TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND BRAIN ROT

by Bonnie Proudfoot

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

Don’t tell me you spent all your allowance 

on comic books, or you used to stay up until 

daybreak, your knees shaping a tent under 

the covers, a weak flashlight, Superman, 

Supergirl, Batman, Spidey and the mutants, 

the whole gang rotting your brain, your eyes too. 

Did you stash your valor between the mattress 

and box spring, your rotting brain leaping tall buildings 

at a single bound, ready to keep evil at bay, fighting 

for, oh, truth, justice, and the American way.

 

Did you heft yourself out of bed on time 

for first period, or did your rotten brain let you 

snooze, then snooze some more? Did it make you 

listen to rock ‘n roll, sing "Sympathy for the Devil" 

as you walked to school? Did it know what 

"Satisfaction" really meant? And so what if 

your brain did rot? Blotchy, dark, and spongy, 

a not-so-fresh potato, or cottage cheese 

in the back of the fridge with curds of green mold 

lacing through? Would it rot all at once? Or 

one day no rot, one day riddled, one day a lot? 

 

So here you are, it’s minutes before midnight, 

kryptonite closing in, fascists tunnelling 

into Fort Knox, your knees a tent under 

the saggy covers, nothing left to lose. You’re 

scrolling through headlines at a single bound, 

seeking truth and seeking justice, index finger 

on your phone tapping with the dexterity 

of the Incredible Hulk threading a needle, 

the fate of the free world to defend,

secretly shouting Shazam, pushing send.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road (OU Swallow Press) was the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Household Gods a poetry chapbook, was published in 2022 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). A full-length poetry collection, Incomer, is forthcoming on Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.

I WILL MISS THE LARGE ANIMALS OF NORTH AMERICA

by Michael Brockley

Woody Guthrie in March 1943.

The bison. The grizzly bears. The jaguars that can’t leap over the wall along the border river. I will miss reading irreverent books. Novels where Jesus has a friend named Biff. Comic books where Deadpool is a hero. I will miss news reporters who know that Kansas City is in Missouri and that Benjamin Franklin never resided in the White House. I will miss the White House. The Smithsonian, the Statue of Liberty, and Yellowstone. I will wonder how Old Faithful might be disappeared. I will miss pennies. And the Beatitudes, the part of the Bible Kurt Vonnegut valued the most. I will miss voting for women. I will miss movies that tell the stories of men and women who don’t look like me. I will miss being able to see Venus and Mars on clear nights. I will miss strawberries and tomatoes and watermelons and sweet potatoes and cranberries and sunflowers and cherries. I will miss guitars with This Machine Kills Fascists scrawled across their bodies. I will miss dogs that look more like wolves than weapons of war. I will miss saying  Feliz Navidad, Fröhliche Weihnachten, and Mele Kalikimaka. I will miss finger-pointing songs. I will miss licorice. Yes, I will even miss licorice.

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana, His prose poems have appeared in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Red Eft Review, and Unlikely Stories Mark V. Brockley's prose poems are also forthcoming in Ley Lines Literary Review, Seat at the Table, and Alien Buddha.

REFLECTIONS ON FINDING MY MOTHER’S WARTIME CHILDHOOD HOME, NOVEMBER 2024

by Steven Kent

World War II Poster

My granddad went to fight the fascist terror;

To guard our way of life, he traveled far.

Democracy, he knew, was not an error,

Yet                            here we are.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

DISARMCHAIR

by David Rudd-Mitchell

AI-generated graphic for The New Verse News by Shutterstock

DisArmchair Linguists

While body counts are unconfirmed,

They view how breaking news is termed.

DisArmchair Activists

The blood is fresh,

And there’s no pause

Before the next post 

for their cause. 

DisArmchair Optimists

They hope that soon the war will cease,

And this will lead to lasting peace.

DisArmchair Hypocrites

They hate the hypocrites who stride,

To only see the other side,

Armchair Apologists

Water cut off, city bombed,

They say, “It’s how they must respond.”

Armchair Fascists

Cut all the power, cut off the phones,

Stop all the schooling, crush all the homes.

Close off the border, block every route,

Stop all the bombing, then start to shoot.

DisArmchair NeoNihilists

Watching from a safe retreat,

These optimists admit defeat.

DisArmchair Poet

A poem of protest,

angry tweets,

And yet our history

Still repeats. 

Reformed DisArmchair Poet

Words are precious,

In their way,

But it’s time to join the march

—and pray.

