WE'RE FLOATING DOWN A RIVER AND IT'S 106 DEGREES IN MICHIGAN

by Ron Riekki

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

and she’s in a burkini swimsuit, hijab, with

a Rage Against the Machine-style hat/visor,

and we’re trying to relax, but we talk about

war, and when the tariffs started, I said, then,

We’re going to war.  She asked what I meant,

and I said, This is isolationism.  He doesn’t

want us dealing with other countries, because

the more we can supply everything on our

own, the more we’re setting up war economy.

And then time went by and we’re on a river,

and I’d said we’d go to war at the end of

his presidency, because going to war will

increase the odds we stick with the same

political party, the war party.  But she says,

No, I don’t think he’s going to wait.  I think

he’ll go to war soon.  We disagreed.  She’s

from Iraq.  She sensed it.  She told me her

PTSD is so strong, her hypervigilance is so

extreme that she reads rooms, feels when

there’s tension.  But it’s the same with our

world with her, how she can sense a war

coming, told me about the attacks on Iran

before the attacks on Iran.  And we’re on

a river.  And we’re floating.  Inner tubes.

Trying to relax.  But we talk about wars.

She says, I’d like to speak out and say every-

thing I think about what’s going on, but I can’t.

I ask why.  Because, she says, They’d kill me.

I ask who would.  She lowers her voice.

We’re on a river.  We’re trying to relax.

It’s 106 degrees.  What are we doing to

the earth?  What are we doing to each

other?  She whispers.  She tells me her

fears.  I tell her she needs to write it in

a poem, in nonfiction.  I can’t, she says.

Then in fiction, I tell her.  I can’t, she says,

They’d kill me.  We talk about Malala

Yousafzai.  We talk about the hijab, how

she loves to put it on, makes her feel

closer to Allah.  We talk about the view,

stunning, the shimmering on the water,

hypnotic.  We talk about the awe sounds

in God and Buddha and Yahweh and

Allah.  And even in her name.  A name

that is tied to God.  And we float and

we talk about war.  Surviving.  The heat.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.

MY FRIEND TEXTS

by Ron Riekki

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

“my typewriter is

tombstone”

—Charles Bukowski,

“8 count”

 

for S. and H.

 
            My friend texts:
 
It was great.  But today I
got a terrible news from
Ukraine. My best best
friend was killed by
Russian soldiers. So, all
my good memories
about graduating just
disappeared
 
I call her.  She says she
doesn’t want to talk.
I call her the next day,
she says she still doesn’t
want to talk.  I don’t know
how to write a poem
right now.  Another friend
calls.  She was a refugee
 
from Iraq.  Her house was
burned down there.  She
says it’s hard to talk about,
that forever she’s felt
silenced.  I feel the need to
write poetry.  I cannot handle
history.  I don’t know how
to cope other than through
 
poetry.  I had a meeting
recently where I talked
about what happened
to us in the military.
I told the woman
sitting in front of me
that I couldn’t talk
about it for decades
 
I’d get aphasia.  I
couldn’t speak.  I’d
want to speak, but I
couldn’t speak.  During
those decades, I wrote
poems.  Not enough
people read poems.
Poems sometimes
 
are the silenced
trying to speak
when their voice
is being choked,
when their words
are being taken
by history.
Like now.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

TRAVEL ADVISORY

by Shalmi Barman

"A visa is not a right. It's a privilege," [US Secretary of State Marco] Rubio said on Tuesday. Trump administration officials have said student visa and green card holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel's conduct in the war on Gaza, calling their actions a threat to U.S. foreign policy and accusing them of being pro-Hamas. —Reuters, May 21, 2025

The State Department has told U.S. consulates and embassies to immediately begin reviewing the social media accounts of Harvard’s student visa applicants for antisemitism in what it called a pilot program that could be rolled out for colleges nationwide. —Politico, May 30, 2025

Counselors who work with foreign students eager to attend college in the U.S. are advising them to purge their social media accounts of posts that could attract the attention of U.S. State Department officials. —CBS News, May 39, 2025

To demonstrate that I don’t pose a threat,
I strip the stickers from my laptop case,
purge the Kindle reader, ctrl-shift-del
my browsing history as if the past
two, ten, eighty years had never been.
 
