Monday, September 30, 2024

ONE EYE, ALWAYS

by Paula J. Lambert




Dame Maggie Smith died
the same night Hurricane Helene swept through
the American South, which means nothing
except that our hearts can be broken
so many different ways. Eight people died
in Acapulco from Hurricane John.
Eric Adams pleaded not guilty
while the still-rushing waters flooded 
through Asheville, North Carolina. It’s a break 
from all the news elsewhere. That’s how we roll, 
unable to keep more than three or four or five 
catastrophes foremost in our minds. Breaking news 
splinters our brains by the second: Gaza, Ukraine, 
the guy who wants to be president again 
finagling himself into the worst of it,
one outrageous claim after another
designed to keep our tail lights spinning: 
T-boned by the news. Whiplashed 
while so many suffer the slings and arrows 
of the most benign living: sprained wrists, 
a broken tooth, kids not doing their homework, 
pot roast simmered dry when Mother forgot, again, 
she had something on the stove. Who’s taking her in—
or shouldering the blame for sending her away?
When the flood waters rise (they’re always rising)
we tend to what we must. When the waters recede,
we turn to the Dames, the Denzels,
to Sandra Bullock and the Great British bakers
to keep ourselves going, one step at a time,
one eye, always, toward the drought.


Paula J. Lambert of Columbus, Ohio, has published several collections of poetry including As If This Did Not Happen Every Day (Sheila-Na-Gig 2024) and Uncertainty (The Only Hope We Have) (Bottlecap 2023). Her work has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.

IMAGINE WANTING TO LIVE

by Kristin Yates




So much you break 

the windows of your home

with the blunt force 

of your will 

to live—


though the house treads water,

and devastation 

like a muddy choke surrounds you 

where your life, your loved ones, used 

to breathe—


imagine wanting to live

so much—

you crawl to the roof

and you hunch

and you hold

and you wait

and you watch

and you wonder


how many bodies

human

nonhuman

dead

almost dead

are cremated 

in the flood’s current


and you pray to your will to live 


and you pray to the storm


and you pray to tomorrow


to let you       live,

please

let me      live. 


If you look close enough 

on the roof of any storm, 

you’ll find 

someone who wants         to live. 



Kristin Yates is an award-winning poet, artist, cat cuddler, and work in progress from Lewisville, North Carolina. Her poems have appeared in Tiny Seed Journal, Beyond the Veil Press, Writerly Magazine, Unstamatic, Campfire Poets, Scavengers, Green Ink Poetry, Last Leaves Magazine, and others.

Sunday, September 29, 2024

TUPPERWARE GOES BANKRUPT

by Jan Chronister




Tupperware Brands, whose name became synonymous with plastic food containers in kitchens across America, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday after struggling for years with declining sales and increasing competition. —The New York Times, September 18, 2024

I was a Tupperware Lady,
stepped down in ’86,
turned in my company car
after years of demonstrating
how to burp a seal,
handing out tiny keychain bowls
to guests who brought a friend. 

I worked mostly at night,
came home to sleeping children.
During the day my kids played
in giant cardboard boxes
once full of wares
that I bagged up and delivered
to the women who helped me
make a living. 

One year I sold
$30,000 worth of the stuff.
It kept us in groceries,
paid the bills.

Now I have a drawer
full of incompatible
bottoms and tops
from a company no one
wants to support.
Plastic is out, parties take
too much time.
Women have better
things to do.


Jan Chronister splits her year between the far North and South. She gardens and writes poetry in both places. Her most recent book is Duluth: Zenith City & Beyond (Poetry Harbor).

Saturday, September 28, 2024

MASSACHUSETTS MAN BUYS $395,000 HOUSE DESPITE WARNINGS IT WILL ‘FALL INTO OCEAN’

haibun by Jerome Berglund

with found prose quotations from headlines for the September 11, 2024 Guardian article by Maya Yang.




