NIGHT STALKERS

by Kathyrn Ridall

The New York Times, July 16, 2026

2 AM,

loneliness a siren’s song,

a vampire’s kiss. I try

to remember how it felt

to be loved steadfastly

by my husband from the

moment we met until

he left this world.

A shiver in the night

and our 47th president appears—

a six-foot lizard, upright

with orange hair and a red

necktie, his tail a relentless

scythe that levels fields,

each day slashes the fragile

fruits of freedom.

My small dog senses

something outside

the house and launches

from the bed we share,

her barking a spray of bullets.

She wants to protect us

from creatures that bare

their teeth and stalk us

in the night.

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

Kathyrn Ridall is a poet and non-fiction writer. She is the author of the recent poetry collection The  Living Waters Between Us and of the award-winning Dreaming at the Gates: How Dreams Guide Us. She lives in Ventura, CA where she works as a psychotherapist.

AN UNDESIRABLE SILENCE

by Katy Z. Allen

I first noticed it early in the morning, isolated orange rays of light passing between the trees, the unusual color catching my eye, and so I went looking for the Sun, hidden from sight, and stopped abruptly when I saw it, not far above the horizon, a deep orange disc in the foggy, hazy, cloudy sky. Later, stepping outside for a second time, the light was so strange and eerie it gave me the shivers. I thought a storm was coming, maybe even a tornado, for the feel of the air was foreboding, so I checked all three weather apps on my phone, but none said anything about rain. The unease remained with me as I journeyed from errand to errand, wondering why I had heard nothing, although to be honest I hadn’t gone searching beyond my weather apps, but each time I stepped out of the car I felt that unease and when at last I arrived home and checked my email I saw a subject line, “The sky looks ominous and the air quality is bad. When will it end?” and that was when I learned—perhaps having had my head in the sand for longer than I should have—about the latest wildfires across Canada and Minnesota and the smoke from those fires arriving on our doorstep, so to speak, here in New England, and at last I understood, but all day I’d been feeling the silence of an explanation and only when it was so bad that everyone would notice did some brief and insufficient explanation arrive. I don’t have my head so far into the sand to be fully unaware that as long as we’re not seeing it, we’re not hearing it, we’re not experiencing it, the fact that the world is on fire is greeted with silence, even though it is a deep, dark  heaviness that breaks our hearts and weighs us down, no matter what the color of the Sun as it rises above the horizon in the morning.

Katy Z. Allen is a lover of the more-than-human world, poet, retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, former healthcare chaplain, and co-founder of a Jewish climate organization. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in print and online in such places as The New Verse News, Amethyst Review, The Bluebird Word, Cosmic Daffodil, The Soliloquist Journal and Art on the Trails: Number 9. She was awarded Honorable Mention in The Prose Poem’s 2025 Prose Poetry Competition, and her book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text was published by Strong Voices Publishing. 

TESTtosterone

by Darcy Grabenstein 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that he is rolling out a new screening program for “testosterone deficiency” among troops, calling it necessary to allow them to operate at their “absolute best.” ...In the video, Hegseth simply refers to troops, though it appears he is talking about only testing men in uniform for hormone irregularities. AP, July 16, 2026

Pete HEgseth is proving 

that he’s a manly man, a HE-man
for he’s questioning the virility
of our men in uniform

After all, isn’t the true test of masculinity
taking advantage of under-age girls
or throwing punches in a UFC fight
or ICE goons slaughtering citizens?

Those in the good ole boys’ club
probably think that those with ‘low T’ 
would rather have high tea, pinkies raised
than shove a gun in the enemy’s face

Test for testosterone? Preposterous!

Here’s what and who we should be testing:
the IQ of our nation’s leaders
to determine whether they’re fit for office
not whether our troops are fit to serve

Excuse me. I’m about to have a fit.

A marketing writer by profession, Darcy Grabenstein turns to poetry as a creative and cathartic outlet. The theme of social (in)justice runs through many of her poems, and she longs for the day where her page will finally be blank.

A MURDEROUS STATE

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Cartoon by Clay Jones

This is State murder 

even if unintended, 

rammed wrong,

bullets fired 

at a migrant 

driving.

What safety does 

a seatbelt provide,

or an airbag, 

when you drive 

below the speed limit

while a bullet

flies through 

the window?

What safety 

measures 

are advised for 

the migrant driving 

on American roads? 

To give way 

to unmarked cars? 

To stop 

in the middle 

of the road 

and wait? 

What allows 

the plain-clothed 

gunman to shoot 

without asking 

for papers, 

or screaming 

into a bullhorn?

What are 

the circumstances

when witnesses 

are hounded, 

threatened 

with deportation?

What if there are 

no witnesses,

certainly no inconvenient

bodycam imagery? 

We are confronted 

by an extrajudicial 

killing force. 

They don’t leave 

traces. They will 

be protected. 

THE STATE’S ALL,  folks.

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.

