WHAT A CHILD NEEDS IN A WAR ZONE

by Jerrice J Baptiste

The impact of armed conflicts on children around the world reached devastating and likely record levels in 2024, according to an assessment by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). —UN News, December 27, 2024

Child searches for sweet embrace
of mother, father or next of kin.
Child finds limbs
along the way, a blueish face once  
known, red eyes that stare 
into bleak unknown.

You, soak dry mushrooms this season. 
Serve warm broth to this child
from a dead zone 
while agile mind can still imagine
a world of peace and freedom. 

You, gather essence of the earth to feed
desolate orphan, fruits, nuts, seeds
moonbeams for dreams.
Child will need your lap to curl on when
the sounds of night 
frighten even ghosts who have seen, 
who have heard explosions of hearts.

Jerrice J Baptiste is a poet, educator and facilitator of poetry for healing and self-expression. Her new book of prose poems is titled Coral in the Diaspora published by Abode Press (August 2024).  Her writing has been published and is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Artemis Journal, Urthona Buddhism and Art Magazine, The Dewdrop, Shambhala Times, The Yale Review, Wax Poetry & Art, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Mantis, Penumbra Literary & Art Journal, The Banyan Review, Kosmos Journal, Silver Birch Press, and many others. Her collaborative songwriting and poetry are featured on the Grammy-nominated album Many Hands Family Music for Haïti. 

COFFEE ROBUSTA

by Marshall Begel

"[researchers] found that drinking three cups of coffee each day could extend one's healthspan—or time spent without serious illness or disabilities of aging—by approximately 1.84 years." —Men’s Journal, December 25, 2024

No longer vegetarian, no longer gluten-free,
My menu has expanded to cuisine from A to Z.
Because of this elixir made from caffeinated beans,
No longer am I mandated to bitter salad greens.

I've given up the treadmill, no more sit-ups on the floor.
The gym's athletic trainer doesn't own me anymore.
The benefits of exercise are matched by substitution
With remedies contained within this silky brown solution.

So whether it's espresso, or a Mr. Coffee drip,
You'll feel your health improving after each delicious sip,
And you can count the life extending benefits you'll reap
While staring at the ceiling when your spouse is fast asleep.

Marshall Begel lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He has several pieces in Light and Lighten Up Online.

DRONES

by Alejandro Escudé

Bright lights over the evening sky near Lebanon, N.J., this month. Federal officials have said that most such sightings were airplanes, helicopters, stars or drones being flown legally. Credit: Trisha Bushey/Trisha Bushey, via Associated Press via The New York Times, December 24, 2024

In a way, I write for the drones.

Those asterisks in the sky—blown about

Over the heads of Americans craning upward,

Awakening from their electronic sleep.

Maybe this poem is a little drone, buzzing

Over the armpits of the city, shadows blending

Like metaphors and allusions pending. 

Oh Triborough night! Sophisticated stars,

Billboards tolling silently like clocks signifying

The end of another lifetime. No one knows

What they are, these drones, and at the same time

Anyone can purchase them online. But we like to say

We don’t know what they are more than the fact

That we know them as our own. Drone, 

The very word conjures up a verse simulacrum,

A swarm of contiguous phraseology, eyes

Like microphones sensing each ironic property.

I’d like to see a drone fly into a cathedral,

Buzz the altar, leaving a trail of alien scripture,

Then blend into the largest fresco, a smudge

In the faded sky, like a wet smooshed cockroach 

The size of a large pizza box. But for now,

Let’s be content to observe these melancholic

Visitors, pointing at their axis, the X and the Y,

Their orange lights bifurcating the moon, each 

Triangulated monster pulsing into the distance,

That otherworldly strangeness we crave.

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.

AI

by Katy Scrogin

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

let it do our loving for us
take it finally from our hands,
this vital stock of small gestures,
all these living little impositions
and bear them in our place

anything

anything

to keep us from those efforts
that made us who we were

Katy Scrogin is a Chicago-based writer and editor who also hosts the Plain Reading podcast. A Best of the Net nominee, her most recent work is featured at Divot, Variety Pack, and The Fictional Café. She can also be found at zwieblein.bearblog.dev and katyscrogin.wordpress.com.

SINKHOLE

by Rick Mullin

Collapsed abandoned mineshaft caused giant sinkhole shutting down part of I-80 in Morris County NJ —ABC 7 New York, December 28, 2024

Rick Mullin is a painter and poet living in northern New Jersey. His latest books are Huncke, Exot Books, and The Basilisk, Dos Madres Press.

