WASHINGTON COLOSSUS

by Christopher Uhl

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

Now that the Smithsonian is compliant,

Trump has decreed construction of a giant—

A statue of George Washington shall loom above the Mall,

A Washington colossus that will stand three stories tall.

Be careful what you wish for, Trump,

Think of the risk you've taken.

What if that statue, seeing what you've wrought,

Should now awaken?

The president who proudly said, “I cannot tell a lie,”

What would he think as he looked down upon you from the sky?

Those cold stone eyes turn colder still

As they survey your work,

That massive marble foot steps off

Its pedestal with a jerk.

What you’ve done to Washington would fill him with disgust.

He'd travel down the Mall and stomp your ballroom into dust.

After a life-changing amputation, Christopher Uhl discovered that humor is the best prosthetic. His work is forthcoming in Lighten Up Online. 

THE (B)OLD COIN, ALWAYS GOLDEN

by Jennifer Schneider

And so today, Americans will be able to honor 250 years of great American heritage by buying a questionably legal one-dollar coin for roughly $2.44. If you’d like to know who came up with such a brilliant plan, just look at the coin. —The Guardian, September 2, 2026

The first time I held a golden coin in my palm,
I was digging for treasures in a dusty attic.

My grandmother had recently passed
and her house was on 1-800-GOT-JUNK’s 
weekend route.

In the corner stood an ornate chest,
a trunk, short and wide: my family’s dimensions.

The trunk held nylons, faux pearls, and worn denim.
Grandmother had few secrets, but I found one of them. 

In the pocket of a pair of old Levi’s, there was a coin
with a name, date, and origin worn past recognition.

I’ve kept it, thinking it might be worth something.
After the truck took what no one claimed, I did more digging.

Beneath a microscope, the coin’s name, date, and origin
remained a mystery. I learned that American currency 
generally reserves its profiles for the dead. No golden goose 
has yet survived the press. Washington reportedly refused 
his own face on money: too much like a monarchy. 
Spencer Clark did not share his reluctance.

The story goes that in 1866 he placed
his living face where another Clark’s
was meant to go. Congress responded 
by prohibiting the portrait or likeness 
of any living person. Too bad ambiguity
outlived Clark’s defiant personality.

As Grandmother would say, nonsense 
and mischief belong in dirty handkerchiefs, 
not the Treasury or a treasure chest.

I revisit the coin and admire how little it asks to be known.

My grandmother used to talk of an embarrassment of riches.
We were never rich; I understood only the embarrassment.
Years later, holding her coin beneath a lamp, 
I finally understood the other half.

On my screen, a new golden dollar entered circulation.
This new coin has no trouble telling us who it is.

A golden goose in a suit. An eagle on the reverse. 
The birds never meet. LIBERTY curves above one.
The other carries E PLURIBUS UNUM in its mouth.

The Mint calls the coin golden.
Let the record show there is no gold.

My grandmother’s coin has kept its metals to itself.
The Mint lists his composition: copper, zinc, manganese, nickel.

Mine will not say where it came from. 
His came from Philadelphia without a mark to prove it.

One has forgotten.
One has been constructed.

Mine lay alone in a pocket.
His comes with nine million duplicates.

Mine cost an afternoon
and a truck of stuff no one wished to circulate.

His costs two dollars and forty-four cents
for every single dollar purchased.

When a retired attorney asked the court to stop the new coin, 
the court asked what harm he would suffer personally.
Nine million faces were not personal enough.

Some nights the old coin resembles my grandmother.
Legally, this would be permissible.

Tonight, beneath the lamp, my grandmother disappears.
For a moment, the face is mine. I turn it over.

Jennifer Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

MOUNT PENN (SE ACABO)

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Do the lookout oaks speak English

and remember George Washington

are the spotted beetles from Asia

that people mistake for Lady Bugs

harbingers of a polyglottal future

here in fortress America

Pennsylvania Dutch speak

German

children invent their own

pidgin

Jefferson thought in French

But it’s Spanish that’s spoken all around

the mountain’s foot where you can get a fade

a dye job a shave and look like

you just stepped out of De Leon’s fabled fountain

dripping with what was supposed to have been Florida

Not this Keystone State

No more for the Union Dead on a rainy train ride

to an Adams County graveyard in November

the battle has moved from Lincoln’s beard to the barrio

la bodega si, se puede

The DAR and descendants of Confederate

Veterans, they like their café con leche

se acabo.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada for now but spent election day 2004 working in Reading, PA. Like many, he's watching the US election with nauseated optimism. You can follow him on Substack @sandcounties. 

SELLING OUT

by Orel Protopopescu

The sellout’s cards are selling out, 

the freakish cards of Don. 

No other president has shown 

such genius for a con!

 

Had Washington chopped up that tree

and sold each splintered share, 

he could have used a submarine 

to cross the Delaware!

 

And Lincoln never thought to sell 

real Lincoln Logs, it seems, 

too busy binding up a land

of violent extremes.   

 

But W may still have time 

to trump T’s licensees

by storing paintings of his toes

in polished NFTs.

Self-portrait by George W. Bush.

Orel Protopopescu has written prize-winning works for children and adults. She won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and 2020. Her light verse has appeared in Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, and elsewhere. Her first biography Dancing Past the Light: The Life of Tanaquil Le Clercq (University Press of Florida, 2021) received a starred review in Library Journal. 

