NARCISSIGNATURE

by James Penha

"Donald Trump should be focused on lowering costs, but instead he’s busy trying to put his name on your money. How does this help working families already drowning in this economy? Senator Jeff Merkley and I are pressing for answers.” —Senator Elizabeth Warren, April 4, 2026

It is not illegal to casually mark

with a name or small doodles

US paper currency as they do not

make the bill unusable. That’s why

you can find on e-bay greenbacks

for sale with the sharpied autograph

of Donald Trump across Washington’s

face. So when the bills with Trump’s

official signature come across your

palm, America, unleash blue sharpies

to caption his name with “pedophile”

or “POS” or “grifter” or just cross it out.

James Penha edits The New Verse News. His latest book is Queer As Folk Tales.

COCOONED

by Marjan Sabouri 

Underground shelters

with the smell of sweat and fear
in musty air—

These are my first feelings of war,
as I was a little child.
A dark cocoon

that surrounded my childhood.

Now, in my forties,
I experienced the second touch of war.
Israel attacked Iran,
while I was far from my homeland.
 

Darkness ravished me again.

Not as musty shelters,
but of total net blackout.
For days,
I had no news
from my loved ones.
 
All those fears and scents
came down on me.
 
The silkworm

that was ready to emerge

got cocooned again,
in the dark. 

Not long after,
a massacre of many Iranians

who fought for basic rights
occurred in only two days.
Unbelievably heartbreaking.

 
Memories run through my head,
a track of caterpillars;
 

The faces of those youths
beautiful and filled with hope

covered in body bags.
 
The voice of “Sepehr e baba, kojaei?” 

—the desperate father that called for his dead son among many dead bodies.

 
The ecstatic voice of the little child
when she saw her father’s face in TV

and screamed out of joy: “Babaei! Babaei!”—it’s dad—
without knowing
it was a list of the deceased.

 
The ululating and grief-dancing
of bereaved mothers

at the funerals of their beloved children—

As the cocoon
was getting thicker,
I made another memory of war.
America and Israel attacked Iran.
 
Broken and helpless,
people who live in enduring emptiness

—in mind and in pockets—

pray for the foreign attackers

to save their lives.

 
Wishing for freedom in war.
Wishing for happiness in ruin.
Wishing for life in death.
 
Will there be a hope

to tear away the cocoon
under the crash

and release the butterfly?


Marjan Sabouri, a 44-year-old Iranian woman, has a Master’s Degree in Illustration. She has completed many art works in Illustration and Design and has served as a University Lecturer for almost 12 years. Mostly, she writes her poems in Farsi, her mother tongue. However, since living abroad the last two years, she has started to translate her poems (by herself) to be shared with a bigger community of people in order to spread the message of Humanity, Peace, and Love worldwide. She wishes to be a voice protesting injustice and human rights violations, especially now, in Iran and in the Middle East.

FLIPPING BACK AND FORTH

Between the Artemis II Launch Live Stream and the Live Stream of the Supreme Court Hearing Arguments Regarding Birthright Citizenship

by Liz Ahl

 

Someday, humans may be born on the moon.

Whose moon may or may not be in dispute

in that future I imagine, as I flip from laptop tab

to tab on April Fool’s Day, feeling a little foolish

with the thrill-flutter summoned by the fully-fueled

rocket; feeling also a little edgy with my Gen X

rocket-gone-wrong memory. But thrill wins out

and I don’t look away as the biggest rocket

we’ve sent up since I was a toddler burns skyward,

moonward. As the nation burns deathward—

a rocket-spitting machine both fueled

and made rickety by insatiable greed, a sadistic

hybrid of automation and a deeply human cruelty.

I was born in the wing of a Naval hospital

that’s torn down now; the people who

conceived me in the moon-foolish summer

of 1969 and parented me for decades

are dead, and I’m feeling a little adrift,

a little nationless. A little unsure of my name,

my place. As if I’d been born on the moon.

Liz Ahl is the author of A Case for Solace (2022), winner of the 2023 New Hampshire Literary Award for Poetry. Her other collections include Beating the Bounds (2017) and a number of chapbooks, the most recent of which is A Stanza is a Place to Stand, published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2023. Poems have appeared recently in Rogue Agent, Cherry Tree, and River Heron Review. She lives in New Hampshire.

HARRY HINES BLVD, DALLAS, TX, 0647 AM

by Kay White Drew

Taillights stream by like corpuscles thru blood vessels, branches
off the aortic arch (there’s a mnemonic for that I’ve forgotten),
blurred and softened by the translucent window shade.
Traffic lights turn from green to brief yellow to long red,
downtown skyline hulking in predawn distance, the stark ovoid 
tower of the Renaissance Hotel lording it over the rest.