SADLY, NO ONE HAS NOTICED

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

during this past terrible season of pain

with its headlines and news stories

of voice gun metal cacophony

the screams

becoming louder and longer

            

the plague of words

feeding on each other

a frenzy of fear…

sadly, no one has noticed

hope’s sacred pity

as she kneels weeping

amid the carnage

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024). She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” first performed at 92Y in New York City.

A LESSON FROM SYRIA

by Indran Amirthanayagam

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

At some point on the road you understand
that nothing can stop you from walking ahead,
from drinking the sap of each tree, feeding
the animals and birds, loving each and every 
companion on the planet, even if some want 

to skin, burn and rape you, this is not 
their fault, the murderous rage has a cause, 
a root, and you must do what you can to plug 
the bottle from which the malicious genies
are flying out. So go ahead, vote, write

to the paper, get the school board to listen,
be active, react, take the punch and remain
standing. This may be easy to say but it is
the only way to reply to the tyrant who
will become a bully and then a coward

and will leave by the cover of darkness.
It took twenty four years for Assad, but 
those years are gone and now the chance 
to rebuild. Take it. Look ahead. You are 
alive still and able to teach, to write, to make.

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). El bosque de deleites fratricidas is forthcoming from RIL Editores. He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

BASHAR’S BOUDOIR

by Salma Amrou

Physicists are born when bombs fall 

on heads like apples. According to the law of inertia,

once a dictator falls he never stops falling

flat on his face in Homs and Aleppo and Damascus

and Deraa, on graffitied walls invoking broken Hippocratic oaths

and stripped bare down to his underwear in a leaked

boudoir shoot and photos by the pool, 

skin draped taut across collar bones like tent poles,

albums showing all the skin where the sun never shone:

girls raped and children raised in prison cells

and corpses crushed between metal, dead rose

pressed between the pages of a ledger, each pose

for the camera a little sassier than the other. In the second law

of motion, the greater the suffering, the greater

the force needed to suppress it. Sednaya’s red wing walls 

varnished in the most sensual shade of blood

a shrine where the mouths of praying prisoners

are forced to swallow his name in place of God’s. Starving 

for some form of salvation, a country cannibalizes itself,

a dietary regimen to sate the appetite of the regime: detainees

swallowed and digested in the guts beneath ground.

In the third law of motion, revolt is regurgitation, 

bowels of bloodlust rising in an upchuck reflex, 

streaked across his tongue like the sweet nothings 

and the blush in his wedding pictures, too shy to look his bride 

or his people in the eye, fleeing from the gravity of his vows,

from the fact that he’s been falling 

and falling–

One of the photos of Bashar Assad discovered by rebels and posted on social media.

Editor's note: You can help the White Helmets rebuild lives and hope in Syria.

Salma Amrou is a former Youth Poet Laureate of Southeastern Virginia and an undergraduate student at the College of William & Mary. An Egyptian-American poet and aspiring novelist, her work explores themes of identity, belonging, and the experiences of the Arab and Muslim diaspora. Her work will be featured in the forthcoming issue of Zhagaram Literary.

CHRISTMAS EVE: NEARING MIDNIGHT IN NEW YORK

by Langston Hughes 

The Christmas trees are almost all sold
And the ones that are left go cheap
The children almost all over town
Have almost gone to sleep.
The skyscraper lights on Christmas Eve
Have almost all gone out
There’s very little traffic
Almost no one about.
Our town’s almost as quiet
As Bethlehem must have been
Before a sudden angel chorus
Sang PEACE ON EARTH
GOOD WILL TO MEN!
Our old Statue of Liberty
Looks down almost with a smile
As the Island of Manhattan
Awaits the morning of the Child.

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wrote “Christmas Eve: Nearing Midnight in New York” in 1914.

BLESS

an abecedarian

by Susan Vespoli

Photo source: DeMilked

Holiday depression feels a lot like regular depression, but it’s triggered by the onset of holidays, holiday get-togethers, large family gatherings, and attending or hosting social events. Holiday depression is similar to “winter blues,” but it may come and go in quick bursts as one event ends and another begins, or it can linger for the days or weeks leading up to and beyond the holiday season. —Cleveland Clinic, December 13, 2023

all the shiny

baubles and brouhaha of

Christmas. Seasonal

depression. Air-filled

enormous plastic Santas bobbing 

front yards. Fairy lights

glittering rooftops. Guy in tight 

holiday pants, knit like a sweater,

in Safeway.

Jubilant crimson poinsettias. My daughter

Kate hospitalized again. Oh,

let it work this time, I hear

myself beseech the sky.

