FOR THE WATCHERS

by Greg Watson

 

 

Driving my daughter to school this morning, circling the block past the long line of buses, we notice again the parents and neighbors who now stand watch on each corner, braving the sub-zero St. Paul air like half-frozen shepherds, red hearts stitched to their bright yellow vests. Some wave, some sway from side to side in puffy down jackets and snowsuits, silver whistles dangling, as if this were a dance with music only they could hear. "I'm glad they're here," my daughter says. "But I wish they didn't have to be." I nod in agreement. I miss the fourth grade crossing guards, their orange plastic flags waving up and down in sync, laughing with each other, looking each way twice. Though they have not disappeared as the others have—Amalia, Valentina, Angeles, Santiago, Liam, Diego—stolen and flown by secrecy of night to a windowless room thirteen hundred miles away. Stolen by those who call themselves the law. Last night my daughter stayed up past bedtime reading a book about the Montana grizzly attacks of 1967. I asked if was too scary, too intense, and whether it might give her nightmares. "No," she said evenly, "wild animals don't scare me, or natural disasters. Only people sometimes. Only people."

Greg Watson's work has been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He is the author of eleven collections of poetry, most recently Stars Unseen (Holy Cow! Press). He is also co-editor of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood (Nodin Press). His forthcoming collection, The Shape of Your Absence, will be published by One Subject Press in April. 

A WHISTLE AND A HONK FOR OUR CITIES UNDER SIEGE

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

 

 

 

Exploding eyeballs of children in chokeholds. Shivering 

seniors drug out into teen temperatures in their underwear;

bloody faces of body-slammed elders, face prints in snow.

Packs of 250lb. fantasy football bettors/NFL-wannabes pile on.

Invasion of the body snatchers! Deputized traitors / MAGAt 

magicians disappearing loved ones. Boss Tweet’s bounty hunters—

$50,000 bonuses — body-slamming, beating down, choking and

Redacting 1st , 4th,  14th and other amendments—on our dime!

Home doors busted open like piñatas by battering ram-wielding

thugs. Shards of car window glass shower city streets with freezing

chaos and terror. 

Another US city’s under siege. Will the reign of ICE stall in snow?

Burrito shop hungry hardhats flooded for lunch; 

for strategy sessions; for 30 minute escapes into

sports sections folded up in sturdy denim back 

pockets: EMPTY.

Coffee shop where co-workers; old and new

neighbors and welcome visitors gathered to chat

over cappuccino, chai, mocha, Americano; or sat

journaling or answering messages: EMPTY.

Corner church swollen with Sunday harmonies 

with communion; with fellowship: EMPTY.

Neighborhood school’s steady stream of shrieking drop-offs 

and pickups ground to sudden halt.

Clinic’s steady stream of cold and flu sufferers: are missing

in action. Community life is strangled under brownshirt siege.

Recalling “No Kings” rally ‘eons ago.’ Signs reading: NO WAR BUT 

CLASS WAR! Recalling contagious rage against grifting Judas. And

feeling hopeful as hell. Remembering solidarity’s our silver lining

in swastika infused clouds … almost filling battleship gray skies...

 

 

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

DANCING WITH MR. BUNNY

by Alan Walowitz

 

 

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook  Exactly Like Love  comes from Osedax Press.   The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems  is available from Truth Serum Press.  From Arroyo Seco Press,  In the Muddle of the Night, written with poet Betsy Mars.  The chapbook The Poems of the Air is from Red Wolf Editions and is free for downloading. 

WHISTLE CHOIR

by Jennifer Clark

 Bde Maka Ska, January 31, 2026

Whistles once nesting in our throats like drowsy wrens

now fly out of their warm homes and hatch bright noises,

cracking the white glaze of ice creeping over this cold, hard land.

A whistle is a toy, is a shield, is a song of resistance 

rising above this raucous world bursting with whiny snowblowers,

chirping dishwashers, the damp sound of fear.

Whistles sway from necks and perch on the edge of lips

forming o no you don’ts. Galloping through towns,

whistlers on their midnight rides emit the same sharp staccato cry: 

Danger is coming. We love you, neighbors. Run. Do not come outside.

Some will cover their genteel ears and complain of the shrilling.

Do not grow disheartened.

Remember: you don’t need everybody.

When you grow weary, march onto the frozen skin

of Bde Maka Ska where deep below largemouth bass,

walleyes, and muskies await April’s orders.

