A CURRENT EVENT

by Cecil Morris

On last night’s news, the demonstrations

of officers with their newest “tool”:

the electric shock glove, a low-voltage stunner

that makes their pretend “criminals” drop

to their knees, agonized. They promise that,

this “tool” will cause no permanent harm,

will not leave a mark, and I think about

the old beatings—Jim Crow days—that left

no marks, about unsworn officers of abuse

with the shock gloves to keep their wives—

or husbands—or kids or dogs in line,

about encouraging compliance with

velvet gloves. I think about poor Midas

and his golden touch, about that episode

of Cheers when know-it-all postman Cliff

in avoidance therapy begins to shock

himself. I think of just desserts,

of what goes around comes around,

of ICE officers shocking each other

or themselves by accident

or having to don shock-proof rubber sleeves,

maybe whole wet suits as prophylactics,

the newest body armor by Body Glove,

and non-compliant protesters dressed

like frogmen, too.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025. His second collection, Daughter Lost and Found and Lost, will come out from Kelsay Books in 2027.  He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

UPON LEARNING THAT THE UNITED STATES VOTED AGAINST

the United Nations resolution designating the trafficking
of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity.”

 

by Cecil Morris

 

 

 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) March 25, 2026 — The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans "the gravest crime against humanity" and calling for reparations as "a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs." The resolution also urges "the prompt and unhindered restitution" of cultural items—including artworks, monuments, museum pieces, documents and national archives—to their countries of origin without charge. The vote in the 193-member world body was 123-3, with 52 abstentions. Argentina, Israel and the United States were the three members voting against the resolution. The United Kingdom and all 27 members of the European Union were among those that abstained.

 

 

I think of Macbeth fresh from murdering his king,
his hands still badged with royal blood
and Macbeth asking why he could not say Amen,
could not call God’s blessing to himself.
Of course, even my least interested student knew
that answer: guilt. Guilt for what he’d done.
I think of my teenage daughter denying evidence
of some minor transgression, thinking, I guess,
that if she herself did not say it then it could not
be true. I think of her at 2 when we played peek-a-boo
or at 3 when we played hide-and-seek
and she thought she became invisible behind
a curtain even though it didn’t cover her shoes.
Even now, a 160 years after the 13th,
are we still Macbeth, tongue-tied by an inherited,
collective guilt? Or are we the teen who thinks
well, we didn’t know, it wasn’t even illegal then,
and what about the Holocaust or the genocide
in Armenia or litany of other horrific things?
Why can’t we just say Amen, just say yes
it was a grave crime? Oh, there’s the statement
about reparations, how they’d be right,
a remedy, if you will, for historic wrongs.
There’s the rub. Who’d volunteer to pay a fine
for great-great-great-great-grand-country’s mistake?
Wipe the evidence from your face and books,
and never admit what can be denied.

 

 

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025. He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California. 

NEW CHEERS FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

by Cecil Morris

Get a load of this: Columbia, Breakside unveil beer made from bear poop" —Oregon Public Broadcasting, January 28, 2026.

Bear scat—that’s bear crap 

to those of us not naturalists 
or bearded survivalists wise 
in the euphemisms of nature 
(or ursinus faeces if you 
prefer the snooty gloss of Latin 
or Pooh poop if you’re still child-like 
and delighted by certain sounds). 
Bear scat beer—a new lager called 
Nature Calls—is a wild brew infused 
with—dare I say it—shit collected 
in Montana, the big sky state, 
where a new breed of ranchers scour 
the land for the not-quite-gold gold 
and sell it to be fermented. 
I suppose the USDA 
does not inspect or certify 
for purity the scat in vats 
of yellow lager so you might 
be getting a foragers blend 
of deer droppings or raccoon turds. 
Does that matter? The real question: 
Would Norm drink it were it on tap?

Norm superimposed on Breakside.com screenshot.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025.  He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

PLEASE, AMERICA, DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON ME

by Cecil Morris

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

I remember breaking up with my first real girlfriend, 
the one who surprised me with earthly delights 
and let me touch the promised land, again and again, 
the one who did not push my hands away as if 
they were impertinent puppies, maybe cute 
but mostly annoying. I loved everything about her, 
her hair on my skin, her mouth, her own wild eagerness, 
her eyes turned up to me, the way we enjoyed 
the American River on sun-burnished afternoons, 
even how she dropped the great, immovable river rock 
on my naked heart and made me beg and cry 
and empty myself in stupid, sprawling letters. 
I thought she loved me and then she didn’t love me. 
 
