DEAR GOVERNOR, PLEASE COMMUTE THIS SENTENCE

by Barbara H. Williams 

on behalf of Tremane Wood scheduled for execution November 13, 2025 

An Oklahoma inmate convicted of murdering a teenager who belonged to a nonviolent religious sect remains scheduled for execution, despite a parole board’s finding that he doesn't deserve to die. Tremane Wood (pictured), 46, is set to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday, Nov. 13, for the 2002 killing of 19-year-old Ronnie Wipf, who was stabbed in the heart during an ambush robbery at an Oklahoma City Ramada Inn. Wood's brother Zjaiton "Jake" Wood confessed to the crime, while Tremane Wood has always maintained his innocence. —USA Today, November 11, 2025

Let him live, Governor. Please give

him the benefit of doubt

who did not purpose to murder, who

is repentant and remorseful, who was

without proper counsel or defense, perhaps 

sin in itself––cold carelessness that’s

cast a dubious light on the verdict. Please honor

the parole board’s vote for clemency. Please

first search the heart, lay down that heavy

stone. That you, and we, in conscience walk more free.­­­­­

Barbara H. Williams is based in Princeton, New Jersey, where for many years she was a professional flutist and music teacher. She began writing poetry in 2013, with poems appearing in The Raven’s Perch, US 1 Worksheets, and The Paterson Review. She is a member of the DVP/US1 Poets Collective, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her first collection of poems Continuo was published in 2024 (Cool Women Press).

AFTER THE BLAST, DELHI

by Rajat Chandra Sarmah

I saw a short video on my phone.
smoke rising near Lal Qila,
people running, some shouting things I couldn’t hear.

At the tea stall, one man said, "Gas leak."
Another thought, maybe leftover crackers from Diwali.
Nobody really knew; everyone kept guessing.

The sky stayed a dull grey.
same as most winter evenings in Delhi.
The peanut seller didn’t stop;
he kept calling, louder than usual.

Down near Chandni Chowk,
rickshaws crawled through the lane,
horns clashing with the sound of sirens.

I remembered the guard at the gate—
the one who waves people in each morning.
I wondered if he was still on duty,
if he’d made it back home.

When night came,
the dust hadn’t settled.
People stood around with their phones.
faces lit by the screens,
not saying much.

A voice on the radio said the city was calm again.
No one moved;
they just looked toward the fort.
waiting, maybe, for another sound.

Rajat Chandra Sarmah is a writer and poet from India whose work has appeared in The New Verse News and other national and international journals. A Fellow of LEAD India and the Institution of Engineers (India), he writes about everyday life, memory, and the quiet shifts within public events.

POINTING FINGER

by Ellen D.B. Riggle

Pointing finger
jabbing at the air
knees pumping
agitated body 
up and down
jerking, frenzied
feet stomping
commanding
follow 
the line of the arm
a furious digit
directing
to the target.

Growling
desperate
to deflect attention
from the real locus
of terror,
anger 
rooted in fear. 

Weak eyes follow
the trajectory of missiles,
while courageous eyes 
remain fixed
on the one
intent on causing pain
and mass casualty. 

What fearless soul
will step into the path
holding a mirror
returning the pointing finger
to its rightful owner?

Ellen D.B. Riggle is an award- and prize-winning author and educator.  Their essays and poems appear in numerous publications; their essay about their gay great-grandfather was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Does it Have Pockets.  They are also author of over 100 academic articles and five non-fiction and fiction books, and executive producer of the short documentary “Becoming Myself: Positive Trans & Nonbinary Identities.”

