WISHING YOU ALL A GOOD DEATH

by Catherine Gonick

Art by Clay Bennett, July 1, 2025

Millions of low-income Americans could experience staggering financial losses under the domestic policy package that Republicans advanced through the Senate on Tuesday, which reserves its greatest benefits for the rich while threatening to strip health insurance, food stamps and other aid from the poor. —The New York Times, July 1, 2025

as the deviants' suicide hotline 

goes dead, the bad vaccines

and free food disappear

along with the women

and children, leaving

only one gender 

on the sickly green earth,

and you already too ill

to fill out new forms

are free to drop, already dust

beneath the rug of our law,

as the best deaths are dealt

out casually as cards

by we who can afford

the deep cuts

and consequent

deaths that ensure

 "they'll get over it"

before you can know it

you'll all be bleeding

too fast to know what's coming

for your common-good bodies

already installed in pre-paid

unremarked graves,

wishing you all a good night

and good death

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in journals including The New Verse News, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Pedestal, and Orchards Poetry Journal. Her work has also appeared in anthologies including in plein air, Grabbed, Support Ukraine, and Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. Her first full-length collection, Split Daughter of Eve, is forthcoming in June from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. She lives in the Hudson Valley, where she works in a company that slows  the rate of global warming.

BUDDY, DON'T LOOK AT ME

by Gilmore Graves

He had a stroke

I was his nurse

And I heard his wife scream

Crying, begging the insurance company

“What are we supposed to do then?”

As Medicaid ran dry

They watched their daily propaganda 

The president will sign a new bill

“He’s gonna save us”

Her husband’s left eye met mine

Buddy, don’t look at me

I don’t even have insurance

Gilmore Graves is a poet and cynic who writes of political disillusionment. He imagines a bleak future in this poem.

HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST

by Helen Jones

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

Don’t think they come with jackboots in the dawn
Or kick your door in on a freezing night.
Now fascists take control with Facebook ads
And Tik-Tok videos to make you laugh,
Let you believe that facts can just be changed,
Decide reality is just a trick.
 
Then suddenly your job has disappeared
Raw work-experience kids have wiped you out,
Universities are threatened, books are banned,
Medicaid blown apart and foreigners locked up,
Poor people die and old alliances break.
 
          Fascists begin with elections
          When you are not paying attention.

Helen Jones was born in Chester, U.K. She gained a degree in English, many years ago from University College London and later an M.Ed. from the University of Liverpool. She is now happily retired and spends a lot of her time writing and making a new garden. Her poetry has been published in several journals in the U.K., and she is currently working on a novel set in fifth century Deva.

PROVE THAT YOU MATTER

by Paul Burgess 

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz defended President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” over criticism that millions of people could lose health coverage, saying those who would face new work requirements should “prove that you matter.”… Close to 11 million people would lose health insurance coverage if the House Republican tax bill passes in the Senate, mainly due to cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, according to analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. —The Hill, June 5, 2025

To prove how much you truly matter, folks,

You might attempt the art of sneaky sales 

And master phrases used to slyly coax

The world to buy a "cure" that always fails.

Perhaps you'll never get a cabinet post 

By selling useless pills on sketchy shows,

But every friendly ratings-chasing host 

Ensures your market value swiftly grows.

So, get to work and earn your Medicaid

By hawking tonics made from oil of snakes 

And pills containing rhino horns and jade

Or tiger kidney anti-aging shakes.

You've been so useless from your journey's start, 

But here's your chance to really do your part. 

Paul Burgess, an emerging poet, is the sole proprietor of a business in Lexington, Kentucky 

that offers ESL classes in addition to English, Japanese, and Spanish-language translation and 

interpretation services. He has recently contributed work to Blue Unicorn, Light, The Orchards, 

The Ekphrastic Review, Pulsebeat, The New Verse News, Lighten Up Online, The Asses of 

Parnassus, and several other publications.

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

by Pamela Kenley-Meschino

Story at NPR, May 31, 2025

“For heaven’s sake…”
it’s true, we are all going to die.
But how and why, under what circumstances?
Accidental death has its own brand of horror
for those left behind in the aftermath.
Diseases can ravage, destroy in torturous chronologies
of lifetimes, or swoop in all teeth and talons at birth,
suffering without boundaries or lines of defense.

We say, For heaven’s sake, let’s help! 
Let’s not walk among the dead and say
we’ve all got it coming. Let’s renounce cruelty,
callous equations by riffraff imposters
who spew bilious indifference toward the sick,
whose stone hearts will someday be erased
on the site of an unmarked grave in the canon of history.

   
 
Pamela Kenley-Meschino is originally from the UK, where she developed a love of nature, poetry, and music, thanks in part to the influence of her Irish mother. She is an educator whose classes explore the connection between writing and healing and the importance of shared stories.

ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BANK JOB

by Raymond Nat Turner

Humor Outcasts Cartoon, May 25, 2025, Written by: Paul Lander; Artist: Dan McConnell

Masked. Armed to the teeth. Synchronized
Rolexes. They left Lamborghini and Maserati
Motors purring… softly in the shadows on 
Capitalist Hill

And then—suddenly—in sonic boom unison they
Shouted at The People:
UP AGAINST THE WALL—MUTHAFUKKKAS!
GET ‘EM UP!         THIS IS A FUCKIN STICKUP!

Yo, fatso! Yeah, you. Waddle your way over to Senator
Sadist. You, on the crutches; swing over to Congressman
Cruel. Move it! Don’t make me bust a cap in your poor
Ol’ tired cripple ass! Did it in Afghanistan. Did it in Iraq.

Outta that wheelchair and on the floor, Pops! 
And, while you’re at it, gimme me those teeth.
Move it! Quick, fork over the hospice money.
Chop-chop, drop life expectancies in Golden Dome!

Hey, Bag Lady, drop those damn vouchers in the 
Billionaire bag over there! Yo, Sambo! Down on the
Ground! Keep your fuckin mouth shut and no one will get
Hurt … Well, at least until …  after we make our get away

Hey, Granny, gimme those meds! 
Hand over the Medicaid, ol’ maid.
Listen up, kids! Drop those school lunches in the
Billionaire bag. Yo, Teach, handover Head Start!

OK—simple-minded sukkkas—quick, up on your feet!
We’re breaking you for the billionaires; and Boss Tweet—
Robbing and plundering you, for the Murderous 1% Mob
Pulling off—yet another—One Big Beautiful Bank Job!

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.

LIKE WHEN THEY TRY TO SLASH MEDICAID, ETC

by Lynne Schilling

          After Al Ortolani

Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri and a member of the Freedom Caucus, said it was “inappropriate” for Republicans to say that they “aren’t going to touch” Medicaid — a phrase that Mr. Trump has used — and then “leave all that fraud in the system.” He suggested that provider taxes, which states use to offset their portion of the cost of Medicaid, were a form of “fraud” that he would want to eliminate. —The New York Times, May 29, 2025. AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Protected by the roof of the porch, a robin has tucked her
nest on top of the artificial spring wreath hung on the front 
door, with easy access to grass and flowers and oak tress—
 
showing she knows something about location, location, location
in picking real estate. But when the door swings open, she flies
flustered from the nest, fussing nearby until the door closes.
 
It’s like finding the foundation underneath the kids’ bedroom 
is cracked. Like attempting to eat cherry ice cream on a steamy 
afternoon in a cone that has a hole in the bottom, or trying 
 
to drink a cup of scalding coffee on a train when it lurches. 
It’s like believing your child is safe because she is American 
born, only to see her swept up by ICE and sent to Honduras. 
 
Mothers need to be flexible, but there are so many openings 
to peril, so many teeth in the mouth of despair. They might tie 
themselves in knots, but even the most agile can’t block it all.

Lynne Schilling has published poems in Quartet, The Alchemy Spoon, Rue Scribe, Braided Way Magazine and others. She won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest for her poem, “Prayers I Wish I’d Uttered When Forced to Pray Aloud in Fifth Grade.”

BLESSED BE THE CHEESEMAKERS

by Tricia Knoll

May Day Rally, 2025 in Williston, Vermont organized by Green Mountain Democratic Socialists of America one of 12 in the state

 

We showed up to listen and march to the ICE Law Enforcement Support Center. Seniors carried signs about social security, flaming images of President Trump, and due process. Palestinian flags waved. Folk singers warmed us up. The Nonviolent Medicaid Army handed out invitations to events featuring soup and healthcare stories. We received playbills printed with the chants for the marching. 

                  Workers united will never be defeated. 

                  Show me what democracy looks look

                  This is what democracy looks like. 

 

Handbills from the activists for migrant justice and labor rights: 

From the fight for the eight-hour day to the Civil Rights Revolution…

the decisive factor that turns the impossible into the inevitable. 

 

We walked for eight dairy farm workers, ages 22 to 41, from the Pleasant Valley Farm in Berkshire, Vermont. A farm whose owners are relatives of Elle St. Pierre, the Olympic 3,000 meter runner that all of Vermont cheered for – including Senator Bernie Sanders (who ran the mile in high school and college) and called Elle “Vermont’s Proud Dairy Farmer.” These men have names – Jesus, Juan, Luis, Urillas, Diblaim, Adiran, Jose, and Dani. In Vermont dairy farming is the primary source of agricultural income. We like our cheddar white. We mourn the ongoing loss of family dairy farms. 

At the head of the march, a drumming band. Banners and signs.  Old folks with walkers and canes. Babies in strollers. We stood outside the ICE center where three white cars with Homeland signs parked. Three stout officers stood in the driveway. We chanted as if walking gave us new breath. As if we could blow the house down. 

Our prayer: Blessed be the cheesemakers. 

