MY ISLAND

by Sally Mills

 

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's Indian Creek Island property with a curiously blue pool.

Ivanka and Jared live on an island.
Indian Creek Island.
It’s part of Miami.
Man-made.
Billionaire Bunker.
They gutted the home,
remodeled the neoclassical masterpiece
with a modern and lavish look.
Because Ivanka has impeccable taste.
They kept the double staircase,
but gave the rest—even the pool cabana out back —
a total makeover.
Ivanka hosted an event by the pool
for her friends:
an evening of reflection and mindfulness
led by her very own
transcendental meditation expert.
No wonder Ivanka is so serene.

Now they have another island—
Sazan Island
in Albania.
This one is private.
1400 hectares.
(What’s a hectare, exactly?)
Five miles of beachfront!
3,500 Soviet bunkers!
They discovered it while on
a friend’s boat.
They swam to it,
then hiked up a mountain,
barefoot.
They were captivated.
They developed the opportunity
to help realize its potential,
transform it.
With a lot of restraint and care.
It’s not even a business!
It’s more like a challenge.
A tangible manifestation of
how they want to live.

I would like to live on an island.
But you know, I wouldn’t transform it.
I would hole up in
one of the bunkers.
I would sit quietly with the
limestone cliffs,
the holm oak,
the flowering ash.
I would watch
the sun rise over the Adriatic.
I would leave the flamingos alone,
the sea turtles,
the eight species of bats,
the Balkan wall lizard.
Forty kinds of beetles.
I would give them the opportunity
to realize their potential.

 

AI gif created by Nightcafé Studio for The New Verse News.

Sally Mills is a poet based in Downeast Maine. She came to poetry through studying the Russian Silver Age poets. She has been writing poetry in private for most of her life.

NUMBERS GAME

by Gifford Savage

Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg and Ivanka Trump among bevy of stars at Indian billionaire heir’s pre-wedding bash… —CNN, March 4, 2024

Antilia Tower stands 27 stories high,

a $1b phallic tower of Babel.
3 helipads, 168-car garage, and 9 elevators
lifting bling to all-time-low levels of excess.
Cool air soothes in the snow room,
countless artificial snowflakes give sweet relief 
while the heat ripples visible on the streets below.
Rihanna sings, “We Found Love,”
the $100m, 3-day long pre-wedding party swings,
21 chefs conjure up 75 types of dishes for breakfast
225 types for lunch, 85 for a midnight feast.
Money can’t buy you love,
but it means 1,200 guests
don’t have to suffer the same meal twice.
Ivanka, Tendulkar and Bill toast the happy couple,
Priscilla Chan fawns over the groom’s $1m watch
while Zuckerberg agrees, Watches are cool.
In the shadow of the tower
2 million children die every year in India’s slums,
one every 15 seconds,
400,000 before the sun sets on their first day.
Faces turn away,
nursing their bacchanal hangovers,
looking forward to the wedding proper in July.
Rihanna did not sing: “Take Care.”


Gifford Savage’s poems have been published in various journals, including The Storms, The Bangor Literary Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Agape Review, and previously in The New Verse News.

THOUGHTS OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT

as He Languishes with Dementia 

at Age 83 in the Year 2030

by Albert Haley

                            

Disgusting. Corrupt. Liars!

Who is Melania?

Really, Junior, again?

Tower, tower, tower.

Haters. Where’s Vlad?

Make America grate?

Gold plated and Colonel KFC.

How to spell anything.

Perfect. Ivanka. If she weren’t

my daughter.

Was a time I could have shot someone.

Right in the middle of Fifth!

Wall, we were going to have.

What happened Tim Apple?

Gold plated wall. Good!

Have I said “pussy” yet?

Where’s my phone? Sad.

Me, me, me, my country tis of me. 

Do you like this hair?

In the middle of Fifth.

Put a tariff on it.

Put a businessman in 

the White House and acquit him.

They rip babies out of mothers

and smother them. Bullshit!

Sharpies predict the weather

better.

But who is this Mitch? Why do I miss

him. Lyin’ Ted sure knew how to lie

down with the lion. Good crew,

kept their heads off the pikes.

  

Greatest hits. Rallies                                                  

and media is enemy of the state.

Some people say. Snow falling. 

Told you it was a hoax. 

The earth’s cooling—me too?

If they’d only respected

the Second. Right in the middle of Fifth. 

Might have spared me 

(A-l-z… how you spell?) this.

The focused hot blowtorch

of hatred so carefully cultivated. 

Main act in the middle of their circus.

Cancel the failing show

with a ratings bang.

Obama? Birth certificate?

Never saw it. Get him out of here!

Highest form of love

a man like me can ever know.

Albert Haley's poems have appeared previously in New Verse News, Poets Reading the News, and Rattle. He lives and teaches in dry, dusty Abilene, Texas, which at present seems far away from any refreshing blue waves. Haley's poems have appeared previously in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, and Rattle. He lives and teaches in dry, dusty Abilene, Texas, which at present seems far away from any refreshing blue waves.

