EVERYTHING MARJORIE MAY HAVE NEVER SAID

by Chad Parenteau

We swore an oath. Does anyone remember the oath?

Free speech is essential, whether or not we recall it.

They continue to take our freedoms away. Can anyone

tell me what those freedoms were? I don’t recollect 

putting any of those freedoms back on when my mask 

came off. Who took my mask off? I can’t remember 

everyone who voted for me, but I know everyone did, 

and the only way I can win is if everyone forgets that 

I won. Protect the integrity of elections. If this could 

happen during the time of my election, whenever that 

is, I would really appreciate it. Remember when Black 

Lives Matter and Antifa fought over who would storm 

the capitol,  or so I’m told by people I can’t recall. Political

power  comes from the barrel of a gun. Mumia Abu Jamal

said that, according to my notes. That wasn’t free speech 

when he said that. Has America proven those words 

to be true? I’ll have to get back to you if the smoke 

ever clears. There’s two schools of thought to research. 

One of them is CNN, which lies about me. The other 

is NewsMax, which uses my complete sentences

but omits everything else I’ve ever said in my life, 

which I may or may not have said. I don’t remember.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, and Nixes Mate Review. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. His second collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award.

NOTES FROM THE WEEKLY MEETING OF THE 75-YEAR-OLD ANTIFA PROVOCATEURS

by John Hodgen

Welcome back, Martin. How’s the noggin?
(Laughter.) (Applause.)
You really used your head this time, big fella. Careful when you log in.
Taking one for the team, Martin. Way to go. One for the cause.
And great job with the Fake Blood Pellet in the Ear trick.
And the old Backwards Trip and Fall Stutter Step. Worked like a charm.
All that practice paid off. A perfect 10 from the Russian judge. Terrific.
Wall to wall on OANN. And you got the CNN and MSNBC crowd alarmed.
You’re a meme now. More people have seen you fall than watched the Towers.
Score one for ANTIFA. Talk about defunding the police. Fight the power.
And you even got all the police scanner info with your secret decoder ring.
Proud of you, big guy. Let’s get started now for your next gig.
Mar-a-Lago. The old swan dive under the golf cart. Do your thing.
This is going to be big.

Editor's Note: The 75-year-old man hospitalized after he was pushed by a police officer during a peaceful protest last week in Buffalo, New York, suffered a brain injury as a result of the incident, his lawyer revealed Thursday. Kelly Zarcone said her client, activist Martin Gugino, "is starting physical therapy," which Zarcone called "a step in the right direction. As heartbreaking as it is, his brain is injured and he is well aware of that now," Zarcone said in a statement. "He feels encouraged and uplifted by the outpouring of support which he has received from so many people all over the globe. It helps. He is looking forward to healing and determining what his ‘new normal’ might look like." The New Verse News offers this poem to cheer him and those who have come to know and love Martin for his work and sacrifice. We wish him all the best.

John Hodgen is the Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA.  Hodgen won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005).  His fifth book The Lord of Everywhere is out from Lynx House/University of Washington Press.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT AN IMPEACHMENT DEFENSE

by Edmund Conti

13 or so Republican whitebirds.

I
Among the Carpathian Mountains
The only moving thing
Was Hunter Biden.

II
I was of three minds
Like a Congress
In which there are Republicans, women and blacks.

III
The blackbird whistled in the autumn winds.
Someone find out who he is.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A quid and a quo and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blower whistling
Or just after.

VI
Reporters filled the White House
Listening,
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood?
The blackbird cackled
Indecipherable caws.

VII
O thin men of CNN,
Why do imagine golden birds?
Do you not see the corruption?
Where is my lawyer?
Rudy. Rudy. Rudy!

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
A beautiful phone call when I hear one
Is what I know.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light
I cry out for a red light
To stop everything.

XI
He rode over Connecticut Avenue
In his limousine,
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The Washington Wizards
For blackbirds.


XII
The river is moving.
Get over it!

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The Democrats sat
Waiting.


There are many ways of looking at Edmund Conti’s poetry. Right side up is best

A CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

by Ralph La Rosa

The evolution of revolution
is a student-led crusade,
its first and foremost resolution:
the NRA must be waylaid.


Ralph La Rosa’s work has been published online, including at TheNewVerse.News, and in the books Sonnet Stanzas and Ghost Trees.

ELECTION SHOCK, TWIN CITIES, 2016

by Sue Reed Crouse

You will tire
of using his face

to pick up dog shit.
You will quit saying cataclysm

because cataclysm unites
a country. You will cull Facebook,

CNN, the front page from your day.
You will say, I’m done, I’m through

fuck it. You will get your household
Canada-ready. You will roam the woods,

call on the willow, golden in the low light
and the pond, steeped in the oak’s rich tannins.

