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U.S. Army photo by Bernardo Fuller • Public domain |
Today's News . . . Today's Poem
The New Verse News
presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com.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.
Monday, June 30, 2025
DONALD TRUMP’S BIRTHDAY PARADE AS IF CELEBRATED IN GAZA
Sunday, June 29, 2025
DEPARTMENT OF OFFENSE
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that the U.S. Navy was renaming the U.S.N.S. Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment ship that had been named for a Navy veteran who was one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials. —The New York Times, June 27, 2025 |
Whitewash the walls of history,
erase names preserved by heart in print.
Cleanse the bows of ships
so they sail free of reminders
or memorial suggestion.
Forget you heard it here, where someone
stood for the voiceless inheritors,
crossed lines for the dispossessed,
or raised flags in mutinous colors of freedom.
Toss stories into fire pits, ashes to ashes,
amnesia thick. Footprints embedded in truth
brushed aside like counterfeit ledgers going nowhere.
Even with evidence destroyed or misidentified,
these burials are not complete. Beneath layers of deception,
lies ferment in Earth’s volcanic depths, lives remembered
for their audacious bravery walk from graves
that were never deep enough to hold them down.
Pamela Kenley-Meschino is originally from the UK, where she developed a love of nature, poetry, and music, thanks in part to the influence of her Irish mother. She is an educator whose classes explore the connection between writing and healing and the importance of shared stories.
Saturday, June 28, 2025
A NORMAL DAY IN MIDWEST AMERICA
A golden shovel after Frederick Joseph
The kind of news I can’t tell
Irish friends without shaking heads, asking me
how anyone sends children to school in America.
No laws in the aftermath, just lies about which
side the shooter’s on, new calls for the political will
for common sense but resignation that it
won’t happen. Here, one class of WMDs will be
free of all regulations, in homage to the
actual god who reigns above all—the gun.
To be free, great, and safe, we ask migrant or
homegrown? Stop at nothing to neutralize the
threat of brown parents who want care for their child.
Michelle DeRose is an embarrassed American who lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Friday, June 27, 2025
DISAPPEAR
some darker other
We give
the real villains
too much rope
Time is on
the wealthy side
Don’t ignore
matters of class
Call out
all the horrors
& misdirection
If you wait just
a moment too long—
Knock knock knock
Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry and Poetry Craft Essays Editor for Cleaver Magazine. He is the author of several poetry books. His latest poetry collection is Take Care (Moon Tide Press).
LIKE CAPTURING AN IDEA
no longer important
a lone fence
facing south bars nothing
a symbol of folly
a symbol of power turned powerless
barriers can’t staunch the tide of humanity
that oozes around them like water
the migrants find their way
around the man made obstacles
in their search, in their dream
of a better life
Thursday, June 26, 2025
MAMDANI
bled and bleeding I have
lurched everywhere
seeking to straighten up,
to get on with the business
of making and conserving
while seeing fellow
migrants rounded up,
shackled, jailed, flown
to foreign jails,
to foreign countries,
on this once blue
and green earth. But
was it always greener?
Surely princes
of darkness weaved
their scythes through
the pitch-black flesh
of history to be
countered then
by a bearded man
who threw
moneylenders
out of
his father’s temple
manifest now
in a young
mayoral candidate
of hope from
the city of NewYork.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
BUDDY, DON'T LOOK AT ME
WE'RE FLOATING DOWN A RIVER AND IT'S 106 DEGREES IN MICHIGAN
by Ron Riekki
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AI-generated gif by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
and she’s in a burkini swimsuit, hijab, with
a Rage Against the Machine-style hat/visor,
and we’re trying to relax, but we talk about
war, and when the tariffs started, I said, then,
We’re going to war. She asked what I meant,
and I said, This is isolationism. He doesn’t
want us dealing with other countries, because
the more we can supply everything on our
own, the more we’re setting up war economy.
