RAPPROCHMENT

by Lynne Barnes

 

for my old friends and family across the political divide

 

I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,

my inkling sense that you might have been hoodwinked.

I mean this as a bridge, an off-ramp from finger pointing.

This is not a diss or dismissal. It’s a hug across the aisle.

I once lost myself in a group mind in the past,

ignoring flaws and facts, and wondering later 

how could I have let that happen? But,

I found it hard to listen to anyone telling me that

back then.

So I can understand if you can’t hear the love 

in my rapprochement plea, or if you take it 

as an annoying missive filled with superiority.

 

But what if we could talk to each other 

beyond our silos, agree perhaps 

on a Cronkite-like-mediator-angel force

we might all turn to— to mine for truth?

 

As old friends and kin, we care about each other sweetly

beneath the macrospheric pressures weighing on us all.

Let us tap our deeper spirit of belonging together

in higher plane of woven hope, let us try to tame 

that primal pull that aims toward dismissive othering.

We are precious human Americans, hopeful, powerful, 

a force for good in the world. We are a nation of

hard knocks, hellish genocides, crippling inequities

spanning centuries, but we are also brilliant in our

caring-heart warrior spirit bivouacking faithfully

toward that more perfect union inside an imperfect world.

 

Narcissism is a destabilizing force every time it rises.

We must find a way to tame it firmly, kindly,

if we want humanity to survive.

 

Please, let us reach out, hold each other tight

in these fast-moving, precarious days.

Are we on a rocket ship to the moon, 

or are we going down for the third time?

Or are we somewhere in-between?

 

Let us come together in an arena of cool, calm love

and try to figure this out, beyond the bluster,

the name-calling, the violence. 

Let us go deeply into our best selves, 

reach out from our other-hoods 

with civil compassion,

invite and honor

empathic conversation.

We are loving family and dear old friends.

We can do this.

 

Lynne Barnes is a retired psychiatric nurse and librarian who has lived in San Francisco since 1969. Her poetry memoir Falling into Flowers (Blue Light Press, 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award.

SOMETIMES, THE EARTH DOES MOVE

by Joel Savishinsky 

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake hit Wauna, a town near Port Orchard, Tuesday afternoon. Shaking was reported in Seattle, Bremerton, Tacoma, Olympia, and Issaquah, among other cities. —MyNorthwest, September 28, 2026

On the neighborhood listserv that afternoon,

someone posted there had just been

a 4.2 earthquake in the region, and

wanted to know if anyone had felt it.

He hit Reply, and wrote that “my girlfriend

and I were in bed at the time, but

that usually a 4.2 in our room is not

considered newsworthy.” Then he shook

off the impulse, hit Delete, deciding instead

to share this with The New Verse News.

Joel Savishinsky shakes himself awake each morning in Seattle. His poetry and political commentary have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Consequence, Dissident Voice, The New Verse News, and The New York Times. He is the author, most recently, of Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging. In 2027, The Poetry Box will publish his collection Bones Beneath the Plow: Poems on Injustice.

PETE HEGSETH IS TRIED FOR MURDER

by Christine Sikorski

Cartoon by Gary A Huck

for all victims of recent U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific

 
The ghosts of the fishermen and their living wives file in, filling every seat.
The judge, old uncle of a murdered man, enters, pulling on a red jacket. 
The prosecutor, a murdered man’s wife, calls the roll of the 234, the order
in which they will testify, the order in which they died. 
 
The ghosts tell what fell from the skies, each blood-thirsty, exploding surprise, 
tell, too, of their cries for help, answered by more fire. Evidence is presented: 
bomb fragments, charred boards, limbs skimmed from the sea. Hours pass. 
Lunch is served in the corridors. Night comes. Blankets are spread on the floor. 
 
One afternoon, two weeks in, the children enter, hand in hand, take turns 
stepping into the witness box to describe crying mothers, cramping stomachs, 
empty places their fathers used to be. No one sits beside the defendant and, 
because this is a nightmare, no one permits him to speak. 
 
On the last day, a jury of grandmothers finds him guilty. The judge sentences him 
to a solitary life at sea, fishing, his catch to be surrendered daily. The ghosts 
are permitted to toss bombs at him periodically and may almost let him drown. 
But they must haul him up again, place the net back in his hands, this killer 
 
who is so confused about what it means to be a man. 