A mile down the road, my brother sleeps in an isolation room,
his embattled bone marrow doing what it can to recover
from the chemical onslaught it’s been subjected to
in the name of healing, even as the drivers of these cars
whizzing by my 3rd floor hotel window go about their business—
driving to work, worrying about their bills and their kids
and their ailing parents, listening to some false prophet
on the radio telling them it’s all the fault of the immigrants
and the trans people rather than the demented tyrant in the White House.

How many miles from here to the nearest of the concentration camps
(and how many are there in this state?) where the people detained
would give anything to be driving to work, worrying
about an overdue mortgage payment or a wayward teenage son.
These hulking urban clusters, the fruit of oil/blood money,
can’t help but draw my contempt, even my hatred…

Yes, I hate you, Dallas, not just because my brother’s dying here,
but because our country is, too.

 

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The Intima, Gargoyle, Second Coming, and New Verse News. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test, about medical school in the 1970s. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Reading and spending time in nature keep her sane(ish) in these difficult times.

LUNA MAGNIFICA

by Anne Gruner

 

Your radiant gaze
belies your violent birth—
a cataclysmic collision
delivering you from the bowels
of Mother Earth into
her synchronous embrace.
 
As asteroids pummeled your baby face,
lava cracked open your eyes—
Imbrium and Serenitatis—and forced
the smile of Nubium and Cognitum.
 
Your mother found you precious.
You shielded her from solar winds
and nurtured her atmosphere,
tugging her primordial soup
back and forth to salt life
upon her terra firma.
 
Now, as you age and find yourself
somewhat more distant,
you still stabilize her Goldilocks tilt,
regulate her ebbs and flows,
and calm her mood swings
as maturity and abuse take their toll
on her temperate temperament.
 
And at long last, you reveal
your greatest secret—
water ice at your poles,
holding out the promise
you will help her denizens,
the dwellers of graying Earth,
reach for the stars.

NASA’s Artemis II rocket lifts off for an historic moon mission. Cartoon by James Mellor.

Anne Gruner is a two-time Pushcart nominee whose poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications including Amsterdam Quarterly Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Wayfarer Magazine, The New Verse News, Humans of the World, Spillwords, and Written Tales. A former career CIA analyst and lawyer, Anne lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and two golden retrievers.

THE NEW NORMAL

by Lawrence J. Krips 

This morning I tossed an empty toothpaste tube

into the toilet bowl instead of the basket.

 

Later, the just simmered Marinara sauce

went from the stove into the everything drawer.

 

You see, the system I relied upon, 

has taken an unapproved vacation.

 

My friends insist dictators will save the world

and that being independent is an unnecessary burden.

 

My children are beginning to wonder not at the barking 

but by the preternatural scratching with my left foot.

By overwhelming minority opinion, The Supreme Court

declared the United States null and void.

 

The stairs took me up to the basement, while 

the dump sink in the attic overflowed to the roof.

 

The President has ordered all new maps 

eponymously rename the Western Hemisphere.

 

Who knew vaccinations cause fleas or 

cameras can substitute as hearing aids?

 

From now on, men’s votes are the only ones counted

in all the elections we will no longer have.

 

For as a woman seweth so does a man reapeth,

the oceans tideth and space-time discontinueth.

 

Nothing does lead to something 

and a stitch in mine is yours in time.

 

I no longer need to study all those tedious details for elections,

the decisions have been and will be made for us.

 

Do not fear this upheaval.  The old normal 

is just the new normal calling a time out.

Lawrence J. Krips is an evolution coach  and poet.  A founding member of Ocean State Poets and contributor to the Origami Poetry Project, Larry's poetry has appeared in such publications as Tifferet, Writers' Circle, Rhode Island Writers' Circle Anthology, The Open Door, 50 Haikus, New Verse News, The Best of Kindness II Anthology and Under the 13th Star Anthology.  His poem, Yahrzeit, received a Pushcart Prize nomination.  Mr. Krips' first book, A Soul's Way . . . Soulspeak, was published by Hallowed Abyss and is also available as a cd.

VAINGLORIOUS

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

 

 

 

 

In a word

 

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and author living in metropolitan Washington, DC. Her books include City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, and Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons. Many of her poems have appeared in The New Verse News and Writing in a Woman’s Voice.

THE MOUNTAIN LION OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW

by Dick Altman

Utah’s new study aims to kill ‘as many cougars as possible’ —High Country News, March 24, 2026

Reclusive Monty,

as I like,

in kinship,

to call you,

visits in deepest night,

not to hunt,

as one might expect,

our abundant deer,

but to slack your thirst

at the water-filled grotto

lying just beyond

where I rest my head.

 

We each,

in our way,

share

the same story,

breathing life

here at seven thousand feet.

where our ridge overlooks

the Rio Grande Valley.

ancestral home to Puebloans,

who worship you

as “the beast god”,

revered beyond

any other animal,

including the bear,

for your lithe beauty

and stealth.

 

I see you

as a high desert

panther,

royalty of solitude.