“No,” the

omnipotent ozone replies,

“power.” Oh yeah. Powerlessness. 

Quiet morning sun

rises, turns navy gray into orange

sherbet. I

tilt my head back and there

undulates a 

vibration of grackles 

waving and wafting like winged

eXclamation points, black dots

yodeling squawks, pepper grinder of

zest that, in unison, settle on an electrical wire like musical notes.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, Anti-Heroin Chic, ONE ART, Gyroscope Review, Rattle, and other cool spots.

LETTERS TO LUIGI

by Andrew Romanelli

Luigi Mangione, suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, departs after a hearing at Blair County Courthouse on December 19 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Mangione has received dozens of letters and emails as well as monetary support while in prison, a report by the New York Post has revealed. Photo: Gene J. Puskar-Pool/Getty Images via Newsweek, December 21,2024

are about what you’d expect Jesus to receive

if he had mail privileges 

at Mount Zion, near Holy Sepulcher or Calvary.

 

I work for a company that prints letters, 

photos, and books for inmates that people 

upload and purchase for us to send.

I fold the letters, put the photos in envelopes,

noticing the names of inmates, the patterns

of image, of word, what gets sent and said.

 

Every letter to Luigi begins with an endorsement of full support.

Some just want to connect, say where they’re from

what they do for a living. They include a phone number,

a few photos of them hiking, walking a dog at sunrise,

a post gym ab showoff shirt lift, a night out on the town.

 

Most letters contain stories about illness.

How they lost their child, father, brother, mother,

wife, sister, best friend, high school crush, how

they have lost themselves to denials

of treatment plans, medication, surgeries.

There are pictures and pictures of X-rays,

pedicle screws for spine fusion and support,

scars on backs, calves, bellies, breasts, pictures

of phantom limbs gone to the time waiting for an approval.

 

The letters often close with:

“For the first moment since my diagnosis I feel

like you understand what I’m going through.”

Or “I’d do anything to be healthy again, 

thank you for giving me hope that things will be different.”

 

These are people who:

Have stopped writing and calling their leaders.

Understand that statistics have no effect in making a point.

That murder is wrong but wonder what do you call

the death of millions in the name of profit?

 

Last week I was processing mail for Puff Daddy.

 

Now its Luigi, a man-made avatar,

expressing the ignored collective suffering of the people.

 

Jesus was a guy in jail on charges of terrorism.

 

These are days in which we are able

to reach more people than any other time before.

 

Yet look what we are doing:

To be seen.

To be heard.

To be validated.

 

We have been taught the alternatives.

Yet our fracture, 

bound by violence,

gets the attention.

 

Can you begrudge the people for cheering? 

 

 

Andrew Romanelli was born and raised in Las Vegas. His first poetry book Rotgut was published by Zeitgeist Press. You can find him @downcharleston and at andrewromanelli.com .

DON’T FORGET TO VOTE

by Steven Kent

Republican congresswoman Kay Granger from Texas has not cast a vote in the US House since July while she has been grappling with “dementia issues” and residing at a senior living facility, according to her family – something she did not disclose to the public before a Dallas media outlet figured out where she was during her prolonged absence. —The Guardian, December 22, 2024

I'm a fan now of Congress's Kay,

Who does so much less damage this way—

To remain in absentia

(Forget the dementia)

Is true public service, I say!

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.

FLACCID JUSTICE FOR MONSIEUR TOUT LE MONDE

an Erasure

by Betsy Mars

Dominique Pelicot and 50 Others Guilty in Rape Trial That Shook France: A court sentenced Mr. Pelicot to 20 years after he admitted to drugging and raping his wife, Gisèle, for nearly a decade, and inviting strangers to join him. The case has made her a feminist hero. —The New York Times, December 19, 2024

they appeared to represent a cross-section of men:
The court heard from their wives,
 parents, 
friends
and children, 
who mostly described them 
as kind people incapable of rape
 
after watching videos of them penetrating Ms. Pelicot 
while she lay inert, sedated and often snoring loudly 
the defendants didn’t think of those acts as rape 
 
among the terms they used were 
“involuntary rape,” 
“accidental rape” 
and disassociated rape:
“rape by body, but not mind”
every defendant fully knew

he had drugged his wife 

without her knowledge

a playful threesome

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, a photographer, and assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. whose poems can be found in numerous online journals and print anthologies. She has two books, Alinea, and In the Muddle of the Night, co-written with Alan Walowitz. Betsy is currently working on a full-length manuscript titled Rue Obscure.