THE CIRCUS COMES TO SAN DIEGO

by Steve Rodriguez

September 16, 2026

Someone whispers, the circus is in town.  A dark 
caravan is seen parading down the road. We might expect 
to see trained lions, and the trapeze artist;
death-defiers treading a tightrope balanced high above. 
 
Instead, we are treated to a disappearing act. Sheer scale of magic 
catches everyone by surprise. Scary clowns, wearing olive drab
outfits – complete with black masks, helmets, ICE cool military swag—
pour out of their armored vehicles. Under a big top canopy
 
of blue coastal skies, they form three-ring spectacles
in front of restaurants, Home Depot lots, and apartment complexes. 
Resembling Death Star troopers arriving far too late
for this year’s Comic Con, they begin disappearing humans
 
like strong-armed, Kevlar-vested magicians shoving rabbits 
in and out of a top hat. Citizens observe the action. 
Poof!  Another body vanishes into the transfer portal.
What did these people ever do, a bystander protests?     
 
Murders and rapists, one costumed joker responds, adding
gang member as an afterthought.  Nothing slick about 
these clowns-slash-illusionists. No smooth sleight of hand.
More like a fight card of UFC brawlers employing muscle
 
and well-rehearsed intimidating stares that peek out 
from above the masks. We in the crowd feel helpless,
unable to stop this performance gone horribly awry, 
all the while insisting the ringmaster answer for his debacle.
 
From a distance, however, indeed going all the way back 
to Pennsylvania Avenue, the orange impresario can be heard hawking,
“Step right up and observe the greatest show on earth”
as another human—heart beating like a rabbit—
magically evaporates into thin coastal air.     

Author’s Gloss:

Circus—
1.     a travelling company of acrobats, clowns, and other entertainers which gives performances, typically in a large tent, in a series of different places.
2.     a public scene of frenetic, noisy, or confused activity.

Steve Rodriguez is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer and a retired high school English teacher. He resides in San Diego, CA. His poetry has recently appeared in several local anthologies, as well as The New Verse News and Beatnik Cowboy. One of his poems was recognized at the 2025 National Baseball Poetry Festival.  

BEYOND THE TIPPING POINT

by Tamara Madison

"Climate goals missed, UN says" —The New York Times, September 2, 2026 

Heron so still we do not see him;

then, he opens his wide wings

and glides across the lake's

rippling mirror. 

 

Blue dragonflies skim the surface. 

Beneath the footbridge a turtle 

feasts on the carcass of a carp.

 

A hawk wings low, 

an omen across my path, 

then vanishes into the brush

before I can really see him.

 

Green shadows ring the lake;

at the tips of a tall liquidamber, 

pink leaves rustle 

in late summer wind and I wonder:

 

Can it really be that I and we 

are unworthy of all this beauty?

 

Tamara Madison is the author of the chapbooks “The Belly Remembers” (Pearl Editions) and "Along the Fault Line" (Picture Show Press) and three full-length volumes of poetry: “Wild Domestic” and “Moraine” (Pearl Editions) and "Morpheus Dips His Oar (Sheila-Na-Gig). Her fourth collection, Russian Honeymoon, is expected from Fernwood Press in 2026. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, the Worcester Review, A Year of Being Here, One Art, the Writer’s Almanac, and many other publications. A swimmer, dog lover and native of the southern California desert, she is retired from teaching English and French in a Los Angeles high school.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO THE TOWERS FELL

by Al Ortolani

September 11, 2001 by Ann Telnaes

In twenty-five years

I lost two sets of parents. All four

of my children married happily. My wife

& I traveled to the Blue Mosque, faced Mecca,

Watched the whirling dervishes.

                                  The alignment of planets.

In Athens we took a selfie outside Socrates’s cell.

I retired from caving & mountain climbing,

made peace with the Catholic Church,

almost became a Buddhist like Thomas Merton

almost became a Buddhist. Gave my kayak

                                    to a duck hunter.

Kept my paddle in case I was ever up a creek.

My daughter taught English in Chinatown.

When the Towers collapsed, the school filled

with dust & debris. The children crawled

along the hallway wall to the gymnasium.

My daughter, moving back to Kansas in 2000,

called & called the school on her cellphone,

prayed for the parents rescuing their kids

                                     under the basketball goal.