David Moot…

 

smoking with

the windows up

ball lightning

 

…nabs ‘dream’ Cape Cod home…

 

intelligent 

design 

splitting adam

 

…next to eroding cliff…

 

overcast 

a hot spot 

in the blues

 

…in imminent danger of crumbling…

 

we buy 

neglected properties 

skeleton key

 

A man who says life’s too short

 

under 

the rock 

hard fast rules 

 

to resist buying a home that might fall 

off a cliff in a few years

 

bible belt 

center 

mass

 

has taken ownership of a house with a beautiful view

 

stroke 

of luck 

arching back

 

…of the slowly encroaching ocean.”

 

three fingers 

the trees dropped are removed 

in the night



Jerome Berglund has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he’s written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Presence. His first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat For Tea, Mōtus Audāx press, and a mixed media chapbook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Yavanika.

Friday, September 27, 2024

MEAL FROM HELL

by Kay White Drew


AI-generated graphic from Shutterstock for The New Verse News

Mash together lies and conspiracy theories,
minced fine. Knead graft and greed
until soft and pliant. Chop bodily autonomy
with the knife of corrupt judgment
on the devil’s cutting board. Peel
rights and freedoms inexorably,
till only slivers remain,
then boil what’s left in oil.
Serve on a platter made of microplastics,
fossil fuels, and radioactive waste,
to all those white supremacists who dare
to call themselves Christians.
Pour the dish, still piping hot,
over their heads.

Kay White Drew, a.k.a. Katherine White, M.D., is a retired neonatal physician. Her essays, poems, and short stories appear in several anthologies and online journals; an essay in the Loch Raven Review was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her memoir Stress Test came out on 6/4/24. She lives in Rockville, MD, with her husband.

A FAIR WITNESS

by Gina A. Turner


 

A Fair Witness [a profession invented in Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein] is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what is seen and heard, making no extrapolations or assumptions. – Wikipedia

I hear that people who shouldn’t be in this country are eating pets
I see state troopers at schools in Springfield, Ohio
I hear a candidate say “I have to create stories so that the media pays attention”
I see Springfield’s CultureFest cancelled over safety concerns
I hear what the 45th president said: people from Haiti “all have AIDS”
I see colleges in Ohio holding classes remotely
I hear lawful residents in Ohio called “illegal aliens”
I see elementary schools evacuated due to dozens of bomb threats
I hear what our country’s former leader said: Haiti is one of the “shithole countries” 
I see my Haitian friend promote her book on achieving a just economy
I hear a member of the Haitian community say
“We’ve been receiving a lot of threats, physically and verbally”
I hear parents say that their children are terrified
 
I hear people say that they are still undecided about their vote


Gina A. Turner is a Professor of Psychology at a community college in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poets Online, The New Verse News, and her school’s literary magazine The Laconic. She lives with her husband and dog in Lambertville, New Jersey. 

Thursday, September 26, 2024

HUSBAND DIVINING

by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose




The murder of Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei (above) by her former partner has reignited calls for stronger action against femicide in Kenya. The 33-year-old Ugandan died days after being doused in petrol and set alight by her ex-boyfriend at her home in Trans Nzoia county in western Kenya. This is not an isolated incident. Kenya has one of the highest rates of violence against women in Africa. Media reports say that in January alone more than 10 women in the country were victims of femicide, defined by the UN as the killing of women because of their gender. —BBC, September 19, 2024

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence. —Reuters, September 6, 2024


My grandmother recounts a game
she and her sisters played as girls. 
Candle in one hand, mirror in the other, 
they backwards-climbed dark stairs, careful 
not to misstep, not to stumble, not to become
fallen girls. At the landing, their fate revealed
in the flickering reflection one of two futures: 

the image of a husband
or that of the Reaper's.
 
Who will warn the girls of Death's trick,
how too often he wears the face of love?


Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose’s writing appears in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, Rattle, The New Verse News, and others. Author of two poetry chapbooks, Wild Things (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022), she lives in Rochester, NY.

