NO KINGS

by Joan Gerstein

I painted two-foot high NO KINGS

in bold block letters on my blue fence

Months later   it remains unmolested

Months later   gas is $6.00 a gallon

Months later   Trump doesn’t know how to end wars he started

Months later   Trump rants senile threats and insults

On a busy street   my fence remains unmarred

Months later   Trump insults the Pope 

Months later   Trump posts a picture of himself as Jesus

Months later   Trump controls the Supreme Court 

In this Marine Corps city no one defaces my fence

Months later   Trump defies lower courts 

Months later   Trump strong-arms Republican lawmakers

Months later   Trump empties our treasury 

Months later   Trump demands effigies of himself on everything

and enriches his personal wealth through corruption  greed   lying

No one disfigures my fence in this conservative-leaning metropolis

because my message is meh     NO KINGS

I wish I had the guts to write     Dethrone the evil   vile   *$#)V&!

Joan Gerstein, a retired educator and therapist, teaches creative writing to incarcerated veterans. And, yes, at 78 she was up and down the ladder.

THE POPE IS WEAK ON RHYME

by Michele Worthington

Phonics 1 for Young Catholics

maybe not when he writes in Italian

but when he says to Chicago and New York

“I have no fear I will continue to speak out loudly

 promoting dialogue ​and ⁠multilateral relationships

 among the states to look for just solutions to problems"

even line breaks do not help.

 

There is no meter, no music, 

no molecules of pleasure

just temptation to take

bread and wine

from churches 

cake and champagne

from tiny yachts.

 

Jesus rhymes with GPS,

but Christ,

that is hard

to slide into a rebuke.

 

Still, when on the papal plane

to Istanbul and Beirut

flying above stolen paradise

above lake shores sacrificed      

Leo says

Too many people are suffering

Too many people are suffering

I do believe he

sees us.

Michele Worthington lives enclosed in urban sprawl in Tucson but escapes to hike the Sonoran desert often and the Adirondacks every summer. Her photography and words have appeared in several online journals and in print in Sandcutters, Anomaly Poetry, and Nature of our Times anthology. She has been a finalist for Arizona Matsuri, Tucson Haiku Hike and Tucson Festival of Books literary awards.

THE ANTI-CHRIST

by Gordon Gilbert

 

 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

Finally the devil gets his due
Not that we didn’t hear him say
He could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue
And MAGA folks would love him anyway
 
Pardons for those found guilty of insurrection
Granting more tax breaks to the richest in our nation
Chaos abroad, rising prices and corruption
A war of choice, suffering, death and destruction
His TACO cowardice whenever others called his bluff
His bombastic ranting, hate and lies were not enough
 
He’s broken all his campaign promises
But this time he’s gone too far for the far right
At last they see the devil for what he is
And even MTG has seen the light
 
Once they may have thought he’d be their savior
But this devil never was nailed to a cross
Pure evil can be seen in his behavior
And now his followers are at a loss
 
They never will forgive him for this sin
His claim to be godlike has done him in 


Gordon Gilbert is a New York City west villager. In these trying times, he finds some solace taking long walks along the Hudson River. He keeps hoping things will turn around, waiting on that elusive inflection point. Maybe this is it. 

WHEN DO WE BEGIN, AND HOW SHALL WE END?

by Indran Amirthanayagam

 

 

 

 

The Pope will not attend the 250th birthday party. 

The gold-plated arch will tower over a dwindling 

number of illiberal potentates, driven by armored car 

from the Board of Peace. Orbán will be granted 

honorary American citizenship and sent as ambassador 

to San Salvador. Jesus will reclaim his right to authorize 

any and all uses of his image. Give me a break: Jesus 

with an American flag, warplanes, bald eagles? 

America, I can’t stand my own mind. 

But let’s get back to the future plans 

of Orbán and that miller brewing potions 

in the White House. Or Marco sporting 

platypus shoes, Hegseth strutting about on stage 

before stone-faced generals called in from 

all over the world for a pep talk paid for 

by the American taxpayer. Aah, poor taxpayer, 

your goodwill medicines undelivered 

to far away herders and victims of local wars,

money spent instead on fighter jets

and radar smoking on the ground

in Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.

And  the cross: how do we get it back 

into church and the altar at home 

and away from the necks 

of blasphemers, brutes, and butchers?

Tell me, Trump. Or are you 

disqualified from answering?

