OUR LADY’S TRIUMPH

by Marilyn Peretti

Hot orange flame flew up 

melting lead and ancient trees

breaking hearts of Paris.

For eight hundred years

old oaks from vanished forests

served as roof timbers

but no longer able to withstand

the fires of hell, crumbled

to charred matchsticks, as

Our Lady’s backbone,

the vulnerable ridge pole,

tumbled into the holy nave.

                    • • •

A thin white thread 

of smoke rising at the Vatican

signals something new.

The disastrous stream of white smoke,

which roared rapidly to black

then to tongues of fire,

called out every craftsman from

the woodwork, their myriad of skills

rebuilding one great Cathedral,

now signaling Our Lady’s glory.

This poem was written in anguish at the time of the horrendous fire in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, but has been modified to celebrate the gallant efforts of dedicated Parisians who carefully rebuilt their cherished centerpiece. Marilyn Woerner Peretti, from Chicago area, is Pushcart nominee, and celebrant of this French achievement! She happily recalls her visit to Paris and tour through this elegant structure.

DON’T MOURN THE THORNS

by Corey Weinstein

Did you smile, even laugh aloud,

A smirk tumbling out of simmering glee?

Yes I was among the first 26,743,226

to feel joy when Notre Dame burned,

A spire collapsed shooting fireballs

through the attic, crashing the crosses,

Yellow flames licked the towers

and tickled my giggle bone,

 

From what abominations the fire sparked?

Of what burnt and musty stench like earth

where children are buried unmarked?

Rats running from their snuggle spots,

The ancient rot to their liking,

Dirty sins in the Savior’s name purified

Plastic icons oozed and bubbled black,

and is the toxic smoke pleasing to God?

 

The grand Dame’s construction marked

two hundred years of persecution

of expulsion, return and expulsion.

Built on the bones and bank notes 

of two centuries of violation,

feeding off the destruction

and exile of the Jews.

 

I won’t be contributing to the Church

where kings were crowned,

Where the crown of thorns stands in state.

Ask me again when plans include

a health center for family planning

and care for survivors of priestly abuse.

 

My joy only muted by the despair of the faithful

and knowing the stinking thing will rise as before.

Corey Weinstein’s poetry has been published in Vistas and Byways, The New Verse News, Our California 2024, The Ekphrastic Review, Forum (City College of San Francisco), California State Poetry Society, Visitant, Abandoned Mine, Speak Poetry of San Mateo County, California State Poetry Society and Jewish Currents, and he wrote and performed a singspiel called Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me.  He has been an advocate for prisoner rights and founded California Prison Focus, and he led the American Public Health Association’s Prison Committee for many years. In his free time, he hosts San Francisco OLLI’s Poetry Interest Group and plays the clarinet in his local jazz band, Tandem, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.

TRASH OF THE TITANS

by Steven Kent

Elon gladly goes where he goes—

Wait until these mammoth egos

Clash, two bigmouth bros turned bitter,

Trading shots on Truth and Twitter.

Point of fact: They're both a bore, so

One we loathe, the other more so.

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

EMAIL ADDRESS?

by Helen Buckingham

AI graphic from NightCafé

Helen Buckingham's work appears in journals and anthologies throughout the world, including Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W.W. Norton, 2013). Her most recent collection is Two Haiku Poets (Iron Press, 2023) on which she collaborated with fellow British poet Annie Bachini. It was awarded an Honorable Mention by the Haiku Society of America. 

LOOK

by Mary McCarthy

It’s no fun to go to the circus

waiting for the high wire

dancer to fall

the lion tamer

to lose his head

to a fed up angry cat

the joy is in the crazy

risk and the win

always the win

the clowns tumbling

out a pantomime

of the ridiculous

how we all want

entertainment without pain

I can’t waste time estimating

just how bad it will be

how much damage

we’ll have to witness

as all these wheels

break away from their axles

and go careening

wildly into the crowd

disaster may be the only thing

we can depend on

But remember

there is no joy in retribution

you will only bury yourself in ash

feel your heart break

as consequences spread

past anything you bargained for

Remember

even the greatest crimes

the worst offenses

even those who sowed

acres of bones

burned the libraries

broke the backs of cities

scuttled the glories

of art they had no use for

never really won

from those bare salted fields

new crops arose

shedding tears and bitterness

eager to bloom and set fruit

in a world past catastrophe

always there waiting

ready to return

Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World edited by Lorette Luzajic, The Plague Papers edited by Robbi Nester, The Memory Palace, edited by Lorette Luzajic and Clare MacQueen, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, the Storyteller Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible chronicles a bipolar journey and is now available from Kelsay Books.

