OLD AND FAMILIAR

by Dick Altman

A preliminary review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s internal watchdog office found that Alex Pretti was shot by two federal officers after resisting arrest, but did not indicate that he brandished a weapon during the encounter, according to an email sent to Congress and reviewed by The New York Times [January 27, 2026].

We were both

ten years old,

and best friends,

the colonel’s

daughter

across the street

and I,

when he said

I think

you’re old enough

to see these

army newsreels,

from my days 

back

in World War II.

 

Down into 

the basement

we went.

Before he turned

out the lights,

we watched

as he took out

a giant reel

of sixteen millimeter

black and white film,

he fitted

to his old army

projector.

 

The two of us

watched in terror,

as people were

dragged from shops

and apartment

buildings,

thrown

to the ground,

and beaten.

With the same

fright in our voices,

we asked

what they

did wrong.

 

The colonel

stopped the film

and turned

on the lights.

What did they

do wrong,

he repeated.

Hitler—

a name

we knew barely

at a distance—

hated Jews,

he said.

The people

pictured here

were Jews.

In that quiet

fatherly tone,

I knew so well,

he looked at me

and said,

you’re Jewish,

aren’t you.

 

The next images,

forever fixed

in my mind,

showed mounds

of dead bodies 

being bulldozed

into trenches,

at what he called

“the camps”.

A vile end,

I later thought,

for a people

doing nothing 

wrong,

but approaching

their god,

in the Fuhrer’s eyes,

from the wrong

testament.

***

I can’t pick up a paper,

or see a newscast,

that doesn’t remind me—

as ICE grabs individuals

off the street,

or wades into crowds

with smoke bombs,

to break up protests—

of those images

the colonel

shared with us,

that day long ago.

 

We were still

too young

to understand

when he told,

how Hitler came

to control the truth

proclaimed 

by print

and radio.

As truth today

seems to reincarnate

with each sunrise,

the colonel’s films

begin to feel

eerily familiar.

Have America’s

once welcome

immigrants,

incarcerated now

at every turn,

I ask myself,

become

yesterday’s

vilified Jews,

our government

more Hitlerian

by the hour?

And more

terrifying?

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 290 poems, published on four continents.

THE LIVING

by Tina Williams

by Argo at Fine Art America

“Fuck you, fuck you"
he said to the poet 
and nurse 
as sure as he said it 
to the autoworker
shouting “pedophile protector!”
Every day, 
he middle fingers
the command
to clear the streets
one way
or another
but the living
come back.
They arm
themselves
with poster board
and their children’s 
future.
They return
on the shoulders
of the dead. 
They dress
for the cold.

Tina Williams lives in Round Rock, Texas. She wants to be part of the solution.

THE HANDOVER

by Lonnie Buerge

After a Border Patrol agent killed Alex Pretti, Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Minnesota to hand over its voter roll to “bring an end to the chaos.” —Mother Jones, January 27, 2026

Hand over the lists

they say.

Hand over the lists

of the people 

who vote.

Hand them over.

We just want to help.

We just want to be of service

to democracy.

Hand over the lists

and we will leave you alone,

get off your necks,

quit murdering your people,

you can stay safe.

Just hand over the lists.

Just hand them over.

Give them up.

Give them.

Give.

Give them to us.

Keep yourself safe,

Hand them over.

The trains are waiting.

Lonnie Buerge is old in chronology but young in poetry. He has spent the bulk of his career and accounting in the petroleum industry but has enjoyed reading and writing poetry intensely for the past 14 years. He is involved in coordinating the Ginny Soldner Poetry Collaborative in Aspen, CO. He is, unfortunately, not much published.

VERONIKA

by Frank Conahan

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive—and until now undocumented—knack for tool use. Photo: Veronika scratching her back with a stick. Photographer: Antonio J Osuna Mascaró —The Guardian, January 19, 2026

I was reading that

A cow in Austria is

Using a stick to

Scratch various parts of her

Body. She holds it

Differently in her mouth to

Reach her itchy parts. 

