THE TURNING CIRCLE OF A BUCKET WHEEL EXCAVATOR

by Frank Joussen

Tweet via “Thousands hit German streets to protest coal mine expansion” in TRTWorld, January 14, 2022

keep it in the ground a famous activist from Sweden

says about Luetzerath’s now world infamous coal

while this monster of a word this monster of a machine

the gigantic bucket wheel excavator

is rearing its dragon head

over the edge of its devilishly long and deep pit

the monster’s casting a lasting shadow

over the children of the end game for the climate

who are risking life and limb

not to mention imminent law enforcement

in a useless attempt to stop the co2 madness

of a so-called green government

of course, they could leave

the coal in the ground

but the bucket wheel excavator

would have to go to another place

and can you imagine the costs

of turning this beast of a vehicle around?

In a matter of days this past week, more than 1,000 police officers cleared out the hundreds of climate activists who had sworn to protect the small village, once home to 90 people but no church, which was scheduled to be razed as part of a sprawling open-pit coal mine in western Germany. —The New York Times, January 15, 2023. Photo: A bucket-wheel excavator mines for coal at the Garzweiler coal mine near Luetzerath on November 2, 2022. CREDIT: Michael Probst / AP via The Atlantic.

Editor’s Note: The New Verse News published Frank Joussen’s “No Last Homely House in Luetzerath” on November 4, 2021. 

Frank Joussen is a German teacher and writer, peace and one world activist. His publications include two selections of his poetry. He has co-edited two international anthologies of poetry/fiction in India and one of short stories in Germany. His poems and short stories have also been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies in India, Australia, G.B., the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Romania, Malta, the U.S.A., Canada, China, Thailand and Japan; some of them have been translated into German, Romanian, Hindi and Chinese.

PLACEBO PANACEA

by Emily Jo Scalzo

"The Swamp" by John Cuneo.

the scar tissue of America’s soul
at its core the betrayal and genocide
upon which we were founded
surrounded by others through history
a throbbing fibrous mess
pockets of infection
waiting to surface

kids in cages
parents packed in cells
seeking to escape the scars
America’s created elsewhere
children returning from school
to homes raided and empty
ghosts of innocence

alternative facts and distrust
journalists labelled enemies of the people
scientists defunded and censored
the second a man enamored of theocracy

neo-Nazis galvanized in the streets
attack protesters with impunity
veterans’ efforts in Europe negated

children strike for climate awareness
specters of their futures dimmed
churches celebrate Armageddon
expecting rapture for failed stewardship

one party mired in racist xenophobia
the other craven in identity crisis

same shit
different president
and we still swirl the drain

Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, TheNewVerse.News, and others. Her first chapbook The Politics of Division was published in 2017 and awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.

THIS IS THE SEASON

by Damian Balassone

Photo of Greta Thunberg from i-D Vice.

for Greta

This is the season
where the chief commits treason
and the riddler hides behind his rhyme.
This is the year
where the king instills fear
and the atheist prays behind drawn blinds.

This is the show
where nobody knows
if the story is fake or is real.
We’re told this is war
but no one’s quite sure
if they’re meant to crush snakes or bite heels.

This is the night
where the girl of the light
summons the stars and the spheres.
She looks to the skies
with furious eyes
and glimpses the moon through her tears.


Damian Balassone is an Australian poet whose work has appeared in over 100 publications, most notably in The New York Times.  He is the author of three volumes of poetry, including the forthcoming Strange Game in a Strange Land.

CLIMATE STRIKE

A CHILDREN'S CRUSADE 2

by Ralph La Rosa

This evolution of revolution
is a student-led crusade,
its first and foremost resolution:
saving earth can’t be delayed.

Ralph La Rosa remembers the good old bad days and hopes for better. His next book in the works is My Miscellaneous Muse: Poem Pastiches & Whimsical Words.

RED JELLYFISH

by Orel Protopopescu

Credit: necn

Let the jellyfish come,
bloated, like warming seas,
tying their tentacles
around the rudders of ships,
until even the willfully blind
will see smoke rising
from the scorched lungs
of the Earth.

Let the jellyfish come,
waving thin, pale arms,
peeling off the blinders
of indifference and despair,
awakening hosts of children,
stirring the birds
we shed like old moons
as we burn away skies.

Let the jellyfish come
with a sting for every sin,  
marking crime scenes
with their toxic,
bloody flowers,
flashing red alarms
through the acid oceans
we set on simmer.

   

Orel Protopopescu won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and a commendation in the Second Light Live competition, 2016. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, and paper-based reviews and anthologies. Her book of translations (with Siyu Liu), A Thousand Peaks, Poems from China, was honored by the NYPL. Other publications: a book for teachers of poetry, prize-winning picture books, a bilingual poetry app for children and a chapbook, What Remains. She is currently completing work on a biography of the legendary ballerina, Tanaquil Le Clercq. 

I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR FOR THE APOCALYPSE

by Jessica Ginting

Photo: Noah Dillon/courtesy NRDC via Fast Company

There is something terrifying about reaching the end of a season
in this age of climate change.

Perhaps this will be the last time it will be like this
and every coming year will be the first time again.

How do we recall moments, or periods, in time without patterns?
Our tapestry needs to be redone, reworked
into a garment fit for wear; our seasonal clothes, replaced
with a wardrobe organized by survival needs.

A coat for the snowstorm, scarves for the haze, hard hats for the quakes,
sturdy boots for the floods & fashionable oxygen masks
for when we’re really at the end of all available seasons.

There is something terrifying about reaching the end of this season,
and not knowing what to wear for the next one.

Jessica Ginting, a writer from Jakarta currently residing in London, has completed a Master's degree in Publishing. Her poetry has been published in Anak Sastra, a South East Asian literary magazine, as well as other publications such as The Bristol Poetry Anthology 2018 and That's What She Said Magazine. Her debut poetry collection Moon Petals was launched at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali in 2017. She is also the writer and creator of the Indonesian superhero comic,  ROSANA!

CLIMATE STRIKE

SCURRYING

by Carl Mayfield 

A man is a child
at both ends of life

and much of the time
between dawn and dusk,

touching his toes
to illustrate how the head

can drop out of sight
and still send thoughts

scurrying in every direction
to bounce off other heads

not all there but alive
in a juice neither visible

nor mute, allowing the new arrival
to pick up a language

to discover how far away
words can be from what matters

while noticing how few travelers
sense there is but one tribe

gathered under a toxic sky
which kills everyone, though

not all look up in time to see
their assassin—themselves—

winking back. A pail should be issued
at birth, to play in the sand at first,

then later to bail water out of the desert
as the second childhood shows up,

a little too late to be enjoyed
but with no less power to stun

as it performs the dead man's float.

Carl Mayfield lives and writes at the extreme northern edge of the Chihuahua Desert. His two most recent chapbooks are High Desert Cameos and Gather Round All Ye Wild Children of the Defrocked Atom.

FOR THE YOUTH CLIMATE STRIKERS

by Pepper Trail

Greta Thunberg on a stage in Helsinki after speaking to a crowd of 10,000 people at a March 15, 2019 Fridays for Future rally.

You will lie down in shallow water
Shelter under roofing tin
Move on, keep on moving

On small screens, the most fortunate
Will remember coral reefs
Forests not on fire, elephants, tigers

You will have children, yes, because

You will sing to them
When they are hungry, feverish
When the storm rages

Some few of you, the saintly few
Will not hate us, not curse us
Will forgive


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.