David Rudd-Mitchell is an occasional poet who has had work published in zines, magazines, two shared chapbooks and anthologies. 

AFTER CHRISTCHURCH

by Dana Yost

Calling them

white nationalists

gives them a pass,

gives them a level of credibility

well above reality.

It’s a lame, tame

name and I say

no more of the same:

call them what they are:

racists,

segregationists,

fascists,

un-democratic,

un-American,

failed,

afraid,

war-losing,

truth-warping,

lockstepped

sleazes with triggers.

Klan,

Lindbergh,

Nazis,

McVeigh,

Hannity,

LaPierre,

we set aside

our mourning

wreath

to lay

this on

you.

You don’t

get the 

polite name.

You get

the blame.

Dana Yost was an award-winning daily newspaper editor and writer for 29 years. He is the author of five books, including a history of the rural Midwest in the 1940 era, another period of isolationist, anti-immigrant, white-supremacist attitudes and acts. He has lived his entire life in the rural Midwest.

BOTH SIDES

by Judith Terzi





Lies and lies are everywhere,
and racist slogans fill the air
and hatred oozing everywhere.
We didn't know this way.

And now these folks they block the sun,
they ruin love for everyone.
So many things he could have done.
His base got in the way.

He looks at hate from both sides now.
The KKK's okay somehow.
His father marched, you will recall.
He really doesn't care about us at all.

His id rides on a Ferris wheel,
spins dizzy, hurtful tweets he feels
as all delusional goes real.
We didn't know this way.

So every day another show.
We cringe wherever he doth go.
And what will happen, we don't know
until the lies give way.

He looks at hate from both sides now
and white supremacists somehow
are good, he said, you will recall.
And Sheriff Joe isn't really bad at all.

Our tears and fears, not feeling proud
to say our country right out loud
is led by hacks and circus crowds.
We didn't vote this way.

Our senators are acting strange.
They shake their heads, but what will change?
Transgender troops may lose what's gained
in fighting every day.

He looks at hate from both sides now.
His nemesis is love somehow.
Dark clouds will reign, you will recall,
when Fascists really aren't that bad at all.

Judith Terzi's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals and anthologies such as BorderSenses, Caesura, Columbia Journal, Good Works Review (FutureCycle Press), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By are her most recent chapbooks from Kattywompus Press.

#HEATHERHEYER

by S.O.Fasrus

Detail from the Cable Street Mural, a large mural painting in the East End of London apinted by Dave Binnington Savage, Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort between 1979 and 1983 to commemorate the street battle in October 1936 against Oswald Moseley and his fascist Black Shirts’ march down Cable Street.

Why the Nazis came to Charlottesville.
And why I was wrong not to confront them.

—Siva Viadhyanathan, The New York Times, August 14, 2017

Ha!

She will not watch from side walks

she will not shrug

and shop.

Speak my language

dare to care

share

think

this crusade will not be rained upon.

Scribble through the night

we wear our placards

high

our fashion will never weary—

proud

clear

and dear

we know who we are

you know who we stand for.

We are our own headlines

our own music—

we are the song you think you heard before

we are the old song with new words

we are the tune from your cradle

This is OUR parade.

OUR parade.

Our parade

is American

It's American.

Ha!

SHE did not watch from side walks

SHE did not shrug

and shop.

S.O.Fasrus has verses at LUPO and is currently writing a YA novel.

MIXED MESSAGE: A HISTORY LESSON 2017

by Alan Catlin

Capitol Police drag disabled protesters out of wheelchairs during Trumpcare protests. Forty-three people were arrested in connection with the protest. In some instances, police helped protesters back into their wheelchairs before forcibly removing them, but others weren't treated so generously Jacquelyn Martin/AP via The Independent (UK) June 22, 2017.

This is what
the Fascists did
in the 1930s and 40s:

cleansed the race
of the genetically impure

the mentally ill
sexual deviants
gypsies
jews

the cripples
and the infirm

Now here
in Washington DC
Today in June of 2017

republicans release
details of crafted-in-secret
No Health Care bill

arrest the protestors
in the halls of Congress:

the disabled in wheelchairs
on oxygen
disability disadvantaged all

and either forcibly carry them out
or escort them from in front
of the Majority Leader of the Senate’s
office door outside

to where the box cars are waiting.





Alan Catlin is poetry editor of online journal misfitmagazine.net. His latest book of poetry is American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press.