PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENT FOR MR. B.

by Steven Ratiner

 

“The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet.  Let me tell you why. Because it’s a measure of its relevance.  If people won’t pay for our product, it’s not a good enough product.  It would be like poetry without rhyming, it’s too easy.” ––Jeff Bezos in an interview on CNBC reported by The New York Times, May 20, 2026

 

Too easy without rhyme?  Mr. B., I have news for you:

you’ve no understanding of the time that goes into

educating the tongue, cultivating the heart, so that words

might fly true to their destination, bearing the hard

 

truth of what’s required to be an actual human being in

our rancid/gilded age––where suffering’s a commodity

on the Stock Exchange, and all it takes is a few billion

in reserve to live gloriously without a thimbleful of pity

 

or the tonnage of regret.  News flash: your yacht’s run aground

on Circe’s island, as you quaff down cup after cup of kykeon

laced with nightshade, turning into swine along with your crew.

Ithaka can burn for all you care.  There’s no damned hope for you.

 

For what (another old poem) profit a man who gains the world but

loses his soul?  Such unspeakable waste.  What rhymes with that?

 

Steven Ratiner is the author of Grief's Apostrophe, published by Beltway Editions in 2025. He's also published three poetry chapbooks, a collection of poetry interviews, and appeared in several anthologies. His work has appeared in scores of journals in America and abroad, including Parnassus, Agni, Hanging Loose, Poet Lore, Salamander, Vox Populi, QRLS (Singapore), and Poetry Australia––and been translated into Mandarin, Spanish, Ukrainian, and Hebrew. He's also written poetry criticism for The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other journals.  Giving Their Word—Conversations with Contemporary Poets was reissued in a paperback edition (University of Massachusetts Press).  He is Poet Laureate Emeritus for Arlington, Massachusetts, and was elected in 2024 as President of the New England Poetry Club, one of the oldest literary associations in America. Now, beginning its seventh year, his weekly Red Letter Poems features a diverse range of poets, from up-and-coming talents to some of the most important voices in contemporary poetry.

SHADES OF AI AND ALTRUISM

by Ashley Nicole Nootnagel

Technology Instagram

A California jury has tossed out Elon Musk's high-profile lawsuit against OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman. In a unanimous verdict, the jury agreed that Musk had waited too long to file his lawsuit, leaving all of his claims essentially expired. —BBC, May 19, 2026


The peerless archer stands in shaded wood
in Lincoln green beneath a feather cap.
We gather for a modern Robin Hood
who waits with patience for the gold to stack.

Full pockets split the seams of charity,
while our children’s pictures feed the machine.
Funded by his own foolishness. Pity.
Olive tights were traded for minted green.

Can three billionaires fit in one courtroom?
The ballad threads were never camouflage.
When all wear custom suits we can’t assume
which man is sheriff and which is outlaw.

Sherwood is lost in a shade of envy,
one model fits both men and company.


Ashley Nicole Nootnagel lives in Virginia and has a B.S. in Criminal Justice & Sociology from Old Dominion University. She works in human resources and is raising a daughter and two Australian Shepherds. 

AND YOU, WHAT DO YOU NEED?

by Janet Ruth

after Mary Oishi’s poem “I Need Poems”

 

These days I need the sun,
            because it gives us light,
            whether blazing, or watery,
            or obscured by clouds,
and the words to share it with you.

These days I need the moon,
            because it’s a reflection of light,
            whether new & invisible, or waxing,
            or waning, or full,
and the words to share it with you.

These days I need all the flowers,
            because they each provide food
            for some creature and our hearts,
            whether tiny prickly flowers of tumbleweed
            or galaxies of sunflowers,
and the words to share them with you.

These days I need all the world’s creatures
            because if they disappear none of us will ever
            be the same, whether the tiger that padded past
            our jeep in India without a glance, or the black widow
            spider spinning a web by our back door,
and the words to share them with you.

These days I need all the recipes I can collect
            because they feed us, whether my ancestors’
            pfeffernuessen and kringel, sauerkraut and pickled eggs
            or my adopted state’s tamales, posole and biscochitos,
and the words to share them with you.

These days I need all the stories of standing up to say NO!
            because they show us the way
            and the price we must be willing to pay,
            whether Dad’s stories of being
            a conscientious objector in WWII
            or people today carrying signs that say “No Kings,”
and the words to share them with you.