This is news because she's not

A chimp. They do stuff

Like this all the time, it seems. 

Animals who have

Intelligence of different 

Degrees use tools with

Different sophistication. 

Dogs and cats play with

Toys, slippers, sticks, and corpses.

Ravens manipulate

Stones. Chimps employ weaponry.

Why are we surprised?

Intelligent animals 

Use tools, look at us.

We're practically destroying 

The planet with ours.

(Intelligence is... complex.)

I hope the cow is

Enjoying celebrity.

She could be dinner soon.

Frank Conahan lives in reclusive retirement outside of Baltimore, Maryland. He follows current events with trepidation and copes by writing verse. He has recently published poems with Bards of Maryland. His collection Nothing Is Coming will be published this spring.

NOT ICE

by Erin Murphy

Homeland Security officials have urged disaster response staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to avoid using the word “ice” in public messaging about the massive winter storm barreling toward much of the United States... The concern is that the word could spark confusion or online mockery, given the ongoing controversy surrounding US Immigration and Customs Enforcement—also known as “ICE.” —CNN, January 24, 2026

It’s frozen water—not ice.

We have mouses not mice.

Say two times, not twice.

 

Your kid’s hair may be lousy

but it’s not crawling with lice.

Predators lure but do not entice.

 

Even the city in France

must change its spelling

to Niece instead of Nice

 

which looks like nice.

Casinos don’t use dice—

from now on, the plural

 

of die is dies. Take your

chances at the craps table,

on the sidewalk, in your

 

own car or home. Believe

what they say you saw

with your own eyes.

Erin Murphy’s latest books are Human Resources and Fluent in Blue, winner of the 2025 American Book Fest Best Book Award in Poetry. 

MINNEAPOLIS, JANUARY 2026

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

In the midst of winter I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

—Albert Camus, "Return to Tipasa"

 

In the midst of winter

It is difficult to remember lilacs

And warm afternoons in May.

 

In the midst of blizzards

It is difficult to remember

The gentle glow of August evenings.

 

In the midst of vicious assaults

It is difficult to recall

Companionable conversations.

 

In the midst of monstrous brutality

It is difficult to keep faith

In the tender and indestructible spirit.

 

In the crash and flash-bang and shatter

It is difficult to make out

The many quiet voices of love.

 

But we must

Mustn’t we?

Buff Whitman-Bradley podcasts his poetry at thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

THE CITY OF WATER

by Bänoo Zan

for the people of Iran

The townspeople are hungry *

for bread and freedom

 

The streets are rivers

bubbling with chants

 

Crowds break into the food storage

of revolutionary guards

 

not to loot 

but to rip the rice bags

throw fistfuls overhead

 

reenact the Milky Way

against the night of news blackout

 

We are protestors

not rioters

 

We fear bullets

but we fear silence more

 

In this torrent of blood

courage is not a laurel wreath 

but a lifeline  

 

May joy echo in our mountains 

May justice wash the blood off our valleys

May our twin lakes be ^

as lucid as freedom

 

 

---

* “Abdanan” means “the city of water.” Located in Ilam Province, Iran, it was the scene of a remarkable protest on January 6, 2026.

^ These twin lakes are called the Black Bull Lakes. They are known for their clear blue water, although where the depth increases, the water appears to be black. The overall patterns of blue and black look like spots on a cow’s hide. 

Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, and curator, with numerous published pieces and books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry open mic series (inception 2012). It bridges the gap between poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Bänoo, with Cy Strom, is the co-editor of the anthology: Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution. She is the recipient of the 2025 Writers’ Union of Canada Freedom to Read Award.

THE ICE STORM

by Susan Cossette

Leave this city, black ice.

These roads are unusually treacherous.

 

Snow, thaw, then refreeze--

a polar vortex roars in from Manitoba.

 

This four-wheel drive offers

little protection from icy roads.

 

One bad tap of the brakes

will send me crashing into 

a graffiti-adorned delivery truck

which states simply,

ICE out.

 

Or worse, 

into the protestors on the corner 

of Penn Avenue and 17^th Street 

in north Minneapolis

on this foggy subzero morning.