Your prints

in the snow,

broad as my hand

wide,

leave me breathless,

in their suggestion

of power unbridled,

eager

to pounce.

 

Recent sightings

in the neighborhood,

remind how closely

our lives touch.

Though an Anglo

living in Indian Country,

it would crush me

to see your mythical

presence eradicated.

 

Another gift

of your species,

the smaller,

but far less shy,

Bobby the bobcat, loves

to roll around

on the welcome mat,

outside our glass-paneled

front door.

as he taunts ravens,

into a squall

of angry screams

and fly-bys.

 

I find it impossible

not to feel

an intense connection

with you creatures

of the wild,

 

Hunters,

yes,

you will

always be,

but much more,

as even Puebloans’

ageless reverence

for Bobby shows.

 

Which begs

the question:

should rampant

cravings

for hooved

trophies,

outweigh

sustenance

for one’s

innermost

bearings,

linking us

to nature?

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, and others here and abroad.  Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 300 poems, published on four continents.

DEATH TAX

by Mark Hendrickson

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump’s signature will appear on future U.S. paper currency along with the Secretary of the Treasury, marking the first time in history for a sitting president. —US Treasury Dept., March 26, 2026

According to a website calculator

what I paid in taxes last year

bought the government 

350 to 500 rounds of ammo.

 

I wonder if I bought the bullets

that killed Pretti and Good

in Minneapolis

by men in masks

 

Or perhaps I helped pay

for the tomahawk missile

that killed over 100 girls

in a school in Iran.

 

I protest policies,

but pay my taxes

the way I was taught

good Americans should.

 

In this way I’m complicit.

Every dollar I send

will be signed by the culprit,

and signed off by me.

Mark Hendrickson (he/him) is a poet and writer in the Des Moines area navigating the Sturm und Drang of daily life through wordcraft. His words appear in The Ekphrastic Review, The New Verse News, and Modern Haiku. Follow him @MarkHPoetry, https://www.chillsubs.com/profile/mhendrickson

 or on his website: www.markhendricksonpoetry.com

A SPERM WHALE BIRTH

by Pepper Trail

 

 

 

Unimaginable, but imagine—birth into water, but needing air

Your head emerging last, sheltered until the last moment within your mother

Then, the shock of ocean—the world—and the powerlessness

Your flukes folded, useless, body limp, the surface unreachable

 

But you are not alone, and your mother is not alone

There is a community, her old friends, and your aunties and sisters

They are there, all around, excited, anxious to welcome, to help

Their bursts of clicks your first hearing, this code meaning “belonging”

 

They balance you on their great heads, lift you into the light, and you breathe

Between their gentle bodies they squeeze you, and you breathe

They keep away the circling dolphins, and you breathe

They keep watch for sharks, and you breathe

 

At last your body stiffens, balances in the water

You take your first milk, wise with a baby’s knowledge

Your aunties drift apart, exclaiming as they go

At your mother’s side, you slowly swim, and begin to be a whale

 

Based on detailed observations of a sperm whale birth, as reported in Nature and Science.

Listen to an NPR report.

 

 

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. 

 

UPON LEARNING THAT THE UNITED STATES VOTED AGAINST

the United Nations resolution designating the trafficking
of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity.”

 

by Cecil Morris

 

 

 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) March 25, 2026 — The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans "the gravest crime against humanity" and calling for reparations as "a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs." The resolution also urges "the prompt and unhindered restitution" of cultural items—including artworks, monuments, museum pieces, documents and national archives—to their countries of origin without charge. The vote in the 193-member world body was 123-3, with 52 abstentions. Argentina, Israel and the United States were the three members voting against the resolution. The United Kingdom and all 27 members of the European Union were among those that abstained.

 

 

I think of Macbeth fresh from murdering his king,
his hands still badged with royal blood
and Macbeth asking why he could not say Amen,
could not call God’s blessing to himself.
Of course, even my least interested student knew
that answer: guilt. Guilt for what he’d done.
I think of my teenage daughter denying evidence
of some minor transgression, thinking, I guess,
that if she herself did not say it then it could not
be true. I think of her at 2 when we played peek-a-boo
or at 3 when we played hide-and-seek
and she thought she became invisible behind
a curtain even though it didn’t cover her shoes.
Even now, a 160 years after the 13th,
are we still Macbeth, tongue-tied by an inherited,
collective guilt? Or are we the teen who thinks
well, we didn’t know, it wasn’t even illegal then,
and what about the Holocaust or the genocide
in Armenia or litany of other horrific things?
Why can’t we just say Amen, just say yes
it was a grave crime? Oh, there’s the statement
about reparations, how they’d be right,
a remedy, if you will, for historic wrongs.
There’s the rub. Who’d volunteer to pay a fine
for great-great-great-great-grand-country’s mistake?
Wipe the evidence from your face and books,
and never admit what can be denied.

 

 

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025. He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.