I’M UNDOCUMENTED

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Metro UK, November 25, 2024

I pass you on the street. I can't be missed.

My presence is as real as yours to see,

Until you tell me that I don't exist:

Not dead, and not unborn, but sans ID,

Denied a passport by officialdom—

Officialdom whose rules insist that I'm

Called immigrant, and hence that I am from

Un-British parts where I've spent zero time.

My twenty-six long years of legal non-

Existence in my country will retard

Not only me: a nation prospers on

The worth of all, like me, who can work hard...

Except that I'm undocumented, and

Don't qualify—nor do I understand.

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.

A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

by Jennnifer Schneider

Barbara Taylor Bradford, one of the world’s best-selling novelists, who captivated readers for decades with chronicles of buried secrets, raging ambitions and strong women of humble origins rising to wealth and power, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 91. —The New York Times, November 25, 2024

She filled blank pages with words of

multiple meanings and suits tailored for stories

of queens. She crafted plots that resembled 

her own life story and offered a staircase to portals

rich in descriptive imagery. A rags-to-riches arc 

that avoided and, at times, created, as many markers 

of cliche and peculiarly timed climaxes as it delivered

tension and reams of dreams

strung of form-

fitting predictability. A twist to the standard 

plot, on ice, of dice—she dined with hands of Margaret 

Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth and, in her own 

way, revealed subtleties

of character. An admirable trajectory to fill any library. 

Of Substance—a single proper

noun. 

In a series of serious words

she doubled down on Doubleday. 

She made child’s play of words and commerce of play.

A woman of

humble origins. A staircase built for empires

and umpires tracking stars in eyes 

and star-struck skies. Arms stretched wide. 

The dictionary lacks a proper word for a character

of her sort. Charades neither game nor fame. A novel protagonist 

of the written word. My word. She penned thousands of sentences,

But her greatest act of all is a simple form—her, as a verb. A fiery 

engine of commerce and craft and compulsively consumable plot 

twists. Amidst sudden changes of heart and the wonder 

of it all—a trusted pen, a loyal friend. Neither weapon 

nor contempt for the reality of the wor(l)d. She wrote the story 

as she lived it. To Remember. As any woman that could 

and would and should dream it. Hold it.

A heroine so bold. 

She lived and wrote and broke her own rules. 

Of voice and of heart. Of Just Rewards.

As the plot unfolds to its final page. 

The finale in her words

She remains a work and Woman of Substance

A celebrity in the rarest of literary terms form.

A story (unedited) well told.

A dynasty (unscripted) all her own.

A strong verb.

To be continued. A sequel, well-earned.

Jennifer Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

LET’S DROP THE BALM

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

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

Salve for the whole planet
Nuclear, to the last atomic particle
A wind so obliterating it removes all hate
Leaving a fallout of divine love with no half-life
Across all lands, all cells, all souls
 

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of eight nature books, including Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons, City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, and Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island. She has had three previous poems published in the New Verse News and many poems published by Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice, including four that have won “Moon Prizes.” 

WHAT WE ONCE HAD FOR BLACK FRIDAY BRUNCH

by Evan Leslie

youth and mustard 

but no bread

we buttered our cheese

corner store brie, only just past expiring

 

still good

 

little black pepper packets, “little cuties,” 

stale tortillas and yesterday’s 

turkey, shared between endless hands 

of rummy and plenty

 

of gin with Sprite, playing 

thankful 

for what we didn't 

yet have, but—damn—what we might 

 

yet get, would 

give, could 

risk

back then

Evan Leslie grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and now lives in Houston, Texas with his Husband, Ryan, and his rescue pit bull, Rimbaud (formerly Rambo).  Evan is a cellist, arts educator, and the director of the University of Houston’s Community Arts Programs. Evan is the former Artistic Producer at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Evan is grateful for the support and guidance he has received in workshops at Inprint Houston.  His poems have recently appeared in The Pinchand Troublemaker Firestarter. 

THANKSGIVING AFTER THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2024

by Tarn Wilson

The people I know have elegant souls.

They wear unfashionable shoes.

They drive raggedy cars.

The people I know have dignified souls.

They have cracks in their walls.

Their sweaters are pilled.

The people I know have radiant souls.

They’re an army of kindness.

They gather in kitchens.

The people I know have royal souls.

They are wise and brave.

They are frightened and brave.

They are warriors disguised.

What they know will save us. 

Tarn Wilson is the author of the lyric memoir The Slow Farm, the memoir-in-essays In Praise of Inadequate Gifts (winner of the Wandering Aengus Book Award), and a craft book: 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Your Creativity and Inspire You to Write. Her essays, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Assay, Brevity, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, River Teeth, Ruminate, Sweet Lit, and The Sun.