 

Whistles shriek in feverish shrill 

in crazy unison with car horns,

and phone cameras rolling, 

recording truth suppressed.

 

Ten black SUVs skulk 

on each side of the pitted street,

curbs piled high with sooty snow.

 

Polished obsidian flanks of fear--

ICE has rolled in.

 

Unmarked men stalk door to door

in a Latino neighborhood near,

faces shrouded, shadowy brute army.

 

The salt has not made the roads safe.

The protests change nothing.

The passport I keep 

on my front seat means nothing.

 

We do not leave our homes

because we are too cold, 

too afraid, or both.

 

We are cyphers, faces pressed 

against cold glass, 

hands zipped tied, hog tied—

frozen blood stains dirty ice.

 

I pray for the brother and sister

I almost wish were my children

after two years of seeing them holding hands

each morning at the bus stop on 17th,

backpacks with smiling stuffed toys 

clipped to the straps.

 

For their mother watching 

her babies climb into the yellow vessel,

and the door close tightly behind.

She scurries up frozen sidewalks 

to the food pantry.

 

Jesus, get me to the next corner,

keep my small clenched hands visible 

on this cold steering wheel.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New Verse News, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.

MY AMAZING INVESTMENT

by Pat Davis

I think they are sheep at first
but they’re corpses
wrapped and tied in white shrouds.

I wish they were low clouds
laid out in a row

but they’re my purchases,
femur, tibia, wrist
tied up for delivery.

I bought the rubble,
the bulldozers, too.

Israel lets in chips 
and Coke.

Children are dying of hunger.
Children are dying of cold.

Our papers blame the wind.
Blame the rain. 
Aid is blocked, the doctors

forced out.
By the toe-end of a corpse 
as long as my forearm 

is a puddle of muddy water in which a star
was lost

Patricia Davis’ poems appear in Smartish Pace, Image, Southern Humanities Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other journals. Also a playwright, she earned her MFA from American University. She is translations editor for the literary journal Poet Lore and lives in the Washington, DC area, where she works in human rights advocacy.

EVERY LITTLE BIT: A HAIBUN

by Miriam Weinstein

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

My assignment—oranges and limes—As much or as little as you’re able to bring—the emailed instructions specified. Food and supplies collected for people afraid to leave their homes during the ICE invasion of Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge. Thousands of uniformed, masked agents carrying weapons—now a common sight on the streets of my city. Agents of fear acting erratically. Lying in face of facts. Spreading terror and chaos across my State—land of ten thousand lakes, surging rivers, roaring waterfalls. In the church parking lot, volunteers load carts—boxes of diapers, canned goods, packaged products and produce. A middle-aged man wheels a cart to the side of my car. I pull out two large reusable bags, empty contents. Five, six pound bags of oranges, five, three pound bags of limes. Small offering considering—68, 400 people, rounded and roughed up, interrogated, arrested. In the name of searching for illegal, criminal aliens, citizens and legal residents—seized—two Americans murdered by ICE agents. Their real agenda—to breed uncertainly, fear, and chaos. Every little bit counts my friend tells me. I’m desperate today to believe in something. Has the produce I dropped off  reached its destinations? During this unfathomable crisis, is someone, somewhere being nourished?

Dusk display—turkey vulture 

soars, swoops down. Curved beak 

grasps carcass, carries rat skyward.

Miriam Weinstein completed a two year apprenticeship program at the Loft Literary Center in 2013. She has two chapbooks published by Finishing Line Press: Twenty Ways of Looking and How to Thread a Needle. Her poems are in several anthologies and journals including A 21st Century Plague, Rocked by the Waters, Poems of Hope and Reassurance, The Heart of All That Is, Survivor Lit, The New Verse News, Plum Tree Tavern, Vita Brevis Press, St. Paul Almanac, and American Jewish World. Her manuscript Here. Between. Beyond. was a finalist for the Concrete Wolf Press Louis Award. Miriam Weinstein is an avid birdwatcher and environmentalist. She lives in Minneapolis, MN.