These days I need all of your hearts,
            whether bruised and broken,
            or fibrillating, or full of joy,
            to hold them up to the light with words,
            because they are
                        the heartBEAT            heartBEAT
                                                heartBEAT
            of the real America.

  

Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist and poet. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Ekphrastic Review, The Lyric and anthologies including The Nature of Our Times (Paloma Press, 2025). Her sonnet “A World That Shimmers” won the inaugural True Concord Poetry Contest, was set to music and performed by True Concord Voices and Orchestra in Tucson, October 2023. Her book,Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. 

MYTHOS AT COMMENCEMENT

by David Anson Lee

Eric Schmidt stood at the stage
like someone introducing age.
He praised A.I.’s unfolding reign.
The graduates booed him just the same.

“You are the future,” Schmidt proclaimed.
The students looked professionally ashamed.
“Machines will free you for new dreams!”
A voice cried out, “They killed internships.”

The billionaires call this “transition,”
their favorite synonym for incision.
At Citadel, whole teams were gone:
outperformed between dusk and dawn.

At Stanford now the freshmen pray
their essays still sound human-made.
The honor code grows frail and thin
when every prompt begins with Begin.

The parents clap. The provost beams.
The deans keep monetizing dreams.
Meanwhile Mythos scans the wire
like scripture crossed with hellfire.

It reads the grid for sport alone,
finds ancient flaws in backbone stone;
then Anthropic, careful, grave,
explains restriction keeps us safe.

Translation: banks and states may peek
while everyone refreshes LinkedIn weekly.
The students boo because they know
the future doesn’t need payroll.

And somewhere in refrigerated light
the servers bloom all through the night,
teaching silicon to replace
the species that designed its face.

David Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet from Texas whose work explores medicine, technology, public life, and cultural memory. His poems have appeared in journals including Right Hand Pointing, Eunoia Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Braided Way.

DETROIT DISPATCH

by James Schwartz

Among the declassified documents dump

Via War.gov/UFO,

A curious 1955 communication 

Between the feds and 

Detroit Flying Saucer Club,

Transmitting messages 

From extraterrestrials,

Calling humanity 

"Left behind" and

"The lowest life form of

Universal existence"

Which our current 

News cycle confirms.

James Schwartz is a Detroit based poet and author of various poetry collections, most recently Amish Alchemy (Alien Buddha Press, 2026) and Poems (with Sourav Sarkar, 2026).

JANUARY 6 SLUSH FUND LIMERICKS

by Paul A. Freeman

 

 

Cartoon by Clay Jones

DOJ official told GOP ally that big payouts were coming for Jan. 6 defendants: Months before the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was announced, Ed Martin predicted Capitol rioters would get millions, even if it took until 2028, two people told NBC News. May 20, 2026

 

 

They climbed up to Capitol Hill,

Mike Pence they were going to kill;

and now, for their crime,

’gainst reason or rhyme,

their pockets they’re hoping to fill.

 

The criminals of January six,

are getting a monetary fix.

Yet women abused

and sorely misused

by Epstein and friends still get nix.

 

Paul A. Freeman is the author of The Movement, a dystopia-Americana novel set in a future United States of America. The book is available from Amazon as an ebook download and as a paperback. His first book, Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel taught at ‘O’ level in Zimbabwean high schools, was also translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul Freeman is the author of numerous published short stories, poems, plays and articles.

NEVER LOOK A GRIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH

by Steven Kent

Nigel Farage has provided a new explanation for why he accepted a £5m gift from a Reform UK donor in the weeks before he announced he would stand in the last general election. In an interview on Thursday, Farage said the money was a “reward” for campaigning for Brexit. Previously, he had said the gift was given for security purposes, to keep him “safe and secure” for the rest of his life. —The Guardian, May 14, 2026

Concerning gifts,

The story shifts:

Security?

A Brexit fee?

Such camouflage

Befits Farage,

Who claimed, when caught,

I can't be bought.

With this much dosh,

His brag is bosh.

It's not a bribe?

Sure has that vibe!

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

CANVASSING

by Mark Williams

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

If a man’s home is his castle,

he reluctantly lowered his drawbridge. “Is she

a Democrat or Republican?” he asked us.

 

Manicured lawns, foot-high grass.

Porches with fishing rods, feral cats.

“She had three litters before she was fixed.”

 

A woman on oxygen. A man with a cane.

A woman using a walker

who agreed to put up a yard sign.

 

“I always vote Republican.”

“I vote straight Democrat.”