That was almost 50 years ago—1976— 
and this is it again exactly, another love 
rejecting me, lifting her marbled foot and stepping 
on me with all the gorgeous, colonnaded tons 
of her, repulsing my advances, saying keep 
your nasty science off of me and covering 
her liberal titty. Her voice, that smile and kiss 
of democracy, has turned to bray and bawls 
and claims that I misunderstood, that she 
doesn’t even know me. And, again, I am left 
in tears to beg my heart’s case in postcards 
and signs, my own voice now raw with the ache 
of what I thought I had and now have lost. 
Please, America, please. Please come back to me.

 
Author’s note: The epigraph comes from Chris Banks, a line in his long poem “Core Samples of the Late-Capitalist Dream” in Alternator, Nightwood Editions, 2023. I borrowed the “liberal titty” and the imagery and language of the line “Her voice, that smile and kiss / of democracy” from e. e. cumming’s “Thanksgiving (1956)”

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025.  He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

WE GET TO CHOOSE

by Cecil Morris

Art by Luis Ricardo

Many people, of course, feel America is broken. You can hear about the country’s many troubles—its ideological divides, its anger, its lack of civility—from conservatives and liberals, from socialist firebrands and evangelical preachers, from Democrats and Republicans. It is, perhaps, one of the few beliefs that unites Americans right now. So many seem to genuinely want those divides to be mended, for the country to be knitted back together. But the question of why America is broken, and who is to blame, and how to repair it? That’s where things get complicated. —Tim Sullivan, AP, September 13, 2025

In the choose-your-own-adventure America, 
you get to choose which expert to believe, 
which news source delivers the truth to eyes and ears, 
which problem needs solution and which solution 
you like best and think will work and ought, therefore, 
be funded beyond your wildest ability 
to count the cents one by one in your little life. 
So close your eyes and jump to page 47, 
the just say no, the walls and cages, the answer 
that puts ever more troops and officers and masks 
on your streets, the security of surveillance, 
of armed patrols—here, there, and everywhere. Or jump 
to page 76 and guns for everyone 
and self-defense in every hand and every home. 
Or turn to page 2021: the moment 
we decide which police we must obey 
and which we must overrun to guarantee our rights. 
Or, maybe, see what happens when we choose that page 
where we realize that schools and social services 
are less expensive than prisons or where we build 
villages of tiny homes for our veterans 
unhoused and struggling instead of casting them, 
so much chaff, to streets and parks, to make-shift tents, 
where they like dandelions can sprout in the cracks. 
Which America will we choose for our families?

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has poems appearing in The 2River View, the Common Ground Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) came out in 2025.  He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

LET US RAISE OUR VOICES

by Cecil Morris

The Trump administration laid off thousands of federal health workers, dismissing senior leaders and top scientists in a purge that outside experts and former officials said would cause an immeasurable loss of expertise. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested the layoffs could tame his department’s $1.8 trillion budget, but less than 1 percent of its spending goes to staff. —The New York Times, April 2, 2025

Let us raise our voices to those
who think no one deserves
anything they can’t afford,
not water, not air, not dirt. 

Let us raise our voices to those 
who think the only good trapeze act
is one performed with no net,
one with danger, real risk
of possible disaster
to focus the performance.

Let us raise our voices to those
who think we weaken ourselves,
our community, our country
by subsidizing the refugee,
the halt, the blind, the ill, the poor
and their children, and farmers. 

Let us raise our voices to those
who think the egregiously wealthy
need shelters and protections, need
tax breaks and subsidies, too,
who think their wealth will trickle down,
a golden shower on the poor.

Let us raise our voices to those
who think that only the fittest
should survive, who really think
that God gives to each what they
have earned, who think they know
the will of God and understand
the covenant of just desserts.

Let us raise our voices.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) will come out in 2025.  He and his wife, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

WE LOVE GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE

by Cecil Morris

Supreme Court seems ready to uphold ban on gender-affirming care for minors. —NPR, December 4, 2024

Here’s gender-affirming care in my hometown: 

We give our boys some guns—long guns like ARs 
and shotguns and semi-auto handguns—
which, at first, are really just pointer fingers
and sticks and trigger-controlled hose nozzles
and, really, anything vaguely phallic.

We give our girls baby dolls and plush toys
and encourage them to hug and comfort,
to placate and coo, and, later, aprons
and play kitchens with miniature pots and pans.

We give our boys hammers and nails (of course)
and drills and fucking big four-wheel drive trucks
and dump trucks and fire trucks with screaming sirens
and teach them privilege and damage control
and the righteousness of conquest and noise.

We give our girls sixty watts of light and need
and teach them the virtues of silence and grace
and a thousand and one ways to cook a chicken,
to make repairs, and to turn tears on and off.

We teach them all manifest destiny.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection At Work in the Garden of Possibilities (Main Street Rag) will come out in 2025.  He and his partner, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

THE THINGS GOOD PEOPLE DO

by Cecil Morris

Portland’s ‘frog taxi’ offers a life-saving lift to a struggling species. Volunteers shuttle Northern red-legged frogs across U.S. Highway 30 to prevent real-life Frogger. —OPB News, November 23, 2024

A little morning news that made me smile:
In Oregon, the Harborton frog shuttle,
a handful of concerned amateurs,
a collection of volunteers, patrol,
through November chill, at night in the rain,
to gather spawning Northern red-legged frogs
and transport them, free of charge, across blur
of traffic on U. S. Highway 30,
thus preventing a slaughter of innocents.

Let me be like those people, tender-hearted
and kind and brave and willing to protect
the ones who, alone, cannot save themselves.
Let me join the flotilla of volunteers
who come out in dark of difficult times
to ferry those in need back to safety.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. He and his partner, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

WHAT’S THAT ANIMAL DOING HERE?

by Cecil Morris

In this provided photo from Oct. 13, 2024, an arctic fox is sheltered at the Bird Alliance of Oregon, after being spotted in Portland last week. After her arrival at the facility on Saturday, an exam confirmed her species, and determined the young female was hungry and dehydrated. The Bird Alliance is working with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine her next home. Courtesy of Bird Alliance of Oregon via Oregon Public Broadcasting.

First the deer grew bold, wandered between houses
and ate the blossoms and tender new growth
from the ornamentals we had planted.
They lifted their long heads, their mouths trailing
some asters or dahlia greens, their eyes wide
and unblinking, unconcerned by our presence.
They stood in our yards as placid as spring
their big ears unbothered by passing cars.
Yes, the crows, the jays, the shrieking seagulls
have long been fearless, ever intrusive,
like blackberry brambles pushing through fence
and dandelions lifting through the dirt,
insistent, tireless, quietly present.
And hungry cougars came down from the hills
to threaten joggers, snack on yapper dogs,
and haunt our dreams with their sleek fitness,
prowling embodiments of fear and guilt.
And now this—an arctic fox in Portland,
a seldom snowy metro area
of millions almost half way down the globe
toward the equator. Escaped, illegal pet?
Intrepid advanced scout for nature’s
reclamation of lost lands? One more sign
that we and all our works are just a part
of nature, as much its environs as ours?
Sure, she has that cute dog face and could be
a good best friend, a companion fluffy
and warm, but what will come next? Rangy wolves?
Polar bears after new blubbery foods
arranged along a street downtown? Slick slugs?
We are selfish and we don’t want to share.
We want wildlife to stay where it belongs.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. He and his partner, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

GOING DEEPER

by Cecil Morris

Yellow No. 5 food dye. (Matthew Christiansen/U.S. National Science Foundation)

“Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice.” —The Washington Post, September 5, 2024.

I had seen her naked—more than once—
that was fun for a while—and arousing too—
but now I wanted more—more than surface—
more than skin-deep knowing—superficial titillation— 
Armed with tartrazine—good old Yellow #5—
in truth a bag of pulverized Doritos—I massaged
and massaged my beloved—the bony plain
between her breasts and then the smoothness of her scalp—
a slow and steady knowing entering my hands—
and just like the Stanford scientists said
in their Science article—all became clear—first
my own hands’ knobby bones and tangle of tendons, 
my rushing blood—then my beloved’s off-white sternum,
her ribs, her elusive peek-a-boo heart—the clench
and release of her love—and through her scalp
and skull her brain at work, her thoughts a mist
on sea breeze borne, a mesmerizing swirl
in which I fell— It was so good—sublime—
old Spock’s Vulcan mind-meld—and overwhelmed
I collapsed and hummed my sated sound—
and she sat up—her chest, her head aglow—
and asked if it worked— 

Full disclosure: neither my beloved nor I have
attended Stanford not even for a swim meet
or football game and neither marijuana

nor LSD were directly involved in this.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. He and his partner, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.