FLORIDA MAN DOES DATA ANALYTICS

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Three days after most of the federal workforce was furloughed on Dec. 21, a 14-year-old girl fell 700 feet to her death at the Horseshoe Bend Overlook, part of the Glen Canyon Recreation Area in Arizona. The following day, Christmas, a man died at Yosemite National Park in California after suffering a head injury from a fall. On Dec. 27, a woman was killed by a falling tree at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the borders of North Carolina and Tennessee. The deaths follow a decision by Trump administration officials to leave the scenic—but sometimes deadly—parks open even as the Interior Department has halted most of its operations. During previous extended shutdowns, the National Park Service barred access to many of its sites across the nation. National Park Service spokesman Jeremy Barnum said in an email that an average of six people die each week in the park system, a figure that includes “accidents like drownings, falls, and motor vehicle crashes and medical related incidents such as heart attacks.” Photo: Lights shine at a shuttered entrance station at Joshua Tree National Park in California on Jan. 3, 2019. The gate is normally staffed during the day but is now unstaffed 24 hours per day, allowing free entrance for all visitors. Campgrounds have been closed at the park and other services suspended during the partial government shutdown. (Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images) —The Washington Post, January 4, 2019

Let him start by counting
the number of refugees
that can fit in a pup tent
or a large tiger cage.

Let him make a pie chart
for the styles of rakes
needed for preventing
forest fires
in the state of California.

He will weigh the odds
for laundering Russians
in Florida or New York.

He will compare the rainfall
in inches
in Paris
in November
with flood levels in Houston
in their last hurricane.

Puerto Rico
he ignores.

Let him indicate the size of
small hands
used to measure
the big wall.

He will evaluate the climate data
removed from public view
divided by the number of bodies
that can't fit
in a city morgue

then chart the data
for his fans:
give them
what they want

the results:
always
inconclusive.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan lives in South Florida and writes noir with a dark humor. Books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Poetry chapbooks include The Art of Bars (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Days' End (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2017). Project XX, a novel about a school shooting, was published in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. 

SMITHEREEN '17

by Max Gutmann

Chiefily-briefily
William H. Harrison
Served in the White House for
Days and then died.

Uninspirational
Formerly, now it's a
Model Americans
Speak of with pride.

*

Dupery-poopery,
Senator Cassidy
Lied on TV and made
Talk-show hosts frown,

Neologistically
Coining the Kimmel Rule
Just to ignore it. "It's
Named for a clown!"

*

Flippity-floppity
Anikin Skywalker
Quitted the Dark Side (he
Saw it was bad),

Prompting its leader to
Intergalactically
Tweet: He's Darth Loser! No
Loyaltie! SAD!!!

*

Bushery-tushery,
Roslyn Corrigan
Groped many years ago,
Finally spoke.

Ultraperplexity:
Which part was worse, that Bush
Grabbed, or his dumb David-
Cop-a-Feel joke?

*

Drivery-thrivery,
Annika Sörenstam
Rose to be golf champ by
Playing the game,

Living on golf courses
Uninterruptedly.
T***p serves as President
Doing the same.

*

Sagey-Be, Kay-Gee-Be,
President Kennedy,
Commonly known as a
Bit of a chump,

Unpatriotically
Trusted the Russians who
Claimed they'd not tampered with--
Oops. I meant T***p.

*

Wiselly-sizelly,
Theodore Roosevelt
Said if one's strong, speaking
Softly's the trick.

President T***p, showing
Dissimilarity,
Boomingly boasts of the
Size of his . . . stick.

*

Royally-loyally,
Catherine Middleton,
Polls say, is England's first
Choice for new queen,

Leading Prince Charles to show
Irritability,
Muttering something that's
Mildly unclean.

*

Wishily-washily,
Captain America,
Boldly created as
Fascism's foe,

Says after Charlottesville,
Anticlimactically,
"Nazis were right about
Some things, you know?"


Max Gutmann has contributed to RE:AL and other publications.