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

GOODNIGHT, MINI-MOON

by Shawn Aveningo-Sanders



AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News


Soon an asteroid, captured in our gravity,

will pirouette our planet like a little moon.

I picture the new satellite wearing a tutu 

with pink tights wrinkled at the knees.

Wait, do moons have knees? Maybe

Mother Luna will teach her new prodigy 

how to pose for the light, waxing & waning

through each phase of its two-month stint,

orbiting around our world. 

 

                              When my girls were little,

I taught them the five basic poses of ballet.

Fifth position was always the toughest—

toes pointed out, toe-to-heel-to-toe-to-heel,

rounding arms up above your head to form 

a full moon. And like their short-lived interest

in leotards and ballet slippers, this mini moon

will soon grow tired too, of twirling around

in the same old circles. She will break free

to see what’s in store, to explore the unknown,

chart her own course, no matter how bleak 

or cold it may seem to me. 


 

Author’s Note: According to an article in The New York Times, an asteroid, 2024 PT5, will be captured in Earth’s gravity and circle our planet from Sept 29 thru Nov 25, effectively becoming a small moon, until it breaks free and flies off into space. 



Shawn Aveningo-Sanders’ poems have appeared worldwide in literary journals including  ONE ART, Naugatuck River Review, Eunoia Review, The New Verse News, Poemeleon,  About Place Journal, and Snapdragon, to name a few. She is the author of What She Was Wearing, and her manuscript Pockets was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. She’s co-founder of The Poetry Box press and managing editor of The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three and Nana to one darling baby girl. She shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon.

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

ROBINSON CRUDE (SO!)

by Steven Kent




"Mark Robinson to stay in North Carolina race despite revelation of offensive comments" (The Guardian, 20 Sep 2024)


We need slavery today. I'm just saying:
A man who's in chains can't go gaying. 
Black Nazi, dig porn, 
Yet as sure as you're born 
I could still win this thing, so I'm staying!


Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

FALL EQUINOX 2024

by Howie Good


AI-Generated graphic from Shutterstock for The New Verse News


Smell it? 
The cold breath of unease.


Howie Good's new poetry book The Dark is available from Sacred Parasite, a Berlin-based publisher.

Monday, September 23, 2024

INNOCENCE ISN’T ENOUGH

by Matthew King


Congresswoman Cori Bush delivered a speech on the House floor urging Missouri Governor Mike Parson to halt the execution of Marcellus Williams (above)… set to die by injection for the 1998 stabbing death of Felicia Gayle… “Taking the life of Marcellus Williams would be an unequivocal statement that when a white woman is killed, a Black man must die. And any Black man will do,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote. —KMOV, September 20, 2024


The innocent have got off far too long.
We’ll make them pay for what they haven’t done.
The stakes are life and death, not right and wrong.
Are you surprised? We’ve said it all along,
this slogan on which we have always run:
the innocent have got off far too long.
A war is on! Which side do you belong
to? If it’s ours, then shun all whom we shun:
the stakes are life and death, not right and wrong.
Or do you see yourself among the throng
that’s gathered there to shout he’s not the one?
Mistakes? It’s life and death, not right and wrong.
The swans will have to sing another song.
They say we’ve gone too far? We’ve just begun.
The innocent have got off far too long.
Above all else the law must show it’s strong
and if you’re stunned we mean to more than stun
the innocent—they’ve got off far too long.
The stakes are life and death, not right and wrong.


Author's noteMarcellus Williams, at the time of writing, is scheduled to be executed by the state of Missouri on Tuesday, September 24, for a crime of which he is now clearly not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but of which his actual guilt or innocence may be beside the point under US law. St. Louis prosecutors have been trying to get his conviction overturned. But as a lawyer for the state of Arizona argued before the US Supreme Court in 2021, in a case which may be decisive for Marcellus Williams's, "innocence isn't enough.”



Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto; he now lives in what Al Purdy called "the country north of Belleville,” where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry.