MY WIFE AND I WERE DISTURBED

by Kevin Boyce

 

while watching the nightly news 

by a noise coming from outside.

Thunk                 thunk                   thunk

 

A catbird in our rhododendrons 

had declared war on his reflection in

our basement window. Each time 

his attack was repelled by an equal 

and opposite force. 

Thunk                  thunk                   thunk

 

He could not be deterred from defending 

his homeland from this imaginary foe.

Something had to give in the battle 

between this birdbrain and glass pane.

 

I covered the window with cardboard

to curtail his instinctual onslaught 

and save him from an early demise.

My wife and I went back to the news.

 

In August of 1914, soldiers enlisted 

in the War to End All Wars, assured

that the conflict would end by Christmas. 

Four more years and 15 million souls would pass 

before the close of this grand adventure.

 

Then 2003 brought Bush on the boat with his banner

prematurely exclaiming “Mission Accomplished.”

The Iraq War lasting a mere eight more years

after victory was secured.

 

Vladimir Putin invaded an independent Ukraine confident 

of conquest within months. Here we are four years later.

 

Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, 2026

with Israel and the US attacking Iran certain that 

they could not resist. Mission accomplished.

 

Thunk                  thunk                   thunk

 

 

 

Kevin Boyce is a poet, photographer, children’s book author, and lifelong resident of New England. He volunteers in his hometown, leading a community-sponsored contest and publication for emerging authors. Kevin’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in ONE ART, Nostalgia, The New Verse News, The Broken Teacup, Discretionary Love, The Poetry Lighthouse, and elsewhere.

IN GAZA, FLYING A KITE IS AN ACT OF WAR

by Claire Zoghb

With thanks to Murad and Mustafa at Wear The Peace for the beautiful T-shirt.  

Author’s note: On Monday, August 24, 2026, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared Palestinian children’s kite-flying “an act of war.” I couldn’t help but think of “If I Must Die” by Dr. Refaat Alareer, the prominent Gazan writer, poet, activist, and professor of English literature at the Islamic University in Gaza, who was targeted and assassinated in an Israeli airstrike on December 6, 2023. His poem was widely circulated after his killing and was translated into more than 250 languages.

Available at Wear the Peace

Claire Zoghb’s collections include Small House Breathing and the chapbooks Boundaries and Dispatches from Everest. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize and appear widely in print and online journals and anthologies. When not graphic designing, Claire may be found wandering among beach roses. 

TO FLY A KITE

by Lynn White

Cartoon by Kamal Sharaf.

The United Nations has condemned Israel’s threat to expel Palestinians from areas of the besieged Gaza Strip where kites were being flown by children... Israel warned Hamas on Sunday that it would intensify military operations if kites, drones or balloons continue, saying those responsible would be targeted... Several kites not carrying incendiary devices were reported to have drifted into southern Israeli communities over the last month... Gaza’s popular committees, coordinating with Hamas authorities, urged parents on Monday to stop children flying kites, saying they were acting “to protect their innocent lives”... “Every summer, my kid, Ahmed, and the kids in the street fly those kites to entertain themselves,” Umm Mohammed, a mother in Gaza City, told the Reuters news agency. “But [now] I will not allow him to—not any more.” —Aljazeera, August 26, 2026

The kites have fallen

down to earth

they lie on the ground

broken as a child

broken as a child in Gaza.

Go fly a kite, Israel.

Go fly a kite.

If only.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

WE WON

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

“Dwindling Munitions” by Nick Anderson

 a cento of public quotes from President Donald Trump in roughly chronological order

 

"The United States military, together with the wonderful Israeli partners, 

continues to totally demolish the enemy far ahead of schedule 

and at levels that people have never seen before. 

Well, I think we've accomplished more in one week 

than anyone thought possible. We're winning the war by a lot. 

We've decimated their whole evil empire.

 

It'll continue, I'm sure, for a little while.  

Let me tell you, we've won. 

You know, you never like to say too early you won. 

We won. We won the bet. In the first hour, it was over. 

It's an excursion that will keep us out of war.

 

The war is very complete, pretty much. 

If you look, they have nothing left. 

There's nothing left in a military sense.

 

We've essentially defeated Iran. 

Uh, I guess they can have a little bit of fight back, but not much. 

Not much.  

We'll be leaving in pretty much the very near future. 

Iran is close to demolished. The only thing is the strait.

 

We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down. 

We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. 

And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. 

Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.

 

Iran is begging to work out a deal. 

I don't know if we'll be able to do that. 

I don't know if we're willing to do that. 

I think we'll make a deal with them. 

Pretty sure. But it's possible we won't.

 

We are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. 

We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. 

We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.

 

MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. 

Time is running out—48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. 

Glory be to GOD! 

Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell. 

JUST WATCH! 

Praise be to Allah. 

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. 

I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.

 

We're going to hit them very hard tonight. 

We're going to hit them hard tomorrow. 

We're going to hit them really hard the night after. 

Next week gets really bad for them 

because next week comes the power plants, 

next week comes the bridges. 

We're going to knock out all their power plants. 

We're going to knock out all their bridges 

unless they get to the table and negotiate.

 

The war in Iran is going along swimmingly. 

We can do whatever we want. 

And it should be, it should be ending pretty soon. 

It was perfect. I mean it's perfect. 

The Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage. 

We are winning big in Iran, 

and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly."

 

 

I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars.

                                                      Donald Trump, 2023

 

I will not send you to fight and die in a foolish, never-ending war.

                                                      Donald Trump, 2024

 

                                    I didn't guarantee no war.

                                                                                          Donald Trump, 2026

Ed Gold has three chapbooks including Sundown (2023) and Loveship (2025) from Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Think, In These Times, Passager, Kakalak, and others. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with my wife Amy and  dog Edie, and he coordinates the Skylark poetry contest for SC high school students. Ed is lucky to be working with Richard Garcia and the Long Table Poets.

SWIM THROUGH THE VEIL

by H. G.

UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory calls on the Israeli Government to urgently protect Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and ensure his safety, dignity, and physical integrity. The Israeli Government must immediately release Dr. Abu Safiya, or promptly charge him with a recognizable criminal offence and grant him a fair trial. In the meantime, he must be urgently transferred to a civilian hospital to ensure that he receives life-saving medical care. Dr. Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has been held in Israeli custody since December 2024 under Israel’s Unlawful Combatant Law, without charge or trial. He was arrested at the hospital after refusing to evacuate while treating critical patients. According to his lawyers, Dr. Abu Safiya appears to be at imminent risk of death. Information available to UN Human Rights--OPT indicates he has been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement, repeated severe assaults resulting in grave injuries, and denial of medical care. —United Nations, July 9, 2026

Reoccurring
nightmares of my childhood
suddenly surprise my adult dreamscape

I'm drowning again
too deep underwater
sometimes
my ankle tied to a boat
other times
my car went over a bridge 

my chest and lungs
burn building
crescendo of terror
tension rising
behind my eyes
my head:
a pressure cooker

needing to whistle

I accept death
mouth and lungs
a vacuum 
sucking in
only to find

I can breathe underwater 

and I see
my Irish great (times two) grandparents
drowning
as the Staten Island Ferry sinks
with them on board

I feel the rage burning in her chest
the pressure of millions of colonized generations of the Irish

screaming in her head

freedom murdered
death in diaspora 

finally sucking water

into her lungs

and she swims through the veil

into my dreams

bloated

water laden corpses

newly lifeless buoys

bobbing

left behind 

and she breathes underwater with me

she whispers to me,

follow the call

follow our footsteps

to Staten Island

and Jersey City 

to our Palestinian brothers and sisters

and promise

not to leave them behind

even if we all drown

in the blue

of two colonizer flags

and so I wait

in my dreams

with my great (times two) grandmother 
and Refaat Alareer, Michael Collins, and Anne Frank

and the starved, shot, drowned, hanged, gassed, exiled, vaporized, reanimated (and reeliminated), dismembered masses

for Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya

when he arrives

we swim through the veil

and try again

H.G. is an American poet based in New York. She holds an MA in history and is working on her first verse novel. Her previous poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Inflectionist Review, The Amphibian, Blue Minaret and is forthcoming in Neon & Smoke.

