WE'RE FLOATING DOWN A RIVER AND IT'S 106 DEGREES IN MICHIGAN

by Ron Riekki

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

and she’s in a burkini swimsuit, hijab, with

a Rage Against the Machine-style hat/visor,

and we’re trying to relax, but we talk about

war, and when the tariffs started, I said, then,

We’re going to war.  She asked what I meant,

and I said, This is isolationism.  He doesn’t

want us dealing with other countries, because

the more we can supply everything on our

own, the more we’re setting up war economy.

And then time went by and we’re on a river,

and I’d said we’d go to war at the end of

his presidency, because going to war will

increase the odds we stick with the same

political party, the war party.  But she says,

No, I don’t think he’s going to wait.  I think

he’ll go to war soon.  We disagreed.  She’s

from Iraq.  She sensed it.  She told me her

PTSD is so strong, her hypervigilance is so

extreme that she reads rooms, feels when

there’s tension.  But it’s the same with our

world with her, how she can sense a war

coming, told me about the attacks on Iran

before the attacks on Iran.  And we’re on

a river.  And we’re floating.  Inner tubes.

Trying to relax.  But we talk about wars.

She says, I’d like to speak out and say every-

thing I think about what’s going on, but I can’t.

I ask why.  Because, she says, They’d kill me.

I ask who would.  She lowers her voice.

We’re on a river.  We’re trying to relax.

It’s 106 degrees.  What are we doing to

the earth?  What are we doing to each

other?  She whispers.  She tells me her

fears.  I tell her she needs to write it in

a poem, in nonfiction.  I can’t, she says.

Then in fiction, I tell her.  I can’t, she says,

They’d kill me.  We talk about Malala

Yousafzai.  We talk about the hijab, how

she loves to put it on, makes her feel

closer to Allah.  We talk about the view,

stunning, the shimmering on the water,

hypnotic.  We talk about the awe sounds

in God and Buddha and Yahweh and

Allah.  And even in her name.  A name

that is tied to God.  And we float and

we talk about war.  Surviving.  The heat.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.

IMMIGRANT’S SONG

by Jim Burns

Riots broke out in Philadelphia after Nativists burned down a Catholic church in May 1844. This lithograph shows the Know-nothings (in the top hats) clashing with the state militia.

Out of the vapors
of the past
I come
to sing you a song
of the poor and huddled masses
who have gathered at your gates.

I am the inscrutable Chinese,
one of 20,000 from my land
who for a dollar a day built your
grand railway of the golden spike.

I am the drunken Irishman,
the mobbed-up Italian,
the ignorant Pole
who sweated and died
to forge the iron and erect
your palaces of steel.

I am the Shylock Jew 
whose sweatshop toil
made the clothes on your back,
but whose financial acumen you blame
for relieving you of your earnings.

I am the the suspected spy,
the German who had to change my name
to protect me from your Klan
when first our countries fought.

I am the devious Japanese whose family
were reviled as turncoats
and dwelt in your internment camps
while in Europe I fought and died for you.

I am the wild-eyed son of Middle Eastern deserts
denied entry into your land 
and murdered in your cities
because of the evil of a few
who, like me, pray to Allah.

I am of those deemed not human at your southern border,
who braved deserts and human predators
to pick your crops, roof your homes,
tend your lawns,
do the jobs your sons won’t do.

Think of me as you will,
but Lady Liberty, 
raise your torch to me.
I am America,
I am you.

Jim Burns was born and raised in rural Indiana and received degrees from both Indiana State University and Indiana University. He then spent most of his working years as a librarian. A few years into his retirement he turned to a decades old interest in writing, especially poetry, and in the last two years has been fortunate enough to have published 18 poems and two short pieces of nonfiction online, in print or both. He lives with wife and dog in Jacksonville, Florida.

PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

in memory of Wadea Al-Fayoume (6 years old)

The last words of a six-year-old US Muslim boy stabbed to death in a suspected hate crime over the weekend were "Mom, I'm fine", his uncle said as hundreds gathered to lay the child to rest… Police say Wadea al-Fayoume was attacked because he was Muslim. His funeral was held as the family's landlord appeared in court charged with the boy's murder. The 71-year-old accused was allegedly upset about the Israel-Hamas war. —BBC, October 16, 3023

Six-year-old sons are supposed to live the dream of a free-range American boyhood.
Cowboys and Indians. Minecraft and mumps inoculations. Even gender-neutral pronouns. 
 
