WE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

by Buff Whitman-Bradley




We should have known
That crisis evokes
The best in ordinary persons
That of course
People on balconies
Would sing opera
To each other
That of course
People standing in windows
Would applaud medical workers
On their way home after another
Horrendous shift
Of dangerous and unprotected caring
That of course
Silly songs and tender messages
And goofy jokes
And sublimely cute puppies and kittens
And baby elephants
Would proliferate on the internet
That of course
Neighbors would be even more conscious
Of checking in with each other
Of offering help and encouragement
Of wishing each other
The very best
That of course
Compassion and humor and generosity
Among everyday folks
Would abound
We should have known

We should have known
That crisis would evoke
The worst in the powerful
That of course catastrophe would mean profit
For those who claim the planet
As their own
That of course the plutocratic miscreants
At the top of the heap
Would find a way
To pillage the public treasury
Rather than provide all the life-saving aid
That is so desperately needed
That of course they would continue
Robbing from the poor
And giving to the rich
That of course
Those shameless, indecent
And despicable narcissists
Would resist any and all attempts
By the common folk
To prioritize the common good
Over personal gain
And if that means millions will die, well
That’s life

We should have known

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

ABSENCE OF LEADERSHIP

by Frederick Wilbur

"Stack 'Em Up" by Pia Guerra at The Nib

The porch chair of the ramshackle
house has been empty longer
than the roof has valued its paint,
windows their perfect transparency.
In this country the corruption
of kudzu finds its decadence;
rodents delight to call it home.
Henchmen-like crows hangout in trash
trees that strive to imprison a way of life.
Dignity is lost: the joy of joke
and neighborly welcome,
the husbandry of the honest and the decent.
It is not about the empty chair,
but the man who should be there.

Frederick Wilbur has authored three books on architectural and decorative woodcarving, and a poetry collection, As Pus Floats the Splinter Out. His work has appeared in many print and on-line reviews including Shenandoah, Main Street Rag, Comstock Review, The Dalhousie Review, Rise Up Review, and Mojave River Review. He was awarded the Stephen Meats Award by Midwest Quarterly (2017). He is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.

WHEN A VACCINE WON'T FIX STUPID

by Marsha Owens

we play roulette with the dying
           wrap nurses in black plastic bags
           one day it’s like a miracle
           easter will be glorious
 i wonder
   what i should do today
            have always wanted to go to scotland
            but i’ll go to my kitchen instead
            circle my first world problem alone
 the stupid, it burns


Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her writing has appeared in both print publications, including The Huffington Post, Wild Word Anthology, The Sun, and online at TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rat’s Ass Review, and Rise Up Review. She is a co-editor of the recently published poetry anthology Lingering in the Margins and a proud recipient of the Leslie Shiel Scholarship Award for Writers Who Read, awarded through the Visual Arts Center in Richmond.

THE GIVING TREE DRAWS THE LINE

by Michael L. Ruffin

The Tree had
grown old.

The Boy had
grown wealthy
and powerful.

“What’s wrong, Boy?”
the Tree asked.

“The COVID-19 crisis,”
the Boy answered.

"How can I help?”
the Tree asked.

 “You can die so
the stock market
can live,”
the Boy answered.

“You can kiss my roots,”
the Tree said to the Boy.


Michael L. Ruffin is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram (@michaell.ruffin) and prose opinions at On the Jericho Road. He is author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life and of the forthcoming Praying with Matthew. His poetry has appeared at TheNewVerse.News and is  forthcoming in 3 Moon Magazine and Rat's Ass Review.

