DUAL-CLASS PURGATORY

by Mostofa Sarwar

Caricature at Pinterest

SpaceX shares come in two main types: Class A and Class B (although the company has the option to issue nonvoting Class C shares in the future). The Class A shares are the ones being offered for sale to the public in the IPO, and are subject to the usual "one vote per share" rule for voting on company matters. But the Class B shares, which ordinary investors can't buy, confer 10 votes per share, and Elon Musk owns 93.6% of those Class B shares. That gives Musk 85.1% of the combined voting power of the company. Generally speaking, it's good for a CEO to be a major shareholder of their company, because it means their goals are aligned with those of other shareholders. But when a CEO controls a supermajority of the entire company's voting power, their vote is the only shareholder vote that matters. All other shareholders are basically just along for the ride. —Yahoo Finance, June 5, 2026

See also “Elon Musk, Human Ponzi Scheme” by Paul Krugman.

The Class B shares are held

by a singular phantom,

ten votes for every dead soul

                           trapped in the machinery.

 

Down in the valley,

the river still runs cold and silver,

unbothered by the governance of the super-voting elite.

We bought into the future

                           at an inflated premium,

only to find ourselves locked

              in a Class C silence,

watching the billionaire steer his iron chariot toward Mars

with the capital drained

              from our pension pots

                           and collective dreams.

 

The fireflies still blink in the hedgerows—

a fragile, democratic light

that requires no underwriters.

 

 

Dr. Mostofa Sarwar is a professor emeritus of geophysics and former associate provost at the University of New Orleans, as well as the dean and former vice chancellor and provost of Delgado Community College. His opinion essays were published in The Daily Star, New Age, Dhaka Tribune, and Bdnews24.com of Bangladesh, The Straits Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, Phuket News of Thailand, The Times Picayune of New Orleans, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, The Daily Advent and The Opera News of New York. Recently, his English poetry has appeared in the Sangam literary magazine, The Seattle Star, The New Verse News, Ellipsis, and other publications, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sarwar published three books of Bengali poems. His book His book Sunflower Wounds, a collection of English poems about the war in Ukraine, has been accepted for publication by the University of New Orleans Press.

TREES IN SPRING

by Royal Rhodes

David Hockney, who died on Friday, painting in Normandy in 2020. Photograph: David Hockney in The Guardian

Hockney shaped the Lockdown into art --
an old half-timbered house in Normandy,
and made a cider-press his studio.
The synchronized, rich colors that we see
in pallid light with white tonality
in fruit trees and a pinkish sky take part
with summer greens around a bright blue pond.
"My little Bayeux tapestry, " he called
these scenes of painted whorls and arabesques.
Reflections show reality exists
in splashing drops of rain and morning mists,
as wind and moving boughs create a bond,
even if no breath of wind is felt.
One storm can set the blossom's wind-blown fates,
transforming how we viewers see ourselves.
A world we know intensifies, inflates
the voices of laments each throat creates.
We see a light that helps the winter melt,
as trees pass nutrients from heart to heart.
The openness of strokes has moved his brush
in twisting marks appearing in the hundreds,
a deft illusion of the real we rush
to feel before Corona comes to crush
us just as hoped-for Spring can truly start.

Royal Rhodes is a poet whose poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including several times in The New Verse News. 

WORLD CUP BUTTERFLY

by Indran Amirthanayagam 

AI animation by Nightcafé for The New Verse News

Yes, this is a poem dribbled, crossed, headed, corner and free kicked

This is the beginning of the month that will never equal any other

period in time: The World Cup in North America, in Mexico

with families gathering to ask for news of loved ones disappeared, 

to ask for electricity, to ask for justice and to ask for tickets;

In Canada, all quiet for the moment, a tranquil backwater, a pause 

between acts.  But over there in the Great Bearish United States,

denying entry to a Somali referee, claiming an official Iraqi photographer

has ties to terrorists, and eleven US cities handed extra costs by FIFA,  

excluded from sponsorships that compete with FIFA contracts, 

and local taxes  removed from ticket prices. As the saying goes, 

FIFA takes  the loot and host cities are left  holding what? 

