EUGENICS

 by Willam Cullen Jr.

British Eugenics Society poster from the 1930s. 
© Wellcome Collection. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

eugenics

the non-renewal

of health care subsidies

William Cullen Jr. is a veteran and works at a social services non-profit in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Poetry, Gulf Stream, I-70 Review, Lake Effect, Pirene's Fountain, Poetry South, and Spillway.

LESSER HARMS

by Gil Hoy

I watched Liz Cheney  

on Meet the Press.

 

I think 

I’m warming up 

to her.

 

You heard me right. 

 

The same Liz Cheney 

 

Who opposes abortion rights.

 

You heard me right.

 

The same Liz Cheney 

 

Who loves guns, 

Hates immigrants 

and too much voting. 

 

      Who opposes police reform 

      and Obamacare

 

Who wants to ignore 

the warming earth.

 

Who likes ‘scription drugs 

that cost too much, 

and wealthy corporations 

that pay no taxes.   

 

You heard me right.

 

The same Liz Cheney

 

      Whose father 

      was 

      a war crim’nal.

 

“No one of any party should support 

election deniers.”

 

“No one should be out 

advocating for any candidate

who will not honor 

the sanctity of our election process.”

 

“We are talking about multiple instances 

of criminal misconduct by 

the former President of the United States.”

 

“I will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump 

is never President again. He will not be the President 

of the United States again.”

In today’s Republican Party,

even a Cheney 

can taste and smell 

sort of good.

 

In today’s Republican Party,

even a Cheney 

can taste pretty good

and smell somewhat sweet.

 

 

Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Tucson, Arizona poet and writer who studied fiction and poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a BA in Philosophy from BU, an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy wrestled on BU’s wrestling team and finished in second place in the New England University Wrestling Championships his senior year. He served as a Brookline, MA Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, The Galway Review, Right Hand Pointing, Indian Periodical, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The New Verse News, The Penmen Review, Misfit Magazine, and elsewhere.

LET OBAMACARE FAIL

by Jeremy Thelbert Bryant

“Let Obamacare fail,” he says
like “Let them eat cake”
like privilege is universal
like old folks don’t get older, sicker
like men don’t have prostates
like women don’t have breasts
like cancer is fake news
like kids don’t break
like everyone stays in a tower
like all inherit their daddies’ money
like no lives matter
like the leader of a country doesn’t care

Jeremy Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the low residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. When he is not teaching English, he is burning incense, listening to music, drinking coffee, and writing. His work may be found in Pikeville Review and Prism. He finds inspiration in the red of cardinals, in the honesty of Frida Kahlo’s artwork, and in the frankness of Tori Amos’ lyrics.

NOW THAT MACKY'S BACK IN TOWN

by George Salamon

"Paul Ryan wins near-party-line showdown on Health Care.”

—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 4, 2017

Mack the Knife

Has found new life

As cuttin' Paul Ryan.

Obamacare must burn in hell

So insurance companies do well.

The people? Who cares if they survive

As long as the wealthy continue to thrive.

Democracy has been sold for its market price

As the necessary national sacrifice.

George Salamon is in reasonably good health for a curmudgeonly senior citizen.

BLOOD, COFFEE, AND A COVERED LIFE

by Jill Crainshaw

Daily Signe Cartoon 03/14/17

The old hymn from my childhood pounds out
a heat-beating rhythm in my head.
“There is power, power,
wonder-working power
in the blood,”
while plasma charts a course
through octogenarian veins,
a crimson thread
marking a jagged line
between life and death.

“Here you go, honey,”
the Starbucks barista said
and her eyes smiled
while her mouth hid
behind one of those disposable face masks
medical center workers were wearing
that windy winter day.
I smiled back, took the potent elixir,
and drank,
as the dark roasted incense swirled.

Battle lines are drawn,
expiration date unknown but certain
as soon as womb-water breaks
onto unmapped territory.
“It could go either way,”
the hospitalist said.
“But it’s all covered.”
I Googled “hospitalist”
and waited
for a lingering red pearl to let go.

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and a Presbyterian minister. Her work has appeared in Star 82 Review, Mused: Bella Online Literary Review, and Panoplyzine. She is a frequent contributor to the Unfundamentalist Christians blog.

DEAR PAUL RYAN

by Jacqueline Jules

Paul Ryan caricature by DonkeyHotey

After you’ve carried out your promises
to the American people,
I hope you’ll come to the chemo clinic with me.

Wait in my seat—rigid blue plastic,
stainless steel frame, comforting
as the flicker of fluorescent tubes
from the popcorn ceiling.

Notice how the legs of your chair
wobble on uneven green tile
while you listen
on a dying cell phone
to a bean counter at Blue Cross
explain why you don’t deserve
the drug your doctor prescribed.

Feel the bones
up and down your spine
burst into flames.

Then you can come home with me.
Sip canned soup at my table,
littered with pre-existing bills
for care no longer covered.

And you can tell me again
why you are so pleased
to be the face of the political party
which proclaims all life is precious
(no matter how tiny) as long
as no taxes are raised to protect it.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of the poetry chapbooks Field Trip to the Museum and Stronger Than Cleopatra. Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including TheNewVerse.News, Potomac Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Little Patuxent Review, and Gargoyle. She is also the author of 40 books for young readers.

THE GOVERNMENT

by Samantha Pious

after a ballade by Christine de Pizan

Where will outcasts comfort find
—asylum-seekers, refugees—
 now the land we thought to be
the sunset gates, the golden door,
the harbor where the tired, poor,
and fearful could at last breathe free
has neither love nor amnesty?
The one-percenters are severe;
the young professionals, resigned.
The government won’t deign to hear.

To lawyers they have no recourse,
ill-counseled by their advocates,
without protection from the courts.
The officers who stop and frisk
interrogate with undue force—
and sometimes suspects disappear
before they’re properly accused.
(But could that ever happen here?)
The magistrates condemn, unmoved;
the government won’t deign to hear.

Where shall they go, when there is no
safety here, or anywhere
that hope is vain, and friend is foe?
The underground will take them in
if they believe the garbled voice,
the tiny hands, the laquered hair,
the orange pawn—or puppeteer?—
who has big plans for his first year.
(But will he keep Obamacare?)
The government won’t deign to hear.

Folks, after this election year
the ship of state has sprung a leak
while navigating up shit creek.
We’ll have to pray or maybe hope
our captain doesn’t rock the boat.
The government won’t deign to hear.

Samantha Pious's first book A Crown of Violets (Headmistress Press, 2015) offers a selection of the French poetry of Renée Vivien in English translation. Some of her other translations and poems have appeared in Adrienne, Lavender Review, Mezzo Cammin, and other publications. Her poem "The Government" is loosely adapted from the Middle French of Christine de Pizan (1364-ca. 1430), an Italian-French woman poet and philosopher of the Late Middle Ages.

HERE'S TO THE GREATNESS WE INAUGURATE

by Chris O'Carroll

The issues your wise tweets elucidate,
The tone you’ve done so much to elevate,
Lawsuits you’ll never settle (oh, but wait),
Women not hot enough to violate,
The torture you have pledged to reinstate,
The faith you feign but can’t quite fabricate,
The sanity you sometimes simulate –
These are the things that make our country great.

The faux respect world leaders cultivate
Now that a cartoon is a potentate,
The brownshirt crowd to which you gravitate,
The autocrats you hope to emulate,
Life-saving health care you’ll eliminate,
Your plastic swagger as you vacillate,
The bloated deity you venerate
In every mirror – these things make us great.


Chris O'Carroll has been the featured poet in Light, and has published poems in Angle, The Asses of Parnassus, The Orchards, Parody, and The Rotary Dial, among other journals.  D****d T***p has never called him "overrated."

AFFORDABLE CARE

by Megan Merchant 

Cartoon by Pat Bagley 

I’m sorry America, please have a seat.
By popular vote we are going to remove

your third rib
without a plan for replacement.

You should pray,
or at least mutter something biblical near a statue.

We are going to snipe the surgeon and replace
him with the homeless man

who is stationed by the automatic door
with his styrofoam cup, tipped with whiskey.

He has seen so many injured and sick welcomed
under the florescent lights that he must

be deft at holding a knife, understand how
to point the sharp edge away.

This is a beautiful approach, believe me,
do not underestimate periphery experience,

it is so close to precision, you won’t even know.

Megan Merchant is mostly forthcoming. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections: Gravel Ghosts (Glass Lyre Press, 2016 Book of the Year), The Dark’s Humming (2015 Lyrebird Prize, Glass Lyre Press, forthcoming 2017), four chapbooks, and a children’s book with Philomel Books. 

SABLE CLOUDS

by Gil Hoy

A candle is seen at the steps of the US Supreme Court February 13, 2016 in Washington, DC, following the announcement of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia, a fiery conservative who helped shape American legal thought, was first appointed to the highest court in the land in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, making him the first Italian-American to serve there. Scalia was 79. (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images via The Dallas Morning News, Feb. 13, 2016

Even the darkest
rain silver
when

religions
are freer
elections
are fairer

different fellows
making different
sounds

sleep more soundly

sickrooms are
open

women’s bodies are
their own

men and women
love who they
love


Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer who is currently studying poetry at Boston University, through its Evergreen program, where he previously received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy started writing poetry two years ago. Since then, his work has appeared in Third Wednesday, The Write Room, The Eclectic Muse, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News , Harbinger Asylum, Soul Fountain, The Story Teller Magazine, Eye on Life Magazine, Stepping Stones Magazine, The Penmen Review, To Hold A Moment Still, Harbinger Asylum’s 2014 Holidays Anthology, The Zodiac Review, Earl of Plaid Literary Journal, The Potomac, Antarctica Journal, The Montucky Review and elsewhere.

BEN CARSON CHATS WITH VOLTAIRE

by Judith Terzi

V:   In Candide, I write that optimism is the madness
to claim that everything is good when it isn't.
What's your view of optimism, monsieur Docteur?

BC: Well, right now, as I see it, the hope we can repeal
Obamacare would seem the best of all possible
worlds. Mon Dieu, François, it's the worst thing
since brain cancer.

V. Oh, I heard you say since slavery on the Charlie
Rousseau show last week.

BC: Boy, I'm learning fast how to be a politician.
Yeah, I said slavery. Merde, I should have said
it in French so no one would understand. That's
esclavage, oui? Pardon my accent!

V: BTW, have you read Candide? So you think
healthcare for the people is more pernicious than
forced prostitution, child labor, mutilation, torture,
war. The Inquisition?

BC: Well, I can't say I've read it. Any form of socialism
is a no-fly zone for moi; it's right up there with
other horrors, including the Third Reich. Any
organized system helping the peeps is contrary
to the security of a free State, the right...to keep
and bear Arms.

V: Oh oui, oui, your sacred 2nd! A propos of arms,
monsieur Docteur, didn't you say that the Jews
would have had a better chance with Hitler if
they had had guns? Now just where would these
six plus million guns have come from?

BC: Well, I'm not familiar with Germany's gun laws.
Then or now. Maybe Schindler's List? Ha ha ha ha.

V: You mean la liste de Craig? So you think if
you're elected, the country could become the
healthiest of worlds?

BC: Only God knows, really. What I know is that evil
shows its ugly visage from time to time. We've
seen the cancer in these past eight years like we
saw it during WWII. Vigilance, vigilance, we
need vigilance. It's terríbul.

V. Terrible!! So what's your fix, monsieur Docteur?

BC: Well, for those mass shootings at colleges & theaters,
we have to arm each & every being who crosses
the threshold. That way, each member of a group's
well-equipped to attack an attacker. And that's my
remedy as Curer-in-Chief of this diseased nation.
And that includes arming pre-schoolers as well as
chiropractors & acupuncturers.

V: Well, my good Docteur, I guess this is no time to be
making enemies, then, is it?

BC: I used to tell my patients an apple a day keeps the doc
away. Now I tell the American people: A gun a day
keeps the killing at bay. Vive la France!


Judith Terzi's most recent chapbook, If You Spot Your Brother Floating By, is a collection of memoir poems from Kattywompus Press. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Atlanta Review (International Publication Award, 2015), Caesura, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Raintown Review, Unsplendid, and Wide Awake: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque). She lives and writes in Southern California.

LES MISERABLES

by Edmund Conti

Image source: DonkeyHotey

Speaker of the House
Keeper of the zoo
Hoping I can please ‘em
The forty-one or two.
Obamacare, goodbye
Planned Parenthood, so long
Doing nothing here at all
How can we go wrong?
Everybody loves the Right Wing
Your good old buddy friend
We’ll do what pleases just us few
You’ll get it in the end.


Edmund Conti is an impartial observer of the idiots in Congress.

MY FLAG

by Marilyn Peretti

At the mic on the sidewalk
some kids say justice
is the meaning of the Fourth,
some say fireworks, some
some say cookouts,
but some say justice.

Did they mean fairness,
decency, moral rightness,
equity, abiding by law?
Is this taught to children now?
Fourth of July means justice?

Maybe these wise children know
that the Fourth does not mean
burning churches of black folks,
battering a man in a police van,
giving up on finding prison escapees,
denying the poor health insurance,
or shooting pray-ers inside a church.

I wave my American flag
for what the children have learned.


Marilyn Peretti, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, is published by The New Verse News and by various journals; nominated for Pushcart Prize; and publishes poetry books on www.blurb.com/bookstore. She writes with fellow poets in Chicago's western suburbs. 

