MISSISSIPPI MIDTERMS

by Ann Tweedy

If you block another’s path

it may be your undoing          powers,

seas          shift           in earth’s abacus

136 years          since Reconstruction

is next to nothing          human vanity

to mistake it           longer than our lifespans

for forever

Ann Tweedy grew up in Southeastern Massachusetts but has spent most of her adult life in various parts of the West Coast, the Midwest, and now the South. In addition to being a poet and essayist, she is also a law professor and Tribal judge. Her full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet won a Bisexual Book Award and was a finalist for both a Lambda Literary Award and a Golden Crown Literary Award. Her chapbooks include Beleaguered Oases, White Out, A Registry of Survival, and Wind Through a Beak-Drilled Branch, which won the 2026 South Dakota State Poetry Society Annual Chapbook Contest. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Hamline University. She currently divides her time between South Dakota and Mississippi.

FIREBREAKS

by Dawn Perry

Infant’s death linked to measles outbreak in southwest Wisconsin. It's the state's first death connected to the ongoing outbreak that's included nearly 400 cases across four southwestern counties. —Wisconsin Public Radio, November 5, 2026

My father’s eyes last stung with smoke in the Driftless
thirty-five years ago—
flames swarming up limestone bluffs
and leapfrogging through the open oak groves.
 
Ugly old firebreaks stretching thirty feet wide 
demanded weeding. But we needed to school at home, 
milk the sheep, and fix our barns, so we watched 
thistle take those bared county ditches, inch across ridges,
then choke wild grasses that sponged up rain.
 
Like others I planted the firebreak 
where it ran by my house—
a patch of green beans and corn.
I let pink thistle creep through the rest.
 
During the harvest, white-spotted mouths 
and red-dotted faces flared up again,
spreading through coulees, through children.
Our children, who could have been anything, 
other than dead.
 
We’ve watched thistle take root and rain turn to flood.
Beyond the Driftless, more safeguards have fallen.
Restoring them may be like uprooting a garden,
or like trying to claw a child from the ground.

Dawn Perry is a writer who lives and works in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a BA in English Literature from Princeton University. 

BETWEEN THE EYES

by Phyllis Frakt

 

The sky is bluer than before.

In the blink of an eye,

faded gray-green grass 

brightens as if it’s spring.

 

I can make twilight linger,

gain extra daylight

without changing the clock.

But only with my left eye.

 

No magic yet on the right.

It preserves a murky universe

for now, until the surgeon 

drives away the shadows.

 

While I wait—wink, wink— 

I imagine I control light

like raising a window shade 

to enlighten a weary world.

 

With the flutter of an eyelid,

I would restore rule of law,

expel autocrats and sycophants,

hit them right between the eyes.

Phyllis Frakt says if you live long enough, you will need cataract surgery and might as well make the most of its metaphorical potential. She has published previous poems in New Verse News, US 1 Worksheets, The Ravens Perch, and Second Coming. She lives in New Jersey..

THE WET DOLL

by Shirin Jabalameli

Cartoon by Mahmoud Rifai

Deadly floods in Gaza have killed four children and left two people missing after torrential rains flooded around 70,000 tents sheltering an estimated 350,000 Palestinians, including 210,000 children. More than 2,000 structurally damaged buildings remain at risk of collapse. —Save the Children, October 9, 2026

When the rain came, the earth pushed back the tents,

 and water entered people's dreams without permission.

Water

 has the language of innocence;

 whatever it touches,

 it carries away,

 without knowing

 what it ought to leave behind.

The water has risen to a child's knees,

 yet no one, in the grand halls of the world,

 has heard the sound

 of a doll getting wet.

Elsewhere,

 in warm rooms,

 men sit around tables

 with white handkerchiefs.

They iron their words,

 fold away their “concern,”

 put “human rights” in a drawer,

 and, with untroubled minds,

 vote to carry on with their day.

The world is a chamber of suffocation

 whose windows do not open toward Gaza.

And stranger still,

 the world has long since stopped coughing;

 it merely clears its throat

 so that its next sentence about human rights

 may be spoken without a stammer.

Tonight,

 rain has fallen upon the conscience of the earth.

 And God, should He pass through that place,

 would have to roll up His trouser legs.

Can you hear it?