Muslim or Christian, it shouldn’t matter since we, the people, possess a constitution
once amended to address that there is no sin in being subaltern.
 
But our land is filled with weapons. Frontier remnants, perhaps. Anger makes fathers
guard their daughters with rifles. We should never ignore that faith is a live wire.
 
What about knives. A mother discovers how a landlord’s grandfatherly fondness for her son
turns to murder. He raises his blade to the boy twenty-six times, practically a lunar cycle.
 
How did a man who carpentered nails and boards to build young Wadea a house
decide to enlist in sorrow’s circle. Was it Iblis or X. OAN perhaps. Maybe Fox. 
 
Did he go mad from the whisper of his neighbor’s dog
(like Berkowitz)
who said never trust anyone who abstains from swine.
 
I believe property is a theft. Claim a land, claim a life.
Now our nation reckons with a terrible debt.
 
Who but a martyred boy can account for that.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. His latest book is Flint River (Alien Buddha Press, 2023). New and recent work appears/will appear in Mobius, Rattle, Terrain.org, Writers Resist, Topical Poetry, and Belt Magazine. He holds two passports.

WHEN I SAW JESUS IN RICHMOND, VA

by Marsha Owens

Volunteers Mary Akemon (left) and Alexandra Marcus and, with Let America Vote, talked with Farrukh Kahn as they canvassed a neighborhood on Friday, October 27, 2017 in Woodbridge, Virginia. Let America Vote, formed by former Democratic Missouri Senate candidate Jason Kander debuted its electoral field operations in Virginia with a field office in Manassas that drew 114 interns from across the country to help knock on doors for 10 Democratic delegate candidates. (Pete Marovich/For The Washington Post)

Lo, in the year two thousand and seventeen,
I walked among Democrats and knocked
and the young woman, wearing a friendly
smile, opened the door to me and said,
yes, we will vote tomorrow
for the one who is good to all people,
to my black family and to my Muslim
neighbors, the one who does not hurt
women, does not steal from the poor,
and I said, that is good, and my gaze
fell on the old woman on the couch,
her hand patting the tiny baby,
and she asked me to name names
of the others who care about others
and I showed her the list, and she
rejoiced and was grateful
and I saw, too, the man seated on a stool,
the old woman’s foot on his knee,
and I watched this young man wash
the feet of his mother-in-law who was lame,
saw him file her splintered toenails,
and my eyes did not deceive,
and his child—an old soul—waved her
baby hands, and his young wife spoke
again—do you see what my husband is doing?
and I saw, then turned away, walked through
golden leaves and the sun reached down, and I
heard nearby loud voices praising Sunday
football and seemed to hear heavenly voices
sing blessings for this holy shit, and within
the loudness, a small voice, maybe my own,
whispered, This is good stuff, damn good stuff.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA and celebrates her roots in the Chesapeake Bay area. She is pleased to say that she survived 18 years of teaching English to middle schoolers. Her poems and essays have been published at The Wild Word, Feminine Collective, Rat’s Ass Review, TheNewVerse.News,The Literary Nest, and the Dead Mule School of Literature.

NIGHT FELL, BUT SHE DID NOT SLEEP

by Devon Balwit

Photo: Rohingya refugees arriving in Bangladesh after crossing the Naf River this month. Credit Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

In the next violent blur of moments, the soldiers clubbed Rajuma in the face, tore her screaming child out of her arms and hurled him into a fire. She was then dragged into a house and gang-raped. By the time the day was over, she was running through a field naked and covered in blood. Alone, she had lost her son, her mother, her two sisters and her younger brother, all wiped out in front of her eyes, she says. —The New York Times, October 11, 2017. 

It’s a story you tell and tell, each time entering
by a different scar: this the burned baby, this

the clubbed jaw, this the rapes, over and over.
Even when you say nothing, you tell it, your eyes

so loud others turn away, unable to bear it
as you one more flee the burning, naked.

Their own children paint similar pictures,
paining the aid workers: soldiers shooting,

the fallen, red sources, riverine. You drift
like a storm cloud until, again, there is too much

in you to hold, then you break. People fold
down their tent flaps. You understand. What

can be done with you—a hole with a voice,
a ghost with a body, an endless affront?

You shudder canvas as you pass. The next surge
swells. It runs through you. It mows you down.


Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rattle, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.

