AL-FASHER BELONGS TO GOD

by Seth R. Merritt 

An analysis revealed in a recent report has shown that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed mass killings in Sudan's Al Fasher amid rising violence in the region. The report published by the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health provided satellite imagery of the atrocities committed by the RSF following their capture of the violence-hit region. "The Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) finds evidence consistent with Rapid Support Forces (RSF) conducting mass killings after capturing El-Fasher, North Darfur," the report said. —TRT World, October 29, 2025

The UN Human Rights Office is receiving multiple, alarming reports that the Rapid Support Forces are carrying out atrocities, including summary executions, after seizing control of large parts of the besieged city of El Fasher, North Darfur and of Bara city in North Kordofan state in recent days... The Office has received reports of the summary execution of civilians trying to flee, with indications of ethnic motivations for killings, and of persons no longer participating in hostilities (hors de combat). Multiple distressing videos received by UN Human Rights show dozens of unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by RSF fighters who accuse them of being SAF fighters. —UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, October 27, 2025

It is Al-Fasher and midday.
A mother ties a strip of paradise’s garden around Omer’s wrist.
His wrist shimmers in the sun and Daa smiles.
She tells him to hold his hand out when they flee, to show the soldiers he belongs to God.
He nods as children nod when they cannot imagine the cost.
He tucks his hand behind his back.
They move.

Another time. A white church on a dirt road.
A preacher says God keeps perfect track.
Blessings fall on those who walk straight.
No one imagines a bullet at the end.

Al-Fasher’s morning shines. Dust moves like sifted flour.
A fighter calls his brothers through a loudspeaker.
A safe corridor. Promises.
Bodies clamber. Mothers pass infants forward like water.

Later-than-now but earlier-than-later:
The Hague. Microphones. Translation headsets.
A man asks for numbers.
How many bodies. Which villages. Which dates.
Procedure speaks the language of care.

Elsewhere: screens glow in London and New York.
Conference rooms. Someone with clean hands pauses the footage.
They circle the cloth around Omer’s wrist.
They label his skin.
They label the men with rifles.
Cursor blinks where innocence should be.
A reporter whispers sectarian violence over B-roll.
A senator tries ancient hatreds into a podcast mic.
A professor types failed state in an article.
Each word drags the thing further away.

Warm and full and afternoon.
Daa lifts Omer’s hand to the soldier for inspection.
The cloth glistens. Catches light.
Young and tired. A face a mother once loved.
The soldier sees.
He holds the rifle.
The muzzle stares into Omer’s eyes.
Soot. Metal. Heat.

Omer’s hand shakes. His eyes tear.
Habibi, I have done nothing wrong.
As-salamu alaykum.

The soldier glances at the mother. Nods.
Habibi. There is nowhere to go.
As-salamu alaykum.

Skin and bone and muscle and tendon do not speak loudly when they sever.
Daa is another mother crying.

Once, promises were guarantees.
No one said God speaks every language used in an execution.

It is Al-Fasher and midday.
A mother gathers Omer’s body.
The cloth shimmers emerald in the dust.

Author’s note: This poem fictionalizes one mother and child in Al-Fasher, Sudan. The events depicted are not a single documented case, but a composite drawn from ongoing reports of civilian killings and the forced sorting of bodies under the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) offensive.

Seth R. Merritt is a writer from the Ozarks living in Mexico City. His work has appeared in The Forge Literary Magazine and Hard Crackers, with work forthcoming in Scalawag. This is his first work of poetry.