IVANKA IN JERUSALEM

by Jeremy Thelbert Bryant

I can’t breathe as Ivanka’s white teeth flash grin
can’t erase the whites of dead child’s open eyes
can’t forget the beautiful young man with smoke stains
can’t unsee the blurred body dropping from a bullet strike, slow
                like an elegant dancer
can’t ignore the men with kid slingshots shooting into fog

There’s Ivanka, men before her who believe in a god,
there’s cameras and applause
Elsewhere, there is death

Jeremy Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the low residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. When he is not teaching English, he is burning incense, listening to music, drinking coffee, and writing. His work may be found in Pikeville Review and Prism. He finds inspiration in the red of cardinals, in the honesty of Frida Kahlo’s artwork, and in the frankness of Tori Amos’ lyrics.

ALT-SANTA 2017

by Richard Hacken

‘Twas the Eve before Yuletide, and throughout the castle
Not one gerbil was verbal, nor causing a hassle;
With our stockings suspended on pegs by the mantle,
Soon Santa would see how they gracefully dangled.
All the young ones were snoring in gentrified bunks,
Watching video dream-streams of sweet glucose junk.
My dear spouse and I sought communion with Morpheus,
Having taken our Ambien for slumber’s euphorias…
When our slackening shorter-term memory awareness
Was quite rudely attacked by loud noise from the terrace.
So we sped from the bed and we peered past the shutters,
Overlooking fatigue and dead leaves in the gutters.
Freshly frozen precip was lit up by the moon,
Granting clear luminescence almost like high noon…
When some black SUVs bolted into our view:
Armor-plated V-8s, but not one caribou.
From the middlemost window our eyes were assailed
By the sight of Alt-Santa—with his orange ducktail.
Verbosity surged with some grunts, lies and screams,
And he verbally signaled, with the accent of Queens:
Now, Donnie! Now, Kushner! Ivanka and Eric!
On, Sessions! Melania! DeVos and Rick Perry!
Wait a minute! Where’s Tiffany?
Now, Tillerson, Mattis, Now Zinke and Chao!
On, Mnuchin, Mike Pence, Wait a minute…
Where’s Ben Carson now?
Where’s Comey, where’s Flynn? Where are Priebus and Bannon?
They had useless traits that I had to abandon.
Where’s Scaramucci? Where the heck is Sean Spicer?
I’d have kept all these people if they defended me nicer.
It’s time that the Senate repeals and replaces
Every few days just a few of these faces.”
But that wasn’t all: he continued to chatter
About changes he’d make and how much they would matter.
Yuletide was losing and now it would win!
Yes, he would make Christmastime so great again!
“I’m the greatest,” he said, “of all Santas, I promise,
There’s been no Santa greater, if I want to be honest.”

“For too long it’s been Santa who subsidized
The presents and goodies for all of you guys.
Such liberal nonsense is hard to defend,
And so such generosity now has to end.
We’ll keep shipping the presents and building the toys,
But who’s going to now pay for it? The girls and the boys.
Our Department of Toys on Non-Discounted Clearance
Will be happy to debit accounts from their parents.
Our Department of Homeland-Spun Sugar-Plum Canes
Will be headed by Dr. Alt-Saccharin Gaines,
Who’s qualified, ‘cause she’s a 10, a good looker,
And an enemy of all things resembling sugar.
Our Department of Christmas’s Really True Meaning
Has a new secretary named Skepticus Leening,
Who has promised reducing bureaucratic red tape
Till Christmas can be all dissolved in a lake.”

And thus on and on further the Alt-Santa spake,
Till for so many reasons I started to quake.
I was so good and ready to be Doubting Thomas,
When he said one last time, “If I want to be honest…”

So he heard us exclaim as we turned from his face:
“You're not a real Santa. You're just a disgrace.
You’ll soon be gone. You’ll be put in your place.”


Richard Hacken is a poet-librarian
and a firm contrarian
to the reigning vulgarian.

LINGERIE COUNTER

by Clara B. Jones

Claes Oldenburg. Lingerie Counter. 1962. Textiles, canvas, plaster, enamel, metal stand, neon tube, mirror, and fiberboard Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest . . . with the addition of Ivanka Trump’s $10,800 “bangle” that she wore from her Metropolis Collection on 60 Minutes.

Trump is a Pop Artist with enough influence to have
poetry recover its power from the Romantics
and their natural tone inspiring Ivanka and Gucci
and other global icons—
balancing perfect acts for their new collections.
There is no rap masterpiece
since Killer Mike® didn't “get the message”
like Hillary didn't send the e-mails that Wikileaks exposed.
Obama has been sad for the last year
but we can think of several ways to thank him
though Michelle is a dealmaker
and her war with 50 Cent® is about to end
if she gets 5% of the profits
when the Oval Office is painted red.
Michelle said
I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street*
when Trump performed in the Green Room
where his show was stunning.
Call 1-800-800-1234 to order his book.
The price will never change.
Something happened
but it never got out of hand
since Trump's career is on the rise
and he fries tasty catfish.
Barak wants to end global warming
but Michelle wants to fight vile diseases—
having said that it's Thanksgiving
so what is Trump going to cook if poems are at stake?
Trump has prescriptions for migraine headaches
but knows his problems are genetic and Melania has
the right to remain silent so nothing will be held against her.

*Claes Oldenburg (1961)

Clara B. Jones is a retired scientist, currently practicing poetry in Silver Spring, MD (USA). As a woman of color, she writes about the “performance” of identity, alienation, and power and conducts research on experimental poetry. Clara is author of three chapbooks, and her poems, reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous venues.