POLITICS AND PICASSO

by Ed Werstein

A Facebook friend posts: Any blue
will do! and I comment: What if
Picasso had had that attitude?
We may be entering another of our
periodic blue periods. I want to scream
across the internet, No! Not any blue will do!
According to the founders, we are
the architects, the artists, of our own
future. (If we have one).
We mustn’t just dip blindly at the blue
palette we’re offered to cover the orange
we’ve been putting up with lately.

Some blues bend toward green, while
others appear blue, but quickly turn
yellow when applied to the canvas.

Artists! Let’s amaze our many critics around the world.
Let’s choose a new revolutionary blue
(or at least a reformist one), a blue
we haven’t dabbled in in decades.

Ed Werstein is a regional VP of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. In 2018 he received the Lorine Niedecker Prize from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. His latesT chapbook is Benediction & Baseball.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS: REDACTED VERSION

an erasure by Ed Werstein

"Redaction Distraction" by John McNamee posted at TheNib, February 10th, 2017

Article I: Congress shall make law prohibiting freedom of speech and petition of grievances.
Article II: Necessary to keep arms.
Article III: Consent of war to be prescribed by law.
Article IV: Searches and seizures shall issue. Persons, things, to be seized.
Article V: Persons held in jeopardy, compelled to witness against freedom without compensation.
Article VI: Criminal prosecutions by the State shall be compulsory.
Article VII: Suits shall exceed. Dollars shall be preserved. No fact shall be reexamined.
Article VIII: Excessive bail shall be required; punishments inflicted.
Article IX: The Constitution shall be construed to disparage the people.
Article X: Power to the United States!  


Ed Werstein, a regional VP of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, was awarded the 2018 Lorine Niedecker Prize for Poetry by the Council For Wisconsin Writers. His work has appeared in Stoneboat, Blue Collar Review, Gyroscope Review, among other publications, and is forthcoming in Rosebud. His 2018 book A Tar Pit To Dye In is available from Kelsay Books. His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published in 2013 by Partisan Press.

FLAG FOOTBALL

by Ed Werstein

Randall Enos / Cagle Cartoons

The president tweeted
his little whistle and threw the flag
in front of the protesting players.

For once the players weren’t
trying to call attention to themselves.
For once they weren’t stomping
or goose-stepping around the field
beating their chests with their
“I’m number one” finger
pointing toward the heavens,
or jumping into the laps of joyous fans.
They were kneeling.
Simply kneeling, to call attention
to an injustice suffered by others,
and to call attention to the fact
that they saw this as an American problem.
The problem for the president
was that they weren’t kneeling to him.
So he tweeted his whistle
as referee-in-chief, and threw the flag.
The call was unpatriotic conduct.
The president wanted the NFL renamed
The National Flag League. He wanted
the ball replaced, and a flag marched
up and down the field
in an even more war-like game
to match the militaristic fever
he wanted to stir up in the country.
Most of all, he wanted the players penalized.
He was used to people kneeling,
but right in front of him
and for a different reason.

Ed Werstein, Milwaukee, a regional VP of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, was 60 before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. He advocates for peace and against corporate power. His poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Gyroscope Review, and several others. His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published by Partisan Press.

DO NOT GO GENTLE OFF THAT OVERBOOKED FLIGHT

by Ed Werstein

after Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle off that overbooked flight;
You’ve a ticket just like the others, dig in, stay.
Rage, rage and put up a good fight.

An algorithm doesn’t make it fair or right,
No matter what United’s policies say.
Do not go gentle off that overbooked flight.

The friendly skies aren’t looking so bright;
Facebook and YouTube show us the way
He raged, raged and put up a good fight.

I’m telling you right now, they could just bite
Me. If that happened to me one day,
I’d not go gentle off that overbooked flight.

The CEOs, grave men, must be turning white.
I hope he sues them and makes them pay.
Rage, rage and put up a legal fight.

And you, traveler, searching Priceline or some such site
For tickets to some place far, far away,
Do not go gentle off that overbooked flight.

Rage, rage, and put up a good fight.

Ed Werstein spent years in manufacturing before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. In addition to TheNewVerse.News, his poems have appeared in Stoneboat, Blue Collar Review, Gyroscope Review, and others. He is a regional VP of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.  His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published by Partisan Press. 

ANOTHER USELESS HEADLINE POEM

by Ed Werstein

"US Senate Response to Orlando: Nothing"

                     The Guardian, June 21, 2016

I’ve been thinking about flesh

and blood

and guts

and guns

and bullets

and assaults

on our sanity.

And I’ve been thinking about guts

and guns

and gold

and gilt

and guilt

and gullibility

and gushing blood

and the gumption

it might take

to change things.

And I’ve been thinking about how

we must not be

disgruntled enough

disgusted enough

about how we must not be

dis-gutted enough

to stop watching the news reports

to stop posting on Facebook

to stop writing ineffective

and useless poems

about it,

to finally rise up

and do something real

to change it. 

Ed Werstein spent years in manufacturing before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. In addition to NVN, his poems appear at Re/Verse and Your Daily Poem. He is East Region VP for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published by Partisan Press. His contact information can be found at the WFOP.

FUTURE FASCISM

by Ed Werstein

New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 9, 2015

David Neiwert, perhaps our nation’s most respected writer on white supremacy and right-wing extremism, says Donald Trump is probably not actually a fascist because he lacks the white supremacist bona fides and because he is a lazy narcissist rather than a coherent thinker. But he’s certainly moving us along the fascist road. It’s both scary and sad. —Lawyers, Guns & Money, December 3, 2015


In this game
the Joker’s wild
and money is Trump
he has all the diamonds
and no heart
hires clubs to beat us
hands us a spade
just before the execution.


Ed Werstein, spent 22 years in manufacturing and union activity before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. He advocates for peace and against corporate power. His poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Stoneboat, Gyroscope Review, and other publications. His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published in 2013 by Partisan Press.

FOG FORCES CANCELLATION OF MILWAUKEE AIR SHOW

by Ed Werstein

Fog leads to cancellation of Milwaukee lakefront air show Saturday  --Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, June 21, 2014

If only it were that easy
to stop a real bombing raid
mothers all over the world
would pray for bad weather
everyday
to spare their homes
their homelands
their children.

But here on Milwaukee’s lakefront
the spectacle is rescheduled for tomorrow.

This roaring assault on eardrums
and sensibilities is nothing
compared to the price paid by others
for the live ammo show
rain or shine.

Here, parents bring the kids
wave flags
eat ice cream.


Ed Werstein, Milwaukee, Wisconsin spent 22 years in manufacturing and union activity before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. He advocates for peace and against corporate power. A member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, his poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Mobius: Journal of Social Change, Stoneboat. His first chapbook Who Are We Then? was published in 2013 by Partisan Press.

LINT

by Ed Werstein

USDA plan to speed up poultry-processing lines could increase risk of bird abuse:
Nearly 1 million chickens and turkeys are unintentionally boiled alive each year in U.S. slaughterhouses, often because fast-moving lines fail to kill the birds before they are dropped into scalding water, Agriculture Department records show.
-- Washington Post, October 30, 2013

Today, folding clothes
I thought, for the first time
about where lint comes from.

Mom didn’t have a clothes dryer.

Every Monday with wet rag
she wiped the farm dust
and bird shit from metal wires
and let the wind and sun
do their work.

And when weather didn’t permit

out came the wooden racks
and the furnace did double duty
drying denim.

But here I stand again
like every week
with a handful of lint.

How many sweaters, sheets
and socks picked thin in forty years?

Not only Hotpoint and Maytag benefit
from clothes dryer sales.

And when someone says something
tastes like chicken,
what do they mean
when chicken doesn’t
taste like chicken anymore?

Convenience has a price:
thin clothes
bland food
traffic jams
water faucets you can light on fire

If you doubt the last one
you can Google it.





Ed Werstein, Milwaukee, WI, spent 22 years in manufacturing and union activity before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. His sympathies lie with poor and working people. He advocates for peace and against corporate power. His poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Stoneboat, Mobius: the Journal of Social Change, Stoneboat.