ON THE MONEY

by Lee Patton

The Harriet Tubman $20 was a redesign plan, advanced during the Obama administration, that was supposed to have rolled out in 2020 to mark the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. That plan, like so many others for the year, has been shelved, and one of the reasons given for the delay was concerns over counterfeit security. The new Tubman $20 is now set at the earliest for 2028. Of course, Tubman enthusiasts and those supporting feminism and racial justice have been rightly suspicious that this is the actual reason for delaying the redesign, given the current administration’s lack of interest in race and gender equality, not to mention the president’s actions in hanging a portrait of Andrew Jackson—the seventh U.S. president, who currently fronts the $20—in the Oval Office while recently refusing to unveil a portrait of Obama, the first black U.S. president and his predecessor. Symbols and symbolic actions matter.Nonetheless, does a Tubman $20 matter as a symbol? There will be those who will say Harriet Tubman on the $20 would not have changed the circumstances leading to the death of George Floyd. But consider this. George Floyd was killed over an imagined counterfeit $20 in a country that can’t keep its promise to place Tubman on the $20, counterfeit security issues or otherwise. Which is the real counterfeit here? George Floyd’s $20, Harriet Tubman’s $20 redesign or a country that still pretends there is “liberty and justice for all”? —Janell Hobson, Ms., June 16, 2020

A genocidal maniac stares back at us
on our twenty dollar bill—native killer,
ethnic cleanser extraordinaire. Plans to put
a slave liberator in his place got erased—

Miss Tubman, ever poised for glory, will
not suffice. Our leader admires the killer,
even placed his portrait to grace his office.
Franklin and Hamilton, our currency’s

sole non-presidents, were at least fun guys—Ben,
teenaged runaway, Alex, Caribbean bastard—
but unlike civilized lands, we have no artists,
no philosophers, no scientists on our cash.

Our basic buck poses an honest slavemaster—
zealot of forced labor, profit, and the lash.

Lee Patton, a Denverite, writes fiction, poetry, drama and commentary.  His newest novel Every Summer Day is in pre-release from Bold Strokes Books.

IN LINE OF THE DECLARATION

by David Stone

Pelosi stands
eclipsing Washington’s bust.
Pelosi stands
across from the men’s folded hands.
Her arm in point to T***p is thrust.
Her calm above his scowl is just.
Pelosi stands.

David Stone teaches English in Loma Linda, CA.  His poetry has appeared in Identity Theory, Shuf, and Inlandia: A Literary Journey as well as in Orangelandia: The Literature of Inland Citrus.  He contributes literary columns for the Southern California News Group.

FLAGS, BARBEQUES, AND FIREWORKS

by Gil Hoy

He strode
into America’s
Birthday Party

with an air
of power
and privilege

befitting
a nobleman
who had learned

a thing or two
about governing,

a thing or two
about the strengths

and weaknesses
of Republics.

He looked up—
approvingly—

at America’s
Stars and Stripes:

a more sophisticated,
but equally treasured
and defended

symbol for
a democratic state

as the vexillum
his armies
had used.

He smelled
the meat
grilling,

inhaled
the intoxicating
smoke—

and again saw
the happy
smiling faces

of a nation’s
citizenry.

Like victorious
feasts on great
battlefields,

in days of old
long since
vanished,

after glorious battles
had been waged,
fought and won.

He cringed a bit
when he heard
the strange sounds

of fireworks
exploding overhead,

fearing that his legions

might again
be under attack.

He had already
seen and knew
too much

about destruction
and death—

about the destruction
and death
of Republics.

Upon learning
it was America’s 243’rd,

He paused
for a moment,
in earnest,

and then declared:

"She will meet
the same fate
as my own,

if her leaders
are not wise
and not true.

Democracies,
like their leaders,
are fragile,

and do not
last forever.

They’ve flown
and are fleeting.”

….

And, with that,
He was gone.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, TheNewVerse.News, Social Justice Poetry, The Potomac, The Penmen Review and elsewhere.

SEARCHING FOR PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHIES FOR CHRISTMAS COMING

by Gil Hoy

Grant is one of the year’s best 10 books according to the editors of The New York Times Book Review.

Looking for a Christmas present for my son.
He wants to be a politician.

Not the merriest of Christmases
nor the happiest of New Years
for politics in America.

Abraham Lincoln is neatly
standing next to Teddy Roosevelt
at our local bookstore

With best-selling volumes
of FDR and Washington
stacked comfortably nearby.

With another somewhat dusty
book sitting far to the right
On another shelf in the non-fiction

biography section titled
Donald Trump: America’s
Failing President.

Sitting next to a few dull
panned volumes excoriating
Richard Nixon.

My son is a passionate
progressive Democrat.
He is wondering how a racist

With his money God, occupies
the White House in America
with Christmas coming?

As billionaires get tax cuts,
beggared sick lay dying
in their beds

Anti-Muslim venom spews,
gay pride flags are burning,
the NRA controls Congress.

Did our President really just
tweet that a New York
US Senator is a whore?

Did our commander in chief really say
that Rocket Man will be met with fire
and fury like the world has
never seen before?

Looking for a Christmas present for my son.
Not an easy choice to make. Perhaps FDR,
but he seems so far away.

My son wants to be a politician.
He's a sophomore in high school
and wants to save America.
He's always been such a good boy.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and trial lawyer who is studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program.  Hoy’s poetry has appeared, most recently, in Ariel Chart, Poetry24, Social Justice Poetry, The Penmen Review, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, TheNewVerse.News and Clark Street Review.

POST WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY BLUES

by Howie Good

Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his forthcoming collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.