And then time went by and we’re on a river,
and I’d said we’d go to war at the end of
his presidency, because going to war will
increase the odds we stick with the same
political party, the war party. But she says,
No, I don’t think he’s going to wait. I think
he’ll go to war soon. We disagreed. She’s
from Iraq. She sensed it. She told me her
PTSD is so strong, her hypervigilance is so
extreme that she reads rooms, feels when
there’s tension. But it’s the same with our
world with her, how she can sense a war
coming, told me about the attacks on Iran
before the attacks on Iran. And we’re on
a river. And we’re floating. Inner tubes.
Trying to relax. But we talk about wars.
She says, I’d like to speak out and say every-
thing I think about what’s going on, but I can’t.
I ask why. Because, she says, They’d kill me.
I ask who would. She lowers her voice.
We’re on a river. We’re trying to relax.
It’s 106 degrees. What are we doing to
the earth? What are we doing to each
other? She whispers. She tells me her
fears. I tell her she needs to write it in
a poem, in nonfiction. I can’t, she says.
Then in fiction, I tell her. I can’t, she says,
They’d kill me. We talk about Malala
Yousafzai. We talk about the hijab, how
she loves to put it on, makes her feel
closer to Allah. We talk about the view,
stunning, the shimmering on the water,
hypnotic. We talk about the awe sounds
in God and Buddha and Yahweh and
Allah. And even in her name. A name
that is tied to God. And we float and
we talk about war. Surviving. The heat.
Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
HOW WE ROLL
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AI-generated gif by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
Forever grieving.
That’s how we’ve rolled
since descending from trees
and living in caves.
Rolled with spear, with bow,
with sword, gun, and bomb.
Killing. Maiming.
For power, gold or spite,
god or country, king or knave.
Forever grieving.
Our own graves digging
or those of our loved ones.
Is killing our imperative?
Sorrow forever to yoke our necks?
Or might we have (we must believe
we have) hidden wings
awaiting prayer and act
to relieve us of these roads we roll on,
spill blood on, die on over and over
until life is cheapened, some cruel curse?
Wings we can will to grow,
to spirit away hatred, envy, and fear.
Wings at long last on which to fly
along peaceable skyways promoting
unity, egality, and love.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
by Scott McConnaha
He must've felt proud
seeing his sons become
the thank you he longed
to give a country that made
good on its promise
to realize his dream
of something better,
of peace, of
love.
He must've felt duped
as the pretend defenders
beat him from behind
masks revealing rage
against a world that refuses
to bend under
their godless
hate.
Scott McConnaha is a former teacher, editor, and healthcare system administrator. He and his wife, Colleen, live in Plymouth, Wisconsin. They have four children and two grandchildren. Scott has master’s degrees in English and theology and an MBA.
Monday, June 23, 2025
LOVE OF THE COMMON MAN (HONEST!)
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Netanyahu and Trump, the peacemakers of our time... Cartoon by Tjeerd Royaards |
All we have done
Is take off our fedoras
And baseball caps,
But under our space-age flight helmets.
We’re the same good-hearted
Ordinary Joes
We’ve always been.
We were remarkably restrained,
Weren’t we?
We said we’d wait and see
And we did,
For hours and hours.
We gave them the opportunity
To cease and desist
Their opposition
To the war being waged against them
By our little brother
(With, admittedly, a little big-brother supporrt).
They did not stop.
We know they have nuclear weapons
With which to destroy us.
Even though “experts” in the CIA
And other suspect organizations
Tell us this enemy
Has no nuclear WMDs.
We know the “experts”
Are wrong.
We know
They are going to use those bombs
Against us.
Honest.
If we do not attack them
They will attack us.
Honest.
So we have taken
A pre-emptive step.
(Pre-emptive is such
A multifaceted and useful adjective.)
We are sorry most people
And most nations
Misunderstand us,
Accuse us of over-weaning ambiton,
Of wanting to rule the entire planet.
We are merely seeking
To take our rightful place
In the hierarchy
Atop the world order
Where we will reign with
Wisdom and generrosity
And love of the common man
As long as the common man
Doesn’t get too big for his britches
And think he can fight back.
Buff Whitman-Bradley’s latest book is A Friendly Little Tavern Somewhere Near the Pleiades. He podcasts at thirdactpoems.podbean.com .