to show support for them.
That’s an important part of allyship.
I don’t want to turn my back on them.

I just can’t go.

My brother-in-law has autism,
How would I explain to him
I hung with somebody who mocked
a disabled reporter, the way he talked,
the way he moved his hands?

I just can’t go.

People say you should go because
it’s about respecting the office.
I think he’s done a lot of things
that don’t respect the office.

I just can’t go.

Note: This found poem, based on The Washington Post's interview with Sean Doolittle, was compiled  and organized by the Editor of TheNewVerse.News.

HOME IS HERE

by Donna Katzin



We are the bright-faced dreamers,
pimples on our cheeks,                                            
victory in our voices.                                                  
We rally in the shadow of Lady Liberty                              
to walk her message, one step at a time,          
to the highest court in the nation.

Our siblings cheer us on.          
Juancito stretches hands above his head                          
to lift a banner that defies the wind.                                  
Kelli in cornrows sings from her father’s shoulders
as Korean dancers swirl to deep-throated drums
and brass tambourines.

We have come with parents
from Mexico, Nepal, Sierra Leone,
the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens
to keep our families together,
claim our right to live in the only land
we have ever known.

Other marchers’ chants take root
in our tongues, blossom on our lips:
I am somebody…
Keep the pressure on!
El pueblo unido -- jamás será vencido!
Sí se puede!                                    

We add our own:
Aquí estamos, y no nos vamos.
Y si nos hechan, nos regresamos!
New York One, Newsday, Radio Rebeldía
harvest footage, photos, sound-bites
and speeches for history.

We are not invisible.
We are not afraid.                                                        
We have no other country.
We are already home.


Author's Notes:  On Oct. 26, 2019, 150 marchers set out on an 18-day 230-mile march from NYC to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protection Status for immigrants seeking refuge from conditions that jeopardized their lives in their own countries. Both programs have been threatened by policies of the current administration—endangering more than 1,000,000 people in the US. The marchers headed for Washington, DC to bear witness at the November 12 Supreme Court hearings on the status of DACA.

Chants
Aquí  estamos               We are here
Y no nos vamos             And we are not leaving.
Y si nos hechan             And if you deport us
Nos regresamos            We will return.

I am somebody! A mantra led weekly by the Rev. Jesse Jackson at Operation PUSH meetings in Chicago, where more than 1,000 black youth gathered every week in the 1970s.
Keep the pressure on! A slogan from the anti-apartheid movement in the 1990’s after Mandela’s release from prison, but before the fall of apartheid.
El pueblo unido -- jamás será vencido! The people united—will never be defeated—a chant that rocked the streets of Salvador Allende’s Chile in the 1970s and after.
Sí se puede! Yes we can—a rallying cry of the United Farmworkers in the 1970s, picked up by many movements and leaders since, including Barack Obama.


Donna Katzin is the founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa. A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing. Published in journals and sites including TheNewVerse.News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself.

EN EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS: A VISIT FROM MY AUNT

by Richard Garcia

The author's Titi Rosa well before her passing.

Titi Rosa came to visit me last night. It was about time. How long? Sixty-five years? Phosh, she said, That's just yesterday. She brought me a fruitcake, the kind everyone in our mean family would make fun of. She always reminded me of one of those maiden aunts in A Child's Christmas in Wales, that sat on the edge of their chairs with their teacups in hand, alert, just in case someone would speak to them. Our old house was quite nice now, with loft-like rooms, and big windows that looked out on the river that used to be buried under concrete. We stood at the window and admired the houses of the wealthy across the river. But these wealthy people were nice wealthy people. One house was like a palace make of sea foam, and seaweed, and palm fronds and driftwood that resembled formations of pelicans. Another had a pile of boxes on its roof seemingly random, but not if you studied it. They looked like cardboard but were really a sculpture of presents yet to be opened. They spilled over the front of their house as if they were falling, but they were not. And there was a skyscraper made of toothpicks by a blind man in prison for shooting his wife. It was justifiable homicide was what he had always claimed, she was a mean wife, and would not stay still when they played William Tell in the backyard. Now you are being silly, Titi Rosa said, and pinched my cheek, which I used to hate. But it felt so nice, to see Titi Rosa, and have her pinch my cheek. Now you eat the fruitcake Richie, she said, all of it, except for one slice. Wrap it up tight in cellophane, and put it in your icebox. It will last you forever, or for the rest of your life, which, according to her, is the same thing.


Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

FROM THE GAETZ OF HELL

by Rémy Dambron

Assembled in the name
of congressional duty

three committees convened
to depose the unruly

in a secretive facility
known as a SCIF

chaired by the honorable
Adam B. Schiff

but disturbed and perturbed
formed a flock of strange men

flapping and snapping
from inside their pen

all of a feather
both orange and red

disrupting corrupting
due process instead

breeding bad eggs
with old beaks and brooding

regurgitating lies
immorality oozing

storming the doors
and mocking decorum

dive-bombing tricksters
a riotous quorum

circumventing evidence
to circle their circus

distractions by faction
so facts would't surface

crowing and showing
hypocrisy for truth

clutching their phones
such misconduct uncouth

led by none other than
Florida's finest

representative Gaetz
the indignant and spineless

breaking house rules
to demand they be obeyed

came a congress of crows
for their shameless charade.

Rémy Dambron is an activist, environmentalist, and author based out of Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in What Rough Beast, Writer's Resist, Poets Reading the News, and TheNewVerse.News, focusing largely on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social justice. Without the love and support of his wife Susan, he would not be the writer he is today.