A NORMAL DAY IN MIDWEST AMERICA

by Michelle DeRose

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.

DISAPPEAR

by Mark Danowsky

Art by Alex Bennett

Who? They insist
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

on your door

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

by Mary Janicke

 

abandoned
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

Mary Janicke is a gardener, poet, and writer. Her work has appeared in numerous journals.

MAMDANI

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Boffed, bumped, beaten, 
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.

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published his translation of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books, 2025). Other recent publications include Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil). 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.

BUDDY, DON'T LOOK AT ME

by Gilmore Graves

He had a stroke

I was his nurse

And I heard his wife scream

Crying, begging the insurance company

“What are we supposed to do then?”

As Medicaid ran dry

They watched their daily propaganda 

The president will sign a new bill

“He’s gonna save us”

Her husband’s left eye met mine

Buddy, don’t look at me

I don’t even have insurance

Gilmore Graves is a poet and cynic who writes of political disillusionment. He imagines a bleak future in this poem.

WE'RE FLOATING DOWN A RIVER AND IT'S 106 DEGREES IN MICHIGAN

by Ron Riekki

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.

HOW WE ROLL

Prelude to prayer and action

by Darrell Petska

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

Killing. Maiming.
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.

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin with his wife of more than 50 years.

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.

LOVE OF THE COMMON MAN (HONEST!)

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

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 .

BETWEEN HERE AND THERE

by Cindy Ellen Hill 

A baby receives treatment for malnutrition at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat on May 31, 2025. Photo: Courtesy of Nader Garghon/Al-Awda Hospital via The Intercept, June 19, 2025

I wish I could explain, but I can’t. 

The starvation is beyond anything normal.

It feels like our bodies have started eating themselves.

            --Sara, age 20, engineering college student, Gaza, text, June 21, 2025

 

The distance from my eyes to my Samsung

telephone screen is just about the same

as the distance from my plate to my tongue.

 

Text messages appear below a name

that could be the name of a close neighbor

across a picket fence as tall as shame.

 

I tap the cell phone screen, thin as paper.

I hear my old refrigerator hum.

My garden is a few steps from my door,

 

its pea pods swelling as thick as my thumb,

green peas inside, still tender, sweet and young,

packed in as close as can be. Everyone

 

is born out of the closeness of the womb,

then drifts through hate into a separate tomb.

Author's note: Behind the headlines about the Israel-Iran conflict and the US joining in the fray are daily reports of Gazans being shot while attempting to get food and water at aid stations. I am a poetry mentor for We Are Not Numbers an organization and online literary magazine publishing the work of Gazan writers. I stay in touch with my assigned poets after their work is published. Last night, I received the text which forms the epigraph of this poem. 

Cindy Ellen Hill is author of Wild Earth and Other Sonnets (Antrim Press 2021), Elegy for the Trees (Kelsay Books 2022), Mosaic: Poems from Travels in Italy (Wild Dog Press 2024), and Love in a Time of Climate Change(Finishing Line Press 2025). Her novel in sonnet verse, Leeds Point, will be released in 2026 from Selkie Songs Press. Her poetry has been included in Open Door Review, Flint Hills Review, Anacapa Review, and The Lyric. Her essays on sonnet elements have recently appeared in American Poetry Review and Unlikely Stories. She holds an MFA in fiction and poetry, and lives in Vermont.