LOVE & HATE ON A PORTLAND TRAIN

after the last words of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche

by Scott C. Kaestner





hate versus love on a train
hate slashes at love, stabs
love in the heart, claims two
brave souls who defended
love in the face of hate and
as love lays dying on that train
a victim of hate, one last brave act
one last message of love, one last
ounce of love to give offering hope

"Tell them, I want everybody to know, I want everybody on the train to know, I love them."

Scott C. Kaestner is a Los Angeles poet, a dad, Lakers fan, guacamole aficionado, and leftist dreamer. Google 'scott kaestner poetry' to peruse his musings.

BREAKING: FIRST DRAFT OF T***P INAUGURAL ADDRESS "FOUNDED"

by James Penha

Inspired by "Claims about President Trump lifting lines from various films for his inaugural address are unfounded." —Snopes

America, first you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punks? Today, I consider Americans the luckiest people on the face of the earth. Cause they call me Mister President! Yippie-ki-yay, motherfuckers!

Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the greatest one of all? America? First, I’m ready for my close-up. Hello, Gorgeous. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I have never depended on the kindness of strangers. Being me means never having to say you’re sorry.

I'm the king of the world! Round up the usual suspects. I love the smell of fear in the world.  I keep my friends close, but my enemies disappear. A Muslim once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Mexico? Go ahead, make my day, Mexico. Hasta la vista, baby. I'll wall you pretty, and your little chihuahua, too! If I build a wall, no one will come. Refugees, you're gonna need a bigger boat. One morning I shot a refugee in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.

Who can't handle the truth? The first rule of the Truth is: You do not tell the Truth.

The White House? What a dump. I am big! It's the house that got small. Life is a banquet, and most of you poor suckers are starving to death!

Tax returns? We ain't got no tax returns! We don't need no tax returns! I don't have to show you any stinking tax returns! I rob banks. I’m as mad as hell, and I'm not going to file them anymore! Show me the money! As God is my witness, I'll never be bankrupt again.

Why so serious? I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. You ain't heard nothin' yet! After all, tomorrow is another of the first 100 days! Carpe diem. I feel the need—the need for speed! Fasten your seatbelts, America. It's going to be a bumpy night. To infinity and beyond!

My daughter thanks me. My son-in-law thanks me. My sons thank me. And you had better thank me. You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow me. La-dee-da, la-dee-da.

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

ISIL OR ISIS OR ISLAMIC STATE

by Patsy Asuncion

Image source: Aljazeera

One can be a brother only in something.

Where there is no tie that binds men,

men are not united but merely lined up.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

no matter the tag, they’re Sunnis who hate  
Shiites who dominate the Iraqi state
since Hussein departed in ‘03
"helped" by US-defined democracy.

Concerns from Mid-East neighbors,
resistance a flop since US departure –
weapons seized from fleeing soldiers,
relics smashed in the promised land
oil fields reclaimed in beat-up Iran.

ISIS eyes Syria since Assad is Alawite,
a heretic because of his ties to Shiites.
Syrian Sunnis fight to oust him
with money from Saudi Arabia, Jordan,
Emirates, Egypt, even Bahrain.

Assad fights back with his mob of brothers,
Hezbollah – holy Shiite terrorists and others.
Yes, Lebanon’s faithful kill one Sunni, another.
Then Shiite Iran’s top weapons are given
for Iraq is seen as birthplace of religion.

Are you getting this straight? Do I need to conjugate?
And what’s official position of the United States?
Obama, now Trump, decries weapons of mass destruction
(seems we’ve heard this in yet another’s election).
He wants no nukes and stable oil production,

no threats to Jews or Christians with destruction
despite Republicans heating Israeli relations.
Netanyahu came to curse nuke negotiations
with Iran, much to Obama’s aggravation.
Is fight in our nation like Islamic coalitions?

Weighing terrorist bloodshed of innocents,
what can be done to prevent more incidents?
Seeing more inter-Muslim murders a day,
should we let Allah sort it out his way
as Palin retorted, and stay out of the fray?


Patsy Asuncion’s 2016 debut poetry collection Cut on the Bias depicts her world from the slant of a bi-racial child raised by an immigrant father and WWII vet. Indiana University’s Spirit this spring, The New York Times, Prevention Magazine, vox poetica, Cutthroat Journal, Snapdragon, Loyola’s The Truth About the Fact, Reckless Writing and others feature Patsy’s writings. The only local female emcee, Patsy promotes diversity through her open mic (6900+ YouTube views) and local initiatives, e.g., Women of Color, International Mother Language Day and International Women’s Day events.