AN ODE TO DAVID, GOLIATH, AND THE NEW YORK KNICKS

by H.G.

Jerry Seinfeld would call me a snob.

Me, a believer that truly brilliant writing
needs a deep understanding
of the wide spectrum of human emotions.

Him, co-creator of a show
about nothing,
yet wise enough to know:
even nothing is something.

And who dare argue
with the man who saved Snapple

and thinks he’s saving Israel
while larping
as the IDF
in 2018,
mock killing Palestinians
who are killed for real
a few miles away.

All to fly 5,677 miles
home
to his NY Knicks
and his courtside tickets.

Now,
2026: Mayor Mamdani’s NYC
the Knicks first championship win
since 1973.

Jerry,
and the whole stadium,

Mayor Mamdani,
and the whole city
at watch parties

electric
street filling joy
spreading
New York
to New Jersey:
an eruption
of celebration,

as one.

The stadium,
a stone’s throw
from Palestinian Brooklyn
intertwined
with Jewish Brooklyn
and Palestinian Patterson
adjacent 
Jewish Fair Lawn

where tensions must be buried
memories are long,
trauma, genetic

and walls
                unnecessary. 

Because
everyday
a better story
can be written
by better people
than Jerry Seinfeld
and me
as on the night of June 13, 2026
when every color and creed 
of New York and New Jersey
chanted

My mayor Muslim, 
my bagel Jewish
my Christian, Dior 
Knicks took it in five, not four*

*Italicised lines based on the viral rhyme created by MD Ahnaf Hossain prior to game 4.

H.G. is an American poet based in New York. She holds an MA in history and is working on her first verse novel. Her previous poems have appeared in The Inflectionist Review, The Amphibian, The New Verse News, Blue Minaret and is forthcoming in Neon & Smoke.

ISRAEL LAUNCHES OVER 100 AIRSTRIKES ON LEBANON IN TEN MINUTES WITHOUT WARNING

by Moudi Sbeity 

as if a warning is a good excuse. 

This means over ten airstrikes per minute. 

What else could we do with a minute? 

I won't name anything lovely for you. 

I won’t save you from this terribleness, saying 

we could plant more than a hundred seeds. 

That perhaps we could feed a hundred people, 

sustain a worldwide hymn till heaven hears this 

aching chorus. Some poems need to show you 

how much it hurts. Some poems need to leave 

you wondering

just how tightly a heart must be closed in order

to champion a thirst for destruction. Just how 

desperately the soul must be choked before 

waging its inner horrors. Just how much more 

can we rip each other before remembering that 

a minute is sixty seconds, and a second is about 

one breath cycle, and one breath cycle is all you 

need to stay alive. I won't even do the math for 

you, the one that calculates all the breath cycles 

that encompass a minute across the millions of 

people now breathing in the unsanctioned dust. 

Just how much ignorance, and how heavy of a dose, 

and how often, does it take to poison one person’s 

blood before he decides to launch more than a 

hundred missiles, before his guilty fingers 

violently reach into God’s pulse. 

Moudi Sbeity is a Lebanese-American poet, author, educator, and psychotherapist. Born in Texas and raised in Lebanon, he moved to the United States at the age of eighteen as an evacuee following the 2006 July war. In Utah, Moudi founded and operated Laziz Kitchen, a Lebanese restaurant celebrated by The New York Times as “the future of queer dining.” Moudi was also a named plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that brought marriage equality to Utah and the 10th circuit states in 2014. A lifelong stutterer, he is passionate about writing and poetry as practices in fluency and self-expression.