DEPORTATION RECRUITMENT AMERICAN STYLE

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Isn't it time for you
to help America
reverse cultural decline?

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
to the farms to pick
up the fieldworkers!

Give us a urine sample
give us an interview
get two thumbs up
if you clean and mean.

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
out to Home Depots
to grab working invaders!

Get you a medical screen
pass our fitness test
the background check
and cover your face.

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
to immigration courts
for the law abiders!

A stint at ICE Academy
(it don't last long
they cut the weeks
by more than half)
strap on your firearm!

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
into the streets
to look for foreigners!

You don't need Spanish
vehicle pursuit training
education or skills
you don't need much
just the choice to join
our band of masked thugs.

Hey Ho ICE Ready to Go
show the whole world
what America stand for
kidnap some baby moms
crying kids, working folk
off to the secret camps
to god knows what-all
in El Salvador, Africa. 

Ready, young patriot
to reverse cultural decline?
So sign up now
for that 50K bonus
be America First
and kick alien ass!

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. She writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and chapbooks. A collection of biographical poems on twentieth century poets is in press with Clare Songbirds Publishing.

ELEGY AS PROTEST

by Attar Topobroto

 

           for Affan Kurniawan 

 

Leaning on top of Monas’ golden flame, 

I piss over all of Jakarta. I am so high up 

that the trickle turns into precipitation: 

golden clouds carrying golden rain. 

This is what falls onto a mass of motorcyclists 

clad in green, like a carpet of moss drifting 

across the asphalt river of Sudirman street. 

Within them, sirens yelling in red and blue. 

The white car, now yellow, carries him home. 

Affan: chaste, modest, virtuous, pure. 

Affan: trapped in a crowd of bodies, run over. 

Affan: limp, pale, dead. 

Later, they will scrub his name from the history books. 

Children will watch sunlight play tricks 

on the pages, rearranging the letters into a man. 

Affan, what will your gravestone say? 

Besides God, who is most gracious and merciful. 

Besides how we have brought you here in our thousands. 

Besides how we have loved you as countrymen. 

The loam-balls thrown on your restful face 

sparkle under the yellow rain. 

When my father was in college, 

he pissed from Monas too, 

after his classmates fell like mannequins, 

full of bullet holes, like a pin cushion 

which has been poked too many times. 

Later, the students walked all over parliament 

like a child kicking an anthill. 

The day Suharto spoke the words of resignation: 

people in bars and campuses crowded TVs 

and hugged each other, laughed and cried. 

Generations of men in my family have pissed 

from the sky even before Monas was built. 

Affan: lily, banyan, person. 

Soon, a green blanket—of grass, of people— 

covers your body. Workers, rise from your slumber. 

Affan, when the yellow rain gives way, 

the blessed sunlight then shall stay. 

Attar Topobroto is a student at the University of Sydney. His poetry appears in 34 Orchard. He is currently working on his first book, an illustrated novella, with Gramedia, Indonesia’s leading publisher.

ETHNIC CLEANSING CALLED KATRINA

by Raymond Nat Turner

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

SOSs— frantic patterns pounded on

Pots and pans — Counterpoint

Shattering surreal quiet …

Tired hands trembled and cramped

White towels; white T-shirts; white sheets

Waved furiously. Invisible to the heart of

Dixie in confederate helicopters casually

Hovering above. Tired arms trembled and cramped

Tired voices, plaintive pleas for “HELP!” faded. 

Slipped into soup of sewage. Oil-gas-gumbo-slop.

Spewing from tanks and pipelines like some toxic

Spittle, rising to their throats from a trumpet’s spit key

Katrina square-danced ‘round New Orleans.

Went easy on The Big Easy.

So, why was the city still swamped? Why’d

The London Avenue levee break in three places?

FEMA flew over and knew on Monday. 

W’s War House knew by midnight. But

The People—salt of the earth— heard it through 

The grapevine— or on TV— sometime Tuesday

Levee built 1 and 1/2 feet lower than specs.      A capitalist

Disaster wrapped in an accident; Concealing a ticking time

Bomb. Set decades ago. Add Big Oil’s hurricane highway. AKA, MIGO—

Mississippi Gulf Outlet — 12 gauge shotgun pointing at NOLA’s heart!

BOOM! Prayers of white nationalist worshippers answered. Prayers of

Hoods concealed beneath Mardi Gras masks answered! Prayers of those

Who preyed to their god; to their profits, “Do unto Lower 9th Ward N-

Words what white sheets behind spreadsheets wet dreamed for decades.”

They’d preyed for a chocolate city bleached beignet-white … Lower

9th Ward N-words out! By any means necessary. They’d preyed to rid 

Themselves of low-wealth ones. Elderly, ill ones. The non-swimmers

Who didn’t own cars.

Their privatized Emergency Evacuation Plan was always: NOYO 

(Nigras On Your Own) Sink or swim. Water-swollen homes— “Xs”

Spray-painted on their skins. Circled numbers. Circled 3 = 3 bloated 

Black bodies pulled from bones of homes. Some pregnant. Some children.