Since that day we’ve had six grandchildren

added to our family. Two cats have died

& I’ve buried them under the Japanese maple.

                                     I own the same Toyota.

We rescued a dog at the beginning of Covid.

He has grown & been loved & is living

what people call his best life. He has visited

the mountains & the desert & the ocean.

He’s been kicked out of poetry readings

for whining at poorly written lines.

                                      I was told in Spain

that we had an idiot for a president. America,

once the shining light of democracy is an

embarrassment to me. Stupidity in red & white

& blue. NATO rotting. We’ve threatened

Greenland with invasion. Canadians flip us the finger.

Our president renamed the Gulf of Mexico &

Lake Ontario for America & the Kennedy Center

for himself,

                   and & and & and, each American

promised five thousand dollars if his sycophants

were elected in November. The Towers fell

twenty-five years ago, since then we’ve attacked

Iraq & Afghanistan & Venezuela & Iran,

                   our migrants in the streets.

We honor our dead with more dead. Our tears

with Taps. War begets war for generation upon

generation.

                    Someone smart said this.

Saint Peter in his cell. Gandhi making salt.

Mother Teresa in her slums. Chief Joseph

who today will fight no more forever.

Ukraine & Gaza & The National Parks.

There is no god, but God. No death, but Death.

No poem in the streets, but the Rant.

Two of my grandchildren are eligible for service

in the military. I consider a house for them

in Canada near my cousin Tony who fled Nixon

across Lake America in seventy-one. Today,           

                    I tipped the kid on the trash truck

twenty bucks to haul off my dead television

for his supper.

Al Ortolani is a poetry editor for the Chiron Review. His poems have appeared recently in Rattle, One Art, Pithead Chapel, and Muleskinner Journal.  New York Quarterly Books plans to release his poetry collection, American Watercolor, in early 2027.  

OUTBOUND MESSAGE

by Lynne Barnes

Today is National Suicide Prevention Day
and I have spent it oblivious 
to the day’s significance.
Me, of all people.

Today was a long stream of stressful things to tame,
hacked computer—my fault—sheesh,
followed by little things going awry all day—

triangulating with roofers and unhappy neighbors,
treating a caffeine-withdrawal migraine,
scanning the people garden
to make sure I’ve not neglected any roses
in this rainstorm of prosaics.

Now it is evening and I am trying 
to stop reviewing and complaining.

Now I am breathing in that 
medicinal feeling of gratitude.
I am here, not back in my past.
I am overwhelmed 
but I care deeply about life.

Swimming through any rough waters
in my life jacket of gratitude,

I pause now at the end of my 
bumps-in-the-road day, me, a vet,
calling out to you who might be
slipping under the waves—
I love you, I feel you, please

Call 988!

Author’s note: The poem was written on September 10, National Suicide Prevention Day.

Lynne Barnes is a retired psychiatric nurse and librarian from Georgia who has lived in San Francisco since 1969. Her poetry memoir Falling into Flowers (Blue Light Press, 2017) won the 2017 Goodreads Rainbow Award for Best Gay and Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award. One of her ongoing gratitudes is occasionally being an accepted contributor to James Penha’s The New Verse News.

KENNEDY CENTER CLOSING SALE

by Martin Dickinson

i want the music stand

that leonard bernstein used

remembering becketts play i saw

recast the seats from the opera house

set them up in a park in maryland

o maryland my maryland my safe

blue state and we will sing and dance

and to hell with your golden columns

i want oak trees and maples

to surround us instead of plaster

falling from the ceiling as today

the little red italian mice run rampant

i want stravinsky wynton marsalis

itzhak perlman renee fleming

all to myself and placido domingo

on the hillside overlooking great falls

nessun dorma or carmens habanera

or how about alvin ailey dancers

in a park where everyone 

who wants will come for free 

unscrew the doors empty the

parking lots give away all

the snacks from the snack bars

free drinks and for security guards

lifetime pensions send all volunteers

to the royal albert hall and lets

dance on the beach in rehoboth

barefoot and laugh out loud because

everyone in this fair land deserves it

Martin Dickinson has published four collections of poetry. His forthcoming book is in texas, a live oak. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