We’re experts here at inoffensiveness,
smalltalk savants, the brightest and the best
arriving on these shores to earn our keep,
inflate the GDP and pay our dues—
the price of entry to the winners’ club—
in labor, taxes, learned neutrality.
 
A privilege, not a right. In Khan Younis
the going rate for a sack of gritty rice
exceeds my weekly wage. Faucets frothing
overrun my glass. A legless child
plucks maggots from his wounds. I sink a knife
deep in the turkey, utter ritual thanks
for innocence far from the blasted plains
of Gaza, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon…
 
Purpose of visit? To become just like you,
I want to tell the agent matching my name
against a neutered profile. To shop at Target
on the Fourth of July, pledging allegiance
like a marriage vow. For this I stand in line,
bereft of fluids, jacket, shoes, and shame,
not-thinking of checkpoints a world away,
asking smilingly how much? how high?


Shalmi Barman is a South Asian national, a holder of a student visa, and a newly minted PhD. She spent several years at the University of Virginia writing a dissertation on class and labor in Victorian fiction, and doing other things that would likely be deportable offenses today. Her poetry has previously appeared in The New Verse News and also recently in Boudin, Blue Unicorn, EcoTheo Review, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere.

IDIOT YEARS

by Thomas R. Smith

Our Mayan friend Martín says we’re sick with
a collective “unmetabolized grief.”
Civil War, Vietnam, Iraq, the list goes on.
Our response? Build higher psychic dams
to hold the tears. Those dams, ridiculously
expensive, bulge above every town, city,
and farm—few notice the supports straining,
the hairline cracks webbing the concrete poured
by profiteers grown fat on our denial.
Will it be said of us that we did not
possess the curiosity to inquire
what was being done to the world in our name
with our tax dollars? That we also were
mad to allow the mad to lead us?
Mad or, worse, indifferent? Dylan called
us an idiot, babe. When we’ve bombed
the earth to rubble, shall we then bomb
the rubble to sand? There’s beachfront property
for you rich to enjoy in your idiot years
before the dammed tears sweep you away.

Thomas R. Smith’s recent books are a poetry collection Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications) and a prose work Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (Red Dragonfly Press). He lives in western Wisconsin near the Kinnickinnic River.

PLEA TO A FORMER PRESIDENT

by Philip Kitcher

Deceit provoked our warfare with Iraq,

Leaving a million people dead or maimed.

How can you win your reputation back?

How is a leader’s legacy reclaimed?

 

A con-man threatens to destroy our nation,

Seduces voters into fatal choice.

Please make your country partial reparation.

You have been silent.  You could raise your voice.

 

Perhaps you still have power to shift our course.

Not speaking out will signal your consent.

Revive your party’s heritage, endorse

A woman fit to be our president.

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

THE BALLAD OF JD VANCE

by Peter Nohrnberg 

Cartoon by Clay Bennett for the Chattanooga Times Free Press

How might a lowly hillbilly 

Rise up to fame and glory? 

Well gather round and listen close 

And ye shall hear his story. 

 

His will was such, that early on 

This lad would not be thwarted.

True grit the little zygote had—

Thank God he weren’t aborted!  

 

He hunkered down in cozy womb 

To think on matters deep:

For birth was child’s play compared 

to being born-again as Veep!  

 

A miracle it seemed to some 

To others simply weird,

But when JD came into the world  

He sported a full beard!  

 

Wiser than his years he was, 

This savant wearing diapers.

Alas, his homelife he did ken 

A pit of hissing vipers! 

 

“My Ma’s a mess, Stepdad’s a jerk,

I’m really up the junction…

I’ll put this in a book one day,

A dirge to white dysfunction!” 

 

Against this lot he dreamed to have 

A stable life, serene: 

Come graduation off he shipped 

to Iraq as a Marine. 

 

Hard as nails, or cask strength scotch,  

He readied for the battle.  