 

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

ON FINDING JESUS TOTE BAGS AT BRANDY MELVILLE

by Lisa Seidenberg 

The Jesus totes were hung

from a bare nail in the store

among the tables of baby tees 

and short shorts seen 

by tweens who pause purposefully

at the offerings of each station

Not a full body Jesus 

Not a loving Jesus—

It was only the head

tilted slightly—quizzically even—

sporting the brambled crown 

of thorns he wore 

with signature aplomb

An odd sight, nevertheless

as Brandy Melville is a brand

for the body-con set

with its “one-size-fits-most" 

if you are young and female 

with a bikini-ready silhouette.

With doleful eyes cast downward, 

the tote bag Jesus regards 

the teetering mountains of

drawstring sweatpants

In soporific shades

of gray and blue and sand

A fitting attire for the desert breeze 

of Bethlehem 

or the Sea of Galilee

One wonders what thoughts 

might cross his mind, aware 

that Brandy M permits no returns 

of any kind? 

Lisa Seidenberg is writer and filmmaker and a Pushcart nominee (2025). Her writing has been published in Rattle, Asymptote Journal, Gyroscope Review, Rain Taxi, Third Wednesday Magazine,  Anti-Heroin Chic, Atticus Review, The New Verse News, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, Delta Poetry Review, and New England Review;  she is also a poetry reviewer for the Whale Road Review. Her documentaries and experimental films screened at international film festivals inc. Sundance, Berlin, Athens and London. 

BOULDER

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Sunrise over the Flatiron Range near Boulder, Colorado.

A man has been charged with a federal hate crime and multiple other felonies after he allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to attack a crowd of people who were raising awareness for Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 12 victims. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, is alleged to have shouted “Free Palestine” as he attacked the crowd on Sunday. The FBI said Soliman told police he planned the attack for a year and had specifically targeted what he described as the “Zionist group”, the Associated Press reported. —The Guardian, June 3, 2025

The Boulder mountains began as fire

perhaps that’s why they are known

as the Flatiron Range

 

If you look into their hearts you will find

fossils from the sea. Simple single cellular

creatures. Who by fire and Who by water.

 

In America, many folks like to say our story

will end in flame. I’ve seen John 3:16 signs

at Coors Field and when Mel Gibson made 

his film about Jesus, some pastor hung 

a billboard above I-25 saying the Jews 

Killed Christ. Jews kill Jews. Who gets to 

say.

 

A man throwing Molotov cocktails 

at people who want Israeli hostages freed, 

is he the authority on Jews Israel’s 

ambassador and foreign minister believe 

him to be.

 

The pressure which births mountains is 

hard to imagine. What it takes to sustain 

foundational myths across time, rebuild

temples, dream of olive trees is a pressure 

of perhaps equal force in human terms 

and very hard to fathom.

As I write this, someone would have 

you believe Jews possess a divine power 

to solve or cause all the worst excesses 

in the world. They might also think all

Palestinians want an eye for an eye. 

What is a Mashiac. Who are the prophets. 

Should we ask the mountains over Boulder.

 

The work of the Flatirons is not malevolent.

Moses didn’t receive tablets from Sinai 

but on it. Universes come and go with each 

blink of the high peaks.

Brahma sits on his lotus. 

Generals confer in bunkers.

The Earth’s crust floats on lava. 

Hashem has many names that depict 

His moods.

Not everyone says He is merely a He.

Christians speak of trinities.

 

Today, free speech invites a fire fight. 

We assemble in our mortar formations. 

I pumped gas this morning 

and it’s all I can taste.

Jeremy Nathan Marks is a former Colorado resident who lives and writes in Canada.

OVERHEARD AT THE SPHERE IN LAS VEGAS DURING DEAD AND CO.’S SPRING RUN 2025

by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

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

Fascism will seem inevitable long after
it arrives, or perhaps it’s the waiting
for fascism that is inescapable; you  
anticipate the pristine, diamond-fast, 
inconvertible moment of its advent 
like it’s Jesus, beveled and prismatic,
a milestone through which we’ll channel
every event of your circumscribed life.
Where were you, your grandchildren 
will ask, when coffee began to taste
off, fruits rotted faster, the lustrous effects
of oysters were outlawed because the flesh 
offended the tongue of the great leader
with a nano-speck of sand as though he
possessed the sensitivity of a prince asleep
on a mattress supported on the backs 
of loyal constituents, or because of his
unnatural disgust for the aboriginal environment. 
What if we applied the same terminology 
for fascists that we reserve for drug addicts,
a population jonesing for an authoritative
figure who will lead them by the nose
to their next hit, rush, or fix, of being 
totally dominated? You should be open 
with your children about your past drug
use, but not your present prescriptions, 
nor your plan of ditching your citizenship
while you wait out fascism in a foreign
nation, surreptitiously monitoring a
short-wave radio you pieced together
from bits and bobs of old door posts, 
vacuum cleaners and military regalia. 
Someday we might look back at this
interregnum with a glazed fascination,
although there’s no guarantee it will pass,
considering we no longer have communal
experiences, only niche encounters shared
among an ever-tightening cadre of familiars, 
like certain therapies or twisting the knife 
once it’s sunk into the rose of the bone, 
the sound of incursion is ever more gratifying. 

