THE BRING OF DISASTER

by Mark Williams

O Heavenly Father,

It’s me again Austin Baggerly. I cant talk long tonight.
Mom says to say my prayers and get to sleep pronto
cause Dad got me home late. Home to my house
where he used to live but now is just Mom and me
and my box turtle Bradley. But you know that.
Pastor Crandall says you know everything there is.
He says You are Omniportant. Everyother Sunday Dad
takes me to praise You at Sudden Glory Fellowship.
Pastor Crandall says You made our President President.
Pastor Crandall says our President is The Chosen One.
Mom says that The Chosen One destroyed her marriage
and that if you chose him then you must want
to take everyone to the bring of disaster.
Why do You want to bring us there? For instants why
did You choose someone who does not care
if the world gets too hot for us to live? Where will we go?
And why did You pick someone who lets fires
burn up all the trees and forest animals
that You made in the Beginning? Plus why
is it OK to let people buy guns to shoot me in school?
Mom says the President wants to build a wall
to keep out poor people so they can stay poor
in there poor countrys? Why would You God
want to keep people poor in poor countrys
when You cared for the birds in the air
before the President let them burn up in the forests?
Maybe You chose someone to bring us to disaster
so that next time when it is our turn to choose
we will choose someone who stops us
before going all the way in to it. But in my pinion
You are cutting it awful close. Dear God,
when I turn ten will all this make sense? I hope so.
Sometimes I wish I could pull in my head like Bradley.

                                                            Amen

Mark Williams lives in Evansville, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, New Ohio Review, and The American Journal of Poetry. His poems in response to the current administration have appeared in Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, and Tuck Magazine. This is his fourth appearance in TheNewVerse.News.

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MAD KING

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"There are cases which cannot be overdone by language,
and this is one."

—Thomas Paine, "The Crisis," December 23, 1776

Our Petition as it stands now:

He has refused the rule of law,
which is most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

He has forbidden governance
of pressing importance,
and when so suspended,
has utterly neglected to attend to it.

He has refused to move forward
for the accommodation of large districts of people.
He has endeavored to prevent the population
of the states,
obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners,
refusing to encourage migrations here.

He has made judges dependent on his will
alone,
slandering and calling out publicly
or selecting them by loyalty.

He has erected a multitude of new offices,
and sent away swarms of officers
to far locations, away from governance.

He has kept among us
in times of peace
standing armies
rabble-rousers and tweeters
firing on the masses
without the consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution
and unacknowledged by our laws,
giving his assent to their acts
of interference in our elections.

He is known for
cutting off trade
with other parts of the world,
destroying alliances
cozying with despots.

He has abducted real governance
by declaring the media
enemies of the people and
out of his protection,
waging war on journalists.

His rollbacks have plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts,
flooded our cities,
burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us.

In every stage of these oppressions
we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms:
our repeated petitions
have been answered
by repeated injury.

A mad king, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant
is unfit
to be the leader
of a free people.

Our Petition is clear:

The words like bombs
exploding in our faces,
we must all
reread our Constitution.
uphold the laws therein.

Author's Note: Adapted from "The Declaration of Independence" in which King George is indicted for his "injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States."

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, October, 2019).

MY BORDER WALL

by Kathy Dahms Roger

I fully understand the need
for an occasional well-built wall
but when its intent is cruel
and its purpose ludicrous,
I'm incensed and inspired
to submit my own designs.

First, for an easy climb, existing walls
will have ladders installed.
Shorter ones will be made shorter
to allow a quick step-over. Others
will receive functional stiles.

In the desert, each wall will have
a water fountain for cooling off,
drinking, and bathing. There will be
sheltering roofs with signs that read
Welcome! in rainbow colors.
Where there are rivers, there will now
be free ferries to provide safe passage.

My new-style walls, of such artful
materials as stone, brick, or wood
will curve with the earth and have
sturdy foundations. Any studs will be
widely spaced but with no crossbars.
This will allow effortless entry and give
the structures the appearance of open
gates. Some walls will simply be a series
of doors, all unlocked, of course,
that swing in either direction. And some
will be quirky curtains - of shiny beads or
canvas or even tissue for quick disintegration.

All new arrivals will be given
a handshake and a hamburger.


Kathy Dahms Rogers lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.

CARAVAN

by Mary K O'Melveny

For several years now, Central Americans seeking to flee violence in their countries have banded together around Easter to cross into Mexico, some to stay there and some to take a chance on applying for asylum in the United States. They have joined forces in “caravans” for safety and to attract attention to their plight. Few in the United States have paid much heed. Until President Trump did, opening another ugly chapter in his anti-immigration crusade. . . . Against that hysteria, a few facts are in order. First, the caravan is hardly an anarchic and lawless endeavor. It is a group of desperate people fleeing, in accordance with internationally accepted rules, the very real horrors of the “northern triangle” of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, one of the most violent regions in the world. Under international treaties and its own laws, the United States is obliged to allow foreigners inside the country or at its ports of entry to apply for asylum. —The Editorial Board of The New York Times, May 2, 2018. Photo: CNN.

When is a caravan a final cortége?
We watch these voyagers limp walk
toward El Chaparral, cavalcades
clutching plastic bags, blankets, hands of
children.  As they march, they talk
of losses along the way, the death shades
that follow them like fellow travelers.
Others who track their route call them bands of
lawbreakers, sneer at ways life unravels
for those in perpetual vagabondage.

When is a caravan a carnival?
those cynics say, as they peer at screens
where misery is displayed between ads
for cars and drugs to stave off madness.
Some crusaders waved flags, screamed
to supporters across plazas, so glad
for a reason to stop marching.  Sadness
infused them with light like haloed beams
from a Delarosa Madonna, as the vastness
of their dispossession made them worshipful.

When is a caravan a transmigration?
In the name of God, all things are possible
said a man fleeing from gangs and guns.
In the name of love, I pronounce you wife
and husband said the Tijuana priest
to four young couples, their futures improbable.
The hour of my deliverance has finally come
said a teenager reciting ways that her life
had been squandered, her friends all deceased.
Their choices are simple – rescue or damnation.

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 will be published by Finishing Line Press in September, 2018.

THE SNAKE

by Ana Garza G'z
after the song of the same name by Oscar Brown, Jr.

Sisters Africa and Maggie Brown, daughters of Oscar Brown Jr. who wrote the song "The Snake,” criticize President Trump for using it as an anti-immigration reference during rallies.

“The Snake”: Donald T***p brings back his favorite

anti-immigrant fable at CPAC —CNN, February 23, 2018

With her remote control one evening flipping past commercial breaks,
a media-driven nation saw a narcissistic snake.
His orange colored hair had been all sprayed back with some goo.
"Oh, wow," she laughed, "I'll take you in, and I'll watch what you do."

Taken in, Media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, Media nation, by a snake.

She watched him on her TV in her jammies and her quilt,
giving him high ratings, his land of honey and of milk.
Then hurrying home to couch one night to giggle and to gasp,
she found the orange snake she'd taken to was in command.

Taken in, Media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, Media nation, by a snake.

She shrieked and clutched her bosom, "You were spectacle," she moaned,
"and if I hadn't brought you in, by now you would be gone."
She picked up her remote, and then she gripped it tight.
The orange head came up and out for a narcissistic strike.

Taken in, media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, media nation, by a snake.

"But I watched you," whined the nation, “and you've poisoned me and mine—
“guns, banks, oil, insurance companies, and white nationalism poised to thrive."
"I hear you, fake-news nation," said the reptile, from his notes.
"You knew damn well I was a snake before all those tremendous votes.”

Taken in, media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, media nation, by a snake.

Ana Garza G'z has an M. F. A. from California State University, Fresno, where she teaches part-time. Sixty-five of her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, most recently in Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty. She also works as an interpreter and translator.

THE GOVERNMENT

by Samantha Pious

after a ballade by Christine de Pizan

Where will outcasts comfort find
—asylum-seekers, refugees—
 now the land we thought to be
the sunset gates, the golden door,
the harbor where the tired, poor,
and fearful could at last breathe free
has neither love nor amnesty?
The one-percenters are severe;
the young professionals, resigned.
The government won’t deign to hear.

To lawyers they have no recourse,
ill-counseled by their advocates,
without protection from the courts.
The officers who stop and frisk
interrogate with undue force—
and sometimes suspects disappear
before they’re properly accused.
(But could that ever happen here?)
The magistrates condemn, unmoved;
the government won’t deign to hear.

Where shall they go, when there is no
safety here, or anywhere
that hope is vain, and friend is foe?
The underground will take them in
if they believe the garbled voice,
the tiny hands, the laquered hair,
the orange pawn—or puppeteer?—
who has big plans for his first year.
(But will he keep Obamacare?)
The government won’t deign to hear.

Folks, after this election year
the ship of state has sprung a leak
while navigating up shit creek.
We’ll have to pray or maybe hope
our captain doesn’t rock the boat.
The government won’t deign to hear.

Samantha Pious's first book A Crown of Violets (Headmistress Press, 2015) offers a selection of the French poetry of Renée Vivien in English translation. Some of her other translations and poems have appeared in Adrienne, Lavender Review, Mezzo Cammin, and other publications. Her poem "The Government" is loosely adapted from the Middle French of Christine de Pizan (1364-ca. 1430), an Italian-French woman poet and philosopher of the Late Middle Ages.