But then, you will go downtown and see
Somali school girls swinging, their shashs

billowing and you’ll drive on Lake Street,
where Dia de los Muertos celebrations—

with marigolds, calavaras, offrendas—
were held last week. You will

pass houses
flying the rainbow flag

and you’ll go home
and get to work.

Sue Reed Crouse is a 2011 graduate of the Foreword Program, a two-year poetry apprenticeship at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Much of her work is elegiac in nature, exploring themes of grief and loss after losing Laura, her 20 year-old daughter in 2008. Finding fresh ways to explore this universal theme through image-driven poetry helps her navigate the sorrow and, hopefully, help others who grieve. Crouse’s work appears in Verse Wisconsin, The Aurorean (Showcase Poet), The Talking Stick (First Prize, Honorable Mention), Grey Sparrow, Earth’s Daughters, Damselfly Press, Midway Journal, Sleet Magazine, Unhinged, Little Lantern Press and a chapbook entitled Gatherings: A Foreword Anthology. Her manuscript One Black Shoe was a finalist for the Backwaters Prize last year.

COOKIES AND CRACKERS

by Dennis Mahagin

People walk past burning cars near the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue Monday in Baltimore. Violence erupted following the funeral service for Freddie Gray, who died a week after being arrested by Baltimore police. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images) via the Baltimore Sun, April 28, 2015

That cop, you just knew he was
drawing a bead on the small of the
whatever, and I pointed my flicker
at a plasma screen, watched
as a black guy caught his slugs; that makes
fourteen this spring, what does it mean,
a word, a deed, if anything? That cop
who dropped him in his tracks,
you just knew he’s a freak, a dick, squeezed
off each, in his freshly-pressed pleats. Jesus
why not come back, Lord, diminishing
admonishing, return? I pointed my flicker
at a screen, guts burned with nausea,
too much acid, what we learned,
later, that they'd snapped his neck
like a pork rind, the Galaxy vibrated
for my location, and sirens knew:
they whined. So I booted up
Facebook instead, time
enough the little box said Sign In !
-- to hear a litany of audio malware
in the head, the come-ons, for Liberty
Mutual, left Twix, white Twix,
the matrix, that runs, so subliminal
while one tries to get away. I pointed
my flicker, only to see he’s about to be
gunned down today, again:
Oh Zimmerman, CNN cuts to the bad
ad for Goldfish, breakfast granola bricks;
And we know a cop can be Garanimal,
maleficent nitwit acting out the script,
Zzzzzzt, Zzzzzzzzzt, a script, embedded
schemata, and no volition, as civil war;
hate is seeded there, from before.
Stars you see at night, no different
from day, burned through,
fossilized, and mostly light lives
in the eyes officer
inevitable, as the suspect tumbled
down, I did not realize it was still
running, had in fact been placed there
without knowledge, no warning,
audio files assembled on a hard drive,
tracking code, and slogans: they said
“meanwhile in the nation ... fifteen minutes
can save you,” -- so I pointed that flicker,
and it shook, yet I could not stay away
from CNN, the Galaxy, or Facebook.
“Fuck your breath,” said a cop, freak
we all know, Jesus Christ, come back;
toss the clicker to the fishes, lie, in
time, say we have learned, return.
At the Korean store, that linchpin
(or suspect) bought a sack
of Oreos, Big Gulp,
Triscuits.


Dennis Mahagin’s poems have appeared in magazines such as Juked, elimae, Evergreen Review, Everyday Genius, PANK, The Nervous Breakdown, and Night Train. His  latest book, Longshot & Ghazal, is available for purchase now, from Mojave River Media.

CNN UNIVERSE

by Don Kingfisher Campbell

Beirut car bomb kills 8
Charred buildings, smoke in air
Chaos in the streets
Photos: aftermath of the blast
Rover spots shiny objects on Mars
Meteor lights up sky in California
Taliban threaten reporters
Beheaded for refusing to be prostitute
Dad in disbelief over son's terror arrest
U.S. contractors drunk on tape
Four women shot at Florida hair salon
Parents: man mocked disabled kid
Will Cain: Room for GOP at colleges?
Court: Fort hood suspect can be shaved
Elephant crushes Australian zookeeper
Man dumped, wins $30.5M lottery
Two-time rape victim fights for justice
Justin Bieber's mom on raising the star
McJordan BBQ sauce sells for $10K
Youth coach hits ref in face
Coroner: Heroin killed son of NFL coach
Duck lives with arrow in head
Cheerleaders OK'd to cheer God


Don Kingfisher Campbell has recently been published in Crack The Spine,
Lummox, Poetic Diversity, The Sun Runner, Poetry Breakfast, Pink Litter and
the Inner Child Press’ Hot Summer Nights anthology.  He is currently working
on an MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles.