MY AMAZING INVESTMENT

by Pat Davis

I think they are sheep at first
but they’re corpses
wrapped and tied in white shrouds.

I wish they were low clouds
laid out in a row

but they’re my purchases,
femur, tibia, wrist
tied up for delivery.

I bought the rubble,
the bulldozers, too.

Israel lets in chips 
and Coke.

Children are dying of hunger.
Children are dying of cold.

Our papers blame the wind.
Blame the rain. 
Aid is blocked, the doctors

forced out.
By the toe-end of a corpse 
as long as my forearm 

is a puddle of muddy water in which a star
was lost

Patricia Davis’ poems appear in Smartish Pace, Image, Southern Humanities Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other journals. Also a playwright, she earned her MFA from American University. She is translations editor for the literary journal Poet Lore and lives in the Washington, DC area, where she works in human rights advocacy.

PREMONITION

by Susan Vespoli

      “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

 —Christopher

On Tuesday, all set for a victory

party, I stopped at the grocery store

and bought sushi, California rolls, seaweed 

salad, a clear bottle of pink Cosmopolitans,

Haagen-Dazs ice cream, and I tried to buy a cake 

topped with KAMALA WINS IN A LANDSLIDE, 

but the guy at the bakery counter just eyeballed me,

said no one there knew how to write on a cake.

Susan Vespoli believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, Anti-Heroin Chic, ONE ART, Rattle, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots.

CLEARING

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Palestinians are bombed, starved, herded, 

out of Northern Gaza. The Plan is to cut 

the Strip down further, have all residents 

take their moveable belongings 

to the South where they will float between 

tents, before builders come driving bull-

dozers and cranes, and cement trucks,

driving bricklayers to make new Israeli 

homes on even more occupied land. This 

cannot be stopped unless bombs are 

no longer delivered to the executioners, 

unless the Plan’s directors are caught 

and tried, until even more life’s 

spilt during the ongoing genocide.

Indran Amirthanayagam has just published Seer (Hanging Loose Press) and The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil).  He is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

WHAT I WANTED AND WHAT I GOT

by Susan Vespoli

Corporeal Writing Softest Tee

I wanted my son back. 

I wanted the cop who shot him 

to be held accountable. I wanted my son 

to be standing here wearing his Pure-Heart 

t-shirt, handing out food boxes. I wanted him 

to ask for more light clothes for Christmas,

more white socks because he believed light colors 

would help him stay clean. I wanted another cross

for him to carry—mosaic-ed in fractured glass—

another coffee date at Starbucks, another tour 

of his apartment furnished with found lamps 

and a found statue of a bear holding a fish 

that says “Welcome.” I wanted his voice

saying “I love you, Mom,” his fingers 

texting me photos of geese and cats 

and quail eggs laid in a ceramic swan.

What I got was a wrongful death lawsuit, 

a deposition where I was shamed and blamed 

by an eye-rolling smirking bitch of a City 

of Phoenix lawyer who mocked my 12-step beliefs, 

asking sarcastically,     “Did it help?”    

I got my Facebook account invaded by the cop’s 

legal team, two of my poetry books used as evidence 

against my son. I got a gag order—no more speaking 

about or publishing poems about the loss or the case, 

two canceled poetry readings. I got a t-shirt that says: 

“Make art in the face of fuck.” I got the face of fuck. 

I got a pen and more notebooks because the cop’s lawyers 

confiscated my journals and I write anyway and I write anyway 

and I still believe good will prevail. Still believe the spirit of Adam 

stands among us, that his words “I think god has another plan for my life”

will ring and ring and crack the wrecking ball of the cops’ denial 

and out of the shatter—will glow my son’s smile, his essence, his light.

Author’s Note by Susan Vespoli: City of Phoenix is squirming about the upcoming results of the DOJ’s two-year investigation into their use of excessive force, high number of police killings, and unfair treatment of the homeless. The City claims they don’t need oversight. I, as the mother of an unarmed man shot and killed by police on March 12, 2022, shout: “YES. THEY. DO.”

Editor’s Note: The New Verse News has published a number of the poems written by Susan Vespoli in the aftermath of the killing by Phoenix police of her son Adam:   "Before I Knew Adam Had Died,”  "My Ex-Husband Calls… ,"   … In Reverse,” “I Am Finally Handed… ,” “Under Investigation… ,” “Dear 2022,” “Poem for My Middle Finger,” “Dear Gag Order,”

EXHALATION

by Pepper Trail

"The T***p administration has hailed its overhaul of federal pollution restrictions on coal-burning power plants as creating new jobs, eliminating burdensome government regulations and ending what President T***p has long described as a 'war on coal.' The administration’s own analysis, however, revealed on Tuesday that the new rules could also lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 from an increase in the extremely fine particulate matter that is linked to heart and lung disease, up to 15,000 new cases of upper respiratory problems, a rise in bronchitis, and tens of thousands of missed school days. "—The New York Times, August 21, 2018

Edenton, North Carolina


Mother, your breath shallow and slow, almost gone
Barely moving the sheet on your hospice bed

You are reluctant, now, to inhale
To bring in the world, its noise and its pain

So much easier to breathe out, to gentle
And at the end of that emptying, to stop

But the stubborn body kicks, the heart turns over
Begins again, will not yet let you go

Mother, it’s all right.  You are strong
Nothing, in the end, will stop your dying


Ashland, Oregon


The world, the west, is on fire
Vancouver to Yosemite, all tinder, alight

Halfway between, we must breathe
What air there is, what we are given

When we speak, smoke is what we say
And so we have stopped speaking

The mountains are gone, the valley
Through the windows, everything

The smoke is where we live now
What we breathe in, and then out


Washington, DC


He does not mind the world, the President
Thoughtless, he inhales its floods and its flames

Exhales this atmosphere in which we live
Gives us, this week, the “Affordable Clean Energy Plan”

Not Affordable, or Clean, or Energy, or a Plan
Simply another act in a lifelong history of harm

Power plants, cars, planes, you all and me
Together, we contribute: 408 parts per million

We are told there is nothing to be done
We are told there is no choice.  Just breathe

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. In his spare time, he leads natural history tours around the world.