But instead of a gun they gave him a pen:

Like a baby with a rattle!  

 

Reporting on the enlistees   

He learned to be a man.  

But a career in the armed forces was

Not part of the plan.  

 

Who says a little learning is 

such a dangerous thing?   

For learning little our feisty bro 

To Ivy League did bring! 

 

In New Haven he studied law—

the spirit and the letter.  

He made queer friends he’d later shun

‘Cause he liked power better.  

 

He changed his name, Hamel to Vance—

You could call it a transition—

And then he up and left the law 

To fulfill his sacred mission. 

 

He set out West upon his steed 

(a 747),

And made his way to Menlo Park: 

Venture capital heaven.  

 

A Wizard strange young Vance did seek;

Weird Wizard he did find.

In awe did he marvel at 

Liber-Crypto-Christian Mind.  

 

JD did query subtle Sage,

Asked would he be his mentor,

Instruct him in dark Startup arts
And Partnerships to enter?    

 

From Silicon throne the Wizard rose,

And shook his staff in vigor.

Fittingly he quoth Saint George: 

“I’ll be your father figure!”  

 

“Hot Damn!” Spake Vance, “Well don’t you know

I been lookin’ for a daddy!

The last two Pappies that I had 

drove off in their Caddy.” 

 

Like learned Alchemists of old

Who now in peace are resting,

Vance commixed averse elements:

Charity and Investing.

 

As Noah rescued all God’s creatures 

He’d save the folks back home;

Raise funds to start a future farm 

Built under a great glass dome. 

 

A lifeline to those left behind—

With profits too to capture!—

Jobs for Evangelicals while 

They waited for the Rapture.  

 

Alas, the locals they all quit

That Hot House of Disorder; 

The only folks who’d do the work 

Came from south of the border! 

 

Like Babel Tower did Vertical Farm 

Collapse under piles of debt;

But if you suppose that brought Vance low

You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!  

 

For who should appear but Wizard Wise 

With a spell to quell defeat:

“It’s time you answered the nation’s call  

And ran for a Senate seat!”

 

Now far and wide his fame had spread 

For he’d become an author. 

But words can’t buy a Congressional race;

He’d need the Wizard’s coffer… 

 

Spake Wizard, “What cash you can raise

From hicks in Appalachia,

Lookie here at my bank account 

Boy, I can surely match ya!”

 

In tears replied the Wizard’s ward

“I just wanna give something back!” 

(What that was he did not say

But he gladly took the check.)

 

Now around this time an Orangeman 

Had risen up to power.

He was full of piss and vinegar 

And things even more sour.  

 

At first our hero he demurred:

“T---p’s cultural heroin.”

But when the call went out for Veep

No problem lied therein.  

 

Like Saul of Tarsus transformed to Paul 

Changed was his demeaner;

His beard grew thick, beady his eyes, 

Just like Donald Junior.  

 

Social collapse he prophesied, 

This born-again MAGApostle. 

He owned the libs with clever memes;

His homilies weren’t docile.

 

“Why is it that some old maids love 

Their cats more than us men?

And here’s another pet peeve of mine—

The immigrants who eat ‘em!”  

 

The hateful nonsense that he spewed 

Ensured that he’d advance.  

Quoth T---p, “He’s got to be my Veep,

My mini-me is Vance!”  

 

An Ohioan who was like his kids...

T---p knew it was a sign! 

Proposed he to Apprentice Vance, 

“Put your tiny hand in mine.” 

 

All hail this Proud Boy of the Folk,

More famous than Hannibal Lecter!

Born to be Veep, and if not, well…

There’s always the private sector.  

 

For whether T---p should win or lose—

Or rather, is robbed once more!—

Of the two running mates, Vance 

May end up free, less poor.   

 

Destined to one day top the ticket,

So bigly JD’s gift.  

Who could stop his rapid rise...

Apart from Taylor Swift?

Peter Nohrnberg is a poet, cultural critic, and literary scholar, whose poems and articles have appeared in Southwest Review, Notre Dame Review, Public Seminar, and James Joyce Annual, among other publications.