MASK

by James Penha

 

Foot-Combat Helm of Sir Giles Capel (1485–1556) - possibly British - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

Four years ago, I would have seen a mask

certain to prevent a virus from infiltrating.

Now we debate whether masks that can hide

the faces of criminals or immigrants should

be legal. But there are no such restrictions 

on the bullies in the region of this museum.

Sir Giles reincarnate, they take on all comers 

to this country. They pull brown deliverers out 

of their Uber Eats cars… they tackle innocents 

checking in at the courthouse… they wrestle 

workers from warehouses… and pound them 

down with their bulk into our halls and streets. 

Who are you? let an observer ask. The answer 

is the mask. Steeled as a weapon for white 

Christian nationalists, it will hear no objection

from the White House overseers of art. Indeed, 

I can imagine this helm set on a block of ice 

emblematic of our new divine right of kings.

James Penha hosts The New Verse News. His short story collection Queer As Folk Tales really needs good reviews at amazon but can be bought at non-bezos outlets as well.

MY KENNEDY CENTER (1982-2026)

by Robin Stevens Payes

Alvin Ailey Dancers * American Ballet Theatre * Beautiful * Book of Mormon * Cabaret * Cyrano de Bergerac * Dear Evan Hansen * Placido Domingo * Suzanne Farrell * Anthony Fauci * Renee Fleming * Ben Folds * Hair * Hamilton * Les Misérables * Long Day’s Journey Into Night * Millennium Stage * Moulin Rouge * National Symphony Orchestra * Noises Off * On Your Toes * Ragtime * REACH * Shear Madness * Side Show * You Can’t Take It with You 

I DREAMED A DREAM

the dance

the plays

the musicals

the orchestras

the opera

our brains on music

 

the costumes, the scenery, the makeup, the props, the audience  that lifts you when you’re down

the rising talent, since 1997, free at 5 p.m. on the Millennium Stage

Not a REACH: Revelations

Come to the Cabaret, 

old chum, in The 

Room Where It Happens

Hello, you’re gonna die someday!

You Can’t Take It with You, they say. The KENNEDY CENTER canceled before our eyes. 

Shear Madness!

OPENING SOON: the madcap whodunnit you will definitely want to miss: 

DEMOLITION ON THE POTOMAC 

Author’s note: Having lived in the DMV since 1982, the survival of this treasured cultural institution feels personal to me and my family. I hope we can keep alive—in person and in print—the tragedy of what is happening there. Noted in the poem are KenCen highlights our family has experienced over the years.

Robin Stevens Payes is a Pushcart Prize–nominated poet, storyteller, and cultural steward whose work braids ancestral memory, science, myth, and moral imagination. She is the author of the YA time-travel adventure series Edge of Yesterday and creator of [re]member the world, a multi-genre project retrieving and reweaving the silenced history of her grandmother’s flight from Ukraine’s Pale of Settlement. Her poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, Dawn Horizons, East Sea Bards, Maryland Bards Poetry Reviews, and Reflections. As the ancestor telling a new story so her grandchildren and theirs may thrive, she writes about memory—what is lost, what survives, and what we must carry forward—on her Substack, Releasing Memory.

‘BIGLY’ INTELLIGENCE LIMERICK

by Paul Freeman

—Paul Krugman, September 23, 2026

“It’s ‘Bigly Intelligence,’ guys,

‘Artificial’ sounds too much like lies.

And if not, then know,

Your tariffs will grow,  

By order of Donald, the Wise.”

 

Paul A. Freeman is the author of The Movement, a dystopia-Americana novel set in a future United States of America. The book is available from Amazon as an ebook download and as a paperback.

MANIFESTO OF AN ANGRY LIBERAL

by Alex Silvestri

Love your neighbor.

Even the loud one with the truck flags and no brake lights.

Even the banker.

Even the bureaucrat.

Even the kid at the drive-thru who got your order wrong again.

Pay your taxes,

but don’t forget to ask

why billionaires don’t.

Plant tomatoes.

Support public schools.

Wave at the mail carrier.

Vote.

Raise your kids to tell the truth,

then tell them why the world sometimes punishes people who do.

Don’t let that make them bitter.

Let it make them brave.

Live as if healthcare were a right.

Live as if no one should die of a treatable disease

in the richest country on Earth.

Live as if your neighbor’s insulin is your business.

(It is.)

Stand up for public libraries.

For school lunches.

For clean water.

For the kid who comes out in a small town.

For the mother who can’t afford day care.

For the dad who took a second job to afford rent.

For the old man choosing between heat and food.

