TO A COMMERCIAL JUDGE

by Francisco de Quevedo (Spain, 1580–1645)

translation by Julie Steiner

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not disclose luxury gifts from GOP mega-donors, including Alito's Alaskan fishing trip, or recuse themselves from cases the donors had before the court. [...] Last July, after Alito wrote the Dobbs decision, he was a keynote speaker at a gala in Rome with the trip paid for by Notre Dame University Religious Liberty Initiative. He hadn’t disclosed that either, or recused himself from any of the multiple cases RLI had filed ‘friends-of-the-court’ briefs with. Ruling in Alito’s favor has been his fellow Justice Clarence Thomas who has been feted with financial favors from billionaire and GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow. Those favors include Crow buying Thomas’ Mother’s home, which she still resides in, and also paying Thomas’ grandnephew’s tuition while he was in his care. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 23, 2023

A corrupted, partisan United States Supreme Court is how we will lose our democracy. —Mike Davey, The Miami Herald via Yahoo! News, June 25, 2024

The laws in which your court, Batino, deals
you’re less inclined to study than to vend.
They buy you things: that’s all you comprehend.
To you, the Fleece—not Jason*—is what appeals.
Your take on laws of man and God reveals
that either sort you rule on, you offend.
Your grasping hand, preparing to extend,
foretells which way your judgment fails. (Er, falls.)
You don’t know how to hear a low-cost case.
Who gives to you receives doubt’s benefit.
Your side-deal contracts take the law-tracts’ place.
Since bias and bribes are vices you won’t quit,
go wash your hands with Pilate, or unlace
your purse with Judas and hang yourself with it.

Author's Note on Line 4: An Italian jurist named Giasone del Maino (1435-1519)—Jasón de Maino in Spanish—wrote widely influential legal commentaries, and is referenced in several Spanish dramas of this period. His legendary namesake Jason led the Argonauts in search of the ram that bore the Golden Fleece.

A UN JUEZ MERCADERÍA

por Francisco de Queveda (España, 1580–1645)

Las leyes con que juzgas, ¡oh Batino!,
menos bien las estudias que las vendes;
lo que te compran solamente entiendes;
más que Jasón te agrada el Vellocino.
El humano derecho y el divino,
cuando los interpretas, los ofendes,
y al compás que la encoges o la extiendes,
tu mano para el fallo se previno.
No sabes escuchar ruegos baratos,
y sólo quien te da te quita dudas;
no te gobiernan textos, sino tratos.
Pues que de intento y de interés no mudas,
o lávate las manos con Pilatos,
o, con la bolsa, ahórcate con Judas.

Francisco de Quevedo, one of the most famous poets of Spain's Golden Age (Siglo de Oro), wrote many savage caricatures of greedy lawyers and judges.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include The Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.

THE GOD BLESS THE USA BIBLE

by Gilbert Allen

by J.D. Crowe

What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?

And they bargained with him for thirty pieces of silver.

                                                              —Matthew 26:15

Verily, verily

Donald Iscariot

hawking the Holy Word

with MAGA zeal

offering Jesus Christ

pseudoreligiously

for sixty bucks. Just twice
thirty! A steal!

Gilbert Allen, a member of the Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, already has a Bible. For more information about him and his work, check out the interview at https://slantbooks.org/close-reading/interviews/belladonna-beautiful-but-deadly-qa-with-gilbert-allen/ .

DAVE CHAPPELLE

by Judy Juanita

Dave Chappelle returned for his third stint as host of “Saturday Night Live,” which gave the controversial comedian a starring role in an episode dominated by the midterm elections and the fallout from Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks. —The Washington Post, November 13, 2022

you're looking 

malcolmish

dave 

if only you hadn't walked 
from fifty million dollars
empire wouldn't have known
 
if only you'd been ridiculous
you could be feted
and ignored by all
 
if malcolm had been mediocre 
and not stood up to empire
he would be almost 100 years old
 
while you buck empire over and over
making your black ass
a target 
 
empire smiles all malcolmish
giving any judas permission to kill 
ask malcolm 
 
standing in the audubon ballroom
looking malcolmish
knowing what was coming

Judy Juanita's poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways was published by Livingston Press [UWA] in 2022. Her short story, "The Black House," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022, and her poem “Bling” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). She appears in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Season 5, Laney College.  She teaches writing at University of California, Berkeley.

M-MOMENTS

by Lind Grant-Oyeye

Around 1,600 refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh were rescued off the coast of Indonesia on Sunday and detained in Malaysia on Monday. Malaysian officials said Monday that 1,081 Bangladeshi and Rohingya refugees landed on the country’s Langkawi Island. On Sunday, 600 “sad, tired and distressed” migrants were stranded off the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh. On Monday, another 400 were found aboard a ship, the BBC reports. Hundreds of those people are believed to be Rohingya, the ethnic Muslim minority in Myanmar who for decades have faced discrimination and persecution in the majority-Buddhist country. The government of Myanmar considers the country’s approximately 1.33 million Rohingya illegal settlers, and the United Nations classifies them as one of the most persecuted refugee groups in the world. —Newsweek, May 11, 2015

With silvery hair, bones thinned in-out, of life the silver screen speaks.
The letter M, embossed in audacious colors. It had begun long before her time,

time when clay pots were sanded out to shimmer. She had seen it and felt it.
It starts by falling- falling in love. Minute carts tenderly packed,
full of moments, full of memories delicately put together.

It moves with fantasies of prized certificates, a desire for a stamp-the majestic seal of approval.
It flows to the stage of self- journey through dark subways, tunnels to the unfamiliar,
untested promise lands. She heard some had swam bellied-up in wavy pools,
Chillin’ to the historic tempest.

Others swim to “bien venue”  cat-calls, to honeymoons filled with French kisses,
flowers and fresh caresses, beauty and beautiful feet planted on cozy carpets,
romance lasting into wintery and the hurricane hugging days.

On strange lands were some feet planted. They kissed strangers
and slept with enemies -red juices pressed against their lips,
with the firm force of a heavy weight boxer’s strength, kissing Judas’ doppelgänger
to the sweet sound of the language from Babel, spoken with a lover’s passion.

Faint memories show M in the alphabet song, is for Migration, for marriage.


Lind Grant-Oyeye is an Irish-Nigerian poet and has work published in several countries. Her work discusses issues related to culture, social justice and equality.