THE DEFINITION OF HARM

by Pepper Trail

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

The Trump administration on Friday moved to open the habitats of imperiled animals to farming, drilling, mining, real estate development and other activities in what environmentalists characterized as the most severe erosion of protections for wildlife in half a century. It did so by recasting a single word, “harm.” For more than 50 years, the federal government has used a broader definition of harm to animals under the Endangered Species Act, a bedrock environmental law. It included any significant “modification or degradation” of habitat that kills or injures animals by impairing their ability to eat, shelter or breed... But on Friday, the Interior Department and the Commerce Department announced a final rule that rescinded this longstanding interpretation. Under the rule, destroying an endangered species’ nest or habitat would no longer be considered illegal. —The New York Times, July 10, 2026

Time passed and the madman continued.

Today it was to say the home, the whole living world –

I am speaking of you, the owl, the butterfly, the desert grouse—

is nothing, is to be taken, cleared, burned, drilled

and that has no consequence,

as the capture and disappearance of mothers and fathers,

that has no consequence,

as the end of relief for the dark-skinned dying,

that has no consequence,

as the meanings of words,

they have no consequence.

To the madman it is all a game,

made up every night, announced every morning,

changed every afternoon,

himself against the world, the only rule

being that he must never lose,

if only he knew how to win, to be satisfied.

And so everything is fed into the flames,

the beautiful world, the work of the best minds,

the lives of the children and the artists

and those who want only to live in peace,

because anything free of him

must be brought to heel, or

when that again,

when that always, fails,

must, he delares, be destroyed.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

UNREAL REALITY

by Lynn White

unreal? reality?

Dead or alive,

seems it no longer matters.

Perhaps it never did.

And now AI is a perfect fit,

to get the job every time,

no live performance needed now.

And it was always a performance,

live or film or funny cartoon,

always staged,

unreal.

Dead or alive.

Perhaps some of it was once real.

Perhaps once it mattered.

Perhaps it still does,

real or unreal

reality

dead or alive.

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.

NOT NICE EUPHEMISMS AND DYSPHEMISMS

by Anne Gruner

Anne Gruner is a two-time Pushcart nominee whose poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications including Amsterdam Quarterly Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Wayfarer Magazine, The New Verse News, Humans of the World, Spillwords, and Written Tales. A former career CIA analyst and lawyer, Anne lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and two golden retrievers.

RE-FRUITING

by Regina YC Garcia 

Nolan Wells' tragic death joins a long list of Black youth whose untimely demises have raised urgent questions about justice and accountability. —MadameNoire, July 10, 2026

This tree smells oddly familiar

as worms peer up

from disturbed ground

This water sighs in sadness

as sealife swims unabated

and dark-bodies sink

This land heaves up old hurts

as mouths protest 

“All is well!”

(the lies they tell)

Regina YC Garcia is an award winning poet, language artist, and professor from Greenville, NC. Her published work appears in NCLR, Fiyah Black Speculative Lit, Soflopojo, Amistad, Elevation Review, Charlotte Lit, and others. Her first chapbook The Firetalker's Daughter published by Finishing Line Press was released in March 2023, and her full-length book Whispers from the Multiverse published by Aquarius Press/ Willow Books was released in February 2025.

POLITICAL THEATER

by Jim Kelly

Cartoon by Gary. A Huck

When death darkens
the occupied space
of the political theater,

and the curtains,
somber and heavy,
are stitched with memories
of acid speech,

the audience pauses.

Not because the performance
was noble.

Not because every act
deserves applause.

Not because every wound
has healed.

The record remains.

The speeches remain.

The injuries,
the divisions,
the grievances,
remain.

Yet death changes
the lighting.

For a moment,

The spotlight shifts
from ideology
to mortality.

From victory
to loss.

From power
to the frailty
shared by every human being.

There will be time
for historians
to sort through the record.

There will be time
for critics
to weigh the consequences.

There will be time
for citizens
to debate the legacy.

But in the first shadow
cast by death,

when kindness is impossible,

Silence may be
the most humane response.

Not surrender.

Not agreement.

Not absolution.

Only the recognition
that death
has already spoken
the final line.

Jim Kelly is a California poet whose work explores democracy, race, caregiving, and social justice. His poetry has appeared in Litro Magazine, Urban Pen Magazine, Urban Poems, and other literary publications. He is the author of the chapbooks The Quiet Witness: Civic Poems of Power, Memory, and Conscience and Caregiving Through Poetry.

TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM

by Laurie Kuntz 

As Air Force Maj. Jason Watson ascended the Capitol steps last week wearing his military uniform and armed with one protest sign, he knew the risks and was prepared for the consequences, no matter how severe. —Military Times, July 9, 2026

Under July's brazen sun,

independently standing on Capitol steps

one would expect this uniformed man to be waving a flag

instead of 3 words etched on cardboard -- 

The truths that weave a country's fabric

stipulate the deeper cut of accusation

and the absence of a moral center.

A country watches a man in medaled attire

being cuffed and  led away 

surrounded by the silence of the timid 

too afraid to speak:

Impeach

Convict

Remove.

Laurie Kuntz is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and two-time Best of the Net Nominee. In 2024, she won a Pushcart Prize. Her 8th poetry book Shelter In Place is published by Shanti Arts Press. She holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, SWWIM, and other journals and anthologies. Her themes stem from working with Southeast Asian refugees, living as an expatriate in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Brazil, and raising a husband and son.