As wind howls, stand shoulder to shoulder with your neighbors and form

an SOS sounding the alarm. As any good referee will tell you,

until the game is over, don’t set down your whistles.

Jennifer Clark’s fourth poetry collection, Intercede: Saints for Concerning Occasions, was recently released by Unsolicited Press. Clark is also the author of three more books, including a memoir, Kissing the World Goodbye, which blends family stories with recipes and was named a top-selling book of 2022 by Unsolicited Press. You can find her at writingwithoutanet.substack.com where she writes about writing, poetry, books, and gives out free magnets to her cartoon contest winners.

3 VERY GOOD YOUNG POOR

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Justice Department under scrutiny for revealing victim info and concealing possible enablers in Epstein files...

     In a 2018 email to Epstein, another redacted individual wrote: “I found at least 3 very good young poor.” 

     “Meet this one,” the person continued. “Not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.” 

     —CNN, February 5, 2026

The redacted
they culled
they hawked
they bartered
girls not women
sucked in a nightmare
too young to grasp
escape, recover
now women not girls
faces splashed online
names and nudes
abusers hidden
blacked out shame
very good young poor
splashed in full
nothing on, nothing
protecting them 
from bad old rich
powerful driven
to use, abuse, lie 
in other countries
powerful men
lose positions 
power, face
while in the US
very good girls
young poor
sucked in
spit out
while the machine 
of money, power, abuse
drives on, on
the system as is
only winners winning

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. Salt Publishing in the UK released Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting. Bloodhound Books UK published What I Did For Love, a spoof of the classic Lolita. Poetry has been published in literary journals, chapbooks, and collections.

MOTHER’S MILK

by Jan Chronister

file photo of mother labeling frozen breast milk

When one mother was taken by ICE, another stepped in to donate breastmilk  —The 19th, February 2, 2026

Nursing moms in Minneapolis

pump, save their extra breast milk,

share it with those who have babies

left in their care, their mothers

disappeared by ICE.

The milk is frozen,

delivered when needed in coolers.

Right now there is no danger

it will thaw out on the way.

What kind of people

abduct a nursing mother?

Leaves behind an infant,

sometimes alone?

What happened to dry up

the milk of human kindness

in their hearts?

Moms in Minneapolis hope

when the weather warms up,

and the ice melts, 

they no longer need to worry.

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.

MISSING

by Patricia M. Phillips-Batoma

For the Guthrie family

In the Sonoran desert 
a mother is missing 
and the world wonders 
who could do this. 
Her children on TV 
try to break through. 
The star sibling, 
with the made-for-TV smile, 
brighter than any screen, 
vast as a continent, 
breaks down. She sniffles. 
Her mouth twists 
in her small mortal face 
where crisscrossed lines 
read like a map 
of all Earth’s sorrows. 
So many know this disaster. 
They sit on the same couch 
as these three siblings, 
with family near 
and ordinary days out of reach. 
We are not built to endure 
the snatching away of goodness and light, 
of normal human people. 


Author's note: The lines in italics echo the first video put out by Savannah Guthrie and her two siblings.

Patricia Phillips-Batoma is a writer and teacher who lives in Illinois. She has published poems in Skylight 47, An Capall Dorcha, The New Verse News, Off Course, Plants and Poetry and Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis.

SCARLET LETTERS

by Deb Myers

An executive 

once told my boss 

I should smile more

make more eye contact

with him, so he didn’t feel 

like I didn’t like him 

At a concert 

red letters on the front 

of a black t-shirt read 

Don’t Tell Me to Smile

it was only offered

in women’s cut 

because

of course

I bought it

Deb Myers spent her career helping companies create and improve technology products. She has left the business and technical writing world behind, and now writes poetry from her home in coastal Maine.

THERE ARE MONSTERS UNDER MY BED

by Celeste DeSario

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

I jolt awake wondering…
Where do the monsters go at night?
Are they hiding in the shadows?
In my closet? Under my bed?
My curtains, tightly drawn—I’m safe.
But… are the monsters still out there?
Lurking? Waiting? 
Or are they only in my head?
 
Biding their time,
They will creep into the hamlets, villages, towns, cities, 
Seducing men cloaked in blue, gray, brown uniforms, wearing badges, pointing guns.
 Masked. 
 For whose protection? 
Social Media, politicians, distort the truth even as visuals show us snippets of reality,
And now, AI, distorts images using Deep Fakes, making decisions based on values not aligned with ours, well, with values we once held respected, agreed upon. 
Is AI listening to our conversations, recording our fears, sharing them…with? 
We don’t know. That’s why we should worry.
 