“I’m not registered.”

 

We were offered water, beer;

given thanks, directions, advice,

even hand-wipes. We learned

 

of dogs who’d been rescued, the price

of a condemned house. One woman’s grandson

is studying classic literature in Italy.

 

As for the king of his castle, he said,

nay, shouted, “Get off my land!” which,

as far as he was concerned,

 

wasn’t made for some of you and me.

Mark Williams's poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, as well as The Southern Review, ONE ART: a literary journal, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of the collections, Carrying On and Life. He and his wife, DeeGee, live and canvas in Evansville, Indiana. 

DO THEY KNOW?

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

My nature app is as baffled as I

Along the upland trail

Above Rock Creek

In the wild wooded heart of Washington, DC

 

The forest floor is mantled in unfamiliar green

Paired leaves with parallel veins

An emerald carpet, enigmatic

Until recognition dawns

Sprouts of American beech, thousands

Are gathered in ritual circles

Around the smooth gray trunks of their parent trees

Who rise from the earth like standing stones

A menace is advancing

In the wake of chestnut blight

Dutch elm disease, woolly adelgid

And emerald ash borer, marching toward the capital

Beech leaf disease, as determined as Civil War General Jubal Early,

Not quite present yet but promising a deadly campaign

Could it be the Rock Creek Park beeches got word through a signal corps

Beyond our understanding, with news traveling by root or forest atmosphere? 

If only we had known what was coming for us

And thrown down our own green gauntlet

Melanie Choukas-Bradley lives in the beautiful yet besieged capital city of Washington, DC. She is the author of  City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park and Wild Walking. Many of her poems have appeared in The New Verse News.

CONSTRUCTIONS

by Tricia Knoll

AI video created by Nightcafé for The New Verse News.

Bowerbirds do it. Paper wasps. The beaver’s mound accessible from under water.  Such a soft spot we hold for nest builders, from weavings to cups and knot-hole drillers. My two grandsons built two forts of fallen limbs leaned up against beech tree trunks. I can stand up in the bigger one to admire the couch dragged into one corner, a broken log. In the hands of the ultra-rich, the opposable thumb demands grandiose. Outrageous and expensive. Palaces. A home with its own power plant. Walled compounds. Cliff-top villas. Gilded mansions. Subject to the whims of time, rot, fire, and penury. Shelley on the narcissist’s build: “Nothing besides remains.” Prince Prospero’s ballroom could not withstand the contagion of the red death. Vanity and striving after the wind. What happened to the angel who saved three men who refused to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue. She chastised the sneer of cold command known as retribution. The artifice of blue-tinged pools. As for the Arch, what words carved there would memorialize war, lies, inflation, tears of the hungry, sick and veterans betrayed. Good people disappeared. Such lone and level sands stretch far away. 

Most poets have memorized many of their favorite poems. Tricia Knoll is sort of stuck with Shelley's Ozymandias. In recent months she has moved from free verse to prose poetry. Her chapbook The Unknown Daughter was a finalist in the 2025 New England Poetry Club Chapbook contest. Wild Apples details downsizing and moving 3,000 miles from Oregon to Vermont. She is a Contributing Editor to Verse Virtual.

NO KINGS

by Joan Gerstein

I painted two-foot high NO KINGS

in bold block letters on my blue fence

Months later   it remains unmolested

Months later   gas is $6.00 a gallon

Months later   Trump doesn’t know how to end wars he started

Months later   Trump rants senile threats and insults

On a busy street   my fence remains unmarred

Months later   Trump insults the Pope 

Months later   Trump posts a picture of himself as Jesus

Months later   Trump controls the Supreme Court 

In this Marine Corps city no one defaces my fence

Months later   Trump defies lower courts 

Months later   Trump strong-arms Republican lawmakers

Months later   Trump empties our treasury 

Months later   Trump demands effigies of himself on everything

and enriches his personal wealth through corruption  greed   lying

No one disfigures my fence in this conservative-leaning metropolis

because my message is meh     NO KINGS

I wish I had the guts to write     Dethrone the evil   vile   *$#)V&!

Joan Gerstein, a retired educator and therapist, teaches creative writing to incarcerated veterans. And, yes, at 78 she was up and down the ladder.

INHUMANE, CRUEL, UNACCEPTABLE

State inspectors reviewed seven immigration detention facilities across California, including the recently opened California City detention facility in Kern County. Attorney General Rob Bonta said overcrowding and staffing shortages are creating dangerous conditions. “They are running these facilities with inhumane, cruel, and unacceptable conditions,” Bonta said.