Christine Sikorski’s work has appeared in The New Verse News, coastlines review, Waterstone, Little Patuxent Review, Quartet, One Art, This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year, and elsewhere. Her honors include a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and Academy of American Poets Prizes. She has taught at two universities, the Loft Literary Center, a homeless shelter, a community center, and other venues. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.

DC CRAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

A dramatic monologue in the voice of Donald Trump

by Pegi Deitz Shea

                              

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

 

 

I don’t care if Lincoln’s nose fell off!

It’s not getting fixed until it’s renamed 

the Trump Lincoln Memorial.

 

And if that damn obelisk cracks again,

it’s not getting another head job until it’s renamed 

the Trump Washington Monument.

And build it bigger because mine is bigger.

 

And the Iwo Jima Memorial—

my hand should be at the top of the flagpole.

 

Hey, ever see the statue in Trump Jefferson Memorial? 

Tom looks like a fairy with that hair.

(They say Sally Hemings was a total hoax.)

Send my stylist, colorist too.

 

That Vietnam Veteran Memorial

is never getting polished again

until my name is on it. You know,

I was itching to fight, but they

said my heel had bone spurs.

 

And what the fuck is that Korean War…thing?

Losers in ponchos marching in the rain?

Nobody remembers Korea.

Give it to Kim Jung Il. 

Now. The Vietnam Girls Veteran Memorial.

Put my face on the wounded soldier,

and make it the nurse’s hand on my crotch, not my own.

Christ! Masturbating in public is unpresidential.

 

Hey, hurry up with my arch

before the Supreme Court catches up!

Pegi Deitz Shea is a two-time winner of the Connecticut Book Award and the President of the CT Council of Poets Laureate. Her new book TiCK TiCK TiCK TiCK is a humorous hybrid of poetry and prose inspired by the author’s ongoing 28+ years of hell with Lyme disease. Her forthcoming novel-in-verse Uncharted: The Odyssey of Jeanne Barret, the First Woman to Circumnavigate the World is due out next month. 

BUCK KLEIN AND THE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

by Dana Yost

CNN, September 28, 2026

Where i grew up,
there was an old man
in a long black coat
and a derby hat.
He slumped, slouched
along streets and
hallways. A church warden,
but not a creep,
though, There to make
sure we kids did the right
thing—that we acted
with decency, respect,
that we cared about
the small town where
we lived. A role model,
if dressed a bit weirdly.
Now, i read about a judge
making threats against
little boys—threatening
to ruin their lives,
to split them from families,
to ship them to countries
where they know no one,
where it’s possible
they will be trafficked
or killed. It’s true.
I’ve read the courthouse
transcripts. This time,
creep is the right word.
I think about the class
I took my freshman
year in college: a study
of the Nazi regime,
the guts of it,
how men became
desensitiezed to the plight
of others, how the lives
of others became
as disposable as my
mother’s empty lighter.
Have we slid into
that sort of nation,
letting judges tell 
kids they have the power
to destroy them? 
The old man in the long
coat of my childhood
would gather
children, give them
shovels and hoes,
have them clean
a patch of weedy
sidewalk, scrape bird
shit off the side of the church.
We’d know it was the right
thing to do: to make the place
look better, because
it was our home.
He spoke gently to us,
but he’d take this judge
in Texas by the throat,
push him to his knees
and say, here,
pull the weeds from the cracks
of the sidewalk, leave
the children alone.
Is that true?
or is it what I want
to be true?
Let’s say it’s both,
Let’s say there is still
some adult who cares
about morality,
the moral high ground
in this country of fast money 
and power-grubbers,
and if that sounds
preachy, then I guess
it does. His name
was Buck Klein
it was it was
it was. Maybe I’ll
drive to Texas
and start a spray-painting
campaign on the bridges
and roads and sides
of courthouses:
Buck Klein lives,
he does, he does,
and judges who do not
know this should
lose their jobs,
should be sentenced
to 40 days on a playground,
learning to care
what becomes
of the children.

Dana Yost is a former daily newspaper editor and writer. He has had 10 books published since 2008 and is a three-time Pushcart nominee. He lives in Sioux Falls, S.D., trying to stay blue in a very red state.

SHELLS

by Sam Friedman

AP, October 1, 2026

On this first day of fall,

my 84-year-old body totters

on my afternoon walk.

Acorns litter the street,

and a shattered shell lands

beside me,

straight from a gray squirrel’s mouth.

 

I think of my dear friends

Ania and Pasha

many thousands of miles

east of that sated squirrel,

east of that shattered shell,

 

and I hope and I pray

no shells land beside them

straight from a Russian drone’s mouth.