YOU GOTTA LOVE

by Joey Whitton

after Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”

BBC, September 14, 2026

Here you are handing out PTSD like candy

What parts of you were left in the dog crate that

you stuffed Immigrants in

Who speak only english, have all American children,

Who don't know english, have no one,

Maybe a shopkeeper, a mechanic, a computer whiz

Maybe a housekeeper, a dog sitter, a nursing aide

Maybe a fast food worker, a grocery clerk, a good friend

Maybe a Christian, a Muslim, an atheist, a Jew

Maybe a teacher, a paramedic, a soldier, a leader

Maybe a mother, a father, a brother, a sister

Maybe a child

You gotta learn,

You gotta ask,

You gotta pray,

You gotta love.

Joey Whitton was born on the East Coast, raised on the West Coast, and now lives in the Deep South. Hardcore punk has inspired him for decades. His poetry is forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Double Dutch Magazine and has appeared in Flipside Magazine, Misfit Magazine, Sky Island Journal, Poetry Pacific, The Broken Teacup, Trashlight Press, and BlazeVOX Journal.

JUST LINES

by Billy Easton

The UN General Assembly has voted to replace the traditional world map with one that more accurately reflects the size of Africa… The US was the only nation to vote against it—while there were six abstentions. —BBC, September 5, 2026

My teacher would pull down the whole world—

a big map at the front of the room.

Greenland, at the top, jumped out

as big as Africa.

 

But it’s not. 14 Greenlands fit inside Africa. 

 

So now, one hundred sixty-four of the United Nations voted 

to set the lines right. 

Only one voted NO. 

Because, they said, changing the map 

was superfluous, cognitive justice, 

they want to focus on genuine problems,

take the Gulf of Mexico or Lake Ontario. 

Take Greenland. Take it. 

 

That one country of NO stood to lose 45 percent of their landmass—

on paper.  And Greenland, no longer so huge,

the size of a single African nation—not as desirable 

for groping hands, engorged ego. 

 

So much surface ceded to Africa—in pen and ink.

No reparations checks, just a reality check. 

Imaginations, cognitions unchecked.                                                 

Just lines on a page.

Just                  lines.

 Just. 

Billy Easton took up poetry after retiring to Portugal following decades of organizing for social justice in the USA. He’s published in: Made from Midnight: A Requiem, The Dissident Voice and, forthcoming, Writers Resist.

WASHINGTON COLOSSUS

by Christopher Uhl

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

Now that the Smithsonian is compliant,

Trump has decreed construction of a giant—

A statue of George Washington shall loom above the Mall,

A Washington colossus that will stand three stories tall.

Be careful what you wish for, Trump,

Think of the risk you've taken.

What if that statue, seeing what you've wrought,

Should now awaken?

The president who proudly said, “I cannot tell a lie,”

What would he think as he looked down upon you from the sky?

Those cold stone eyes turn colder still

As they survey your work,

That massive marble foot steps off

Its pedestal with a jerk.

What you’ve done to Washington would fill him with disgust.

He'd travel down the Mall and stomp your ballroom into dust.

After a life-changing amputation, Christopher Uhl discovered that humor is the best prosthetic. His work is forthcoming in Lighten Up Online. 

INCIDENTAL CAPTURE

by Celeste DeSario

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

 

META DATA

Timestamp: 2026-08-28 2:15 EST

Geographical Coordinates: 40.8458° N, 72.8972° W

Direction of Travel: Northbound

Vehicle Make: Ford Escape

Primary Color: American Flag Blue?

License Plate reads: TRACK THIS

 

Driving to Walmart

for a two-dollar pack of sticky notes.

Placing them over the T’s or the K on the plate—

My best defense.

 

And just like that,

The million-dollar system fails.

And I vanish.

 

Or better yet,

I take an alternative route

where no Flocks have yet taken root.

The safer option to being watched,

Photographed.

 

Can I duck a camera

while walking to grab a burger and root beer?

Maybe.

 

If the shutter clicks

and I’m in the background,

I’m an unwilling celebrity,

now in the database

Filed Under:

“Incidental Capture.”

 

You’re not their target

unless you’re an exclusive story.

 

Undocumented.

Dark-skinned.

A headline—

 

 If you’re from Norway.

Or Sweden.

