I MUST SAY SOMETHING

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

It seems necessary to say something

Just to keep our heads from exploding

The horrors Bibi and the Orange Idiot commit

Never stop

All unspeakably cruel

All that leave us at a loss for words

And yet we must say something

 

This morning I read 

That Israel bombed a home in Gaza

Where a family was asleep in their beds

Six people were burned alive

As they slept

I am at a loss for words

And yet I must stay something

 

This morning I read

That Donald Juniper Trump

Cut billions from a government food program

Meant to provide sustenance 

For the children of the poor

Many of whom will now experience extreme hunger

Many of whom will starve

I am at a loss for words

And yet I must say something

 

What shall I say?

Sorry family who were burned alive

Sorry starving children

How utterly inadequate the words seem

How pathetic in the face of the deaths

Being arrranged by the powerful

For the powerless

I will always be at a loss for words

When coming face-to-face

With the cruelty of the plutocrats

As they dance on the graves of the powerless

And pick the pennies from their pockets

And yet I must say something…

Buff Whitman-Bradley podcasts his poetry at thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

MISDEAL

by W. Barrett Munn

Cartoon by Clay Jones

Once there was a leader who wasn’t ready

for the effects his warring caused.

He tried to create an army out of blather,

and ordered his followers to blather, too.

He’d drawn a line in the sand

and crossed it off his to-Bi list,

having placed his faith in himself

to prevent missteps—

The people got pissed.

Terrified of losing control, the man in charge

sold his soul to the same devil

he’d been embellishing as a threat.

The leader swore

on a gold bar that sat on top a Bible

that his soul had always been hidden

inside a sack full of cash. A deal was struck—

The enemy got to win the war,

got all the cash, and all the rockets

as long as they promised—which they did—

while keeping their fingers crossed.

Winston Munn writes as W. Barrett Munn because initially he thought that sounded cooler and he had been named after Elizabeth Barrett, later Browning, his mother's favorite poet. He's been fortunate to have been selected before for The New Verse News along with a number of other publications. He lives in Oklahoma and rarely comes up for air as in Oklahoma it's always open season on progressives.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

by Steven Kent

The Guardian, March 4, 2026

Our kids feel safe, say dads and moms

(Except for, you know, all the bombs).

They learn their science, math, and spelling

(Also how to hide from shelling).

Bless these teachers—they're the boss!

(Damn both Bibi and Hamas!)

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.

SEA OF DESPOND

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

Israel clears final hurdle to start settlement construction that would cut the West Bank in two. —PBS, January 6, 2026. In the video above from four months ago, Israeli minister Smotrich explains the plan.

From the river to the sea,

Palestine won't come to be.

Bibi's stance is very clear:

Arabs aren't welcome here.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has around 360 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, Light Poetry Magazine, and Lighten Up Online.. She has also had fourteen previous poems in The New Verse News.

WAKING UP COLD

by Thomas R. Smith

Watercolor painting by Judys Art

October 2024

Change of the seasons, woke up cold.

Time to pile on extra blankets.

Thought of the people living in rubble,

huddling under whatever scrap of comfort

they can pull around their bones—sick,

hungry, broken, families blown away,

entire bloodlines erased.  With no plan

to rebuild, it could take generations.

How to face such a dawn knowing children,

grandchildren, great-grandchildren pre-condemned?

Nor to forget among the tens or hundreds

of thousands dead those double hostages

of Hamas and Bibi.  God help us all.

Woke this morning, cold from a year of war.

Thomas R. Smith’s recent books are a poetry collection Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications) and a prose work Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (Red Dragonfly Press). He lives in western Wisconsin near the Kinnickinnic River.

ARREST HIM. DON'T FÊTE HIM.

by Rob Okun    

If Benjamin Netannotajew addresses a disjointed  
session of Congress on July 24 will it be
a day that will live in infamy?
 
You actually have the gall to ask that question!?
Of course it would be.
 
Imagine “Arrest him. Don’t fête him” protest signs popping up across
the country while organizers fill busses from 30 states with patriots
headed to DC to say no way will a wanted war criminal speak in
the People’s house
 
Liberals opposed to the prime sinister will sip wine at fundraisers in Takoma Park
twisting themselves
                                         into impossible-to-achieve yoga positions from
two-state downward dog solution to low down dirty dog final solution
 
“If Israel doesn’t qualify as a true democracy anymore, do we still
have to send them weapons—no strings attached?”
You actually have the gall to ask that question!?
 Yes. We “have” to send them the weapons. If we don’t 
all heaven might break loose—
beginning with an end to the slaughter of Israel’s semitic cousins
 
In this heatwave fever dream, the growing movement of next gen jews
will lead a multigenerational march for peace where it will be permissible 
to use the following words and phrases:
 

38,000…mostly women and children…likely thousands more under the rubble…

humanitarian aid convoys blocked—again…West Bank “settlers” sadistically gone wild…authorities turn a blind eye…they’re committing war crimes… permanent cease fire

 

Note: If possible, however, not to ruffle the feathers of Israeli censors, avoid using 

the words: Palestine… Palestinians… unprecedented number of murdered journalists…

bombed hospitals and schools…starvation…malnutrition…unsafe drinking water…and, 

of course—genocide…

Oh—when discussing the recent daring rescue of four Israeli hostages, absolutely avoid mention of 274 Palestinians killed and 700 wounded. (It is permissible to use the phrase “collateral damage.”)

 
How the hell, you’d be right to ask, has the unlawful firm of Biden, Blinken & Austin
continued to arm this country, ruled by a madman, for so long?
You actually have the gall to ask that question!?
 
