A CHILD CANNOT BE A NEOLIBERAL FASCIST

by Deborah Marcus

 

 

 

 

Australian Indigenous Poet and Storyteller Jazz Money has had their children’s book Bila: A River Cycle pulled by University of Queensland Press due to its illustrator Matt Chun’s previously-published essay refusing to mourn the Jewish casualties—which included ten-year-old Matilda—at the Bondi beach shooting in Sydney last December. See reports from the BBC and The Guardian.

 

A bird cannot be a stone.

Our heart cannot be bone.

Our heart must not 

be bone.

 

A damp towel against my head 

in the morning while I drape my body

forwards from the toilet

shakes me back into the dream:

 

I am on rocks. I need to get home.

There are three ships, progressively smaller,

like a babushka series. I need all of them.

I drag the smaller one from the waters first.

The second one follows, large enough to withstand

calm waters and one person only.

 

I lay the ships on the deck. I am now on the third

ship which is the one I wanted the most. 

I didn’t see how I caught it, or how it appeared.

All I know is I have what I need now.

Yet I do not feel settled, and I scour to collect

All the tiny remnants on the ground. 

There are metal clasps and tiny fishhooks.

I put them all in a small bowl. 

They seem mysterious, worthless and precious.

 

The ship is attached to a stream of algae and muck

and my perspective zooms out so I am able to hold

it underwater, and carefully with some nail scissors

I cut the debris that cascades like aquatic hair

filled with small creatures and fish, that are large

enough to be food or help, but may be rotten.

 

I see that the shape corresponds with Sarah Schwartz’

foggy, algae-outlined eyebrow. I trim her eyebrow too.

 

In the morning, I trim my own eyebrows with the

backwards-glint of dream remembrance in the mirror.

 

I spend the day accumulating poetic courage

eating Agedashi tofu, glimpsing at the red 

leaves and lamenting distances

 

how five thousand copies of a child’s book

has been printed and promptly pulped

because the illustrator refused to mourn

a Jewish child shot within a sea of Zionists.

 

Chun states his words were carefully curated 

with the help of anti-Zionist Jewish comrades

but not once in his article outlining the reasons

the antisemitic massacre of Jewish people 

at Bondi beach, was not in fact, antisemitic,

did he mention Matilda. 

 

At this point, there are no sides left for me 

to reside on. 

 

We are in the same river together, you see

You and I

We poison the soil together in our silencing

 

Our hearts breaking in multiple directions

by the dialectical paradoxes lodged within colonialism

and so they become numb

and so they became numb

 

I refuse to become numb

I refuse this

I refuse

 

the same way I refuse the destruction of literature

the same way I refuse the censorship of Indigenous storytellers

writing heartfelt literature for children about the links

between resistance and Country.

 

I refuse to witness this silencing of another

Aboriginal voice.

 

At the heart

of all comrades

should ALWAYS be children.

 

Why else are we fighting?

To be on the right side of history?

For freedom?

For justice?

 

How can we claim to be fighting for any of this

if we can find a way to make the murder of any child

less

to make it a subsumable statistic 

a side comment

within a broader fight

and not the focal point of our writing 

our essays

our books

our complaints

our hearts

our resistance?

 

I condemn Chun’s erasure of Matilda’s humble roots

the same way I condemn the erasure of Palestinian roots

by Chabad and Zionist establishments.

I refuse Chun’s refusal to mourn a ten year old Jewish girl

his refusal to even mention her name 

amidst his hypocritical academic silencing of her death

amidst a sea of fishhook reason

 

I refuse Chun’s silencing 

because Matilda was not a neoliberal fascist oppressor.

 

Matilda was not a white Zionist Jewish-supremacist.

She was a child.

 

Just like each and every Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian

child is a child

and not an antisemitic Islamic-state terrorist. 

The ability and willingness to minimise the murder of

a single child

in the name of the creation, protection 

or destruction of a nation

is where the seed of evil is planted.

 

The destruction of five thousand children’s books

painted by the painstaking hand of a dedicated artist

and narrated by an Aboriginal storyteller

a powerful yellamundie

is also where the seed of evil

is sown.