MISTER BURR GOES TO WASHINGTON

by George Salamon

“Ms. [Summer]Mossbarger ate nothing. She skipped breakfast and lunch, taking her first bite of food—food-pantry fried chicken—at about 5:30 p.m. All she consumed from the time she awoke that morning until she ate dinner were sips from a cherry Dr Pepper. “I’m not going to let my kids go hungry. If I have to just eat once a day, that’s what I have to do.” Ms. Mossbarger, a disabled Army veteran, does not work, and Jordan Spahn, her husband, has seen his work as a carpenter slow. Photo Credit: Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

"Senator Richard M. Burr sold hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in major companies last month, as President Trump and others in his party were still playing down the threat presented by the coronavirus outbreak and before the stock market’s precipitous plunge. . . . At least three other senators sold major stock holdings around the same time, disclosure records show.” —The New York Times, March 20, 2020

"Coronavirus and Poverty: A Mother Skips Meals So Her Children Can Eat. Americans with tight financial resources have fewer options as they navigate coronavirus closures and layoffs." —The New York Times, March 20, 2020

'There's gold in them thar hills,' so they
Said in the days of the gold rush, now
The gold's in them thar halls of Congress,
Where, if you're on the right committee,
You can be a millionaire in a tizzy.
But in other parts of the land of the free
A mother skips meals so her kids can eat.
Both stories ran in the Times the same day,
Where we can learn one more time that
Money talks while all else walks, right
Down to the shelter or out on the street
Where you'll suffer the stings and arrows
Of discarded needles, an empty belly
And the loss of all hope.
America? America!


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, MO, at the center of our nation's heartland.

CREDIT WHERE CASH IS DUE

An Ode to Andrew Yang
by James Schwartz 

When Andrew Yang dropped out of the presidential race a month ago, he couldn't have possibly anticipated the centerpiece of his platform — universal basic income — would be the bipartisan solution that Republicans and Democrats in Washington are rallying behind amid the coronavirus crisis. “Certainly I would never hope that UBI gets adopted because of this terrible virus. But I will say it's somewhat surreal to suspend my presidential campaign in February and see it potentially implemented in March,” Yang told [The Washington Post] in an interview on Tuesday. Photo: Andrew Yang speaks during the third Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

They kicked around the idea in Switzerland,
MLK was for it, in the days before coronavirus,
Andrew Yang then bringing the tool back,
They sneered it wouldn't work, of course,
They questioned how it would be paid,
For, and by whom: not them to be sure,
Now that we're quarantined outside the box,
They iron out the details of a UBI,
Rebranding themselves as saviors,
Credit where cash is due.

James Schwartz is a poet, writer, slam performer and author of 5 poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America. Twitter: @queeraspoetry

AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION

by Michael L. Ruffin




Out of an abundance of caution,
we are washing our hands
seventy-six times a day.

Out of an abundance of caution,
we are avoiding large
gatherings of people.

Out of an abundance of caution,
we are trying not
to touch anybody.

Out of an abundance of caution,
we are disinfecting
everything in sight.

Out of an abundance of caution,
we are sneezing and coughing
into our sleeves.

Oh, and out of an abundance of caution,
we will henceforth vote for only
science-affirming, rationally-thinking,
forward-looking, plan-making,
crisis-anticipating, confidence-inspiring
candidates for any and every office.

Michael L. Ruffin is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram (@michaell.ruffin) and prose opinions at On the Jericho Road. He is author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life and  of the forthcoming Praying with Matthew. His poetry has appeared at TheNewVerse.News and is  forthcoming in 3 Moon Magazine and Rat's Ass Review.

SOCIAL DISTANCING

by John W. Steele

Not knowing who is shedding Novel Corona,
it’s not so bad to huddle in our caves

plugged into our phones and laptops, Zoom.
As for lining up in bare-shelved stores

who needs toilet paper, food and drink,
soap and sanitizer anyway?

Meanwhile the crocs have stopped their bellowing,
called a truce. They’ve reached across the swamp

and offered one another bite-sized hunks.
The old-bird alpha-male has softened his tweets

and started to squawk about how he is going to kill
the virus. November looms large. The other crocs,

afraid he’ll chase them from the swamp, are cowering,
hoping he won’t snap and spill their blood.

John W. Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University, where he studied with Julie Kane, Ernest Hilbert and David Rothman. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Amethyst Review, Boulder Weekly, Blue Unicorn, Copperfield Review, Heron Clan Anthology, IthacaLit, The Lyric, Mountains Talking, The Orchards, Society of Classical Poets, Urthona Journal of Buddhism and the Arts, and Verse-Virtual. He was nominated for a Pushcart prize, won The Lyric’s 2017 Fall Quarterly Award, won an award in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and was awarded Special Recognition in the 2019 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest. His book reviews have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Raintown Review.