IN THE TIME OF THE MAD KING

by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

We waited. For someone to save us—
A lawyer who emerged from an onslaught
of documents to find that smoking diamond
of indisputable scandal, the hot and hard
evidence fresh from the seismic forces
that will eventually implicate everyone
and pull the red edifice permanently
beneath the surface. We waited on 
a clutch of senators as if they were
blackbirds, screaming with thirst, as
the temperature rose and the dough 
hardened around their bellies and necks, 
their vision fit to burst. Perhaps there was
a philanthropist, a banker or some titan 
of industry who had yet to offend us, who 
could provide a sweeping indictment of
the king’s fiscal wardrobe and its hidden 
curses. We waited for anyone outfitted like
the Statue of Liberty of Kafka’s imagination, 
wielding not light toward our welcoming shore 
but a scimitar pointed toward the heavens. 
We waited for literature; for comedians, 
professionals and amateurs in puffy animal
get-ups; for a plague of insects and amphibians 
to get the job done before all other species were 
sent to their doom, along with millions of humans. 
We waited for science, geometric proofs, facts 
of all genres; for sources and methods, common
sense or history to catch up with the velocity of 
the carnage. Our children injected Botox 
to preserve their tight and inchoate faces 
because we had foreclosed on their youth 
and they were keeping their options open 
for a second childhood to be carried out free 
of the king’s aegis. We waited for creams 
and lotions, hair dye and bronzers, for their 
chemical processes to reach their malignant 
apexes. We waited for the madness to lift 
as if a curtain made of the lead
we had allowed to adulterate our paint and seep 
into our rivers; for bread and angels to nourish
the poor huddled among us, until the miracle
rebirth of women whom we had previously 
torched for failing to dispense with the king
without our assistance, as if their ashes 
and embers had always contained the directions 
but we couldn’t be bothered to read the labels. 
So we waited, and kept waiting, like mourners 
afraid to share their allegiances, until we could
blame only ourselves, instead of the victims.

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of a memoir, two novels, five full-length collections of poetry, and four chapbooks of poetry. Her poem "Overheard at the Sphere in Las Vegas During Dead and Co.'s Spring Run 2025" appeared in the The New Verse News on May 23, 2025.  

TO GATSBY

by Devon Balwit

USA Today Instagram graphic, November 3, 2025

A hundred years since Fitzgerald gave us The Great Gatsby,

a man we first meet reaching into the dark.

At first, he seems sad, then sinister, then sad again.

Some people have it so easy, old sport,

he marvels in his practiced accent. We know. We can see 

their ballrooms scintillating, distant and unreachable. 

We gather at their property line and try to make sense of their hilarity.

The vast eyes of advertisements—crypto, AI, online gambling—

stand in for God’s: No matter how hard we work 

the lever, the payout goes to the next guy, to someone 

someone’s only heard about. You need cash to sleep 

with another man’s wife. Spoiler: The book ends 

with a bang—a car crash, Gatsby’s murder, a suicide.

Sycophants queued up for his parties. None came to his funeral.

When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press, Asterisk Magazine, and Works in Progress.

WAR IS PEACE

a haiku sequence

by Chen-ou Liu

pyramid

after pyramid of rubble...

again "ceasefire" strikes

fireball by fireball...

the length

of a Gazan night

smoky twilight

a cry sinks into the sound

of a gunshot

skeletal houses

these layers of silence

upon silence

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.

FAIR IS FAIR

by Nan Meneely

Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Thursday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to restrict U.S. passports based on gender identity, a setback for non-binary and transgender people seeking the document. The court order requires the gender designation on the passport to reflect the biological sex of the person applying for it. Transgender and non-binary Americans have called the effort unconstitutional.

If a passport is required to declare
the “truth” of genetic charts,
then surely it should note the fact
that some people are born without hearts.

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

Nan Meneely is the lucky member of several sterling writing groups. Her 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. She has been both published and turned down by The New Verse News.

IT’S SUNRISE IN AMERICA

by Michelle DeRose

Click here to see video Bradley posted on X.

Federal agents detained an immigrant woman with a pending asylum case and a work permit inside [Rayito de Sol] a Chicago children’s day care on Wednesday morning, local officials said. —Newsweek, November 5, 2025

The men are large, clad all-black,

balaclavad like ninja costumes

four year-olds wore last week.

Stiff flinty edges vest their chests. 

They wield the only guns.

 

Two-on-one they seize the teacher,

batter-ram the door with her head.

Toddlers stare, she screams, parents 

shake. The sun barely up for the day,

care kidnapped, spirited away.

Michelle DeRose wants to return to writing poems about her recently departed cat and the spot on her dog's back. Too many images from her original home town, Chicago, block that these days.

YOUR SEASON IN HELL IN AMERICA

by Mickey J. Corrigan

You've been waiting 
all along, yes 
for this, yes you
allowing for them
bent over two fold
in the fields
in the gardens, trucks
in their scarves, skin
dark eyes gleaming
in the bleak fog
of low-paid overwork
awaiting your notice
of them there, ripe
for a brutal harvest.

Just don't open the door

But you've drunk the liquor 
from a powerful still
and do not own
your own mind
your life a farce
a play you must 
take your role 
too seriously.

Just don't look at the news

You stopped short
of an investigation
into why, why who
in the muck, the mud
the bars, the camps
the courts, the planes
Get them out!
and to make the world 
stop twirling
to make the whirling 
stand still
you began again
to twist the facts
in your twirling, 
whirling mind
and its disorders.

