SOME TIME NO FISH

by Mickey J. Corrigan

The mysterious deaths of Jeffrey Epstein’s friends —The Independent (UK), July 26, 2026

So many dead
in suspicious manners
like the "modeling scout" 
under investigation
for human trafficking
funny how they pass
so fast just before 
they can confess
to their crimes
and put names
to the powerful. 

Some time I cache quick
he told Epstein 
traveling the globe
looking for girls
to bring to Paris
to Jeffrey's crime pad 
sometimes no fish
he said too before
the gig ended
his voice silenced
permanently.

Sleeping with the fishes
as they say in the mob
the French "model manager"
also under investigation
for sex trafficking etcetera
and Epstein's last cellmate
dead on release
and Epstein himself
strangled or hung 
his Florida butler 
selling the "little black book"
he kept for protection
from what he knew
the Palm Beach detective 
afraid for his family
under surveillance
under threat
suddenly dead 
the Deutsche banker
the Hollywood producer
the fellow Ponzi schemer 
the former governor
of New Mexico,
and Virginia, 
don't forget Virginia 
her voice
will not be silenced.

Mickey J. Corrigan writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Poems have appeared in literary journals and chapbooks. Her most recent novel is Lazy Palms, a controversial look at life inside a euthanasia trailer park. 

WHAT HE DID FOR THEM

by Marge Piercy

Cartoon by Ben Jennings / The Guardian

The Epstein files reveal how

the very rich relate entirely

to each other. They live 

in hermetic opulence.

 

Epstein was not only pimp 

but connector. He gave

the rich and powerful what

they wanted, forbidden

 

sex, a sense of always

being in control, someone

they wanted to hang out

with: the connector.

 

We’re way beneath their

gaze, their understanding

any more than we know 

intricacies of ant life.

 

Too small for us to notice,

we step on them casually

as we go on our way, just

as the rich do to us.

Marge Piercy is the author of twenty one poetry collections and seventeen novels, including Woman at the Edge of Time and SEX WARS. A lifelong feminist, socialist, and anti-war activist, her writing has been exploring labor, environmental justice, and the struggle for a more equitable world over the last five decades. 

THE SIREN SONG OF TRUTH

by Robin Stevens Payes

Believe women. Believe girls.

The women, the girls know.
Our story ancient. Our voices new.

They make us believe
The crime is our fault.
Men take our bodies,
Unable to resist the siren
Song of our bodies.

The song of our bodies
Does not belong to us.
Girls whom men called sirens,
Children wounded into silence,
Sing their bodies.

Sing their truths aloud.
Strongmen claim they are victims
Of the song of our bodies.
Weak men whose bodies
Are out of control.

Bodies anatomically ungoverned.
Bluster out of control.
Vanquishing other bodies—
Seas, straits, oil fields,
Mines, minds.

Strap yourselves tighter to the mast.
Now the bindings break.
Your strength offers no protection
Against the siren song of Truth.
The women. The girls. Know.

Mother Earth sings Her body,
Raped by weak men
Whose strength is measured
In violence. Did their mothers
Teach them this was fair game?

We sing our truths aloud,
Sirens flashing red:
Pull over now. Stop raping
Our minds, our bodies,
Our mothers, our daughters.

Ourselves. Loudly we sing
Our bodies to wholeness.
Weak men are broken,
No fault of ours.
Blame your wounds, not our anatomy.

Our siren song strengthens.
Our story ancient.
Our voices new.

Believe us.

Robin Stevens Payes is a Pushcart Prize–nominated poet, storyteller, and cultural steward whose work braids ancestral memory, science, myth, and moral imagination. She is the author of the YA time-travel adventure series Edge of Yesterday and creator of [re]member the world, a multi-genre project retrieving and reweaving the silenced history of her grandmother’s flight from Ukraine’s Pale of Settlement. Her poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, Dawn Horizons, East Sea Bards, Maryland Bards, Poetry Reviews, and Reflections. She writes about creative ethics, generational healing, and cultural repair on her Substack, Releasing Memory. 

HILARY CLINTON READS SYLVIA PLATH’S COLLECTED POEMS BEFORE HER LATEST CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY

by Mary Ellen Talley

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

I would no more pick up a book

of confessional poetry than 

read cautionary tales and Greek myths 

while picketing the White House in my youth.  

Vietnam was such a waste.

Why in the world am I reading Plath

when I should be boning up for Epstein testimony?

Some say my schedule was suicidal

when I was Secretary of State. I came of age early

but took Bill’s name as my own

in spite of Gloria Steinem’s dominion.

There is little value in confession; 

Whitewater just about did us in,

but see how even my daughter 

embraces our legacy. She learned the lesson 

of the ratings game and will thrive

even if her hubby’s hedge fund 

ever skims the truth. At least I’m free

to be honest. Epstein was Bill’s gig,

not mine, although I’m savvy enough to know

the more opulent connections the better, 

especially while the world goes bonkers.

Plath wrote,  It might be heaven,

This state plentitude: still in one

Gigantic tapestry…. That’s my life.

Plath’s young mental illness captures me, 

Twice that lamp of the possible.  

I believe in that.  We studied the Greeks

at Wellesley. First reading, I disliked Perseus, 

but here I am in Plath’s title,

The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering.