ENDEMIC

by Robert Knox

Illustration by João Fazenda for The New Yorker

Let's not believe in science
Let's just play it all by ear
Let's say it's all a swindle
There's nothing, folks, to fear
Let's blame it on the other guys,
who want to take our place
It's a hoax! And a disgrace!

Swindle time, scoundrel time
Don't let it all unwind
Dwindle time, fiddle time, reduce the prime
Con job on the knotty pine
A little bug in the system's all
Just wait, I'm sure we'll soon be fine

We're practicing our magic word
Like the Marvel man's 'Shazam!'
We'll say our word some lovely night
and deconstruct this sham
There is no call for fright
It will disappear when we say the word
We'll wonder why—it's so absurd!—
we ever could have been so dense

Don't ask me what the word is now
I'll keep you in sus-Pence


Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of a novel based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, titled Suosso's Lane. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as Off The Coast, The Journal of American Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, TheNewVerse.News, Califragile, and Unlikely Stories. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. The chapbook Cocktails in the Wild followed in 2018. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.

CORONA THE GREAT

by David Radavich





At last, the Emperor
has no clothes!

Before, his courtiers
held up one fake
outfit upon another,

each one more ugly
than the last.

But now the nakedness
is complete—

the folds of flesh,
the missing heart,
the feet that refuse
to march, the skin
that crawls.

He becomes himself
utter and alone—

the spawn
of mirrorers
and mercenaries

who now cough
and sneeze

into oblivion.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019) is a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).  Recent lyric volumes are Middle-East Mezze (2011), The Countries We Live In (2014), and the forthcoming Here's Plenty (2020).

COMPASSION IN CHIEF

by Tricia Knoll





We lost heartfelt
in the mocking
of disabilities.

We lost empathy
with one toss of paper towels
to the devastated.

We lost all trust.
what test is beautiful
for the virus of fear?

We lost a tender voice
with respect
for the dying,

for the worry of sickness
for those of us
targeted in our chests.

We lost our trust
in the beautiful test
for the virus of fear.

We hear the echo
of amazing grace notes
in a by-gone tenor

that true Compassion in Chief.





Tricia Knoll remembers the singing of "Amazing Grace" by our last President while this one seems to think the scare of corona virus events is mostly financial.

IN MEMORY OF TWO HONEST MEN,ERNESTO CARDENAL AND MY FATHER

by Penelope Scambly Schott

I am taking off my hat in prayer for Nicaragua.
I don’t have a black beret like Ernesto Cardenal’s.

I have a dark blue beret like my dead father’s beret.
It is my dead father’s beret. My father was no radical:

he was shocked to learn that a government will lie.
I’m not lying to you now: I don’t have a black beret

and I am no revolutionary. Our president keeps lying
while my trusting father lies in his grave, hatless.

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books are House of the Cardamom Seed  and November Quilt.  Forthcoming is On Dufur Hill, a sequence of poems about a small (pop. 623) wheat-growing town in central Oregon.

CLEARITY

by Mark Williams

Cartoon by First Dog on the Moon

“Hello. I am Austin Baggerly and I am giving my speech
in Mrs. Colley's fourth grade class at West Park Elementary,
which you already know since you are my friends
and you are here too. Mrs. Colley said to give a speech
on something that our country needs more of.
I asked my mom what our country needs more of
and she said clearity. I asked her what is clearity
and she said the state of being clear. I asked her
which state is that and she said the blue ones. Mom says
a person can never ever be too clear. Never.
She says for example take our President who says
the first thing that comes out of his mouth only then
it is too late since it is already confusing everyone.
Like he said when it gets warm the virus will give up
and quit killing old people. I hope so cause Grandma Baggerly
is old and I do not want her to die. But how do we know
the virus does not like hot weather too? It could.
Or when he said he wants to leave the people
on the boat since that would be good for the numbers.
What does that mean? What numbers? Whose numbers?
I heard my mom on the phone telling Aunt Alice
that she is surprised to learn Mike Pence has balls.
She does not mean basketballs or baseballs eccetera.
Even golf balls. She means for once he stood up like a man
to the President and said we do not have enough tests
to see if we have the virus after the President said
we have all the beautiful tests we need. Mom says
just you wait the President will fire Mike Pence
if he keeps being clear since that is the one thing
the President is afraid of even more than the virus.
So always be clear. Also wash your hands. And
Mom says to tell your parents and grandparents
to wash their hands of the President this November.
So that virus doesn't spread too. Thank you.”