The earth has no room left

 to bury silence.

Shirin Jabalameli is an Iranian poet, artist, and writer. Her poems have appeared in international journals including Braided Way Magazine (USA), The Lake (UK), The New Verse News (USA), and Poetry Super Highway (USA), where she was selected as Poet of the Week. She is the author of several books, including Crows Rarely Laugh, Apranik, and 101 Moments, 25 Fell from the Frame. Her latest book Beneath the Skin of Tehran was recently published. She was nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize for her poem “The Lineage of Birds.” Her short story “The Red Thread” was selected as one of the Top 25 Works Worldwide for the Hannah Arendt Special Edition presented by the International Human Rights Art Movement in Manhattan, New York.Save the Children

THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS—WHO REALLY WON

by Gordon Gilbert

“There is, after all, baseball, in which time has its function, but does not rule.” —Bill Mayer, “National Pastime”

                                                                                                

 

It's the bottom of the 9th, two outs. 

The home team has yet to score, because the fix is in. 

The SCOTUS umpire is calling close balls as strikes. 

Nonetheless, the hometown pitchers have been outstanding. 

They have kept it close: only down by one run. 

 

Many are still hopeful, though some of the crowd,

anticipating another loss, have already begun heading to the exits. 

But then Mamdani swings at the first pitch, a head-high fastball 

down the middle, and lines a single! 

 

The hometown crowd roars, and those about to exit, 

but still inside the stadium, begin returning to their seats.

 

All hope now rests on the hometown hero, 

that old guy still on the roster, 

brought in to pinch hit.

 

As he slowly walks up to the plate, they chant:

Bernie! Bernie! Bernie! 

 

The first pitch is just outside. 

"Strike!" says the ump. 

Boos and curses from the stands.

Bernie glares at the pitcher, pounding the plate with his bat. 

Second pitch, high and inside. 

"Stee-rike!" 

Boos and curses louder than before.

Bernie looks back at the crooked ump, shaking his head. 

 

The pitcher delivers. 

It's at his ankles and outside, 

but Bernie swings down and lifts the ball high in the air. 

 

He lowers his bat and stands there, 

watching, as the ball soars into the stands. 

 

Then, as the crowd roars, Bernie trots around the bases, 

and tips his hat to the fans as he heads home.

 

Take a bow, Bernie, it was you who did it!

 

That's what we love about the game: 

 

It aint over till it’s over! 

Gordon Gilbert is a writer who lives in NYC's west village. He enjoys long walks along the Hudson River, finding much solace there during the pandemic. Afte years of almost daily bad news, he shares enormous relief with many of his fellow New Yorkers, hopes realized in the Midterms. He feels it's time now to give credit where credit is due. 

THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

by Steven Kent

Cartoon by Clay Jones

Stephen Miller, Trump's incoming Chief of Staff, pledges 'total devotion' to the president —The Guardian, November 7, 2026

Replace his Chief of Staff? I guess he's got to—

Hey, why not one whose vibe is Nosferatu?

Trump's logic is, at times, a touch elliptic;

For his part, Stephen Miller's coldly crypt-ic.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, The Asses of Parnassus, Blue Unicorn, The Dirigible Balloon, The Hypertexts, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, The New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, Well Met, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last(2025) are published by Kelsay Books.

ELECTION YEAR

by Sally Mills

Every so many years—sometimes 

decades—the giant blocking

the exit rolls

over, stretches. Or gets 

careless and leaves his spectacles

on top of his head, wanders in circles

in search. Or reads something in the paper

that angers him so, seizes 

his club, strikes

the floor with such force, the whole 

cave shudders. 

That’s when 

you make your move, your 

escape. 

You and your men

and women. Because you made 

a plan, you stood

in a line and waited 

and now, your moment 

has arrived: At last,

you step out from 

darkness into sun 

and so much

air and sea. 

You have almost forgotten how

to speak.

Sally Mills is a poet and attorney from Downeast Maine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including The New Verse News, The Main Street Rag, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rat’s Ass Review, The Esthetic Apostle, The RavensPerch, Life and Legends, The Prairie Review, and Mobius: The Journal of Social Change.  Her poem “Sunken Angel” was selected for the 2026 Page Gallery Art & Ekphrastic Poetry reading. 