Get mad.

But not so mad you stop seeing people.

Especially the ones who disagree with you.

Listen longer than is comfortable.

Then speak clearly, without apology:

No, I don’t believe poor people are lazy.

Yes, I think workers deserve a living wage.

No, I don’t think guns are more sacred than children.

Yes, I believe Black lives matter.

No, I don’t think being queer is a threat to anyone’s freedom.

Yes, I think women are people.

No, I don’t think corporations should write our laws.

Yes, I still believe in democracy, even when it’s messy.

Protect the wild things:

the wetlands, the whistleblowers,

the bees, the books they try to ban.

Refuse cruelty,

even when it’s dressed in law.

Refuse greed,

even when it calls itself freedom.

Refuse hate,

even when it wears a flag.

Don’t just resist.

Build.

Build coalitions.

Build gardens.

Build unions.

Build broadband in the holler.

Build policy with working people in the room.

Don’t get cynical.

Cynicism is a luxury belief.

Hope is cheaper, but costs more effort.

Hope plants itself anyway.

So should you.

Love the country like you’d love a sick child—

not blindly,

but with everything you’ve got,

because you know it can get better.

Walk into rooms where you’re outnumbered

and say it anyway:

We can take care of each other.

We can build something decent.

We are worth saving.

Be stubborn in joy.

Radical in kindness.

Unyielding in truth.

Start with what you know:

We belong to one another.

Let’s act like it.

Alex Silvestri is a Michigan poet whose work is rooted in place, nature, community, and the ordinary experiences of daily life. This poem was inspired in part by Wendell Berry’s writing on community, neighborliness, stewardship, and our obligations to one another.

MARKING TERRITORY

by Nan Meneely

No offense to the lions and tigers, I swear,

Who mark what is theirs with a wee.

Our cretin, his g(u)ilt and his name everywhere

(No mammal more worthy than he),

Tags his kingdom with arches and, hubris untamed, 

Prints his features on banners unfurled,

But his big baby claim to his rivals' domains

Has him peeing all over the world.

Nan Meneely retired to the relative peace and beauty of Connecticut after 20 electric years with FEMA. Her first book Letter from Italy, 1944 (Antrim House) was noted by the Hartford Courant as one of thirteen important books by Connecticut writers in 2013. It provided the libretto for an oratorio performed twice by Connecticut choruses and symphony orchestras. Her second book Simple Absence (Antrim House) was nominated for The National Book Award and placed as a grand prize finalist in The Next Generation Indie Awards and the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award. Her work has been both accepted and rejected by The New Verse News.

THE MONUMENT

by J.S. O'Keefe

President Trump has revealed plans to make his proposed 250-foot arch in Washington, D.C. serve as a "military complex", including areas for military snipers and large amounts of weaponry. Trump added that the arch near the National Mall will "house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage." —PBS, September 20, 2026

The syntax of slaughter,


lubricated, rolled upon the palate,


tasted of rust and stale brine


before it slipped into law.

We've brought fresh geometry of iron


for the square,


where pigeons, fed on scraps of news,


fall stunned on the pavement,


necks broken by war noise.

Whose coin is this,


pressed hot into our palms


and called a gift?

Coughing rattles the tenement at dawn.


The triumphal arch stands upright and blind,


watching the river carry tired oil out to sea.

Someday, 

another tide will come back in.

J.S. O’Keefe is a writer and trilingual translator. He has published short stories, poems and creative essays in print and online journals, including Roi Faineant, Antipodean SF, Dissident Voice, Everyday Fiction, Spillwords, 50WS, and Satire.

TOTALLY ALLOWED

by Mickey J. Corrigan

ProPublica

He says of the son's 
garish wedding parties
bankrolled
by a Russian oligarch
three days of celebrating
on a private island
a no-strings gift
from the corrupt to the corrupt
from the superrich to the superrich
is totally allowed

like threats and trolling
other NATO countries
border towns, blue states
whistleblowers, journalists
judges and civil servants
and voters everywhere
anyone left standing
or speaking or writing
anything he doesn't like
is totally allowed

like his lies, lies, lies
and public fits of pique
misogyny and bigotry
hatred and rage
let the whole world see
what we've let lead us
into corruption and destruction
war crimes and home crimes
and crimes against humanity
into autocracy, kleptocurrency
meme coins and data monsters
right smack into end times
is totally allowed.

Mickey J. Corrigan writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Poems have appeared in literary journals, chapbooks, and collections. Her most recent novel is Lazy Palms, a controversial look at life inside an experimental euthanasia trailer park.