A ROTTEN TIME

by Marge Piercy

After violent months of war

no one can win, men with

assault rifles doing what they

were built to do, kill many,

 

world burning, people dying

of heat, hurricanes stronger

more often, tornadoes

fiercer, drought scorching

 

land to desert, Animals,

trees dying off and gone,
let’s not just hope, pray

but work to leave an earth

 

we’re not guilty of spoiling.

Despair is just laziness.

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

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.

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.