TERRIFIED

by Marsha Owens

Image adapted from Scott Brundage Illustration.

Who are you? roared the Cyclops.

I’m terrified, I whispered back.

And well you should be, Cyclops said, because it’s like snakes in the baby’s crib.

We are babies, you know, we haughty Americans, two-year olds running around aimlessly, peeing our pants, little boy babies pulling their diapers down to gawk at their penises, all self-absorbed, too young to understand how grown-up 21st Century countries behave, grown-up men and women, you know, the ones who build high-speed rail, and grow a belief system that says YOU, you, and you, all of you will be educated and be able to pay for your blood pressure medicine and be able to have food enough, and YOU, you, and you will live in houses, unlike stray dogs scrounging downtown, still some say YOU, you and you are undeserving because you don’t pray to our father who is in heaven, you don’t speak English, you wear a scarf on your head, you walk with a limp, you run away from bullets shot at your back.  Yes, YOU . . . be afraid, feel the dead of the darkest night, guiding stars dimmed, voices of reason gone underground, black faces smashed, bodies dumped on the trash heap beside McDonald’s wrappers, throwaways, mountains of loss, and the red truck sits in the yard outside my window, says nothing, all metal and strong.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond VA. #Resist

AGAINST PURITY

by Judy Kronenfeld

My father slipped out of Nazi Germany 

in history’s hidden pocket, but the sister

and her family he never talked about stepped 

over the crack between everyday

and juggernaut (deportiert 1942, verschollen
in Auschwitz, or für tot erklart

in the same hell). 

Briefly paused in Recife

on the way to Ascension Island,

courtesy of the U.S. Army, 1944, my father took in

the faces in gradations of brown,

and said, according to family legend:

“We should all intermarry

until we blend.” As if, to fuse 

the blacks and whites, the us

and them tense in his newly beloved

America would move us towards

a gene-pool Esperanto, one flavor, nothing

sticking out, nothing to hoist

a flag, or cross or crescent on.

Even a star. 

        

He dipped his pinky

in the Passover wine to spill the ten drops 

for the plagues God visited on the Egyptians,

and with his post-retirement

congregation, bowed to praise

the Creator “who has set us apart.”

But never held himself

apart or wished a plague

on anyone. In his decline, when congregants

visited the dementia wing, he could still mumble

the Hebrew prayers he’d learned by rote

as a kid, though almost everything 

in his life—including Paula, Mendel, 

Hermann and Charlotte—

was by then verschollen.

But someone is always saying

We’ve fallen from our ancient  purity—
take back our country!

        

Someone like Anders Breivik, self-trained in pure

ruthlessness, whose bomb and bullets 

shattered the charm enclosing open Norway. 

I remember  all of Oslo—like a village—

celebrating light in the dark 

of the autumnal equinox, 

gathering for the River Walk, 

the mud-slick banks of the Akerselva glowing

with candles and torches, spangles flickering

off the silver foil the school kids used 

to decorate the trees, all families—adopted African

or Asian children, Muslim mothers

in their sculpted head-scarves—

safe as houses.

And someone else, afraid to disagree,

will wave a torn and faded

flag, so long suppressed,

and holler yes!         

        

Like the proud father who bows

to God when his wife-and-kids-abandoning son 

fighting for Islamic State in Syria

is killed, who celebrates that son’s

martyr’s wedding (though the mother says

‘it’s a funeral for me’) in a great tent 

draped with black. 

        

It makes me want 

all things maculate, muddied

mottled, pocked, all things

tainted,     

stained,

blotchy, motley,

mongrel, splotched,

hybrid, scrambled,

half-caste —

If that’s what it takes

to defy Ein Volk, Ein Reich
Ein Führer, the wished-for

Caliphate, Judea and Samaria,

Trump’s Muslim- and Latino-

free America.         

Judy Kronenfeld’s most recent books of poetry are Shimmer (WordTech Editions, 2012) and the second edition of Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths (Antrim House, 2012), winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize. Her fourth full collection, Bird Flying through the Banquet, will be published by FutureCycle Press in the spring of 2017. Her poems have appeared widely in  print and online journals including American Poetry Journal, Calyx, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Connotation Press, DMQ Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Louisville Review, Natural Bridge, The Pedestal, Portland Review, Sequestrum, Spoon River Poetry Review, Stirring, and Valparaiso Review, and in more than twenty anthologies. She is Lecturer Emerita, Dept. of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside, and Associate Editor of the online journal, Poemeleon.