ON THE ARRIVAL OF MOSQUITOES IN ICELAND

by Pepper Trail

Iceland reports the presence of mosquitoes for the first time, as climate warms —NPR, October 22, 2026

The ice is going, the ice of Iceland

Gone are the herring and the codfish

What we harvest now are tourists, so many

They fill the high tower of the Hallgrímskirkja 

They fill the restaurants, avid for puffin and whale

For bits of fermented shark, all those bygone tastes

And following them, now the mosquitoes have come

Carried north on the world’s sickly southern breath 

Bringing us a different misery than those we loved

Thirsting for a taste of our unmoved Nordic blood

Yet still, we are given our island’s dark comedy

The earth opening and closing beneath our feet

And above, through our unbroken nights

Wavering curtains of unearthly light

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

JAPAN’S FIRST _________

by Jennifer Schneider

Sanae Takaichi, Prime Minister of Japan

Sanae Takaichi paid 
her own way through higher education, 
her parents didn’t believe school a worthy 
use of change for a girl, even one suited
of big, bigger, the biggest—
reams of dreams,

now, Takaichi holds the country’s highest office, 
a prime minister, my word!

yet       not yet             no, don’t  

In traditional fashion, well-fitted, Takaichi spares 
no hesitation to infuse wrinkles into hopes 
for progress when expressing her limited interest 
in spending or spreading a change of suits
for feminist checklists.

            not yet             no, don’t          amen

Dressed in shades of blue 
that nicely complement the existing political 
climate, Takaichi bows before the men 

who surround 
the camera’s focused lens, 

            smile!  bow     again

dressed on a platform of DNA and policies that ring 
familiar tunes, her maiden voyage–an address 
rooted in conservative values

a sale? at a discount? who’s first? 
a man… amen

Why women don’t need to be first*

1. Because they will bow to men regardless of placement.
2. Because all boats need sales and sailors, not merchants.
3. Because they’ll take their man’s name upon departure.
4. Because others have shown it’s a wasted opportunity.
5. Because all leaders wear suits of spades and kings.
6. Because men will never understand the women’s struggle.
7. Because once a maiden, always a maiden in men’s quarters.
8. Because maiden voyages require too much maintenance.
9. Because all leaders wear pants.
10. Because women’s cycles are enough.
11. Because blue has always been a man’s color.
12. Because women fill in the blanks whenever asked.
13. Because finishing is a man’s work.
14. Because a woman’s interests always come after those of a man.
15. Because it’s a sign of weakness to conclude a sentence with a preposition.

*after “Why We Oppose Pockets for Women” by Alice Duer Miller

Jennifer Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

BORN AND BREAD

by Adele Evershed

A center-left Welsh nationalist candidate defeated the governing Labour Party and Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform U.K. in a Welsh Parliament special election on Thursday that has been closely watched as a potential bellwether of major upheaval in wider elections next year. Plaid Cymru, a party that supports Welsh independence from Britain, had been vying with Reform U.K…. in Caerphilly—for decades a Labour Party stronghold—amid poor approval ratings for both Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government and its main opposition, the center-right Conservatives. —The New York Times, October 24, 2025

Welsh is lilting all over the airwaves, with no definite article and plenty of soft mutations. Plaid Cymru won in Caerphilly against the odds, beating that odious little Reform Party—fashioned in the image of MAGAdom, with red hats, pitchforks, and teal (I ask you, teal?) rosettes.

Now, in Wales, we love a bit of scarlet. Jemima Nicholas beat the French back in the day with a pitchfork and a tall black hat, so we don’t mind a prop or two. And although we wouldn’t know teal from turquoise, we’re not colour-biased.

And there you have it—the nub of the thing. I listened to a woman describe herself as born and bred in the cradle of Labour’s heartland—think Keir Hardie and Nye Bevan—but now, because of Reform’s rhetoric, she fears for her sons in the town she grew up in, because her children are biracial.

We all know Farage might talk about the cost of living—how he’ll bring down the price of eggs—but all he cares about is buttering our daily bread with fear. This time he was told to go back to where he came from (and I’m not talking Clacton), but next year he’ll slide out of his gutter again, forked tongue slick with Eton-mess promises. And I’m not sure a Welsh hat will be enough.

full English breakfast—
I ask to swap the beans
for laverbread

Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the Valleys for the American East Coast. Her work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Modern Haiku, Flashflood, Free Flash Fiction, Atrium and Literary Mama. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press). Her third collection, In the Belly of the Wail, is forthcoming with Querencia Press. She has published two novellas-in flash, Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press), and has a third called, A History of Hand Thrown Walls, (Unsolicited Press). Her short story collection, Suffer/Rage, was recently released by Dark Myth Publications.