WHAT WE COULD'VE BEEN DOING

by Lylanne Musselman

A Wrinkle In Time just in Time

Not fighting on Facebook about the NFL
about whether it’s unpatriotic to kneel—
causing all the false patriots to yell.
Not waking to new Twitter rants,
nor shaking our head over the latest
faux pas that crazy man said.
Not dreading each day more than the next
knowing we’ve lost ground; feeling put under
some endless voodoo hex.
Not fearing nuclear war with Kim Jong Un,
nor wondering which leader is the largest loon.
Not having our country purposely divided,
or seeing the news media accused of being one-sided.

We wouldn’t be worrying over losing our healthcare,
afraid of facing the next health scare.
Not feeling that just to get through each day
we’d need a round of whisky or a special little pill.
Not losing hope of preserving nature’s beauty
because of corporate fracking and looting.
We wouldn’t have to plot every minute
of how we can resist, feeling relief
only because so many of us persist.
Not wondering if losing net neutrality will affect our say,
or which famous male is the biggest pervert, still.
Instead, each day we suffer some new low
from Mr. “Make America Great Again”—our crisis
of electing the 45th President from a TV reality show.

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and artist, living in Indiana. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Poetry Breakfast, TheNewVerse.News, Ekphrastic Review, and Rat’s Ass Review, among others, and many anthologies including Resurrection of a Sunflower, poems to honor Vincent van Gogh (Pski’s Porch, 2017).  A Pushcart Nominee, Musselman is the author of four chapbooks including the recent Weathering Under the Cat (Finishing Line Press, 2017). 

T***P VISITS GOLF CLUB FOR THIRD CONSECUTIVE WEEKEND

by JP Thelbert Bryant

Donald Trump has played golf every four days of his presidency.

—The Independent (UK) October 23, 2017

What’s out there, the solution to healthcare?
Secret plans to back down North Korea?
An apology letter about Russia’s interference?
Pussies to grab?

And do you ever feel guilty in those tight khakis
and white shirt, that children are hungry,
that gays are scared, that religion is taking over,
that women hurt?

Does it make you feel powerful to swing a club, put balls in holes,
tug on that baseball cap probably made in China?

I wonder these things as I work everyday, as I set aside money for sickness, as I monitor the gasoline I use, the food I buy.

I have no time for golf. Most of us have no time for golf.
We have to worry about feeding our children, fending off diseases,
nuclear bombs, conservative evangelicals dictating our lives,
our bodies, our minds.

But only pretty rich folks play with you.
And no one wants to think about sad things anyway.
It’s just some of us have to think about them. Everyday.

JP Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the low residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. He lives in the woods of Virginia where he burns incense, deer watches, and dreams of oceans.

PRICK AN AMERICAN

by Zev Shanken

Still from Ang Lee's film of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

America is bad on health care because
   Americans never get sick.
America favors the rich in taxes because
   all Americans are rich.
Americans carry guns because
   Americans shoot bad guys.

America isn't afraid of war because
   Americans never die, and if they do,
they live forever in half-time shows—
      well worth the sacrifice.

Prick an American, he will not bleed.
Prick him again, he re-invents Hollywood.

Zev Shanken’s poems “The Hora for the First Passover under President T***P” and “High Noon” have appeared in earlier issues of TheNewVerse.News.  A collection of his poems, Memory Tricks, is available from Full Court Press. He co-chairs a monthly poetry reading series, Thursdays are for Poetry,  at Classic Quiche in Teaneck, NJ.

THERE'S SOMETHING DYING IN MY BRAIN

by Gil Hoy

Why, in wealthy America

must the beggared sick
lay ill in their beds

While a well-to-do
privileged white man

Dines on fine rich foods,
swings at a little white ball

at his country club
in warm sunny Florida.

While a smiling young girl
skips along the beach in her
wildly carefree exuberance

While an inquisitive circling
seagull soars overhead,

Searching for something
fresh to eat in the sea’s puddles.

Gil Hoy is a personal injury lawyer in Boston, Massachusetts, a former Town Selectman, and a regular contributor to TheNewVerse.News. His poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals.

NOT ABOUT PROVIDENCE

by David Feela

Every night before sleep
deeds of maleficence
get counted like black sheep
in Paul Ryan’s head.

Hour after hour
tallying the flock,
pounds of mutton
lifted over his tiny fence.