A bunch of memories, some extra grass in stadiums, and something 

more ineffable,  beautiful: pride in hosting teams from far away lands 

in our corner of the planet, spinning the web to capture the butterfly, 

not a bad use of taxes to be left holding the woven bag.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

KYOKA

by Chen-ou Liu

this golfball-brained man

behind the Resolute Desk

loves inflation ...

a MAGA sign, Donald Trump

                              $20,28 per gallon

Chen-ou Liu is the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition). His tanka and haiku have been honored with many awards.

A MATCH

by Anne Reiner

 

What does one 

give for a 250th anniversary?

 

The first gift was easy—

a declaration on paper.

 

We used to be a nation

who gathered

 

in pews, in booths,

on steps, on roofs.

 

But the pulpit has a party line,

and the diner is turning tables.

 

Now, a diamond can be manufactured. 

After 250 years,

 

how does one

celebrate freedom?

 

With a cage.

Cartoon by Ann Telnaes

Anne Reiner is a writer and biostatistician based in NYC.

RAIN YEAR ROUND

by Christine Jackson

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

Under my tarp shivering, boots soaked, mud. Jesus an attack in this rain? We were ready, sure. My back muscles still zinged from days of digging burying metal cases under the trees, tamping soggy ground. Like for small graves. High school kids hacked into the Jay Six list. We were next. Tonight. My phone flashes a text from Irene in the vols tent by the road: 3 F150 pickups. A thrum of thunder rolls over the wintry field behind the library and my taut nerves. Trucks rumble into the parking lot. Profane confusion among bobbing flashlights. My binoculars pick up a dozen long-beards in ragtag camo and epaulets, oilskin duster coats. One horned helmet. Flagpoles with bayonet tips. I tap a quick text to our people.

 

Sprays of shattered glass and a percussive thud from a flash bang mean they are inside. Tipped shelves clatter. Rows of racks collapse, crash. Guttural whoops over their empty victory. The library’s massive alarm leaps to life, out-whooping them, pulsing louder in the rain. They scramble, cursing along the slick walkway. I huddle at the edge of the woods, my rifle close to defend sacred ground, the buried texts. We knew the Project’s targeted titles, so many, Shakespeare, Orwell, Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King. We saved what we could, but for how long?

 

The F150s roar away.  More would follow.

We had truth. Was it enough?

Icy rain continues to fall, steady, insistent,

pelting the tarp overhead like birdshot.

 

Christine Jackson is retired from her day job, three decades of teaching literature and creative writing at a South Florida university.  She continues to clock in on a life-long night shift writing poetry.  Her work has appeared in an array of online journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, and South Florida Poetry Journal.

FOUL TROUBLE

by Tammy Smith

Cartoon by Clay Jones

 

I know nothing about the Knicks
other than they’re from New York

and haven’t won a championship
since 1973. I know even less

about the Spurs. Game 3 at the Garden

means more traffic—

something I can’t ignore.
Maybe that’s why I’m paying
extra attention to the hype, the energy
around the rim so electrifying

I decide to watch, for the first time—
the whole game from my living room

wearing fuzzy bunny slippers 

with soft pink pajamas. 

There’s no point pretending

I understand the game

or its rules—

but I know players
who commit fouls get punished
with free throws. 

A flagrant foul sounds poetic,

as satisfying as the swish

of a slam-dunk—but the notion

of excessive contact
as a boundary violation 

makes me want to learn more

about why David Hollander thinks

basketball can save the world. The court, 

layups, turnovers, every rebound--

offense and defense, skill and hustle

underscores that legendary mantra:

you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,

which has everything and nothing

to do with deciding who gets benched,

or booing Trump.

 

Tammy Smith is a poet and licensed clinical social worker from New Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Thimble Literary Magazine, LIPS, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She received honorable mentions in the Journal of New Jersey Poets 2026 Poets Prize and the 2026 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards.

BUNKER HILL

by Betsy Johnson

 

 

 

Maybe history belongs in an aquarium,
sealed glass, nothing escapes,
tourists tapping,
their faces blurring into the water
like fish circling stones,
forgetting how a river ever tasted.

Blindfolds are now built into the monument,
no need to hand them out.
People gather,
guessing at the gaps,
swapping stories about words that used to live here.
There’s a kind of bravery in pretending
not to flinch.