 

What will we do amidst 

the fruit of this orchard

we have planted

screaming

in silence

together? 

 

 

Note “It is entirely consistent, and deeply humane, to stand with Jewish people killed and terrorised by racist violence and to have stood, and continue to stand, with Palestinians killed by racist violence. Our grief does not shrink when it is shared and our safety does not grow when it is built on someone else’s disposability,” said Sarah Schwartz at the interfaith and intercommunity vigil of The Jewish Council, an organization that supports Palestinian freedom and justice and opposes antisemitism and racism, to mourn the victims of the Bondi massacre. 

Deborah Marcus is a poet, multidisciplinary artist and educator from unceded Darramuragal land in Australia. She is obsessed with truth and trees, potentially synonymously. Her Honours thesis exploring the relationship between fractal geometry and poetic language won UNSW’s first University Medal for Creative Writing in 2022. In 2023, she published her debut collection of poetry titled An Organ of Chaos. 

MASS SHOOTING #11

21740 W McNichols, Detroit, MI, April 19, 2026

 

 

"Suspect arrested after allegedly shooting 3 people at Detroit gas station. —MSN 

 

 

by Ron Riekki

 

 

 

 

 “beside some Shreveport-like expanse.
 But now you see it,”
—Bill Berkson
from “The Obvious Tradition”
 
“Haunted by ‘Dark Thoughts,’
Louisiana Father Kills 8 Children”

Literally this happens: I’m driving to a mass shooting
and on the way to the mass shooting I drive by
another mass shooting, recognizing the area, and,
 
at the same time, on the radio comes the news of
another mass shooting.  Welcome to America.
I think of the Childish Gambino video “This is
 
America,” the hyperviolence that’s so normative.
I think of the name Childish Gambino, Gambino
meaning ‘little gambler,’ like a child gambler,
 
a childish child gambler, and we’re in gang
territory, but all of Detroit is gang map on
the gang maps I’ve seen online, if those are
 
accurate.  And I think of the words ‘drive by’
at the start of this poem, the dual meaning,
and I’m exhausted, driving, and I’m tired
 
of these mass shootings, but I’m realizing
America is number one in mass shootings,
that America has perfected mass shootings,
 
that America equals mass shootings, that
other countries laugh at us for our mass
shootings, how we do nothing.  Jesus Christ,
 
I’m sick of it.  I’ve been going to every single
mass shooting in Michigan for the last ten
months and no changes are made.  None.
 
Nothing.  At the site of the mass shooting,
I talk with Pretty Eyes.  She wants to be
called Pretty Eyes.  Her name is accurate.
 
She tells me, “It’s something we got used to.”
She’s used to the shootings.  “You can’t
change people,” she says.  She adds that
 
“there’s no hope.”  I look around, this feel
of homelessness and hopelessness, this feel
of hole.  This massive feel that this isn’t
 
home.  I’m born and raised in Michigan.
Trash is speckled everywhere, the way
I’ve seen cooks on Top Chef sprinkle
 
salt so generously: white grocery bags,
paper cups, tissues, what looks like piled-
up abandoned old slabs of concrete curbs.
 
This is gang territory and, to be honest,
I feel perfectly safe.  This is a feeling
that’s grown, where I realize a sort of
 
ridiculousness that black men are some-
how inherently dangerous.  If anything,
they’re inherently courteous.  Rushed,
 
Bill tells me that he doesn’t have
time to talk, but says I won’t like his
answer to what needs to be done to
 
curb mass shootings.  “It’s strictly
God,” he says, “God and prayer.”
I like that it’s strictly God, reading
 
into how he’s worded it.  A woman
named T tells me, “It’s been like that
since I been here.”  She says, “You
 
get used to it,” echoing Pretty Eyes.
Nearby, the auto repair sign has
the word SHOCKS in caps and
 
that’s what this is, shock like lack
of blood flow to the tissues, shock
like feeling distress, shock like violent
 
collision, and, yes, that’s what led to
the mass shooting.  Bill tells me it was
“just road rage.”  Just road rage?  Says
 
it like it’s not a shock that road rage
would lead into a mass shooting.
Three killed.  Where we stand.
 