Enough to populate
an elysian field
where the grass stays green,
locked in a banker’s vault.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays How Delicate These Arches released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.

SNOT

by Katherine Smith

President Donald Trump stood alongside House Republicans in the Rose Garden Thursday to applaud the narrow passage of legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare. The bill, also known as the American Health Care Act, aims to effectively gut health care coverage for millions, cut Medicaid funding by 25 percent, and allow states to deny coverage for a slew of pre-existing conditions. —Mother Jones, May 4, 2017

Suspended in the blue horizon like a pale blue sea creature
we sing.  We sing of crown vetch rising from ditches like a minor god
that will still be here in a billion years, a music
we make each day. We believe in our solidity
like sea creatures under the ocean
in their geometric palaces made entirely of mucus,
whirling shells, transparent rooms that filter water
to feed pinkie sized larva. We build our cathedrals,
in love with monuments, marble columns,
the Nautilus of our constitution. In the Rose Garden
Americans have dragged a palace from under the water—
two children sleeping under a blanket on a beach
tended by a woman with a brain tumor who will die in a week—
heaved it onto the thorns, drip under collapsed walls.

Katherine Smith’s publications include appearances in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review and many other journals.  Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. She teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland.

THEIR OWN SPIRIT

by Jan D. Hodge

T***p, GOP Leaders Take Victory Lap After House Passes ‘Trumpcare’ —NBC News, May 4, 2017

Thus sayeth the Lord God, Woe to the foolish prophetswho follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.                        ―Ezekiel 13.2

When things get bad in the bog,
toads squat on the shoulders of pygmies.

Jubilant if they can see
clear to the next rotten log,
they trumpet farts of glee.

Two things about toads:
    they celebrate the smallest victories
    and always gloat with so little class.

Jan D. Hodge's poems have appeared in many print and online venues. His Taking Shape (a collection of carmina figurata) and The Bard & Scheherazade Keep Company (tales from Shakespeare and the Arabian Nights recast in double dactyl stanzas) have both been published by Able Muse Press.

I HAVE BEEN COUNTING ALL HER LIES

by Barbara Crooker

Here's what Kellyanne Conway had to say about T***p when she was working for Cruz.

for Kellyanne Conway

Alternative truths, facts in disguise.
Microwaves that act as spies,
telephones containing bugs,
politicians who are not thugs
or Russian agents; no, not them.
Healthcare run by businessmen
whose focus on the bottom line
ignores the needs of yours and mine.
Whose vision to make this country great
will just include the ones who hate
and those whose income isn't taxed—
that's only for those of us who lack
loophole savvy CPAs—
If Kellyanne could have her way
America would soon become
a land of rich and white and dumb.
So watch out for your TV set
that now surveils your every step.
No Meals on Wheels left at your door.
No free lunches, that's for sure.
No one succeeds by being poor.


Barbara Crooker is the author of eight books of poetry, including Small Rain, Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems, and most recently Les Fauves. Her work has appeared in The Bedford Introduction to Literature and Common Wealth:  Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, and on The Writer’s Almanac. Barbara Crooker has received a number of awards, including the 2004 WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the 2003 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships.

BLOOD, COFFEE, AND A COVERED LIFE

by Jill Crainshaw

Daily Signe Cartoon 03/14/17

The old hymn from my childhood pounds out
a heat-beating rhythm in my head.
“There is power, power,
wonder-working power
in the blood,”
while plasma charts a course
through octogenarian veins,
a crimson thread
marking a jagged line
between life and death.

“Here you go, honey,”
the Starbucks barista said
and her eyes smiled
while her mouth hid
behind one of those disposable face masks
medical center workers were wearing
that windy winter day.
I smiled back, took the potent elixir,
and drank,
as the dark roasted incense swirled.

Battle lines are drawn,
expiration date unknown but certain
as soon as womb-water breaks
onto unmapped territory.
“It could go either way,”
the hospitalist said.
“But it’s all covered.”
I Googled “hospitalist”
and waited
for a lingering red pearl to let go.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a Presbyterian minister. Her work has appeared in Star 82 Review, Mused: Bella Online Literary Review, and Panoplyzine. She is a frequent contributor to the Unfundamentalist Christians blog.