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of a memoir, two novels, four full-length collections of poetry, and four chapbooks of poetry. She lives in New York, yearns for her hometown of Los Angeles, and visits Las Vegas when Dead and Co. plays there.

MISS-SPOKE

by Adele Evershed

I Google the name of the new White House
Press Secretary—Karoline Leavitt—
and find she’s young—27,
the youngest press secretary in history.
This, and the fact she is a woman doing a difficult job,
should make me like her,
so I start to listen. 
Her manner is abrasive,
like a loofah on your ear,
rubbing my skin the wrong way.
But sometimes an album is more than its cover,
so I persevere.
She cycles through her talking points:
Egg prices—blame sleepy Joe Biden,
Trump’s visit to North Carolina—
like the hand of God.
a plane crashing—DEI policies.
Round and round,
like a malevolent Barbie News Anchor.
All the while the cross at her throat
bops about virtue signaling
like a protest outside an abortion clinic,
‘I’m only doing what Jesus wants.’ 
But on someone who has no virtue,
it’s just another fashion accessory,
the same as Madonna’s
when she sang, ‘Like a Virgin’
(and Karoline—definitely no virgin,
 married a man 32 years her senior,
 had a baby six months after the wedding—just saying). 
Her fake smile is as nauseating, 
as her ‘Make America Blonde Again' t-shirt.
Then she tweets about education— 
how it should only clothe a child
in those below the knee old fashions— 
Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic
AND NOTHING ELSE.
As a teacher I think—
maybe she has a point
because if she knew her ABCs,
she’d spell Karoline with a C.


Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who now lives in America. You can find some of her work in Grey Sparrow Journal, Anti Heroin Chic, Gyroscope, and Janus Lit. Adele has two poetry collections, Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press), The Brink of Silence (Bottlecap Press) and an upcoming chapbook, In the Belly of the Wail, with Querencia Press.

TO PRESIDENT TRUMP WHO IS THROWING HIS WEIGHT BEHIND THE DEATH PENALTY

by CaLokie

Text of the diktus.

Why

do we kill people 

who kill people

to show 

that killing people

is wrong

and why,

if we kill people 

who kill people

to show

that killing people 

is wrong

are we four times more likely 

to kill people 

who kill white people

to show 

that killing white people

is wrong

than we are people 

who kill black people 

to show

that killing black people

is wrong

and why,

if killing people who kill people

deter people 

from killing people

do countries

who kill people who kill people

to show 

that killing people is wrong

have more 

people who kill people

than countries who imprison 

people who kill people

to show that 

killing people is wrong

and why,

if we spend six times more 

to kill people 

who kill people

than we do when we 

imprison without parole people 

who kill people

and why,

if killing people who kill people

deter people 

from killing people

do countries

who kill people who kill people

to show 

that killing is wrong

have more 

people who kill people

than countries who imprison 

people who kill people

to show that 

killing is wrong

and why,

if our country has so many 

people who believe in God

and so glories in the cross 

on which 

Jesus was tortured

and killed 

but that cross was how  

Roman people tortured

and killed people 

who they believed had done 

something wrong 

and why,

if you can’t fight fire

with fire

and two wrongs

don’t make

a right

and though 

sometimes subsequent 

evidence shows 

the people executed 

for killing people 

did not kill the people 

for which they 

had been convicted 

and since we are 

not GOD

but people,

why

do we kill people 

who kill people

to show 

that killing people

is wrong?

Author’s note: This poem is not based on an old Barbra Streisand song but from a bumper sticker asking the question, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?”

Editor’s note: The bumper sticker our poet recalls quotes a lyric from Holly Near’s 1980 song “Foolish Notion.”

 

Carl Stilwell (aka CaLokie) is a retired teacher who taught for over 30 years in the Los Angeles Unified school District and participated in UTLA’s teachers’ strikes in 1970 and 1989. He was born during the depression in Oklahoma and came to California in 1959 and has lived there ever since. His pen name was inspired by the Joads struggle for survival in The Grapes of Wrath and the songs and life of Woody Guthrie. He has poems published in Altadena Poetry Review, Blue Collar Review, Four Feather’s Press, Lummox, Pearl, Prism, Revolutionary Poets Brigade--Los Angeles, Rise Up, Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, The Sparring Artists.