He has to go.  Pretty Eyes has to
get going.  T needs to run.  I stand
there at another gas station where
 
another mass shooting has happened.
I have no idea why, but constantly
these mass shootings are at gas
 
stations.  I think of the Strait of
Hormuz, the Exxon Valdez, Deep-
water Horizon, oil wars, petro-
 
aggression, petrostates, petrocracy,
a sort of arson of the world, and
a sort of prison of the world; we’re
 
at a Sunoco, listed online as an
“American vehicle gasoline master
limited partnership company”
 
started in 1886.  Master?  Why that
word?  Because it’s dead-on.
I talk with Bam.  He eats potato
 
chips, says the answer is “gun laws.”
He says, “mental issues cause
violence.”  He says, “You should
 
carry.”  He says he doesn’t have
a gun on him, but has one at home,
for protection.  He tells me about
 
his collapsed lung.  I asked if he
was shot.  “No.”  “Never.”  But
“I know a lot of people who’ve
 
been shot, by accident, or gang-
banging.”  He’s never been in
a gang, says people join gangs
 
because “they feel they got some-
body who loves them.”  Love.
I didn’t expect that word.  Love.
 
. . .
. . .
. . .
 
I drive away, heading home,
alone, passing a massive sign
above: $499 HEADSTONES.

 

 Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.  

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, ODE TO JOY AT TANGLEWOOD, AUGUST 2022

by Phyllis Wax

 

 

 Michael Tilson Thomas 1944-2026

 

 

Aggressive glioblastoma                                       
rampant weed                                     
slashed                                                 
hacked
but no guarantees                          
 
Still, there he was
energetically coaxing the best  
from the musicians
 
luring them boldly                                    
through the gardens of music
gardens growing wild and free
 
sharing beauty                 
and terror
with the audience
 
who rose
in homage                 
at the end
stood applauding
for over six minutes
 
Unseen
in the background
that noxious weed
still crept 

 

 

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world and is being cured of her delusions. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral. 

WHEN THE FORECAST CALLS FOR MORE PAIN

by Dick Altman
in Northern New Mexico

 

Wind and dry weather will again pose a critical fire risk this week for the Land of Enchantment. —Santa Fe New Mexican, April 21, 2026

Another day,
another day,
you,
weather,
and I,
face off over
the extreme
risk of fire.
How I wish
it were merely,
between us,
a matter of words.
Instead,
your high desert’s
majestic cloud
cover
has transmuted
into six months
of winter’s
unyielding
emptiness.
 
My hand-grown
conifer glade,
years in the making,
can only stand
and wait,
as chances
intensify
for a sudden burst
of dry lightning.
Fierce gusting
winds,
like a giant,
out of control
bellows,
can turn
a single spark,
so it seems,
into a winged
flame
capable
 
of destroying
everything,
near and far
in its path.
 
I wish
these words
were simply
a meditation
on a barren
winter.
But the pain
is real,
and when
risk explodes
into reality,
as I have seen,
the destruction
can go
unmitigated
for months.
Not two
or three valleys
over,
but as if
on the tindered
bluffs here
I call home.
 
Come summer,
it may not be
a blaze
that swallows
our forests
and farm lands,
but dry throats
dying of thirst.
And untillable soils,
desert hard
as long dead bone.


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, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, and others here and abroad.  .  Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 300 poems, published on four continents.

DOROTHY LOWAKUTUK

by Terri Kirby Erickson 

 

 

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Northern Kenya was established to rescue and release orphaned and abandoned elephant calves. It was featured recently by the AP and on PBS.

 

 

They follow her or she follows them, the babies

of Reteti. Swinging their miniature trunks, they 

navigate the steep and dusty terrain not far from 

the elephant sanctuary—all the while listening 

for her voice and the voices of other keepers. 

These calves are like little children let loose 

in the playground, nowhere near ready to be

released in the wild. Most carry the memory 

of a mother’s disappearance, some brutally so. 