Just walk down any street

You could see hell
arising around you
beatings, kidnappings
death on high seas
erasing all the brown
while you clung
to your bleached faith
to your so-called moralities 
floating there
like tainted water
or grain alcohol
in your oily brain pan.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. She writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and chapbooks. A collection of biographical poems on 20th century poets is in press with Clare Songbirds Publishing.

NEW YORK MAYORAL RACE LIMERICK

by Paul A. Freeman

Ass Kicking by Nick Anderson

The Donald was made to take note

(when Mamdani sank Cuomo’s boat)

that normal folk weather

a storm when together,

while billionaires just have one vote.

Paul A. Freeman is an English teacher. He is the author of The Movement, a dystopia-Americana novel set in a future United States. It is available from Amazon as an ebook download and as a paperback. He works and resides in Mauritania, Africa.

BJÖRN IN VENICE

by Julia Griffin

Björn Andrésen, Swedish actor who starred in Death in Venice, dies aged 70: Actor who also starred in Midsommar and became a musician was nicknamed ‘the most beautiful boy in the world’–a title he struggled with all his life. —The Guardian, October 27, 2025

"He is very frail, he is sickly," Aschenbach thought. "In all probability he will not grow old." And he refused to reckon with the feeling of gratification or reassurance which accompanied this notion. — Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (1912)

The man wanted him dead. That was the truth

Beyond the mere unspeakable, the shame,

The furtive stalking, the pretence at youth:

To have him die, this moonbeam boy whose name

He never knew, whose voice he never heard:

Blue eyelids closed, flesh drained to marble, cold

Child’s spirit thinned to air. The man incurred,

Thereby, his own death, endlessly retold; 

The boy survived, to manhood, middle age,

Seventy years. He did his best to grow:

He bristled out, became a white-haired sage,

Outlived the man, but not the mythic glow

That doomed them both. Behold the boy, love’s prey,

Who died, at last, but never got away.

Julia Griffin has published in several online poetry  magazines; lives with a socially-engaged basset hound, a regular on local demonstrations.

INTO THE DARKNESS

by Karen Marker

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

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is.

I didn’t always wake up feeling this weary, 

feeling the pain of the wound in my chest

like I held a dead child. Like someone 

had stolen my sword and the light

of the grail was gone. I used to sleep 

through the night, trusted the widening gyre 

was leading me out of the dark.

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is 

after he flat out said he’s sending the military 

into our cities because he’s sick of the mentally ill, 

addicted, disabled, veterans, the hungry, unhoused, 

that he’s sick of those who come in needing shelter, 

jobs, a better life, that he’s sick of protestors.

 

I didn’t always wake up this worried

that if the Department of War blows up ships 

in the Caribbean they say are carrying drugs,  

ignoring all laws, it won’t be long before 

they’re waging war on us to make the world safer 

for the billionaires, sending off the unwanted

to concentration camps in the desert.

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is 

after the government shut down goes on and on

while the thugs on the streets get paid

to carry out “the Lords’ work.”

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is

except a comet coming straight at the Earth 

and all of it exploding.

Karen Marker is an Oakland, CA. poet activist who has committed to  writing a poem a day of protest and hope in response  to current events. Her first poetry book Beneath the Blue Umbrella came out recently with Finishing Line Press and explores family mental illness, stigma and healing. 

THE POPPY PANDEMIC

by Lynn White

A display featuring 8,000 individually knitted and crocheted poppies has been unveiled at St John's Church in Worcester. It has been created by the local Knit and Knatter group which has worked with the Royal British Legion (RBL) to bring the project to life. —BBC, October 20, 2025

November approached

and a pandemic loomed

of bleeding red poppies

to honour those killed

all victims un-glorious 

in blood red shrouds

with no thanks owing

for peace then or now.

The wake hardly over

the war virus was live

with the slapping of backs

and the drinking of toasts

and the giving of thanks

to the Masters of War

standing masked or unmasked

in the gold and the gore

with the medals and poppies

spread by war after war.

And now we all wait.

And now we still wait.

Wait 

for a white poppied wasteland 

to grow.

White poppies are worn every year by thousands of people across the UK and beyond. They were first produced in 1933 in the aftermath of the First World War, by members of the Co-operative Women's Guild. Many of these women had lost family and friends in the First World War. They wanted to hold on to the key message of Remembrance Day, 'never again'. —Peace Pledge Union.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.