KOMAGATU MARU

by Akua Lezli Hope





Forgiveness,
                      an evolution
Apology
                is          
                     revolution
Acknowledgment
                               does not redeem
                               but embodies
growth                          maturity                understanding
re                                   cog                                nition            
               known
                                see            again
                                             grant permission        
 now                            better                        now now now    
the  denied
                       arrival
                              has landed
disembark

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal, to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, wearables, jewelry, adornments and peace whenever possible. A third generation Caribbean American, New Yorker and firstborn, she has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts,  Ragdale, Hurston Wright writers, and the National Endowment for The Arts.  She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her manuscript, Them Gone, won Red Paint Hill Publishing’s Editor’s Prize and will be published in 2016.

EASTER SUNDAY, 2016, LAHORE, PAKISTAN

by Janet Leahy

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and six-year-old Zainab Jamshed could not wait to spend the day at the park with her family. The young girl - the only one in her family - had already arrived in Lahore's Gulshan-i-Iqbal park when a massive suicide bomb went off a few metres from a children's play area, killing her and at least 69 other people. Hundreds were also wounded, and most of the victims were women and children.The attack, which was claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, was aimed at killing members of Pakistan's Christian minority gathered at the park to celebrate Easter Sunday. However, most of those killed were Muslims - like Zainab. —Aljazeera, March 28, 2016. Photo: Forensic officers look for evidence at the site of a blast that happened outside a public park on Sunday, in Lahore, Pakistan, March 28, 2016. Credit: REUTERS/MOHSIN RAZA

   

After Church on Easter Sunday
families go to the park
children play at the blue fountain,
on the hilly gilly, on the train.

Families at the park
in Lahore Pakistan, children
ride the hilly gilly
parents keep watch.

In Lahore Pakistan
Christian and Muslim children play
parents keep watch, but do not see
the young man padded with explosives.

Christian and Muslim children
wait for a train to ride
explosives detonate
the park runs with blood.

There will be no more trains to ride
the blue fountain
runs red with blood
after church on Easter Sunday.

Janet Leahy lives in New Berlin Wi, she is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. Her work has been published in The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendars, in journals, anthologies, at TheNewVerse.News and other poetry web sites.  She has published two collections of poetry.

WRONGED RIGHTS

by Charles Frederickson

Pakistani teenager and Indian activist
Awarded 2014 Nobel Peace Prize
Chosen for horrendous struggle against
Oppression of vulnerable young people

A Hindu and a Muslim
An Indian and a Pakistani
Join in common cause denied
Educational rights imposed by extremists

In 2014 Malala Yousafzai was
Shot in the head by
Taliban right to schooling
Denied to strong-hearted weaker sex

Kailash Satyarthi follower of Gandhi’s
Tender mercy non-confrontational approach
Kashmir caught between nuclear powerhouses
Borderline youth deprived of childhood

Child bonded labor exploitation for
Financial gain bribery slavery trafficking
Cheapest employer option parental poverty
Illiteracy ignorance lame cop-out excuses

In conflict-ridden areas refugees raped
Violated leading to hapless continuation
Generation-to-generation suppression for daring protest
Censored Expression definitely not free


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson  proudly presents YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

IF THEY SAY "JEW"

by Michael Fisher

if they say “jew,” or
if they say “muslim”

if they say “greedy,” or
if they say “dirty”

today is my birthday
I spent it watching the numbers come in from Gaza
refreshed my browser window over and over

mathematically, one number is always greater
than another

if they say “rag-head,” or
if they say “kike”

if they say “zionist,” or
if they say “jihadist”

the Gaza strip neighbors Israel and Egypt
it is home to 1.816 million or less

my own neighbor has a chocolate lab
and a gun

he hates that I can't change my oil,
build a shed, hates that I
spend my days reading books and the news

I hate that he never considered the morality of chaos theories
and loves classic rock

still, when I pull in, I look out for the lab
he waves and adjusts his baseball cap when he sees me

can it be that easy?

they say “sub-human,” “terrorist,”
“child-killer,” “fascist,” or
they say “genocide,” “genocide,” “genocide”

I shut down my computer for the night
tomorrow numbers will grow

I wish I could say I watched the fireflies
surround the bright eyes of a dog through my window


Michael Fisher is the author of Wolf Spider from Plan B Press and Libretto for the Exhausted World on Spuyten Duyvil Press.