10 OCTOBER 2026 VERNACULAR

by Joe Couture

Furnace oil’s 2.20 a litre ‘nd the world’s gettin’ colder ‘nd it’s ‘neath the thumb uva megalomaniac paedo, so ya try ta escape in this mind-numbin’ screen ‘nd the first thing ya read—after bombs, gena-cide, ‘nd stocks—is another plague, ‘nd a headline ‘bout seven over-privileged rapists, somethin’ ‘bout an arsehole who spells Megan with a y, ‘nd the US is murderin’ some guy they'd trained ta kill others ‘nd they’re goin’ ta do it livestream, which isn’t at all surprisin’, ‘nd oil’s 2.20 a litre ‘nd risin’, ‘nd soon it’ll be cold inside, ‘nd my hometown was busted before this, so I wonder how many kids who talk like mine’ll freeze this holiday season.

Joe Couture lives in rural Nova Scotia. He is the author of work published in NYU's Washington Square Review, The Gorko Gazette, Mad Swirl, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2027.

REPLAY

by Shawn Aveningo Sanders

by Irochka at Dreamstime

I woke up this morning clawing

and writhing—sheets tangled

like arms that held me down. 

I hate it when I wake up this way:

on my back. 

But the news of the Cornell 7

had seeped into my sleep. The dream

a surreal game of Spin the Bottle.

I was the bottle. 

Dizzied, it was all Greek to me.

I try to shrug it off, smoothing

out sheets and brushing my teeth

like any other morning. 

How’d you sleep? my husband asks. 

I am not in the mood to swap dreams. 

We watch Klepper and Kimmel

make jokes on more palatable topics:

Trump’s rebranding of Intelligence,

an inept senator’s show-n-tell,

a loveable Mexican sidekick learning

to dance like a star. I’m grateful

Jane Doe isn’t spun into punchlines,

her story too close to my own

(and why I was afraid to report it).

At nineteen, the joke was on me

that night I learned how brotherhood

is a bond stronger than a conscience. 

Editor’s note: The New Verse News is honored to continue to host, in the wake of the news at Cornell, a series of courageous memoir poems.

Shawn Aveningo Sanders shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon, running The Poetry Box press. Her poems have recently appeared in Rattle, ONE ART, contemporary haibun online, Sheila-Na-Gig, Jackdaw Review, Gyroscope Review, and the award-winning anthology, Love Is for All of Us. Shawn is a multiple Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Touchstone Award nominee and has won prizes from the Oregon Poetry Association. Her newest book Pockets (MoonPath Press) was a finalist in Concrete Wolf’s Chapbook Contest. When not writing, find her shopping for a new pair of red shoes or toy dinosaurs for her granddaughter,

UNRELENTING OCTOBER BLUES

by Chris Vola

I keep forgetting that this week 

is New York Comic Con  

 

earlier today I was walking down 10th Ave

chain-ripping the weed pen 

I turned onto 33rd St

& almost collided with a posse  

of axe and bow-wielding barbarians: 

fur-covered shoulder pads

leather arm bands

blood-splattered warrior tunics

white & blue face paint

one of them slugging an energy drink

 

they looked across the avenue 

& began making these terrible shrieks 

like werewolves in group therapy 

 

a pair of Roman legionnaires 

were marching toward us on the crosswalk

shields strapped to backs 

spears out & ready

they were flanked by a blaster-carrying Stormtrooper

a 6-foot-6 foxlike critter with big Looney Tunes eyes 

an anime version of Supergirl

some kind of elf/wizard hybrid with blue skin

& a tentacle monster 

wearing a see-through plastic rain jacket

 

the barbarians kept screaming

 

I stepped back as the groups converged

anticipating carnage         

but everyone just started hugging

& fist/paw bumping

the screams turned to giggles 

Supergirl took a flask & a vape out of her skirt

& they passed them around 

weapons & appendages gleaming 

in the sunlight

reflected by the skyscrapers

 

it was beautiful

 

& all I could think was…

wow

I’d somehow traveled the multiverse 

to its best possible outcome

where creatures 

from every fantastic realm & epoch 

were not only real

but could also co-exist 

in love & degeneracy 

 

then the crosswalk light changed 

& a Cybertruck veered out of traffic toward the curb

aiming to park in the space 

where the elf/wizard & tentacle monster 

were standing 

 

a pudgy guy with neck tats

& a police-friendly American flag 

trucker hat 

poked his head 

out of the passenger side window 

& shouted

“get outta the street 

ya FAWKIN GOOFS”

 

& they did 

 

there were no pithy comebacks

no volley of arrows or spears 

or laser blasts 

into the side of the truck 

or its occupants’ skulls

no threats of disembowelment 

or tentacle choke-outs 

or oaths of revenge 

just a collective look of sheepishness

& defeat

that was so complete I had to turn my attention

farther down the block 

where a skeletal woman 

in a Knicks t-shirt 

was puking hot dog guts 

into a trash can

next to 3 teenagers recording themselves

dancing like seizuring flamingos 

 

I continued walking

took a big rip from the pen

reminding myself that this is it

this is all we get 

 

this is my Roman Empire 

Chris Vola is the author of 11 books, including the poetry collections You're Going to Hate the New Apartment (Alien Buddha) and E is for Ether (Leaf Garden Press). His poems appear in places like Maudlin House, Main Street Rag, scaffold, Rat's Ass Review, New Pop Lit, and Neologism Poetry Journal. He lives in New York. 