BEWARE HEIRS PRESUMPTUOUS

by Gil Hoy

The Supreme Court might be about to blow a hole in Obamacare large enough to fit nearly 10 million people, a new analysis shows. The high court is scheduled to hear arguments this March in a lawsuit claiming President Barack Obama's administration does not have the legal authority to give tax credit subsidies to millions of people who have insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The argument is over a small bit of wording in the law, which says subsidies can go to people buying insurance on state-run marketplaces, but not to people buying on federally run ones. Since the federal government operates the exchanges in two-thirds of the states, a ruling for the plaintiffs would gut the Affordable Care Act. --Jeffrey Young, Huff Post Politics, January 9, 2015


Beware heirs presumptuous
of Greeks, holding gavels, wearing
flowing black robes, potent
mutant seed of Solon, democracy
turned on its head,  sitting beneath
Corinthian marble columns
despising POTUS--Obamacare--
servants of the tyrant,
bearing gifts for Plutus.

There, I’ve said my piece.


Gil Hoy is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.  He is a Boston trial lawyer and studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction in February of last year.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in The Potomac, The Zodiac Review, Harbinger Asylum and Earl of Plaid Literary Journal.

AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY (JUST NOT FOR YOUR PROSPERITY)

by Chris O’Carroll






Hi, we’re the Brothers Koch.
Our ads are full of lies.
Our massive bankroll bies
Big mirrors and big smoch
To con you low-class foch,
You losers we despies.

No tears flow from our ies
When you get sick and croch.
Obamacare’s a joch.
Your kid or grandma dies?
Who cares?  You’re little gies.
We’re loaded, you’re all broch.


Chris O’Carroll is a writer and an actor.  In addition to his previous appearances in The New Verse News, he has published poems in the anthologies The Best of the Barefoot Muse and 20 Years at the Cantab Lounge, and in print and online journals including Angle, Big City Lit, Light, Measure, and The Rotary Dial.

MAN EATER

by Kristina England




A highly addictive drug whose name derives from the green, scaly sores that develop on users’ rotting flesh was reported to have found a toehold in the United States this week. --LA Times, September 28, 2013


1.

A woman lies on an operating table.
Metal tools deconstruct her brain,
then reassemble it.
She wakes, relieved to see another day,
expects the healing process,
the pain of coming back to life.
Weeks later, doctors inform
her the medical equipment was tainted,
the extra life that surgery gave her
may be eaten away;
she'd go mad in the process.
But they couldn't know for sure.
They had to wait
with her and seven other patients.
So the doctors, the media,
the whole world sat down,
flipped through magazines
while she went mad anyway.

2.

A boy will inject himself in Arizona
with a drug called Krokodil.
Gasoline and oil in the blood,
his arm will bubble up,
go gangrene.

Two years to live,
he'll shoot up again,
reduce the days
with heroin.

3.

A skin rash bans my friend's mother
from hugging her before surgery.

Lauren has stage 3 breast cancer.
Her mother - MRSA.
They can't even be in the same room
or else Lauren could get sick,
contract a flesh eating disease.

They know the odds, separate themselves,
wait to feel that mother-daughter touch again,
believing they will because belief
is the only thing between us
and the facts.

4.

Flesh eating bacteria is breeding.
We find it in our conversations.

My mother and I tongueless from politics,
our conflicting thoughts on Obamacare
some tool, some needle, some rash
we refuse to deal with.

She sits on the right side of the table.
I circle my fork through spaghetti

on the left.

Soon we'll be dead to each other -
a statistic, an autopsy.

It will hurt.
It will be maddening.

And yet, we'll still inject ourselves,
unwilling to believe
we are addicted,
we are suicidal,
we are the boy in Arizona,
senseless,
always searching for that ultimate high.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Extract(s), Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other journals.

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN LOOMS UNLESS AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE CRIPPLED

by Frederick Shiels





Through mists of battle high on Capitol Hill,
a light emerges from Republican troops,
2014’s budget may be passed, government
Not shut down, with one small caveat:

“We’ll ‘Defund’ Obama-care and leave
the government to do its other work this next fiscal year,”
Healthcare held hostage, passage of this charade
has not a prayer, we know,

The Senate will not pass it,  if they do,
Obama’s veto pen comes crashing down
upon this hoax so patently designed
to waylay not the government this time,

But rather out the Senate Democrats who vote
to kill a bill that strangles the Affordable Care Act in its crib,
“Too clever by half” experts-- some Republican-- say
Washington Will shut down if this drama plays out,

Perhaps Lord Cantor and the Earl of Boehner forget
the lessons of 1995 and ’96 when,
Lord Gingrich took the hated Feds to the brink
to spite King William and then sank,

In 1996’s elections, the public, not amused
did vent its wrath upon the GOP “abused.”