WALKING THE DOG IN OCTOBER WITH POLICE SIRENS

by Al Ortolani

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

See how the past is not finished

here in the present

                             —WS Merwin

 

Dog, it is not a good time to run off leash.

There is an air of crises behind the wind.

 

Masked agents rip a former student from her children.

She disappears into phone calls from Guatemala. 

 

The President dumps imaginary shit from a jet fighter

and calls it humor. Tonight, 

 

there are more questions than answers.

We listen to the sirens beyond the rooftops, 

 

behind the strip malls and blinking stop lights.

The oaks gasp in the change of seasons.

 

Some nights I imagine the leaves wailing

as they lose their grip and fall.

Al Ortolani, a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize, has been featured in the Writer’s Almanac, the American Life in Poetry, and Poetry Town. He’s a contributing editor to the Chiron Review. Recently, his poems have appeared in Rattle, The Midwest Quarterly, One Art, and the Pithead Chapel.

WHEN HE’S GONE

by Kay White Drew

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

…do unto his Mar-a-Lago North
what he has done to the Presidential residence:
tear it limb from limb, let
the wrecking ball swing free.

Gather the people from the four directions
to bear witness. Sing and chant, each
in your own tongue. Release your grief
and joy: the reign of terror is finally over.
Trash or melt down the tawdry gold things.
Remove with care the remnants
of happier days and the relics of the founders.

When the dust has settled, bring sages
and shamans and clergy of all denominations
to purify the space with prayers, smudge-sticks
and incense, libations and offerings
in rituals of repentance and reconciliation.

Dig a new foundation, build a new structure
that reflects our mongrel variety,
embraces us in all our multifarious glory.

       Not the White House.
       The People’s House.

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The Intima, Gargoyle, and The New Verse News. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test, about medical school in the 1970s. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Reading and spending time in nature keep her sane(ish) in these difficult times.

DID YOU SEE AN INFANTILE, JUVENILE FLIGHT OF FANCY?

by Raymond Nat Turner

"The List Is Long" by Nick Anderson

Did you see signs by victims of 

One Big Beautiful Bank Job

Showing up in mighty millions, 

Flexing Power Of The People?

Did you see frightened juvenile, AI-generated content—

In response?

Did you see the fecal Führer’s fascist flight of fancy—the

Diapered dictator dropping dreck, Making America Grate Again?

Did you see them go from Government Shutdown 

To government shit-down—lousy, loose stool 

Luftwaffe flooding the Zone with elephant excrement—

Making America Grate Again?

Did you see power of the numerically mighty People

Scare fascists shitless—into fertilizing

New crops of activists, militants and revolutionaries

Growing robust—exponentially and urgently!

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.

THE GREAT LOUVRE CAPER

by James Schwartz

I map the security cameras 

Locked windows 

& locations 

Tap

Tap 

Tap 

I disable a camera 

My Amish father 

Is behind me

In hot pursuit 

Tap

Tap

I snare 

The painting

Cubist.

Tap

Tap

Tap

My Amish father

Rolls the dice

Still behind me.

Tap

Tap

The window is locked.

Tap

Tap

Tap

On a winter afternoon

We enjoy the board game 

Clue: The Great Museum Caper.

Tap

Tap

Tap

A teenage memory 

Forgotten until headlines 

Of the Great Louvre Caper.

Tap

Tap

I make my escape.

James Schwartz is a Detroit based poet and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (2011) and most recently Big Island Beatnik: Poetry & Photography from the Lower East Rift Zone (Alien Buddha Press, 2025). queeraspoetry.bsky.social