Today's News . . . Today's Poem
The New Verse News
presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
Thursday, July 03, 2025
NOW AT THE FOOD CENTER
AMERICA’S PRECIPICE
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AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
It starts with one stone
a chipping away, chiseling of sorts
digging to China as my mother always
said
In China it was pounded into sand
and their people have known it
for seven decades or so
Here, babbling brooks, once slick as silk
have rough edges now etched
into fifty pieces, maybe fifty-one
A carnival barker yelling;
flushed face, eyebrows furrowed
the color of honeydew, or more
fluorescent than that
Stones and bricks in a road leading to Oz
because this doesn’t feel quite real
and the curtains are pulled back
Judges, legislators,
one at a time acquiescing
out of fear, reprisal
is this really happening?
to us of all people?
right now?
like we’re scarecrows or something?
In one-hundred days
the rocks have become boulders
on shoulders of complacency
David threw a rock at Goliath
hitting the target
unlike we do at the strongman
A mountain of stone
penetrated upon and fissured
and it’s on this precipice that
we now stand
Laura Boatner is a registered nurse by day and an aspiring writer by night. She has been published in scholarly nursing journals, but finds it much more fun to write fiction. She has been accepted into the MAPW program at Kennesaw State University in Fall 2025. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and her two rescue pups, Birdie and Pepper.
Wednesday, July 02, 2025
I HEAR AMERICA CRYING
tattered perhaps beyond repair
The insurrectionists running free, absolved
I hear America crying
the carpenter and the mason being dragged away
by the chilling iceman
their families slipping on their tears
and murmuring to each other
What is this land in which we dwell?
A boatman turned pilot ferries them away to
prisons in countries unknown
I hear America crying
as judges erase the law of the land
another pilot does not cry but grits his teeth
as he drops his bombs
preserving his president’s honor but nothing else
I hear America reeling as yes becomes no
and truth morphs into lies
I hear America whispering
too afraid to sing
to afraid to shout
huddling in their homes
uncertain what the night will bring
or when the night will end
and if they will sing
and if they will sing
again.
Judy Trupin lives, writes, and thinks in Pittsburgh, PA. Walking, teaching and practicing yoga and singing to her plants keeps her sane.
TODO BUENO?
Being born at Coney Island Hospital the summer of ’58,
chiefs rabid in their gatekeeping—when calling
the post-Columbian colonizing label, Taino, inauthentic.
My adolescence was blessed with a South Bronx block
of modest homes owned by Black, brown, and white
of the sixties. My transplanted island roots took root
above and below concrete. So what I was born too late
to be an OG Nuyorican—say The Young Lords or outlaw
can’t grow up where I did and not be Nuyorican—this one,
given my nature, still needs activism and revolutionary poetry.
with the U.S. the head arsonist—aren’t the U.S. bombs that made
I only wish my roots were not drying out so quickly. My mother
I have gone from little boy to brittle—taking care and being good
signing the Doomsday Clock will strike midnight in my lifetime—
whether I practice Yucayeque rituals in Borikén’s central mountains
or rattle downtown on the Lexington Ave express. What I really
The Practicing Poet. Andrés is currently working on Militant Humanist, a project for poets,
writers, artists, and others.
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
WISHING YOU ALL A GOOD DEATH
THIS TOO WILL BE OUR HISTORY
Let’s crawl out from between cracks
in Mrs. Malloy’s Social Studies class
look America square in the…
Trail of Tears, Chinese Exclusion, Compromise
of 1877, red carpet for the KKK in troops
withdrawal, 911, Homeland Security, ICE.
Military facing off with us — terror.
We love this country — swampy and lush; dry
and sharp; wide, wild, waking.
Echoes of past, Liberty or Death,
beg the question, Is the acrid smoke gulped
after hollers of Freedom now
easier than silence?
Don’t you want to fix her pockets, tuck
them in; pull her
Fortnite shirt down over
her exposed sand-colored belly; embrace
her and, while reaching behind,
let loose the cuffs, like you might untie
a ribbon to free your girl’s hair?
Kristin Kowalski Ferragut is author of the poetry collection Escape Velocity (Kelsay Books, 2021) and children's book Becoming the Enchantress (Loving Healing Press, 2021). Her poetry has appeared in Beltway Quarterly, Bourgeon, Fledgling Rag, Little Patuxent Review, and Gargoyle Magazine, among others.
TREE HUGGERS
was used as a slur by some
to describe those granola-crunching types
who wrapped themselves around tree trunks
to prevent loggers and the like
from committing acts of deforestation
To others, “tree hugger”
comes as a compliment,
describing devoted environmentalists
who care about the earth
about sustainability
about what will be left for the next generation
And now, “tree hugger” describes
those holding on for dear life
as bone-crunching ICE goons
commit acts of deportation
tearing innocents from their roots,
from their loved ones
Have you ever hugged a tree?
In Japan it’s called shinrin-yoku,
forest bathing, transferring
of life force from tree to human.
Native Americans hugged trees
to heal both body and soul.
Here, masked marauders
surrounded a woman seeking haven
using brute force
to break her embrace
break her spirit
break all moral codes
I wish I could envelop this woman
in a big bear hug
tell her she is welcome here
she is safe here
tell her
she is home
A marketing writer by profession, Darcy Grabenstein turns to poetry as a creative and cathartic outlet. The theme of social (in)justice runs through many of her poems, and she longs for the day where her page will finally be blank.
Monday, June 30, 2025
DONALD TRUMP’S BIRTHDAY PARADE AS IF CELEBRATED IN GAZA
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U.S. Army photo by Bernardo Fuller • Public domain |
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).