White god was good— weaponizing water! Water raged. Rose rapidly

Ethnic cleansing Land of Louis; second line; trumpet tree roots. Made 

Martyrs of Big Chiefs, Brass band-juju Jazz conjurers. Ancestors of Blues babies

Who’d drown in their own tears with yellowed photos and decomposing dreams …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ching-ching-ching-a-ling …

Ta-tah-ta-tah-ta-ta-tum …

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

HOW TO MAKE AN ISD*

by W. Barrett Munn

*Improvised Sandwich Device

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

Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent. It was a sharp rebuke to the prosecutors who are dealing with the fallout from President Trump’s move to send National Guard troops and federal agents into Washington. —The New York Times, August 27, 2025

It's obvious I've been radicalized.
In nursing school, I was taught
critical thinking. But then, 
I attended a radical-left 
communist community college
in tiny rural Tonkawa, Oklahoma.
It hasn't helped
that I"ve had to listen to this fool spout
his nonsense day after day after day.
Like Father Karras in The Exorcist, 
I've been driven to take some kind of action 
against all these devils.
I'm at Subway. The idea pops.
I begin to make a plan. The casing
of the bomb will be critical, hard but
not too hard, and not too heavy to hold
in one hand. That means it will have to be
toasted and still have some heft.
Nothing light with a lot of holes in the crust.
Sourdough-based wheat would be perfect.
The explosive mixture must be carefully
chosen. Muscle weighs more than fat.
That eliminates a salami based explosion.
Meatballs are out automatically— 
You don't want to cause tomato sauce
collateral damage to any registered voters.
Tuna would work if it's not too wet.
This stuff is ghastly. 
I've got it: long, thin strips of lean roast beef.
I'll pay extra for a double helping, tell
the girl with the plastic covered hands
to pack it down hard.
And cheese. American is probably
best, or so my targets think, although most
have Swiss bank accounts created for them
by their oligarch handlers. 
Time to think of condiments. Screw the pickles.
Red onions and slices of jalapeno stacked
on top near the toast so they'll scatter
on impact. I'll need a fuse. Something
with a slow burn that will give me 
a head start. Dark mustard with horseradish
is perfect. After I pay, I toss the package 
up and down, feeling its heft, guessing that 
if it doesn't go off now it must be ready. 
I leave the store and see the crowd 
a block away. With renewed resolve I start 
to walk that way thinking, I really should 
have brought my toothbrush.

The poems of W. Barrett Munn have appeared in print and online in Awakenings Review, The New Verse News, Sequoia Speaks, Soul Poetry, Prose, & Arts Magazine, Book of Matches, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Haikuniverse, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, and many others.

DEAR PREZ

by Barbara Loots

Yes, there are certain legends

   you aim to stand among:

Caligula and Nero,

    Hitler and Mao Tse Tung,

Attila and Genghis 

    and Stalin, for a few—

But the dumpster of world history 

    will pile some shit on you,

Until, like all things rotten,

    you sink into the slime,

Soon buried and forgotten 

    in the lightning speed of time .

From towers and casinos,

   your name will be erased,

Your merch and memes abandoned,        

   your gold decor replaced. 

Your “legend” will be murky 

   with cruelty and vice, 

And, as you’ve often put it, 

   that isn’t very nice. 

Barbara Loots is retired but not retiring in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to appearances in literary magazines (eg. I-70 Review, Pulsebeat) and anthologies (eg. Love Affairs At the Villa Nelle) she serves as book review editor for Light Poetry Magazine online. Three collections can be found on Amazon. 

FEEL FREE

by Nick Allison

Nick Anderson cartoon

To don a bright mask for the faithful to see
To placate the flock and pretend to believe
To drag the dead weight of unbroken chains
To laugh until laughter devours the pain

To plant the old flags and ring the new bells
To raise up the prices and see what still sells
To imagine that freedom is only a jest
To swallow your pride till it rots in your chest

To close all the windows and fasten the doors
To bury your secrets beneath the sea floor
To climb golden stairs till you stand at the top
To fall with the world when at last it all stops

To bolster your ego with glory and praise
To purchase a past with the fortune you’ve raised
To summon the fire and melt back the ice
To never look once at their sacrifice

To turn up the volume and smother the cries
To vanish in shadows and cover your eyes
To cut out your tongue to spite your own face
To put profit above the whole human race

To pull out your hair and to tear at the walls
To pave over gardens and silence the calls
To load up the cannons, the weapons of war
To never once ask who the cages are for

To dream of the faces you’ve lost all at once
To wake with their shadows and feel their cold touch
To walk through the mirror and linger a while
To shine your dark shoes and lie with a smile

To pin every failure on somebody else
To go to your grave deceiving yourself
To polish a crown and call yourself king
To scream for the stillness your riches won’t bring

To weep late at night in a bed all alone
Your palace of pleasure turned prison of stone
Surrounded by ghosts who won’t let you be
You’ll ask yourself why 
you still don’t feel free

Nick Allison is a former Army infantryman, college dropout, and writer based in Austin, Texas. His poems and essays have appeared in The Shore, Eunoia Review, HuffPost, The Chaos Section, CounterPunch, and elsewhere. He recently curated and edited the poetry anthology Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age. “While the Elk Were Moving” is adapted from the introduction to that collection. More of his work can be found at TheTruthAboutTigers.com and @nickallison80.bsky.social.