Frederick Shiels has taught public policy and U.S. politics at Mercy and Baruch Colleges, and at Cornell (teaching assistant). He has published with New Verse News and is working on a book on Obama and America’s Progressive Future through his blog.

WHY WE'LL MISS YOU, MICHELE BACHMANN

by Chris O’Carroll





You spit on wimpy moderation
Like that zillionaire from Bain’s.
Your bulb’s less dim than Sarah Palin’s,
Your deck less full than Herman Cain’s.

You tried to out a State Department
Muslim mole, which was insaner
Than could win support from even
Right-wing stalwarts like John Boehner.

You’ve claimed the Founding Fathers were
Crusaders for Emancipation,
And anti-cancer vaccines are
A cause of mental retardation.

Gay marriage, like Obamacare,
Is something that you love to hate.
Your husband’s counseling helps queers
Become, like him, completely straight.


Chris O’Carroll is a writer and an actor.  A recent Flash 500 Humour Verse Competition prizewinner, he has also published poems in Angle, First Things, Light, The Rotary Dial, and The Spectator, among other print and online journals.

THE BEN NELSON

by Llyn Clague

"Former Sen. Ben Nelson . . . the holdout who eventually provided the key vote for President Barack Obama’s health care law, will head up the nonpartisan National Association of Insurance Commissioners . . . As CEO, earning nearly $1 million a year, Nelson will be a leading intermediary between the states and Washington." -- Politico, January 23, 2012

Image source: Mario Piperni dot Com

In wrestling, a full nelson is against the rules
because you could break the fucker’s neck.
When I competed, back in middle school,
the rules, applied to all, kept us in check.

In politics, we now have the “ben nelson,”
which says, there is one rule for me and mine,
and a different one for every one else:
a plum for my state, but not the other 49.

The deal that Ben Nelson struck was a bear:               
in return for his vote on the Senate floor
he demanded the Feds pay Nebraska ’s share
of Medicaid – costs all states bear for the poor.

That morsel was not as-usual earmark stew –
a military base for him, a prison for her,
a highway for me, maybe a bridge for you –
swaps, trade-offs, a bite for every cur.            

Nor was it made on principle or conscience,
like opposition to taxes or abortion,
or deeply held personal values: it shunts
all that aside:  it was naked extortion.

In curt terms, it was a raw grab,
taking me-ism to a new level,  
and part of what made it so bad –
it was to go on forever,

leaving every single other state
paying its own, plus Nebraska’s, aid
“in perpetuity.”  Oh, there is so much to hate
with yet another tranche of trust betrayed.
                                  
But it takes two to do dirty deals,
one to sell, and the other to buy.
Men from his own party concocted this sleaze,
using “historic ends” as their alibi.

Will the ben nelson itself break the neck
of the body politic?  No, probably not.
This particular piece of dreck
is only one year’s stink in the overall rot.

Yet ben nelson does deserve a special place
in the long, checkered history of public service.
It imagined a wholly new hold to debase
wrestling, making our life distinctly worse,

and his name, Ben Nelson, shall forever stand
as the utter opposite of Nathan Hale,
who gave his young life for our young land –
for a man, body and soul, up for sale.


Llyn Clague’s poems have been published widely, including in Atlanta Review, Wisconsin Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, New York Quarterly, Ibbetson Street.  His sixth book, The I in India and US, was published by Main Street Rag in 2012.

CLIMATE CHANGE

by David Chorlton

 

Image source: The Climate Reality Project

 

After the recorded message

came a living voice

asking for help in stopping the president

weeks before his inauguration.

Which of these issues do you think

is most important?

I said Climate change,

she spoke right over me, beginning with

Voter fraud, and I repeated myself.

Then she suggested the assault

on second amendment rights.

Climate change.

She pretended not to hear, and went on

to repealing Obamacare.

I told her nothing else would matter

when the planet gasps for breath.

She named the candidate

who would lead the way

and asked if I’d help.

Why did you call this number?

She told me I must have supported the cause

in the past. I told her

What matters is Climate change.

She assured me it isn’t too early

to begin sending money.

Let me get this right; we’re heading

into the future fully armed

with God’s love to guide us,

the stars and stripes flying, marching to Souza

and glory bound. She paused a few seconds

before saying

Yes, and I could tell right then

that in politics, the climate

will never change.

 

 

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection, "The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.