A HOLY TIME OUT

by Robin Stevens Payes

The perfect Christmas for those of us who do not celebrate

has always been a matinee followed by egg rolls and

 

stale fortune cookies cracking open to commemorate 

this year of the wood snake; instead we take up a new tradition

 

setting out on a sunny holy day for cragels and lox

with everything and a heated debate about prediction markets 

substituting for insurance (count me not a fan)

followed by a hike with son and daughter-in-law

 

Me scaling a tree for the first time in maybe five decades—my son guiding 

each foothold, bark scratching palms, dogs barking beneath bare limbs

 

Son practicing shaky handstands on the hilltop’s brown and pebbled dirt—

we three for a time feeling as free as our tail-wagging dogs running along the lake 

 

No one needing insurance this once—predictive or otherwise—

thank God or Spirit the Sun the Son or Mary or whoever you pray to

 

to stay healthy young-at-heart and carefree—we claimed it as

a joyous moment to celebrate family and love on this beautiful Earth

 

A sacred break beneath the promising glint of a star—our own 

taking a Holy Time Out from the existential dread of being alive in 2025

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. She writes about creative ethics, generational healing, and cultural repair on her Substack, Releasing Memory.

SCHOOL WELLNESS TIPS

by Andrew G. Scott

Here’s a hack

from the school counselor

to stay positive this year.

“Include personal wellness goals

in your passwords.”

Great idea.

DoNotGetShotInSchool26!

Andrew G. Scott is a pen name for a public school teacher who has decided to share an inside view of public education in the United States.

HOPE FOR THE NEW YEAR

by Barbara Schweitzer

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

There is no rodeo feat to lift history.

History is the slain bull bloodied for sport 

with his blood scoured into the concrete.

 

It is obscene to pick up a pen

on the day disaster flies in

but if not, the next day and the next 

days will keep us dumb to our ways.

 

We have physics and light: we know 

dark cannot exist when filled with light,

that speaking corrals our common plights

and even pigeons know how to take flight

and we are not night. We will not be night.

Barbara Schweitzer writes poems and plays and sundry fiction from upstate RI. She is the author of 33 1/3: Soap Opera Sonnets. She is the creator of Cyjoe Barker, detective extraordinaire of stage and flash fiction. Feeling Plankton, a 10-minute play can still be viewed in its entirety here.

JOUSTING WINDMILLS

by Zumwalt

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

The Trump administration said Monday it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast due to what it said were national security risks identified by the Pentagon. —NPR, December 22, 2025

Our Leader stands upon a fairway green,
Curses white-armed giants, cool and lean.
"Monstrosities!" he cries, with twisting claims,
"I spot our world's decay upon their frames!"
Such ugly things cause huge real estate declines:
"A seventy-five percent plunge," he knowingly assigns.
"Cancer, rust, rot, and ruin are all they can provide,
It's time to take them on— 
               and I will be your guide!"

"Down below the treacherous windmill's feet,
More dead birds than alive—an entire fleet!
Mills chop up our eagles, and—look like hell,
Emit toxic fumes, and sounds that kill!
And in our oceans where whales were once happy 
Damn windmills have driven them completely batty
And maybe—when time to hear my words so wise and true
Your TV won't work— 
               the wind may not blow on cue."                                                                                 

Our Leader had issued an order across the land
But a judge overruled—left-wing sleight of hand!
On Monday our leader again pursued his cause 
Five offshore leases were put on pause.  
"Rogue windmills threaten our eastern shore!
If they don't desist, we go to war!
We fear not Putin, China or 
                illegal immigrants eating up our pets,
But, if necessary— 
                we will launch our nukes —    
                more than anyone has ever launched before— 
                to stop these pesky, ugly, windmill threats!"

Zumwalt's poetry explores themes of alienation, shifting reality, and personal adaptation.

GREETINGS FROM ARKANSAS

by Mohja Kahf

Lake Wilson, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Photo by the poet.

Thirty years I’ve taught in Arkansas

Sometimes in Arkansas I paddle the lake

under foliage forty-three shades of glory and jade,

as kinetic as my students’ creativities,

and the state forges fetters for thinking minds:

Act 372 tried to make queer library books a crime,

but it turned out Act 372 was a crime

 

Thirty years I’ve curated space for students

to think through choices, weighing in hand,

like palming the heft of Lake Sequoyah pebbles

before picking one to skip across the surface

The state puts hands on our bodies now:

Arkansas Act 180 makes abortion illegal

even after rape, killing more than choice

 

Thirty years I’ve taught in Arkansas

where ice makes bright blades of branches in winter

while daffodils sunshine up through the snow

Forgetting that we live on colonized land,

my state lets ICE deport dreamers

and taxpaying international students,

but defends a mob that scorched the nation’s capital

 

Thirty years I’ve mattocked rocks to upturn soil

where love can grow, and imagination

Act 710 calls boycotting Israel antisemitic hate

makes anyone who wants to speak on campus sign

a pledge never to boycott Zionist Israel—

I’m a proud supporter of nonviolent boycott,
and Act 710 is antisemitic and hateful

 

Sometimes I float the swim hole near Ponca,

thanking my friends who saved the Buffalo River

from hog carcass dumps by agribusiness

till the next polluter tramps in these waters

The state claims that wanting justice for Palestinians 

means wanting to trample on Jewish peoples—

I wish the state would read a queer Palestinian library book

 

Sometimes in Arkansas I hike Hemmed-in-Hollow

and the sunset is streaked purple and healing

My state produces white phosphorus for Israel

to streak skies in Gaza and Lebanon, over Arab folk’s homes

Sometimes my state breaks federal law:

the Leahy Act forbids weapons for war crimes

White phosphorus on civilians is a war crime

even if the civilians aren’t white

 

Thirty red-gold autumns I’ve taught in Arkansas

planting bulbs that push through thirty springtimes

The white phosphorus arsenal risks workers’ health

in Arkansas’ Blackest and poorest city in the Delta

Act 237 calls teaching critically about racism a shame,

calls what I do on campus indoctrination:

Act 237 is a shame and indoctrination

 

Thirty years I’ve taught in Arkansas,

more hemmed in than ever, and hollow here ring

guarantees of First Amendment freedoms

If I invite a white phosphorus expert to campus,

they’d have to sign a loyalty pledge to Israel

Sometimes I hear the queer purple music of the Ozarks,

and the state forges fetters for thinkers and dreamers

Mohja Kahf is author of a novel and three poetry books, including My Lover Feeds Me Grapefruit. Kahf’s work has been translated to Turkish, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, German, Portuguese, Urdu, and French. She is a supporter of the Palestinian-led nonviolent movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions since that movement’s inception in 2005. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and a 2018 Lifetime Award in Inclusive Education from the Northwest Arkansas Democratic Black Caucus, Kahf has been a professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Arkansas since 1995. 

DAYS AFTER

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Bombed, shot, knifed 

into silence, no more. 

I will walk to the store. 

I will walk to the post 

office. I will send a letter. 

I won’t go postal. I will 

not melt down inside

or out. I will love you, brother. 

I will hug you, sister.

I will get up, turn up,

count, be counted. 

I will not let the darkness 

triumph. I will not allow 

the dark night permanence.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. 

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

TURNING POINT

Jan Chronister is a retired educator who splits her year between the extremes of northern Wisconsin (by Lake Superior) and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and twelve chapbooks. Jan edits and publishes the work of fellow poets under the imprint of Poetry Harbor.

WRAPPING PAPER, DECEMBER 2025

by Catherine D'Andrea

white snowflakes

                  are scattered

on red 

                  the pattern

regular

                   I try

not to think 

                  too much 

not to look 

                  too close  

pretend each 

                  shape is 

unique not

                  the same

repeaters

                  the same

pattern again

                  and again 

the red

                  unfurled

on the floor 

                  spattered

on the ground

                  beach

classroom

                  bed

the red

                  the red 

Catherine D’Andrea taught French, raised two children, and confronted cancer before succumbing to poetry. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Western Connecticut State University and her work has appeared in Blue Heron Review, Literary Mama, The New Verse News, Poor Yorick Journal, and other publications. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two cats.

ESCOFFIER GRABS A BURGER

by Jon Wesick

 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

After John Steinbeck inaugurates the Trump-

Kennedy Center, Edwin Hubble gets his horoscope 

done, setting off a flash flood of intellectual foment. 

Simone de Beauvoir tunes in to Andrew Tate,

Lord Haw-Haw blows Winston Churchill’s mind,

Stanley Kubrick remakes Birth of a Nation, 

and Aaron Copeland replaces “Fanfare for the Common Man”

with “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

 

Rachel Carson invests in coal. Jonas Salk delves into iridology. 

Charles Darwin searches for lizard people in the Galapagos.

Carl Friedrich Gauss abandons mathematics for numerology.

Coco Chanel wears Garanimals. Epicurus praises Jell-O.

Isaac Newton is never without his lucky rabbit’s foot

and Albert Einstein always forwards chain letters.

Fyodor Dostoevsky watches Jerry Springer 

and Virginia Woolf never misses Real Housewives. 

You can find Da Vinci painting Elvis on velvet at any gas station.

Hundreds of Jon Wesick’s poems and stories have appeared in journals such as the I-70 Review, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, and Unlikely Stories. He is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual and host of the Gelato East Fiction Open Mic as well as the NAV Arts poetry reading. His latest short story collection is Saint John the Blasphemer. He lives in Manchester, New Hampshire and longs for gene editing to bring giant wombats back from extinction.

THE SCRUBLAND

by Sezin Devi Koehler

for Rob Reiner

the humid air streams off the slash pine barks

     the breath of a ghost lover against my neck

the tinnitus buzzing of insects, some vampires some not

     the goth butterfly that lands on my sweaty shoulder

     for a drink—I become nectar

gopher turtles scurry into their burrows at my footsteps

     grumpy Harry before Sally

sugar sand yields under my pink sandals

     when it rains, hungry quicksand 

     isn’t just a threat to Westley and Princess Buttercup

this oak tree is 265 years old, the banyan dripping limbs at least 300

these willows extend a fairy circle in the air

rodents of usual size rut below sawgrass thrones

the path into the forest has been worn by hundreds of feet

the train runs parallel, its mournsome whalesong

     I’m the fifth friend in Stand By Me

     looking for my own dead body in the moist brush

     a phoenix in progress

I didn’t forget my comb here by the tracks

     but I did forget myself in the junkyard of a marriage

     that did not bring us together today

I walk through the woods of your memory

as I wish

     come back to us soon

     come back soon

     come back

Sezin Devi Koehler is a multiracial Sri Lankan/Lithuanian American and author of Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory (April 2025, Chicago Review Press), a sociocultural deep dive into what makes Keanu Reeves so extraordinary as a performer and artist. Pop-culture writer, entertainment journalist, and Rotten Tomatoes-certified film and TV critic for Black Girl Nerds, Sezin's bylines also include Entertainment Weekly, The Daily Beast, Scalawag Magazine, Tasteful Rude, Teen Vogue, and many more. Her poetry has appeared in Tension Literary. Sezin is a board member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto and wordsmiths from an East Oakland historic landmark that looks uncannily like the house from Practical Magic, where she can see the San Francisco Bay from her own window.