Mark Williams lives in the red but otherwise good state of Indiana. His poems and stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, New Ohio Review, Drunk Monkeys, The American Journal of Poetry, and the anthologies American Fiction and The Boom Project. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, and WritersResist.

BUG

by Gil Hoy

I know it's not
what you want,
but I can't live
if I can't get
inside of you.
To be precise,
I'm not really living
at all. I have no cellular
organelles, no DNA.
I can't grow on my own
and require your genetic
instructions to survive.
I can't continue to multiply
and thrive outside of you. Soap
and water are my kryptonite. Is it
selfish of me to want to exist?
I pray you don't really think so.
Even if  what I have is not much
of a life. Please consider things
from my perspective. If I could,
I'd organize my fellow contagions.
Get us all together to create
a super Pac. I long to keep
the status quo. Both Biden
and Sanders, they scare me.
They listen to scientists. That
nescient man in the White House
doesn't understand what I'm about.
Which is fine with me. Think of me
as a microscopic, infective agent
just looking to blossom. Be kind,
be compassionate come November.
Let's keep our arrangement of quiet
indifference intact. Let's just leave
well enough alone.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet, Democratic political activist, and semi-retired trial lawyer. He studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared, or will be appearing, in TheNewVerse.News,  Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, MisfitMagazine, The Potomac, The Penmen Review, One Sentence Poems and elsewhere.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2020

by Mary K O'Melveny

Once again three old white
men will mansplain about
child care, abortion rights,
how pregnancy pratfalls
can stall a fine career.
No one questioned their
electability,
told them to lean in, smile
more. Or less. Or back off.
Be more charming. Sound less
smart. Dress up. Dress down.
Pretend their lives were not
history lessons. About
a bazillion women
know more than these guys, laugh
at their careless presumptions,
clueless, charmless speeches,
responsibility
denials.  We weep too.
Because change never takes
place.  It seems that pinky
promises are made to
be broken. Everyone is
so, so sorry.  No one
feels like celebrating.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

BYE, BYE, ST. PAT'S PARADE

by Andrés Castro

When organizers of the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade again decided to bar members of the borough’s LGBTQ pride center from participating, Madison L’Insalata decided to take a stand. L’Insalata, this year’s Miss Staten Island, came out as bisexual in the New York Post and the Staten Island Advance on Saturday. She told those newspapers that she planned to wear rainbow clothing while marching in Sunday’s [March 1, 2020] parade to show support for the LGBTQ community. —The Washington Post, March 3, 2020

Pressed on why the Island’s Pride Center was denied permission to march openly, a parade organizer with the fraternal order, Larry Cummings, said: “Here’s the deal, it’s a non-sexual identification parade and that’s that, no, they are not marching. Don’t try to keep asking a million friggin’ questions, OK?” Cummings continued when asked if the Ancient Order of Hibernians would ever allow the Pride Center to march in the future. “The fact of the matter is that’s what it is, OK? And that’s that.” —The Staten Island Advance, February 19, 2020

Silly Rabbit.
They are marching.
They are watching too.
On the street. At home.
In Iraq and Afghanistan.
Look! That one’s wearing
a blue uniform and a fucking badge!
Holy Shit! They’re everywhere!

Baby.
Hold on to your Lucky Charms.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory and regularly posts work on his personal blog, The Practicing Poet. He lives in Queens, NY.

POLITICS AND PICASSO

by Ed Werstein

A Facebook friend posts: Any blue
will do! and I comment: What if
Picasso had had that attitude?
We may be entering another of our
periodic blue periods. I want to scream
across the internet, No! Not any blue will do!
According to the founders, we are
the architects, the artists, of our own
future. (If we have one).
We mustn’t just dip blindly at the blue
palette we’re offered to cover the orange
we’ve been putting up with lately.

