WE’RE BACK!

by Karen Marker

“We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation’s capital,” [Stephen] Miller told the crowd near Shake Shack inside Union Station. “And let’s just also address another thing. All these demonstrators you’ve seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they’re not part of the city and never have been. And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C., are Black. So we’re going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old.” —The Hill, August 20, 2025

All of us old white hippies 

are showing up at Union Station 

Shake Shack and every

street corner

we don’t want to miss 

a love in sit in heckle

right here wherever

they are we are 

wearing our long gray

hair in braids 

like Patti Smith

singing "People Have the Power"
we’re blowing smoke rings

into their smirking faces

as they buy their burgers

for the National Guard

here so this won’t be another

Kent State we’ve come to town 

in massive numbers rocking

not rolling over
we’re wearing our tie die

tee shirts in protest chanting

Hey Hey We’re the Hippies 

Come back and we’re not alone 

look closer you’ll see we’re rainbow

colored, we’re stripping off 

their vulgar masks

smacking their faces with kisses
this is just the beginning

we’re making it a race

to the finish see what happens 

when we all get naked

let our full glory 

be exposed that’s how 

we’ll catch them 

off guard take over

by giving away the Abundance 

of our flourishing gardens 

throwing bouquets of chard and roses

Oakland, CA poet Karen Marker is a social activist and retired school psychologist whose poetry has been published in numerous anthologies and journals. Her first poetry book Beneath the Blue Umbrella came out recently with Finishing Line Press. She has recently been engaged in a project of writing a poem a day off hope and protest in response to the news. The presence of the  national guard in our cities has recalled her experience as 9th grader at Kent State University High School where she was witness to the horrors of May 4th. Her poetry is in the May 4th Archive at KSU. 

BEFORE CORONA, THE CORONA

by Charles Harvey

Junkyard Find: 1968 Toyota Corona

Before the Corona
Was a virus, it was a car,
Carrying us like
The wind to Woodstock,
Berkeley, Kent State,
Selma, Detroit, Watts—
All them hotspots.

Six of us piled in.
Inches apart was a luxury.
We didn’t give a duck,
Coziness roused our hormones
And made us want to fuck.
Our long hair tangled in the seats.
Our ‘fros flattened and sweated
To the rhythm of soul beats.

Before the Corona
Was a virus, it was a car,
Traveling all around the world
Spawning revolutions,
Liberal ideologies,
And X-gen babies.

Before the Corona was a virus
Before T***p was a virus
Before social media was a virus
Before Fox News was a virus
Before the Republican Party was a virus
The Corona was a car, baby!

Charles Harvey is a native Houstonian. His work has appeared on TheNewVerse.News over the years. He recently published Rough Cut Until I Bleed. 

DAY AFTER

by Rikki Santer

for Sandy Scheuer (August 11, 1949 - May 4, 1970)

Before high school homeroom
as I slide the black arm band
over my bicep I remember
slices of what I knew of you:

in the cafeteria a half-eaten
grilled cheese with your army
of half moons claiming its
triangle of bread—

in civics class the waving
of your palm for the clean
target you made of each question—

in the hallway showcase
the beam of your grin
pronouncing where you were
destined for a first year of college.

This morning you are a distant
schoolmate, one-year ahead
but now a ghost
wish—if you
hadn't walked to class, stepped
into M1 crossfire, stained ground
with your jugular’s flow
became another memorial
for sacrifice biblical & bought.

Author’s Note: After half-a-century, the horror and sorrow of the May 4th massacre that occurred on the Kent State University campus still resonates close to home for me. I light a Yarhzeit candle each year for my classmate. This year, at the fifty-year marker, I wrote this poem for her.

Rikki Santer’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications both nationally and abroad.  Her work has received many honors including five Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eighth collection, Drop Jaw, was published by NightBallet Press in the spring.

A PROFESSOR'S DILEMMA

by Maureen Rubin

500 academics and counting have signed the JVP Academic Advisory Council letter in support of Angela Davis. Jewish Voice for Peace calls on the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to rescind their cancellation of the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award intended for Professor Angela Davis. The cancelling of this award by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is unjust, insulting and ill-conceived, especially because it is likely premised on Professor Davis' long-standing support for Palestinian human rights. The decision seems to stem from a misinformed view that to advocate for Palestinian human rights is somehow offensive to the Jewish community. —Jewish Voice for Peace

“Hell no. We won’t go!” “Hey! Hey! LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
Angry slogans soar while we march in our bell bottom jeans and tie-dyed tee shirts.

We can barely breathe. We cover our innocent collegiate mouths with wet washcloths to ward off the tear gas.  But washcloths couldn’t stop the bullets at Kent State.

College students are marching again. Dressed in yoga pants and ripped jeans they now yell “Fight the power. Turn the tide.  End Israeli apartheid” Same anger. New slogans.

They are BDS.  They demand Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions for Israel. They are Palestinians. They hate all things Israel.

They use tough tactics. They ban Israeli speakers from their campuses. They seek to forbid college funds from supporting the Jewish state. They pass resolutions.

They win at Barnard. George Washington.  University of Minnesota. Pitzger College. And now the US House of Representatives.  A new freshman Member of Congress admitted she backs BDS.

They demand freedom, justice and equality, just as we did.  But is it the same?

But my job is to teach aspiring journalists to cherish the First Amendment. “Democracy demands free speech,” I say. I quote Tallentyre. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

As I hammer the necessity of free speech into my student’s sponge-like brains, I always think of my causes.  The good ones.  The right ones. Viet Nam.  ERA.  #MeToo.

Free speech lives on college campuses.  They are safest of all places. Safe to debate. To argue.  To protest. To march.  To learn.

David Duke came to my campus.  I told my students to go see him. I quoted Justice Brandeis. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”  Let them spew their hate on my campus.  Openness exposes idiocy.

But now, there is a cause that is not mine. There is a cause that makes me sick. I am a Jew and I do not want angry Palestinians working for their change in my backyard.

But don’t these protesters have the same rights as we did?  How can I teach my students to cherish the First Amendment rights of hateful BDS?

I can’t.  I am a hypocrite.

Maureen Rubin is an Emeritus Professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge. In her 30 years on campus, she served in a variety of administrative positions, published widely and received numerous teaching and public service awards.  Prior to joining the university, she was Director of Public Information for President Carter’s Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs in the White House, and held similar positions for a U.S. Congresswoman and several non-profits. She has a JD from Catholic University School of Law In Washington, D.C., an MA in Public Relations from University of Southern California and a BS in Journalism from Boston University.  

BOOMER'S LAMENT ON THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY OF JFK'S ASSASSINATION

by George Salamon
November 22, 2018

"Did a president of the United States, while in command of total nuclear war, detach himself enough from its power to give his life for peace?" — James W. Douglass,  JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.

We imagined everything differently
Before our generation's leader was killed.

We read Albert Camus, our bible,
And vowed to be neither executioner nor victim.

We wanted to be rebels, in our fashion,
But ended up consumers in their niches.

We witnessed the Empire's revenge
When bullets took down our peers at Kent State.

We stumbled into our adult lives in the Seventies
While the spirit of Nixon settled over America.

We protested when his agents devastated Vietnam,
Now we howl as Agent Orange deconstructs the presidency.

We tried to make a difference
As the Armies of the Night

We buried our hopes with our heroes
As the colors faded after 1968.

Editor's note: Although he did not film the home movie streaming above, the 13-year-old who now edits this journal will never forget being in the crowd at that place on that day to cheer the future President.

George Salamon has the opposite view of the 1960s from those expressed by the Wall Street Journal's editorial writers.  He lives and writes in St. Louis, MO.