There are now—and always have been—Jews who have wept over and still 
weep over the dashed dreams of a 1948 communal Israel-Palestine populated 
by two peoples living side-by-side in a world 
where no one ever heard the word nakba—or spoke
about forced displacement
Is the world ready now—after a full term pregnancy's length of war—
to invigorate that vision...take it from aspiration to realization?
Yaweh and Allah, I hope so.

Rob Okun, editor emeritus of the three-decades old, profeminist magazine Voice Male and editor of the anthology Voice Male: The Untold Story of the Profeminist Men’s Movement, has worked in activist journalism since the 1970s. His commentaries appear in numerous publications and on digital platforms including The Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Ms., and Common Dreams. He is syndicated by Peace Voice.

A YOUNGER NETANYAHU RETURNS TO ADDRESS HIS OLDER SELF

by Gordon Gilbert

"What terrorists do is target the innocent deliberately, and therefore my definition of terrorism is… the systematic and deliberate attack, murder, maiming and menacing of innocent civilians for political goals.... You can tell a lot about terrorists and what happens when they come to power. Those who fight for freedom and come to power do not impose terrorism.  Those who do, who fight in terroristic means, end up being masters of terroristic states."  —Benjamin Netanyahu to William F. Buckley on Firing Line, May 30, 1986.

Ah, Bibi, habibi!

 

You are not the man I thought I'd be,

no, not the one I find I have become.

I always knew how absolutely

power does corrupt.

I see now how just knowing that

was not enough to keep me

on a path of righteousness,

or save me from myself,

my own worst enemy.

 

So much suffering for all,

and in the end,

so much worse for Israel,

even now, as I,

the man you used to be,

confront you!

 

But no, I must say "we."

I am the former you.

Can you not see

you once were me?

 

We are taking down with us

our own beloved Israel!

 

Ah, Bibi, habibi,

what have we become?

Gordon Gilbert is a resident of the West Village in NYC who got through the pandemic taking long walks along the Hudson River.

I AM GAZA

by Ralph Dranow

Poster (via Flickr) created by Michael Thompson for a Gaza Freedom March… in 2010!

I am a three-year-old Palestinian boy,

shattered body a sorrowful song

sung by an Israeli bomb.

I am an 18-year-old Israeli soldier,

the stench of death seeping into my nostrils,

invading my whole being.

I am a Palestinian mother, my heart weeping,

my six-year-old daughter fainting from hunger,

my infant son fading fast.

I am Benjamin Netanyahu,

clinging to the life raft of power

in a turbulent sea.

I am a horrified Jewish-American,

the thread of connection sewn into my cells,

demanding an end to the killing.

I am an Israeli settler in the West Bank,

wishing the Palestinians, like noxious insects,

would just go away.

I am an evangelical Christian,

eager for Hamas to be demolished,

so that the Kingdom of Christ can manifest in Israel.

I am a Hamas soldier,

enclosed inside the righteous armor of my cause,

prepared to kill and die for the liberation of Palestine.

I am an Israeli peace activist,

murdered by Hamas on October 7th,

my body destroyed, my spirit refusing to die.

Ralph Dranow works as an editor, writing coach, and poetry teacher. His poems and articles have been widely published. He lives in Oakland, California with his family.

BIBI BLUSTERS

by Charles Frederickson





I scream for eye cream
Bibi risking US – Israeli relations
On partisan politics dangerously revolting
Insulting Ugly American mental floss

Vainella unilateral Bibi sitter bluster
Insolence impudence impertinence arrogance dance
Butter toasted butt-out pee-can
Stinging cheeky slap in faceoff

While Obama opposed invasion costing
Trillion greenbacks thousands of lives
Creating geopolitical ballyhooed wink debacle
Bibi championed Iraqi Road invasion

Washington DCeit caramel knowledge poisonalities
Cabana Oreo banana Obama split
Cheery cherry Kerry no-go-tiation pits
Caramel kvetch chutzpah Nutty-Yahoo

Imagine Whirled Peace froZEN meltdown
Never too shockolate yo-yogurt
Game of cones no surebert
Why can’t we be friends


Dr. Charles Frederickson has been a regular contributor to The New Verse News since 2006.

TWO ROADS

by Judith Terzi

“You don’t have to read Robert Frost to know. You have to live life to know that the difficult path is usually the one less traveled, but it will make all the difference for the future of my country, the security of the Middle East and the peace of the world, the peace, we all desire.” --Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the United States Congress, March 3, 2015

after Robert Frost

Two roads diverged on a snowy morning
on Congress' floor. The travelers could not
journey together along each path, one trodden
with storm of angst & warrior remains.
The other looked about the same, but hope
was sprinkled along the edges of the trail,
& sunlight could be seen streaming through
the fabric of oak & pine & fir. The travelers
listened to the vibes of each path, cupped
seasoned hands to ears to hear the trials
of trees, the brag of wind, the bend of earth.
Now some preferred the leitmotif that emerged
from one––a lighter tune they heard, say
a Mozart flute. They chose that road, skipped
stones into a mountain lake, while Spanish
broom stretched yellow necks toward
rain-swept sky. And two hummingbirds
tangoed overhead as if to say: "You've taken
this road, & it will make all the difference."


Judith Terzi is a poet and educator living in Southern California. She is the author of Sharing Tabouli, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, and most recently, If You Spot Your Brother Floating By (Kattywompus). Her poems appear widely in online and print journals and are included in anthologies such as Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer's (Barefoot Muse), Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes), and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque).