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.

HAMILTON, SHMAMILTON

by Kenneth J. Purscell

We could argue all day long

On where the Founders stood 

Regarding things like Christ and church

And Triune personhood.

And some who do so feel compelled

To stand and testify,

To preach and rescue souls because

They fear the End is nigh.

But when "producing" Broadway shows,

Believers must get real.

You'd think a church should not forget

The Law: "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL!"

Kenneth J. Purscell is a retired retail cashier, adjunct professor, and pastor. He has been published sporadically, but has made submission more of a habit. He lives with his wife Koni in the south suburbs of Chicago. And he apologizes to Lin-Manuel, who probably could have done this better.

ON PRESIDENT DUTERTE'S PROMISE TO CEASE CURSING

by Jim Bartruff

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has made a solemn promise: no more swearing. Duterte, who famously cursed the pope and used a slang term that translates as “son of a whore" while denouncing President Obama, said he was flying back from Japan late Thursday, looking at a vast expanse of sky, listening to his colleagues snore, when he heard a voice say, ‘If you don’t stop epithets, I will bring this plane down now.’ “And I said, ‘Who is this?’ So, of course, ‘it’s God,’” he told Filipino journalists late Thursday. “So, I promise God,” he continued, “Not [to] express slang, cuss words and everything. So you guys hear me right always because [a] promise to God is a promise to the Filipino people.” . . .  Asked if he would really stop cursing out his allies and opponents alike, the president demurred. 'There's always a time for everything, a time to be foul-mouthed,” he said. —Washington Post, October 28, 2016

He descended as Manila's infested
laundry lines and drug dens began to shadow
the landing strip beneath our Tokyo flight,
and I was made to hearken, certain The Lord
had personal messages for my ears only.
The vernacular obscenities
I speak as easily as I lift the safety
and assassinate a sewer village,
these little slips creating images
of untouchable dictatorship,
were not for me, according to Our Father.
Once one accepts the crown, what one projects
profanely through the Age of Distractions reflects
a crudeness on our Catholic island states,
diminishes the purity of our trials,
our power, to the circumspect worldly.
I had for far too long allowed flechettes
too petty to be seen to enter my body
and combine into a hammered metal
like the Roman spear that ended Christ,
and in the pain cried out, "Ecce homo,"
in the language of a prostitute
whose john had used her hole and refused to pay.
The jet's tires hung suspended above the tarmac
when His words extracted my soul and tore it,
so that every rent in the fabric mouthed
my idiocies and insults as we screamed
to touchdown or to death. He said to me,
"Thou shalt not curse again. This promise Me,
or I will scatter you in hellfire fuel
across the landscape of your coming home."
What can one do when God himself instructs
but obey? When the imminence
of His threat is so Old Testament
and by the balls but yield and moan, "Yes, Lord."
                         
Of course, our tires scorched down the dotted lines,
and flagmen led our armored Humvee to where
the palace porticos, the Doric columns,
the air-conditioning, cigars and desks
recovered us from such a holy squalor.
In those few seconds, when He spoke to me,
and I agreed to terms, I uttered nothing
untoward to any stewardess
or bodyguard. I truly kept my words,
He His. Now that is done, and lifted is
the interdiction and collar at my throat,
with conscience cleared of any bargain, I say
what must be said about that American bitch
senator who blocked the sale of weapons
needed to protect our innocents—
"You son of a whore, how dare you interfere,
how can we cleanse our country of the crude
without those thousands of assault rifles
rusting on a freighter in fucking Newark?"

Jim Bartruff's work has appeared in Gambling the Aisle, Fat City Review, TheNewVerse.News, Two Hawks Quarterly,  American Tanka, JAMA, Canto, Barney, and many others. He is a past winner of the William Carlos Williams prize while attending the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and Academy of American Poets prize as UCLA undergraduate. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

JOURNEY OF THE SARACENS

by Janice D. Soderling

Cartoon by Matt Bors / AlterNet, Sept. 8, 2015.

Christ set out on a rubber raft for Greece,
looking for a place to lay his head.
His father Yusuf said, "We come in peace."
"We come for peace," his mother Rasha said.

And Christ said nothing, smiled his knowing smile
for he had sailed a desert ship before.
Their sea-swamped vessel swayed mile after mile.
"We seek a refuge," said they. "Nothing more."

Wild Herod, as you know, kills sons of men.
The raft was crammed with babes both aft and fore.
And Rasha nursed her brown-eyed Saracen.
And Yusuf kept a look-out for the shore.

Through wintry lands they walked their weary walk
and begged for shelter for a little while.
Amid the festive songs and Christmas talk,
sweet Christ said nothing, smiled his knowing smile.


Janice D. Soderling is a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News.

JOSEPH'S GRAIN PYRAMID

by Alejandro Escudé

Cartoon by Bob Englehart, Hartford Courant, October 6, 2015

Stacked full, the loincloth peasants hoisting baskets
up the winding ramp to protect the world from

famine—a wide smile on the giddy prophet’s face,
a full moon like a Greek shield and Christ himself

cradling the planet: power gives to power, the surgeon
holding a scalpel like the reed of a scribe writes

the corporation of God on our minds, you may
renounce judgement, you may let the doubts go,

have faith only in him who knows the truth
and believes mightily enough to forgo knowledge.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

WORLD SERIES

by Richard Marx Weinraub

Baseball is a metaphor for life.
The pitcher and catcher—the rubber and cage—
play out as a sadomasochistic game.

The heart of the drama transpires at home.
The plate is stolen and a beanball is thrown.

Murphy’s the oil, the law, and the goat.
Matt’s the dark knight falling short of glory.
Familia is the story of a family gone wrong.

God relieves Satan. Citi Field’s Jericho—
the towers struck out by the pitch of Allah—
Babylon bombed by the squad of Jesus.

“It is the Inquisition, the/Revolution,”
the good doctor said (not Ben Carson).

Imagine the flight of the bat and the balls
and the hole they are trying to fill.


Richard Marx Weinraub has published three collections of poetry: Wonder Bread Hill, Heavenly Bodies, and Lapidary.  His work has appeared in many journals including The Paris Review, Asheville Poetry Review, South Carolina Review, Green Mountains Review, North American Review, Slate, and River Styx.  

NATURAL ORDER OF THE HOUSEHOLD

by Jennifer Clark

Graphic illustrating Bill Gothard’s 7 Basic Principles. Source: Raw Story. 

“As I became a teenage young man I was constantly tempted to have lots of wrong thoughts, 

and often battled to keep my heart right.” 

—Josh Duggar, August 21, 2015, at the Josh & Anna Duggar Family website.

It’s pouring porn. Filth floods the streets. Unborn babes tumble
from the sky and clog the gutters. Nobody here trusts roofs,
especially Christ, who is patrolling the attic holding one hell
of a big umbrella.

Christ’s canopy looms over the husband who is on the second
floor slipping into loafers while clasping an umbrella,
a poor imitation of Christ’s, a little less mighty, but still, bigger

than the parasol his wife who—may she always be scurrying
one floor beneath him—holds over their 14, 15, 16 kids
and counting. With her free hand she spoons oatmeal
into her children’s mouths, then mops the dirty, dirty floors.

All these umbrellas make it difficult to move.
Dangerous, even. Here and there a lamp shatters.

The firstborn, Josh, craves a glimpse of sky. As a teen, finds it
standing in the laundry room folding a blue dress, prowls into
the bedroom for more, steals some as she pretends to sleep.

Here and there a vase shatters.

When his sky-snatching ways are discovered, Josh is sent to
a training center where he learns all about umbrellas: how to
open them, wave them about, and never, ever close them.

He returns with a brand new umbrella. Everyone feels safe.

Some years later, Josh marries a girl named Anna and Ashley
Madison—who loves to feel the rain on her skin— tells him
Life is short. Have an affair. He listens.

His wife blames her umbrella. If only it was prettier. If only she
had held it higher. She buys blue eyeshadow and starts walking
through the house on tiptoes while her husband
stands just as he has been taught, under thin ribs
radiating refuge, the whole bloody sky wailing.


Jennifer Clark lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her first book of poetry, Necessary Clearings, was published by Shabda Press. 

FRANCIS' LAMENT

by Ed Bennett 

Photograph: Getty Images

How does one deal with this,
the stubborn, stolid expressions
on sleek faces well acquainted
with the banquet table?
The words of Christ rejected
as I bless the poor, call for
their protection, elevate them.

If I am a Communist
than what was Christ?
He reviled power, condemned
the exploitation of his own.
Now the money has turned some,
twisted the divine words to elevate
their “donors”, castigate the rest.

Lord we cannot wait
for an afterlife when bread
is unaffordable and our toil
is a yoke borne by the many.
Forgive us but give us this day
the ability to hear your words above
the clink of gold in diocesan coffers.



Ed Bennett is a poet and reviewer living in Las Vegas, NV. His works have appeared in Touch: The Journal of Healing, The Lavender Review, Quill and Parchment, and Lilipo. He is a staff editor for Quill and Parchment Magazine and the author of A Transit of Venus.

CHURCH CALL

by Antony Johae

Image source: City-Data

It was Orthodox Easter and the church was full.
The chanting of prayers stretched into the night.
The celebrants sat, then rose to sing
Crossing themselves in three-fold Love.
They awaited the glorious hour of twelve
When Christ would rise in saving Grace
And all would cry that He was risen.

Next to me a man with a phone
placed between us on the pew
he looking down at it constantly
and when his hand stretched out to it
it lit as though at his command,
then out when he withdrew his hand
as though its charge had gone – and slept.

He turned to me when the mass was done,
shook my hand with a friendly grip.
“Emad’s my name, I’m Syrian born.
And you, I think, from London – right?”
I told him I came from Colchester town
but he’d heard only of the Manchester team.
We chatted for a while about this and that
the church emptying as we sat.
Then he made to go. “Your phone,”
I said, it lying silent still.
Aghast at his forgetting
he picked it up and it at once
lit up, he whispering keenly,
“I’m waiting for a call from God.”


Antony Johae is a freelance writer and divides his time between Lebanon and England.