THE EMPTY CELL

by Lynn White

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladić commemorated in Belgrade, but no state honours: Thousands are expected at Mladić's burial in Belgrade on Monday, which will proceed without serving officials, artillery salutes or ceremonial military presence. Brussels has said earlier any glorification would be "incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built". Mladić died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Bosnia. His remains were flown to Serbia from The Hague on a government plane on Thursday. —EuroNews, September 5, 2026

The Butcher is dead.

His meat decayed bones

broken

burned

buried

now waiting

for him to follow.

His cell is empty

waiting gravely

for those

whose meat 

is fresh

blood

and bones

broken

burned

buried

sometimes in rubble

always in the rubble of words.

So we wait

wanting

them

to be unearthed

the earth

made empty

as the cell

waiting 

for the ones

who are chosen.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

SREBRENICA, A 20th ANNIVERSARY

by Sandra Sidman Larson

The bodies of dozens of victims of the Srebrenica massacre are being taken back to the Bosnian town for burial. The killing of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb troops was the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two. A service to bury 136 newly-identified victims will take place on Saturday, 20 years to the day since the massacre began. Another 6,241 victims have already been identified. —BBC News, July 9, 2015

Place of silver,
place of bullets,
place of silver bullets.
Silently they tread dusty roads,
silently they climb into flatbed trucks,
silently they arrive at the wayside of their slaughter.

Place of silver,
place of bullets,
place of silver bullets.
Into the backs of young men and boy’s heads, the pop, pop
     of silver bullets.
Into shallow roadside graves they are dumped,
their corpses shoveled over.

Place of silver,
place of bullets
place of silver bullets.
Under the ground of history they are stacked,
            full of silver bullets,
another layer of bodies silently compressed
and we are left to harvest what will arise from this.


Sandra Sidman Larson, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has three chapbooks to her credit: Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Over a Threshold of Roots, (both Pudding House Press Publications) and Weekend Weather: Calendar Poems.  Recognized as a full-length manuscript finalist for the 2013 Lost Horse Press’ Idaho Prize for Poetry and the 2015 Trio House Press Trio Award, she was also a semi-finalist in the 2015 Concrete Press’ chapbook competition. Her poetry has been published in many venues such as the Atlanta Review, Grey Sparrow, Earth’s Daughters, and The New Verse News. She has been active in the social justice movement through her long career and over the years has attempted to use poetry as a way to communicate both political and personal concerns and aspirations. Holding an MSW, Sandra managed nonprofit organizations for a career, and, as a poet, she is an active member of The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and is currently hoping to see her manuscript, Distance in My Hands, published one of these days.