Those monsters creep into Judicial chambers,
Where we assign fancy Latin terms, 
Like Mala Fide—acting in bad faith,
Or Proper ex Parte Communication—Defying justice, the court’s authority and dignity.
Tearing down our laws, 
And everything that carefully glues our country together.
Makes us free.
Makes us proud.
Makes us a republic we love.
 
Scenes crafted in sick, twisted minds play out in our towns, on our screens, 
Eventually, in our backyards.
Maybe even our living rooms.
Who is roaming the hallways of our colleges?
Our libraries?
Places we once found refuge for serious thought,
Contemplating futures we understood. 
 
Okay, now you are just listing. Stop being so dramatic.
You are scaring me.
 
Look carefully. The monsters have infiltrated our schools.
They need to get those kids,
Need to inject them with bigotry and hate.
Remember the song, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
So, they teach them. 
Yanking books off the shelves that instill dangerous, harmful ideas.
Like tolerance, inclusion, acceptance,
Twisting words and history,
Until we don’t recognize who we once were.
Using Doublespeak, Political euphemisms.
“I am the greatest peacekeeper in the history of the world.”
(Yes, bomb those fishing boats and those on them,
Demonize any country that doesn’t agree with me,
Detain citizens. Call them illegal. I don’t care.
Just do it. 
I’ll keep dancing to distract them. Make them laugh. Make them love me.)
 
They know spectacle distracts us, so,
They organize marches.
Political parades.
Use pennants, colorful flags, music,
Precision marching, a lot of saluting.
Film your leaders from below so they appear all -powerful,
So, they dominate the frame,
And then dominate what lies beyond the frame.
They appear…unstoppable.
But it’s just a trick. A low camera angle. We all know how that works.
See? We can stop them anytime we choose.
 So, do we choose now?
Choose now. 
Now.
I will fill up a cart from Amazon: that will save me.
Click. Sleep mask.  Click. Noise cancelling headphones. Air purifier. Click, click, click.
 
I will upload a new photo on my Instagram page.
See? 
Everything is okay. 
There is Nala the Cat,
Wearing a Superman Cape, and a gold crown.
Doug the Pug wearing funny sunglasses and a hat and a Christmas sweater.
 
Maybe TikTok can save me?
Just upload a new video.
Zach King, we need some of your digital magic,
Your sleight-of-hand.
That’s how it starts. That is also how it ends.
 
When you ask if there are monsters under the bed,
I assure you,
They do exist.
And when they crawl out,
There is little we can do to get them back under.
Except recognize them.
And it starts with that.
It simply starts with that. 

 
Celeste DeSario is an award-winning educator and former tenured professor of Literature and Writing at Suffolk County Community College. She is the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and a National Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas. After years of teaching the greats, she has stepped out of the classroom to craft her own worlds of impossible choices.

KRISTI NOEM’S MIRROR

by Bonnie Jo Campbell

meme by witchofsouthernlight at Instagram

A federal judge issued a last-minute temporary stay on Monday to block the Trump administration’s attempt to remove temporary legal protections for up to 350,000 Haitian immigrants across the United States. In a brutal 83-page takedown, Judge Ana C. Reyes of the US District Court for DC specifically laid into a December X post from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that claimed foreign “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies” are ruining the vision of the founding fathers… Reyes said that it was therefore “substantially likely” that Noem had moved to end TPS status for Haitians due to “hostility to nonwhite immigrants.” —Mother Jones, February 3, 2026

Ice queens must be manicured, beautiful,
at least from a distance. Hence, Botox 
 
serums, facelifts, veneers, fillers, lashes,
skin resurfacing, Medusa extensions.
 
Athena sprang helmeted from the bully Zeus,
She was divinely fair, they say, the gray-
 
Eyed patron and protector of violent men.
Kristi hatched from an old orange thatch
 
to sit at the right hand of Daddy. A son
might have overthrown Zeus, as prophesied. 
 
Such loyal daughters must envy witches.
Cruella de Ville was her own woman, the Wicked
 
Witch of the West, unmoisturized, answered to no one.
But like a witch, ice eventually melts. 

Bonnie Jo Campbell’s latest novel is The Waters, W.W. Norton, 2024.
 

THE BALLAD OF LISA COOK

by Mark F. DeWitt

 

The despot stormed into the house
he'd lived in once before;
I’ll have my way this time—or else!
he yelled, he spat, he swore.

My enemies are doomed! he cried.
His list of them was long.
He massed his henchmen for the job;
he sang his grievous song:

These bureaucrats are evil, all!
And one by one they fell—
their choice: resign or be fired outright,
or work in living hell.

And so it went, week after week.
The firehose of flames
burnt through appointed expertise,
a litany of names:

Joint Chiefs of Staff, librarians,
commissioners, former friends,
inspectors general, lawyers, cops—
The list seemed not to end.

Congressional sycophants stood by,
appointed judges too,
while hatchets swung, reputations hung.
Resisters, they were few.

No matter what was not allowed,
he fired them anyway.
Museum boss, she quickly bowed
and meekly slinked away. 

But then he tried to fire one
who would not go so fast:
his charge was weak and she held firm—
the battle lines were cast.

Who was this woman dared fight back,
what brave, courageous soul?
Whence came she from, what had she done
to warrant such a role?

A girl was born in Milledgeville,
a Georgia town most fair;
her mama was a nurse and prof,
her pop a reverend there.

Such parents wise, intelligent,
and loving raised her well,
but the little Black girl in a Southern town
found challenges to quell.

Though segregation had been banned for years
and equality the rule,
it was up to her, and her sisters too,
to desegregate their school. 

While the little white boys and little white girls
beat them up and called them Nnnnnn,
they studied hard and got good grades
and refused all the while to bend.

After college she went on to earn
a scholarship abroad:
to Oxford University
she went and then she thought

to make a difference she’d apply
herself to something grand—
Economics seemed the way for her
the world to understand.

In graduate school she showed some range
to probe the Russian case,
then wowed them all with new research
on innovation’s links to race:

How can a nation really thrive 
when not everyone feels safe?
Her point was made, her tenure gained,
she’d finally found her place. 

Our professor Lisa Cook was now
appointed to the Fed
as governor, for her acumen,
a cool and level head.

The time was right for her to shine,
as reckoning was nigh
on issues dear, on race and class,
where she had cast her eye.

But then the demagogue roared back—
was re-elected strong—
and all the things for which she’d fought
were suddenly thought wrong.

I read it in the Times today—
that women got it worst:
when the thugs got out the chopping block,
Black women got cut first.

And so the despot did announce
that Lisa Cook must go,
despite the independence that
the Fed’s supposed to show.

But Lisa Cook refused to yield,
it wasn’t her first fight—
unlike those others who resigned
and fled into the night.

I’ll not step down, she said outright.
You see, you’ll have to wait.
My governor’s appointment lasts
‘til 2038.

You have no grounds, my duty’s here,
I’ll have my day in court!
Bring on your lawyers and your trolls—
your reign is growing short.

And so it was, when others saw
brave Lisa Cook stand up—
the head scientist at CDC 
said I’m not going to jump.

The spell was broken; people saw
resistance actually work.
With stiffened spines, stayed at their posts
the experts, judges, clerks.

Apoplexy gripped the president:
How dare they cross me now!
I’ll terminate that Lisa Cook
And the rest will follow down.

But miracle of miracles, 
the Supreme Court agreed
for once, the president was wrong,
and Lisa Cook was freed.

She was free to do her job and help
her country in its fight
for prosperity midst the despot’s whims,
delusions, moral blight.

Her countrymen began to see
what they could do, as well.
Division lessened by degree;
resolve began to swell.

Our leadership has lost its way,
so elsewhere must we look.
We woke up just in time to change,
all thanks to Lisa Cook.

Author’s note: At the time of this writing (February 2026), Lisa Cook's case is currently before the Supreme Court. Four stanzas from the end, this poem turns to a fictional future, in hopes that it comes true. Statements attributed to Ms. Cook in the two stanzas starting with "I’ll not step down, she said outright" are likewise imagined.


Mark F. DeWitt is an ethnomusicologist, amateur musician, and emerging poet based in Oakland, California, although parts of him still linger in Louisiana, Massachusetts, and Ohio. His poems have appeared in publications of the Society for Ethnomusicology and the Litquake Foundation. He is also author of an ethnography, Cajun and Zydeco Dance Music in Northern California: Modern Pleasures in a Postmodern World (University Press of Mississippi).