Others less dramatic. But a lost mother, how-

ever it occurs, is no small thing. When I found

my mother dying beneath her favorite azalea 

bush, I sank to my knees crying, Mommy, what 

happened? and I was no baby. Nothing prepares 

us for losing our mothers, the loneliness of grief. 

But Dorothy Lowakutuk learned the language 

of elephants. She knows which of them is Sera,

Long’uro, or Sarara—how they play and walk 

and sleep. She teaches them to roll in the dust to 

keep their skin cool, find plants that are safe to

eat. Humble, yet as regal as a queen, Dorothy 

Lowakutuk’s face is radiant as the African sun, 

this kind woman and all the rest at Reteti who

talk softly, feed and sing to the children of lost 

mothers. Blessed be—blessed be their names.

 

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, including The Light that Follows Us Home (Autumn, 2026, Press 53). Her work has been widely published and has won numerous awards, including the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina, USA.

THE COST OF CAUTION

by Peter Witt

 

Malaysia's Karex Bhd, the world's top condom producer, plans to raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran War, its chief executive said on ‌Tuesday. —Reuters, April 21, 2026 

 

 

Safe sex just got more expensive,
the price of latex climbing like a fever.
There’s an oversupply of children on the horizon,
a tidal wave of toddlers waiting to break.

It starts with the fuel, the heavy scent of diesel
rising in cost, slowing the world to a crawl.
Then the cold creeps in. In northern towns,
people turn the heat down, then cuddle 

for warmth under quilts heavy as lead,
and you know what happens next.

In the tropics, the AC hums a frantic tune,
while lovers move in the artificial chill
like dancers in a refrigerated dream.
With the cost of flight soaring high as a hawk,
the world settles for staycations, 
quiet afternoons where the bedroom door
becomes the only destination left.

Without protection, the "frolic" turns to fate.
Be prepared: nine to twelve months from now,
the world may explode with new life,
a sudden reversal of the long decline.,

And while Iran guards its humming centrifuges,
and the nuclear material sits heavy and silent,
Trump stands at the podium, grinning at the chaos,
explaining to the cameras that the crying in the cradles
was all just part of the plan.

 

 

The Trump administration, dominated by religious anti-abortion conservatives and reeling in money from a new wave of pronatalist tech reactionaries, has long been considering ways to persuade, pressure and cajole women into having more babies. —The Guardian, April 14, 2026

Peter A. Witt by chance lives in Texas and is a recovering university professor who lost his adjectives in the doldrums of academic writing. Poetry has helped him recover his ability to see and describe the inner and outer world he inhabits. His work has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net award and has appeared in a variety of online and print publications. He also writes family history.  His book about his aunt was published by the Texas A&M University Press (Edith's War: Writings of a Red Cross Worker and Lifelong Champion of Social Justice). He is also an avid birder and wildlife photographer.

SAVE YOUR BREATH

by A J Dalton

 

 

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

They    put   tariff    words now
So   ll use 10% less
God help     hyperverbal
–they    probably end    homeless
 
Marketing    all visuals now
Cos   picture paints   1000
Or strange performance pieces
    actions speak louder,      say
 
Some took   vow    silence
There are fewer arguments truly
   , it   wasted breath
Yet   never hear ‘  love you!’
 
  fear     proposed tariff    space next
As immigration needs controlling
This poem   gone    too long though
And cost      flaming fortune!


A J Dalton is a UK-based writer. He’s published the Empire of the Saviours trilogy with Gollancz Orion, The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy with Luna Press, the Dark Woods Rising and Green Man Ascendant poetry collections with Starship Sloane, and other bits and bobs. He lives with his monstrously oppressive cat named Cleopatra.

A TRUE EPIDEMIC

by Diane Elayne Dees

 

"In the City of Shreveport, we have a true epidemic of domestic violence….”
—Shreveport City Council Member Grayson Boucher

 

When I was a little girl, my parents took me
on a rare outing downtown; my mother’s
face and neck were free of bruises,
so we could roam freely among other families.
As we crossed a busy Shreveport street,
a man shoved a woman against a car
and began hitting her with his fists.
No one intervened. Finally, a policeman arrived,
and pulled the man off the woman. “Listen,”
he advised: “Take her home and do that.”