The report documents allegations at several facilities, including delayed medical care, overcrowding, unsanitary living conditions, lack of clean drinking water and excessive use of force.

Investigators also reported six detainee deaths between September 2025 and March 2026, the highest number since California began conducting inspections in 2017.

At the California City facility, detainees described extremely cold conditions, leaking cells during rainstorms, and inadequate clothing. In April, Giovanni Gomez, a friend of a detainee held at the California City detention center, described what he said his friend experienced during transport to the facility. “She said that when she got captured, and they moved her from Bakersfield to the facility, they just put some chains in her feet, and then in her hands, and they put them in the cold room,” Gomez said.

State officials also said that, despite claims the crackdown targets violent criminals, many detainees reviewed during inspections had little or no criminal history.

—BakersfieldNow (KBAK), May 15, 2026

Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations. Since writing her first poem at age 73, she has been published well over 100 times. Having now achieved 84 years on this planet, she appreciates leisure to delight in its gifts, as well as time to grieve its desecration. Her second chapbook, Seasonings (Kelsay Books), was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her third book, Well Seasoned (The Poetry Box) has recently been published.  She lives in Raleigh, NC

Ralph La Rosa has published prose on major American writers, including Emerson and Thoreau, and has placed short fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film scripts. These days, he mostly writes poetry, appearing on the Internet, in print journals and anthologies. His books include the chapbook Sonnet Stanzas and full-length Ghost Trees and My Miscellaneous Muse. And he loves The New Verse News!

NOMENCLATURE

by Frank Conahan

Art by Michael Kline

I read today that

The disease formerly known 

As "Polycystic

"Ovary syndrome," (or as

POCS), was

Renamed "Polyendocrine

Ovary syndrome,"

(Or as POMS). The

New name, which is more

"Accurate," according to

The article, ought

To bolster research because,

Presumably, if

You call things by the right name, 

They'll yield to you.

I'm supportive but wonder

If calling things the

Right name really helps any.

Our problem doesn't 

Seem to be what we call things

As much as what we

Do with the stuff afterwards;

Guns, for example,

Or other people's secrets.

But this is research. 

Surely we know how to use

Language in science…

Dr. Frank Conahan lives in reclusive retirement outside of Baltimore, Maryland. He follows current events with trepidation and copes by writing verse. He has recently published poems with "Bards of Maryland." His collection Nothing Is Coming was published in April.

THE SIREN SONG OF TRUTH

by Robin Stevens Payes

Believe women. Believe girls.

The women, the girls know.
Our story ancient. Our voices new.

They make us believe
The crime is our fault.
Men take our bodies,
Unable to resist the siren
Song of our bodies.

The song of our bodies
Does not belong to us.
Girls whom men called sirens,
Children wounded into silence,
Sing their bodies.

Sing their truths aloud.
Strongmen claim they are victims
Of the song of our bodies.
Weak men whose bodies
Are out of control.

Bodies anatomically ungoverned.
Bluster out of control.
Vanquishing other bodies—
Seas, straits, oil fields,
Mines, minds.

Strap yourselves tighter to the mast.
Now the bindings break.
Your strength offers no protection
Against the siren song of Truth.
The women. The girls. Know.

Mother Earth sings Her body,
Raped by weak men
Whose strength is measured
In violence. Did their mothers
Teach them this was fair game?

We sing our truths aloud,
Sirens flashing red:
Pull over now. Stop raping
Our minds, our bodies,
Our mothers, our daughters.

Ourselves. Loudly we sing
Our bodies to wholeness.
Weak men are broken,
No fault of ours.
Blame your wounds, not our anatomy.

Our siren song strengthens.
Our story ancient.
Our voices new.

Believe us.

Robin Stevens Payes is a Pushcart Prize–nominated poet, storyteller, and cultural steward whose work braids ancestral memory, science, myth, and moral imagination. She is the author of the YA time-travel adventure series Edge of Yesterday and creator of [re]member the world, a multi-genre project retrieving and reweaving the silenced history of her grandmother’s flight from Ukraine’s Pale of Settlement. Her poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, Dawn Horizons, East Sea Bards, Maryland Bards, Poetry Reviews, and Reflections. She writes about creative ethics, generational healing, and cultural repair on her Substack, Releasing Memory.