I refuse catastrophe. I still maintain 

more rigor than any elected sycophants.

No rigor mortis come to stiffen all creation.

If I could only sway Senators with such strong words!

But why am I reading from a woman 

who let adultery cave her in? Not me!

I’m blond. Plath brunette. Neither of us stupid.  

But she stuck her head in the oven to escape.  

How could she dare to evade

this imperfect future, this amazing challenge?    

   

Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared in many journals including Louisville Review, Deep Wild, and Trampoline as well as in multiple anthologies, and three chapbooks. She resides in Seattle, WA and worked for many years as a school-based speech/language pathologist (SLP.) 

FATAL DISTRACTION

by Philip Kitcher

Epstein helped men get their jollies.

Donald Trump was once a fan.

Latest victims of his follies:

Blameless schoolgirls in Iran

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

STATE OF THE EPSTEIN CLASS’S UNION

by Raymond Nat Turner

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

Disabling flying fingers of 14 fact-checkers; blowing out 30 

bullshit detectors. One hour and 41 minutes of Tourettes with-

out regrets. Specious Olympics of Lying—stuck the landing—

flooding the zone with dreck.

Elephant excrement flooded Fox-boxes of viewers and listeners laid

back on La-Z-Boys, red cap electrodes attached to shaved heads, their

Tariff Sheriff telling them, “We’re the hottest country in the world!”

The roaring economy is roaring like never before. Golden Age of America.

Their Tariff Sheriff told them we the greatest. Biggest. Best-est. Most-est

in history. Told them the price of eggs in Erehwon, along with butter, fruit

and rents are way, way down. And gas is less than two dollars a gallon at

Shangri-La stations. And 401Ks are way, way, way up for lil folks of Oz.

His wild-eyed Cruel Reich Cult members wore holes in trousers and skirts

springing up like jack-in-the-boxes applauding long and loud and often.

Some fractured greasy thumbs and bloody hands clapping so hard, for so

long, over and over again. 

Like rabid, frothing-mouthed lynch mob, they cheered Big Beautiful Bank Job

and dastardly deeds of DOGE: Department of Grifter Enrichment. Sidelining

survivors and protecting Epstein Class pedophiles flying Lolita Express 39,000 feet

above borders and accountability they orgiastically chanted, “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!”

And their Tariff Sheriff told them he’s ended 8 wars, including the Mexican War;

War with Spain; French and Indian War; War Of 1812. Told them he rebuilt and

rebranded the Wehrmacht “Peace through strength.” And doing it is costing a trillion

dollars—along with blitzkrieg-warp speed redaction of our rights and freedoms…

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

INTERLOCHEN

by Virginia Aronson

 

Years before they were convicted sex offenders, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell used his wealth to gain access to a prestigious boarding school for young artists in Michigan, using a rental lodge Epstein donated to the school as a base from which to recruit some of their earliest victims, according to Department of Justice records and former campus administrators. —NPR, February 19, 2026

You sit on a bench
licking your ice cream
vanilla, maybe mocha
surrounded by summer
friends 13, 14 you are
such lucky talented girls
at the famous incubator
for budding artists
young friends giggling
singing in the sunshine
when she walks by
with a small cute dog
on a leash

and the bench empties
you're all squealing
you all love Yorkies!
you all bend to pet her
your future before you
like a field of daisies
and romping puppies
your friends drift off
to play piano, dance, paint
and the woman turns
her intense gaze
on you, she wants you
to meet her friend
this man can help you
he gives scholarships
he loves young artists
he is very wealthy
fellow Interlochen grad
school and camp benefactor
and your bright eyes brighten
your dreams coming true

and this man, he pays
for your education
while he takes
everything else
your childhood
your dreams
your sweet future
as he pets you
for years
and keeps you
on his tight leash.

Virginia Aronson is the director of Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation and the author of many published books. New poetry collections include Collateral Damage (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Whiskey Island and Whiskey Straight Women (Cyberwit Press).

CONSTRUCTS

by Mickey J. Corrigan

“God is a construct. Cute girls are real.” —Deepak Chopra in a 2017 email to Jeffrey Epstein

When a man makes them
from fantasy and baby powder
beach sand and blonde hair
all free for the handling
others will leave all
their morals behind
a long trail of wisdom
words that touch the world
like a sprinkling of fairy dust
while nothing beats something
young, innocent, nubile 
like flesh in man's hands.

“Only sinners are invited”
worshipers bend the knee 
to robes, collars, words
of the wise, the spiritual
who anoint and advise
to lead the best lives
while off-screen they take
what they believe they deserve
while you bow and prostrate
to the higher ideal
a cardboard cutout
hiding the breadcrumb path
to your cute kids.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. Salt Publishing in the UK released Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting. Bloodhound Books UK published What I Did For Love, a spoof of the classic Lolita. Poetry has been published in literary journals, chapbooks, and collections.

WHERE NOW

by Lynn White

Photos of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor crouching over a woman were taken in Jeffrey Epstein's New York City mansion, while an image of Peter Mandelson in his underwear was taken in the paedophile financier's Paris flat, a Sky News analysis has found.

Where do we go now

after we’ve seen a lord

in his knickers

and a prince

on his knees,

where now 

from that place

where no crimes 

were committed,

“don’t you know.”

Do you know

where now?

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.