Slavery, taken from the wall.
Women erased,
the ones who refused to fold themselves small.
Immigrants, scratched out.
Only the dead left,
the ones good for a headline in June.
Someone decided truth was too “woke” for the daylight.
Wouldn’t want anyone catching empathy from a plaque.
You stand in front of absence,

try to piece together stories from what’s left in the shadows.

The monument looks lighter,
but the air is heavy,
pressing on your chest,
the way silence does
when no one wants to go first.
Tourists line up for their photos,
kids run the steps.
It gets too easy,
not seeing what isn’t there.

History shrinks down,
something you can keep in your pocket,
hard questions packed away in dust,
stories left behind
because they were too honest to let us sleep.

And I wonder,
what happens to a country
that keeps pretending it’s finished telling the truth,
when everyone who knows better
is still standing here,
waiting for their name to be spoken
in the story that always belonged to them.

Betsy Johnson is a poet, storyteller, educator, and autism specialist whose work explores belonging through disability, caregiving, healthcare, social justice, and the natural world. Her writing weaves personal narrative with larger social questions, tracing how people navigate uncertainty, connection, loss, resilience, and change. Her poem "Mathematics of Mercy," on the human impact of Medicaid policy, was read on the floor of the House of Representatives.

AND THEN

by Debbie Benson

The New York Times

then came bees the sizev cats- they

overtook the sky

2put a stop2 our, wherever it was we 

were going? 

they told us we’d failed 2 really see 

our world, 

dizzying us w/eyes like sharded glass.

they dove & purred, unruly w/ yellow, 

nonpoisonous 

if fearsome, aghast but all unwarring,

& w/ them hopes we’d been ignoring 

were dipping also soaring

Debbie Benson’s recent poems appear (or are forthcoming) in Indiana Review, Passages North, Bennington Review, Ninth Letter, and The Penn Review. Past awards include the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize, Vern Cowles Prize, an International Merit Award from Atlanta Review, inclusion in Best New Poets, and a “Best of the Net” nomination. She is a prior contributor at The New Verse News. She works as a clinical psychologist in NYC.

DATA CENTERS

by Mariana Mcdonald

   

  For Abeline, Texas

As farmers say goodbye to farms

and crops lie withering on the soil,

the eyes of AI tech bros widen,

enthralled with prospects of cheap land

soon on the selling block, to build

gigantic Data Centers, some the size

of Central Park like the one in Abeline,

meant to make “its own” energy,

with ten gas turbines, fifty planned,

five dozen diesel generators, to power

an industry that plots and plunders.

While locals gaze at threatened vistas

of endless fields framed by the sun,

breathe toxic air and drink dank water,

face raised bills for heat and cooling, 

Data Centers generate heat islands.

All horrors hidden by a scheme of secrecy

and NDAs, without a single question posed

to those who live there: “Do you want this?

Give consent? Are there ways it hurts you?”

The CEOs don’t want to hear from locals,

use permits that will circumvent them,

don’t want to hear about the headaches, asthma.

To them, all land is an AI site without a people,

for an AI industry without a site. Their tax breaks

gut the county budgets, cutting schools and fire  

departments, while AI moguls’ pockets overflow.

A painful microcosm of the plague that daily

spreads and grows, infects, now kills our nation.

But people are not silent or compliant. 

They rise up angry all around the country,

from Oregon to Texas to Virginia, protest

three thousand Data Centers up and running,

fifteen hundred more planned or in process.

“You can’t drink data!” people cry, and so far, 

they’ve blocked sixteen Centers in seven states.

Erin Brockovich is back in headlines, hosts

a website tracking Data Centers, while arrogant  

tech oligarchs brush off concern for how AI

is damaging where we live and how we think.

From sea to littered sea the fight is growing.

Governors, reps, and senators take action,

call for moratoriums with enforcement

of new rules for how Centers are greenlit.

Let struggle be how we stop this violation

of the Earth, the land, the waters, air, and

people, in this dangerous time of cruelty

and corruption, fraught with lawless

theft and broad denial of basic rights

we fought for, won, and we want back.

Oh, Abeline, Abeline! May your heavenly vistas

remain, with turquoise skies and dappled sunsets.

May the air you breathe be poison-free and fitting

for all your toiling people, and all life.

 

Mariana Mcdonald is a poet, writer, activist, and scientist. Her work has been published and anthologized widely. A southerner with lifelong ties to Puerto Rico, she lives in Atlanta.