GENOCIDE

by Alan Hardy

In a week when Americans delivered historic wins to Palestinian-American and pro-Palestine candidates in a rebuke of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Israel, unsurprisingly, continued its U.S.-funded genocidal war and apartheid policies in Palestine (American voters were clearly not fooled by Donald Trump’s election-morning announcement about “ending” aid to Israel). In Gaza, Israeli strikes and gunfire killed nearly two dozen Palestinians, including children, and the UN made a dire warning as winter approaches. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers stole Palestinian houses, and the Israeli military forced Palestinians to demolish their own homes. —Zeteo, November 7, 2026

There’s no need for politicians 

to put a stop to their crimes.

They start wars, kill and maim, 

commit genocide, without risk.

So long as there's no end in sight

time forgives them everything.

While they smile their televisual smiles, 

the people turn to discussion of inflation rates,

quickly forget 

their masters' other naughty little tricks.

The evil the government has done doesn't matter

provided it hasn't ended,

and the slaughter of the innocents

becomes just another day in the week

that comes round.

Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school for foreign students (in UK). Poems recently published in Red Poets, Militant Thistles, Outposts, Ink Sweat & Tears, Sideways Magazine, The Candyman's Trumpet, Orbis, Forge Zine, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Alien Buddha, Spillwords, Chewers, Feversofthemind  and others.

GOLDENING

by Ilene Millman

He of the golden hair wished it

out of all the wishes he might have wished.

Feast your eyes on this, he crowed:

 

gold trim along the ceiling, the fireplace,

the sculptured cherubim Midas-ed

like the doorframe itself,

 

gold trophies, urns and vases multiply

on the mantle, monogramed gold coasters

gold paperweights weighting the tables,

 

gold carvings and palm-sized medallions sprinkling

the walls even

in the bathroom, even in the shower.

 

Twenty former presidents, history gilded

by his touch

hang in this hall of mirrors

 

but I wish to enter the myth

at the rarely told part here

where Apollo plays his silver lyre

 

which the no-king fails to hear

Ears like those of a beast. 

So appraised, so it was

 

the long furry ears of a donkey

sprouted either side of his head.

 

Ilene Millman lives in Hillsborough, NJ. She has three children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Millman is a Speech/Language therapist who worked more than 35 years at a  nonprofit school for students who learn differently. She published two games designed to help children with delayed language development. Millman writes poems about memories, mud, music, anything her abiding curiosity grabs onto. Her first poetry book, Adjust Speed to Weather, was published in 2018, and A Jar of Moths, in March, 2024 (Ragged Sky Press). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022 and 2024.

TRANS BALLOT REFERENDA

by Julia Hatch

They're called the Know-it-alls
angry red-faced know-it-alls
bubble-heads filling in bubbles
on paper to restrict the lives of others
based on some version of 
tabloid moral panic that triggers
loaded guns wielded 
by pixel screen 
content providers with
bobbing headed 
faces on luscious blond 
Victoria Secret models
square jawed hunky guys with
sex appeal with flapping lips
and tongues babbling
into big square-screened
condenser microphones; the bigger 
the more convincing to viewers
they use words that trigger them 
into mass destruction of
other people's lives as outsiders
targeted for their vulnerability. 

Julia Hatch is a queer writer and visual artist. She graduated from the University of Utah and has a masters in social work from The University of Michigan. She has worked as a social worker and has written and performed electronic music with dancers, rock musicians, and performance artists. Her art photography has been shown in galleries in Colorado and California. She now writes poetry in Longmont, Colorado. Her work has appeared in As It Ought To Be, Rez Magazine, and The Blue Angel Landing Poetry Review.

UNDER FALLEN PILLARS

by Margaret DeRitter

 

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

 

Margaret DeRitter is the author of the poetry collection Singing Back to the Sirens (Unsolicited Press, 2020), which has been described by Pulitzer-winning poet Diane Seuss as a collection of "achingly beautiful and gutsy poems" that "represent an autobiography of love." DeRitter also co-won the 2018 Celery City Chapbook Contest) for Fly Me to Heaven by Way of New Jersey. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies and has received a Pushcart Prize nomination. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and serves as copy editor and poetry editor of Encore magazine.