Tricia Knoll lives in Vermont, the state with the second smallest population. She likes her cheddar white.

GYRATIONS ON THE NATION-STATE: A MOVEMENT IN STRINGS

by Diane Raptosh


 

Any man who stands

                  near a place the U.S. bombs

                                    is straight off

                                                      Enemy Combatant :

                                                                        One might call this

                                                                                          standing while war.

                                    Still I have yet to speak

                                                       of this in any classroom, yet to speak

                                                                        of nature recently freshened

to Brand: Wilderness™

                  as new world currency;

                                    I’ve yet to point

                                                      to the system

                                                                        of criminal justice

                                                                                          as so many schemas

                                    evolving in tandem;

                                              yet to point

                                                          to higher ed as host

to new mall cities,

                  not to mention

                                    the privatization

                                                      of all that used to be part

                                                                        of the Commons :

                                                                                          schools, public works

                                    parks, fire

                                                      departments  :   soon enough

                                                                        the postal and ambulance service,

Medicare / Medicaid.

                  The making public

                                    of the formerly private :  the orderly

                                                      outsource of chi

                                                                        to handheld devices,

                                                                                          the offshore of memory

                                    to the machine—

                                                      the shower, last bastion of solitude.

                                                                        They don’t have ears

and yet spiders

                  will shake

                                    their strings, reframing

                                                                        vibrations other

                                                                                          arachnids feel

                                                                                                            when leaves

                                                      they’re standing

                                                                           on quiver.  Whatever :

                                                                                         Thoughts glide in

on rhythmic pulses,

                  nothing like

                                    linear-sequence flows

                                                                        we’ve been taught

                                                                                           to instill   drill in   construct

                                                                                                            and there’s something

                                                      mugged about all

                                                                        the states’ answers—somehow

                                                                                          violence-airbrushed,

thesis statements sticking

                  to their guns.

                                    To take in scenes

                                                                        like stands

                                                                                    of weeping birch trees

                                                                                                      asks for a wholeness-synthesis-

                                                         simultaneity, so here

                                                                          I’ll smuggle in

                                                                                          a smithied image:

 pinnate leaves—

                  ridged like vaginal walls

                                      to fetch the attention

                                                                        of winds. Still listening?

                                                                                          I’m a little down

                                                                                                            about every system

                                                         of ranking, down on

                                                                        the quantification

                                                                                          of no end of thing     ~~    quick

name the quotient

                  of a cubed human squeeze  ~~

                                    down about

                                                                        the billionaires’ balls-out-incursion

                                                                                    into food/earth. Water/air.

                                                                                                      Furrowed vaginas. Against that

                                                      junta of generals

                                                                        hunched in power’s tower

                                                                                          graphing the next class war/

world war what-have-you.

                     And while I’m on a roll,

                                    might I gently suggest

                                                      the conscious uncoupling

                                                                                          of market from self? Of big-league

                                                                                          fake from the real?

                                                      This is to say that if over all

                                                                        I seem at a hard bloodboil

                                                                                                      against most scenes like state

-by-state financial cleansing, or floored

                        by the foreground status

                                    of the mock-up self—the world-scale

                                                                        rape of hallowed, heaving truth;

                                                                                          the statutory frack

                                                                                                            of commonplace terms

                                                like entitlement,

                                                                        political correctness   liberal bias;

                                                                                          states’ rights   law and order

sexual preference;

                      Shariah Law   illegal alien

                                     and food stamps  ~~ as if welfare

                                                        meant actual transfer

                                                                        of wealth to minorities. It’s mostly due

                                                                                          to the ways reigning narcissists

                                                      vivisect language

                                                                        to more or less moon you.

                                                                                          This sort of act’s

moral errancy actually lifts them,

                  how the Fed early

                                    this month huddled in

                                                                        to hoick up its rates.

                                                                                          Which brings us

                                                                                                            to the housing crisis,

                                                      the files of rank poverties

                                                                        birthed by nation-state’s neglect,

                                                                                          the Reichwing crew busy

blading their hands in a bid

                  to remake Magnate Nation more openly

                                    vampire-wan. I think

                                                                        I was saying that if I seem

                                                                                          not entirely myself

                                                                                                            you’ll have to forgive.

                                                      I’m pretty sure

                                                                        my sole choice now

                                                                                      is to become an expat

                  of the exterior.

                                    Step into here.

Diane Raptosh’s fourth book of poetry American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press) was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award and was a finalist for the Housatonic Book Award. The recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she served as the Boise Poet Laureate (2013) as well as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013-2016), the highest literary honor in the state. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the U.S. and Canada. A highly active ambassador for poetry, she has given poetry workshops everywhere from riverbanks to maximum security prisons. She teaches creative writing and runs the program in Criminal Justice/Prison Studies at The College of Idaho. Her most recent collection of poems Human Directional was released by Etruscan Press in Fall 2016.