BRANKS

by Julie Steiner

Images of Epstein victims as depicted in Feb. 8, 2026, Super Bowl ad. Image of branks from an oil painting by John Willie, pseudonym for John Alexander Scott Coutts, for Bizarre, a sadomasochism magazine published 1946–1959. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Brank/branks: A device formerly used to punish women judged to be noisy and quarrelsome, consisting of an iron curb for the tongue, held in place by a frame around the head. Also called a scold’s bridle.


You have to tell the truth, but tell it slant.
To lay it bare’s unbearable. You’ve tried.
You’d like to leave it buried, but you can’t.

Too few have cared to hear a woman rant
since Homer (“Sing, O Muse, of anger”) died.
You have to tell the truth; but tell it slant,

since, frankly, even Keats would have to grant
this truth’s no beauty. This, you’ve had to hide.
You’d like to leave it buried. But you can’t,

so Dickinson’s advice is relevant.
She’ll be your Virgil, your inferno-guide.
You have to “Tell [...] the truth, but tell it slant— ”

“Tell all the truth.” But don’t get adamant,
“Or every man be blind—,” she qualified.
You’d like to leave it bare. (Read: But you can’t.)

Loud girls get label-gagged: once, Termagant,

Virago, Shrew; now, Bitch. Take that in stride.

(You have, to tell the truth.) But tell it—slant

or no—you must. Omit the bitter. Scant
the pathos. Cut the caustic. Snip the snide.
(You’d like to leave it, buried.) But you can’t

accuse the rich of rape, or lawyers chant,

“No, he’s the victim! She’s a slut who lied.”

You have to tell the truth, but tell it slant.
You’d like to leave it buried. But you can’t.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, recent venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, and Snakeskin. See more on her Substack, Off-Piste on Mount Parnassus.

A BLOT UPON THEE

by Zumwalt

 

 

 

 

"One prominent House Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said Monday afternoon that he had reviewed the unredacted documents [of the Epstein files] and saw  'tons of completely unnecessary redactions... I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,' Raskin said." —CNN, February 10, 2026

 

 

What Blindness now doth mark this stream of text,
Where Blame falls dark, and we are left perplexed.
The blurred distinction between right and wrong—
The weak are blistered by the brazen strong.
The blundered records, bleached of wealthy name
Won't bear the Guilt, now blotted free from shame,
While those who bled a trail of broken trust
Are bluntly bared, the others cloaked with dust.
What blatant gall to hide the rich man's Sin,
To shield in blacked-out lines the wolves within,
Now battered, those who bear no Stain at all—
What Blight is bred in this corrupted hall?
There is no Justice, just the shattered teen,
Her blank Betrayal b-l-i-n-k-i-n-g on our screen. 

 

 

Zumwalt's poetry feeds on alienation, shifting reality, and forced adaptation. Zumwalt is a proud repeat contributor to The New Verse News, and was recently nominated for Ink Sweat & Tears "Pick of the Month." 

EPSTEIN WAR

by KP Liles 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

It was always about the crude.

Extracting the dark

archives out 

from under us.

A few wealthy men 

plotting to own

everything, down

to the last

liquified remains 

they groom 

to burn. Virgin 

trillions naked

for the taking.

O Power! the Power!

Unrivaled deployment—

Military, ICE, beyond oversight…

Taste Venezuela: 

lest we forget

it’s a jungle out there. 

War

drugs, law, lust

regime change

Mexico, Cuba

Minneapolis

Iran

Portland, Greenland

Behold! A politics of scandal 

heaped on scandal heaped

on scandal heaped on

morals. On truth.

Still, the trafficked girls

will not be

silenced. Drill! 

If you have the stomach for it.

It was always 

about the crude.

KP Liles desires a better, safer world for his daughter. For his son, his family, his students, his community, his fellow decent human beings. So, while he would have preferred to have spent time indulging in his newfound enthusiasm for birding, he felt obligated to put on the poet uniform for this piece.

THEY

by Jim Hanson

Cartoon by Ann Telnaes

They’re running it, ruining it
off the rails, in the ditch
sell the wreckage, get rich.

Truth killed, collateral causality
lies arise, as reality
deftly made, as cool aide.

Dollar inflated, debt escalated
hyper crypto, value to go
assets bereft, nothing left.

Empire today, for USA
Greenland now, Canada then
Ukraine to lose, Russia to win.

Love incarnate, just for the lust
Epstein teens, Trump playboy queens
sex for pay, with NDA.

Immigrants, detention camps
hit squads, brown shirts worn black
dream children here, sent back.

Justice ignored, polls soared
guilty of crime, no time
impeachment twice made, still stayed.

Troops march, mayors watch
cities, occupied
politics, on wrong side.

Money sought, elections bought
billionaires gave, taxes to waive
offices for sale, free from jail.

Republicans scared, of primary loss
all bow down, to the MAGA boss
funny money, from dark accounts.

Legacy seen, power absolute
pride resolute, for life to be
none than, the presidency.

Jim Hanson is a retired university researcher and sociologist who lives in the St. Louis area. He has published four poetry collections, also some thirty single poems, and is a member of the St. Louis Poetry Center and Illinois State Poetry Society Southern Chapter.

BEATRICE'S TURN

by Michelle DeRose

Beatrice (a Portrait of Jane Morris) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

If poets are the unacknowledged 

legislators of our world, then may

their list come out as a sonnet,

an epic, an elegy for their lost

childhoods. They have more cause

than Dante to assign names

to descending rings. Only in dreams

and nightmares have sinners paid,

limbs frozen in impotent angles

like bent wisps of straw, forced

to face forever through lids locked

on open how their flesh partook in fraud.

Michelle DeRose lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is Professor Emerita of English at Aquinas College, where she sometimes used her specialty in epic poetry in her teaching. Every new nation/kingdom/regime established in an epic is built upon or requires the destruction of another.

WATERBOARDED

by Ben Evering

Cartoon by Ann Telnaes

Today

She’s a man, she said, sue her.

Epstein in the Trump files, sue them.

Climate change damages? Sue each other.

Not her, too thin.

Today

Too thin

Seven month old babies look like newborns

Promised food and shot

Limbless

Shot in the places they said were safe

By the weapons you sold to them

And you wrote a letter

the drip drip drip of the news waterboards me 

I wish I was drowning 

but I can swim

Ben Evering seeks clarity in complexity. They are a scientist in London, reading fiction and hoping for change.