Some blues bend toward green, while
others appear blue, but quickly turn
yellow when applied to the canvas.

Artists! Let’s amaze our many critics around the world.
Let’s choose a new revolutionary blue
(or at least a reformist one), a blue
we haven’t dabbled in in decades.

Ed Werstein is a regional VP of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. In 2018 he received the Lorine Niedecker Prize from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. His latesT chapbook is Benediction & Baseball.

WORTH

by Pepper Trail





The New York Times, March 5, 2020:

“Elizabeth Warren, Once a Front-Runner, Drops Out of Presidential Race”

“If American women earned minimum wage for the unpaid work they do around the house and caring for relatives, they would have made $1.5 trillion last year.”


In front of the bright lights
You carry a lifetime of learning
Lightly—for you it must be lightly
When you try, you are given nothing
When you succeed, you earn—fear

In the dark silent hours
Your cool hand comforting the feverish child
Your words calming the confused grandfather
What you have to give is taken
What is demanded of you is – more

Visible, invisible, there is no place of safety
To be loved, be silent
To be listened to, be quiet
When you ask, the answer is no
When you do not ask, there is no answer

In front of the lights, in the dark hours
Hold fast to your worth
Someday, rocks will crack
Someday, a wave will rise
Someday.  Someday.  Someday.


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.

CONTAGION

by Mary K O’Melveny

When dispersed, dandelion seed heads, also known as “blowballs,” can travel vast distances due to a unique morphology of the pappus, a fine hair-like material which holds the spherical seed heads and enables their wind-aided dispersal.  The pappus adapts, based on wind or air moisture, closing its plume of seeds until optimal conditions for maximum dispersal and germination occur.  

the metaphor seems right

too obvious of course

as arenas fill up with 

chanting shrieking clapping

sounds of sickness  backbeats

to our long agony

everyone in MAGA

hats or face masks   Look

to your right or your left

infection will arrive

like a dandelion’s

pappus as it sails off

carried by wind to new

meadows,  gliding down like

wartime propaganda 

hoping for fallow fields

and willing minds   there is 

no ripcord    just free fall

furtive looks  yield nothing

no obvious symptoms

everyone could carry

these germs    no one will tell

truths   everyone will shift

blame   new tears will be shed 

you cannot lock us all

up   cannot invent a

failsafe test   find a cure

hiding inside some lab 

mouse   even if we steal

back money from builders

of walls a plague still looms

dress up in your white coats

smile at your neighbors who

are about to lock their 

doors so you can’t enter

wash your hands one more time

then beg them for mercy

show them how your face mask

can repel each viral 

blast better than theirs  

tell them you have never 

seen a hot zone or helped 

a victim    promise you will

never argue about

anything important

won’t blow any whistles

tell them you are grateful 

you will not doubt again


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

SOOTHE-SAYING

by Charlotte L. Rea

Cartoon by David Horsey, originally published in The Seattle Times in 2019. 

The day I stopped watching the news,                                              
a wannabe king danced on democracy’s tomb.
I looked to the moon, my long-trusted muse

and trembling asked, what more can we lose?
My life feels hopeless and filled with doom.
To stop-watch progress through the news

is folly, said the moon. Don’t let the ruse
of the haughty turn your heart’s hope to gloom.
Look to me, the moon, your long-trusted muse.

See how the stars and galaxies persevere—whose
presence across the ages is there to illume,
if you stop and watch with care. The news

is like a nova, dazzling but fleet. Wisely choose
what occupies your gaze and what you consume.
I welcome your wisdom, my long-trusted muse.

I’m always here to comfort not to confuse,
be faithful in my company—but never presume
that because you stop watching the news
I, the moon, can be more than a muse.

Editor's note: The previous posting of this poem formatted it incorrectly. Its nature as a villanelle is properly presented here in the reposting.

Charlotte L. Rea is a native Virginian who spent twenty-six years on active duty in the United States Air Force. She explains, “I am more appalled every day about what is happening to the democracy I spent a large portion of my life defending. This poem was a way for me to keep current tumultuous times in perspective.” Rea currently lives with her dog, Maggie, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.