CHRISTA PIKE GAINS CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVA MARIE SAINT DIES

by Alex Stolis

I want to believe these two things

are not related. Want to believe Christa 

was reliving what she had done. 

I want to believe Eva believed 

she was dreaming. Was on a train—

Cary Grant reaching for her hand. 

I want to believe they both saw 

the same white light, felt the same

magnetic tug. 

I believe in science—the brain 

an electrical circuit of neurons 

triggering images. 

Trees lose chlorophyll. Leaves turn,

fall. Ground freezes then hardens 

as earth tilts away from the sun. 

Still, it’s nice to think they passed 

each other—a flicker of knowing

what each of them lost. 

Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections, Pop. 1280 and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Ekphrastic Review, Louisiana Literature Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife was released by Louisiana Literature Press, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres in by Bottlecap Press. He lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.

LIVE EXECUTION LIMERICK

by Paul A. Freeman

Cartoon by Gary A. Huck

December! We are gonna see a

livestreamed execution; ’twill be a

more obvious sign,

of US decline—

behaving more like North Korea.

 

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 debut 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. He works and resides in Mauritania, Africa.

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN

by Steven Kent

The Guardian, October 7, 2026

Imagine all the crony moola

I'll acquire when I beat Lula.

Got to get the courts controlled here;

That's a bill of goods I've sold here. 

Right away I'll pardon father.

Legal channels? Yeah... why bother?

Democracy is what we're after—

Yanqui, you've no room for laughter!

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.

THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL

by Indran Amirthanayagam 

I throw up my hands. I cannot 

understand how half the country 

votes for stepping off the cliff 

of righteousness, the rule 

of law, protection of the weak 

and the other; how so many 

can see only belly button,

door lock, money swirling

on line, quick payments 

and the roaring feijoada, 

caipirinhas flowing 

and no more focus

on that favela up the hill.

Pied Piper and the Bible,

holiness and the puritan’s

American dream, wealth 

equals God’s blessing,

but aren’t we in Brazil…

the evangelical globalized,

localized, homogenized, 

two frontier myths become one, 

the United States of Brazil,

at least half the residents

singing hymns, marching 

to the sea to build beach-

front property, marching 

to the forest to burn it down.

Indran Amirthanayagam received Sri Lanka's State Literary Award for White Space Sonnets.  He won the Paterson Poetry Prize for The Elephants of Reckoning. His Lettre aux residents du monde is forthcoming from L'Harmattan. Amirthanayagam edits Beltway Poetry <www.beltwaypoetry.com>publishes at Beltway Editions >www.beltwayeditions.com>. He writes indranmx.substack.com

PATRIOT

 by A.M. Silvestri

“They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take—Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” 

Graphic generated by AI; words generated by DJT.

There was a time

I knew what the word meant.

A flag on a porch.

A hand over the heart.

A uniform folded away

after the wearing was done.

Patriot.

It was not a threat.

It did not need to be shouted.

It did not belong

to one man.

Now the word comes dressed

in red hats and anger,

printed across shirts

beside the face of a politician,

as though love of country

required love of him.

And the flag follows.

From truck beds,

from rally stages,

from poles crowded

with the name of a man

above the name of a nation.

Until sometimes

I hesitate to raise mine.

Imagine that.

An American

made uncertain of his own flag

because someone else

has wrapped himself in it.

Then I heard a president say,

Let them take out Los Angeles.

Let them take out San Diego.

I heard those words

and looked at my flag.

Fifty stars.

Not red states.

Not blue states.

States.

Los Angeles is ours.

San Diego is ours.

Detroit is ours.

The small town.

The crowded city.

The farmhouse at the end of the road.

The apartment window

six floors above the street.

The people who agree with me

and the people who do not.

All of them.

Patriot.

I keep turning the word over,

trying to find the thing

I remember.

Not obedience.

Not a red hat.

Not loving a president

more than the country

he was elected to serve.

And not the accusation

hurled at anyone

who refuses to follow.

You do not get to tell me

that dissent is disloyalty.

You do not get to measure

my love of country

by my love of you.

Maybe patriotism

was never the shouting.

Maybe it was always

the quieter thing.

The hand over the heart.

The uniform folded away.

The flag on the porch

moving in the morning wind

with no man’s name beneath it.

There.

That is my flag too.

It belongs to the protester

as surely as the parade,

to the one who questions

as surely as the one who salutes,

to every American

unwilling to confuse

a man with a country.

Maybe the flag does not belong

to the loudest man

who wraps himself in it.

Maybe it belongs

to whoever refuses

to surrender a single star.

So I will keep flying mine.

Not because of him.

In spite of him.

Because he does not

get to have it.

Patriot.

A.M. Silvestri is a Michigan writer and retired professional firefighter whose poetry often draws upon nature, place, memory, public life, and the ordinary moments that reveal something larger. His current work includes ROOTED: A Year of Haiku.