Relax.

 But every tabloid needs an editor.

Who is that sitting at the stationhouse keyboard?

Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through the candid shots?

A chorus of Troopers.

 

Officer Pacheco in Massachusetts,

typing a plate number into the void.

Tracking her

ex-girlfriend.

 

Officer Zahir in Kentucky,

searching for those unposed shots—

The ones that let us glimpse behind the curtain.

Running her fingers through her hair before

turning onto a street

whose name he doesn’t recognize.

 

Officer Klein in Texas

 looking for that Money Shot—

The one where she leans in for a kiss,

The one where she opens his front door with her own key.

       

Click.

Main Street.

 

Click.

Medical Center.

 

Click.

The new lover’s driveway.

 

Do the Troopers have his plate, as well?

 

Or are they tracking Hector?

Our undocumented farm worker?

The one who helps me pick out ripe melons,

carries my bags to my car,

asks about my day.

 

Pinpointing where he lives.

Where he works.

Where he can be apprehended.

Intercepted.

Arrested.

 

Those apples aren’t going to pick themselves, you know.

 

Remember the days

when we could go out into the world

and no one wanted to film us?

 Now Flock is the 21st-century paparazzi,

always watching

Recording

Cataloguing.

 

Once you step outside your door,

Your movements are saved to a hard drive.

A web woven tightly—

no escaping the fingerprint

the timeline of your movement—

one you never asked for and yet…

 

Uploading…

 

           That quick drive to the store—

           A sighting. A hit.

           That walk down the block—

           A capture.

 

            Flock.

      Eliminating crime

      In your neighborhood.

      In your life.

 

     The right to move unhampered,

     the right to exist undetected?

     No longer a given.

     For any of us.

     For all of us.

   Achievement Unlocked: Full Equality

Celeste DeSario writes poetry to process and make sense of life’s events. Her work is featured in The New Verse News, The SportsScribe, The Changing Times, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dissident Voice, and Three-Line Poetry. She lives in Shoreham Village, NY—a town where no Flock cameras have been sighted… yet.

HEIDEGGER'S STOPWATCH

by Zumwalt

AI-generated video created by Nightcafé for The New Verse News

The chief executive of Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology. —The New York Times, September 12, 2026 Sunday dinner in Billings, Montana—
Mr. Smith set fire to four generations
just one day after a quintuple homicide bonfire
in Forest Grove, Oregon
incinerated three generations
and a few terrified pets.

No AI assistance required.

In Lebanon, under de-escalation,
27 dead, 69 wounded in 70 hours.
In Iran, an errant missile
crashed a wedding,
wiping out two children,
destroying and injuring many more.

No AI assistance required.

Iranians compiled open-source data
to create effective targeting handbooks
against American naval positions
while Yemen-based Houthi cells
developed software for
ballistic missiles and guided rockets.

AI assistance required
and provided effectively by Claude AI.

We do our best to teach little Lucas
right and wrong, and how to cross the street.
We put in the hours at jobs that
fray our nerves, and when we feel like
arguing, one of us takes a walk outside
to ensure Lucas never hears us fight.

No AI assistance required.

I read that Jacob Coxon
(previously employed by competitor OpenAI)
left Anthropic and upcoming IPO riches
to tell us that he and colleagues
believe that AI could kill us all
by the end of the decade.

I asked Grok, this Saturday morning,
to fill me in: it tried to reassure me,
telling me such rumors have circulated for years.
"No AI system has wiped out
(or is currently wiping out) humanity."
My shoulders and neck tensed and shuddered.

I scrolled the news on my smartphone.
Anthropic's CEO published 3800 words,
one paragraph about AI curing disease,
the next several dozen paragraphs detailing
some of AI's destructive skills and the CEO's proposals—
steps to slow down AI and apply theoretical safeguards.

Some AI assistance may be required.
Assistance from corporations and world leaders required.

I prayed and remembered my grandmother's words

that God always answers prayers: "yes" or "no" or "maybe."

Sounded like this was a maybe.

Zumwalt’s poetry examines the intersection of identity, instability, and the mechanics of perception. Recent work has appeared or will appear in The New Verse News, Heavy Feather, San Diego Poetry Annual, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Society of Classical Poets, Light, and additional journals.