At that moment, I thought I understood
everything about my mother’s bruises.
It would be years before I understood
that—even if a  policeman had taken
my father to jail—he would not have stayed
there. And even if he had, there was nowhere
for my mother to go. And even if there were,
the slow-dripping acid of trauma had already
eaten away her soul, and left burn marks
where there had once been beauty and creativity.

The killer in Shreveport had “dark thoughts,”
and now, eight children are dead. His wife
thought that she had escaped, but now she lies
in a hospital, with critical wounds. How do you
end an epidemic that courses through decades,
neighborhoods, churches, and income brackets,
and whose victims—if they live—become carriers
of trauma, fear, rage, and assorted deadly germs
that damage brains and flatten the souls of the unborn?

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press), and I Can't Recall Exactly When I Died (Kelsay Books). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.

DARE TO BE HAPPY

by Chen-ou Liu

The neighborhood is a hush of humid air and mown grass. Time feels suspended, marked only by the rhythmic pulse of water hitting the driveway. For a moment, this white picket fence world is nothing but light and motion, before the next headline arrives—red banners scrolling, digits flickering upward.

on the front lawn

the sprinkler ticks like a clock

throwing silver arcs...

his toddler's laughter

chases a beagle's bay

Chen-ou Liu is the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition). His tanka and haiku have been honored with many awards.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

by Jiang Pu

I want to bring you a heady symphony of roses, 

lavender and golden poppies as April unfolds

into giant butterfly wings in my yard, but 

I can’t sing; this morning my throat is choked 

like the Strait of Hormuz. 

I’m self-schooled in the art of drop-cover-shelter

from the bombing news, but o you wise one, 

teach me: how do I turn off this glaring pain

of my brothers and sisters constantly bombing

each other? And how do I forgive

the twin lakes of my eyes for shedding

useless tears—so useless they can’t even feed 

into desert desalination plants spared

by thirsty missiles? My tears sting more 

than the bitter horseradish a friend brings 

on a Passover. She teaches me to dip it 

into a nut paste, which is sweet, which, 

she says, tastes like 

hope. Maybe it’s time for a few Medjool Dates

grown from the cradle-land that I’ve visited

so many times in spirit but never once 

in body, so that I keep its soil and water

inside me to nourish a prayer for peace, so that

when I open my door to the unstoppable

spring outside, I can welcome Rumi’s sun

and other honored guests to visit

me today besides pain. 

 

Jiang Pu, Ph.D., is a first-generation Chinese American author and Ed leader. Her recent poems have appeared in California Quarterly, The Tiger Moth Review (Singapore), and Panorama (U.K.) among others and in several poetry anthologies.

THE POPE IS WEAK ON RHYME

by Michele Worthington

Phonics 1 for Young Catholics

maybe not when he writes in Italian

but when he says to Chicago and New York

“I have no fear I will continue to speak out loudly

 promoting dialogue ​and ⁠multilateral relationships

 among the states to look for just solutions to problems"

even line breaks do not help.

 

There is no meter, no music, 

no molecules of pleasure

just temptation to take

bread and wine

from churches 

cake and champagne

from tiny yachts.

 

Jesus rhymes with GPS,

but Christ,

that is hard

to slide into a rebuke.

 

Still, when on the papal plane

to Istanbul and Beirut

flying above stolen paradise

above lake shores sacrificed      

Leo says

Too many people are suffering

Too many people are suffering

I do believe he

sees us.

Michele Worthington lives enclosed in urban sprawl in Tucson but escapes to hike the Sonoran desert often and the Adirondacks every summer. Her photography and words have appeared in several online journals and in print in Sandcutters, Anomaly Poetry, and Nature of our Times anthology. She has been a finalist for Arizona Matsuri, Tucson Haiku Hike and Tucson Festival of Books literary awards.