Sam Friedman is a poet, activist, and public health researcher. He has published two books of poetry and poems in a variety of magazines.

CORNELL

by L. Roger Owens

ID 49525974 ©Chengusf | Dreamstime.com

Would it have made her day
easier, the day she scrolled Instagram
during Chem II, during lunch, during
AP Lang, during band, the day she read
the news of a gang rape two years ago,
would she have been prepared had we
sat her down—and at what age, 3, 7, 13?—
and told her of men who do not consider
her body her own, of men who fly planes
into towers, of men who tie bombs
to railroad tracks, of powerful men
who launch missiles into girls schools,
of men who believe her body to be
the plane, the towers, the train, the school
and her life potential charred debris
to be forgotten amidst their boasting?
But she already knew of these men,
the Epsteins, Weinsteins, the boys
sitting next to her in class who
might grow into them. And she wasn’t
prepared—how could she have been?
As I tucked her in that night, she said,
“I hate school,” said, “I want to go home,”
and of course she was home.
But I knew what she meant.

 
L. Roger Owens teaches spirituality, ministry, and creative writing at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is an MFA student at Ashland University.

IF WE TALKED ABOUT MEN THE WAY WE TALK ABOUT PIT BULLS

a found poem 

by Beth Winegarner

Nearly two weeks after a brutal dog attack in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, Amber King said she is still coping with the physical and emotional trauma of the incident while beginning a long recovery process… King recalled yelling for help as a pit bull pinned her down and attacked her for 10 to 15 minutes before police arrived. —KGO, September 22, 2026

Once it tasted blood

it may have been difficult to handle.

When raised in loving and stable homes, 

they can be incredibly gentle, affectionate, 

and loyal companions. 

Being laser-focused on the target 

until it is dead or they are dead 

is literally what they were bred for.

Luckily, they are very responsive to training 

and eager to please.

Mauling is hardwired 

in their DNA.

I have one. He’s big, neutered as well. 

I didn’t train him to be vicious,

and he mostly stays at home

with my elderly mom. 

They get along well.

Grew up with “friendly” ones. 

They are absolute powder kegs.

The worst thing to do 

is run away or scream in panic.

This only triggers the prey drive.

Avoid them all the time 

is the only way you can be sure 

you're not going to get attacked. 

Sterilize all of them.

I have met so many 

friendly ones in my time.

They didn't seem aggressive 

until it was too late.

Author’s note: The poem was found from online comments regarding dogs attacking humans and in forums about pit bulls. It was written in light of the news of the "Cornell 7" and of dog attacks like that recently in San Francisco.

Beth Winegarner is an award-winning journalist, author, essayist and pop culture critic who’s contributed to the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and many others. She is the author of several books, most recently San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History. She is the co-host of the Dead Reckoning podcast with Courtney Minick of Here Lies a Story, and the creator of the San Francisco Magdalen Asylum names project.

TORTURED

by Zumwalt

Christa Pike's lawyers shared a statement after her botched execution. "Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," the attorneys said. "We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy. "Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital," they said. "We have not been informed as to her condition." —The Tennessean, September 30, 2026. See also The New York Times and The Guardian.

A mouse isn't much
so I threw it away
and replaced it with another.

I don't suppose dropping it
did it any good.

Or the time I threw it at the wall,
that day the county said Spike
should be put down, not locked away—
put away for good.

I don't have the technical skill
to fix a mouse. I just discard them.

Recently, I read about AI bots going rogue.
People smarter than me don't toss them out.
They just study what went wrong,
make them better if they can.

I wouldn't be so forgiving.
I would terminate immediately.

I can relate to Governor Lee
denying clemency to a woman
who clearly malfunctioned.

Too many issues. Her mom pickling
the brain of an embryo that malformed
into a poisoned fetus evicted
from the womb as a sabotaged Christa

beaten, abused as a toddler,
padlocked in a chicken coop with armies of spiders,
a pre-schooler forced to perform blowjobs

struck and tortured by her father,
her mother's boyfriends,

raped at eleven, bouncing between
schools, homes, cities, states,

interspersed with moments shared
with a half-decent grandma
killed off by cancer,

a corpse abandoning a preteen;

a child with common sense beyond her years
seeking relief through a Tylenol overdose

quickly agreed on by experts as planned suicide—
since who cries for help when there is none?

Zumwalt’s poetry examines the intersection of identity, instability, and the mechanics of perception. Recent work has appeared in The New Verse News and Eunoia Review.