A POET'S SELF-PORTRAIT AS A HOSPITAL BED

by Gil Hoy

More particularly, one of many hospital beds 

in a hospital where my son is being treated

 

for the bone sticking out of his leg 

from a soccer game

 

using my insurance that I bought for him 

because he is too young, only twelve

 

to have bought any insurance of his own. 

Nor has he any right to vote in a country 

 

where his elected representatives 

are about to take away his health insurance 

 

by making mine too expensive to afford.  

This morning, the news shows how easily 

 

this President and this Congress can take away 

a person’s health insurance, my child's, mine

 

or yours, for example, this President 

and this Congress a bit like a hospital bed 

 

in a country as ill as ours is now. 

Whatever hope we now have lies in a hospital bed 

 

and the medicines we can use to remove 

this pestilence, if we can just take them off 

 

the shelf—for there they sit—and use them 

before it’s too late. My son is still young enough 

 

to love me unconditionally, as much as he 

loves soccer, even though I wasn’t strong enough, 

 

nor my countrymen strong enough, to rise up 

and stop this thing from happening. But there is still 

 

time to act if we are strong enough, 

if we are determined enough, to find a cure. 

 

But judging by how things have gone so far, 

who can foresee with what success 

and with what result?

Gil Hoy is a Master’s Class student in fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and previously studied at Boston University. Gil's been nominated for a Best of the Net award in poetry. His work has previously appeared in Third Wednesday, Flash Fiction Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Penmen Review, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, The New Verse News, and elsewhere.

THE HALLS OF ACADEMIA

by Mary Janicke 

Mark Welsh didn’t resign last week as president of Texas A&M because he lost the confidence of students or faculty. He resigned because politicians demanded it. And that should outrage anyone who believes universities exist to pursue knowledge rather than to appease partisans. The sequence was depressingly predictable. A children’s literature course included material about gender identity. One student objected, invoked religion and a Trump-era executive order, and complained. Instead of being a moment for education—for engaging uncomfortable ideas—the episode became a weapon. A video went viral, lawmakers pounced, and the pressure machine revved into high gear. Welsh tried to manage the firestorm. He reassigned administrators. He fired the professor. He ordered a sweeping audit of the curriculum. But it was never going to be enough.  —Cartoon and news summary by Nick Anderson, September 21, 2025

The hallowed halls now hollowed 
Academia no longer a place for ideas
Now a place for ideology
 
A professor professes inclusiveness
Is now excluded for not honoring exclusiveness
 
A president supporting his faculty
Now questioned about his faculties
 
The learning of students stifled
Because one of them felt uncomfortable
 
So academia becomes a wasteland
Where young people go to have their minds
Closed not opened

Mary Janicke is a gardener, poet, and writer living in Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her haiku appears on Substack.

THE NEW CREED

by Indran Amirthanayagam

I will close the border

help heal our country

I will fix everything

This is what I read

on the billboards

of the Daily Message

from our first 

Great Leader, 

the Soul from Queens,

the Charlatan of 

the Deal and now 

my President

so help me Poetry

and help me God

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.

A NEW DAWN

by Dick Altman 

Alex Edelman / AFP via Getty Images

As the poet might have awakened to it…

After an historic,
all-night zoom
with world’s leadership,
she—America’s new president—
stood on California’s shore,
sun rising directly behind her,
ray’s emanating
from her silhouette,
as from the Statue
of Liberty’s crown,
to announce America’s
new proclamation
of emancipation.
 
An emancipation,
she exclaimed,
that would usher in
a new era
of global freedom,
not imposed,
but welcomed,
in every corner,
and at every level,
of humanity.
 
We need to fight,
she said,
not each other,
but for each other,
for the planet,
to sustain and nourish
each other,
for the world of work
to offer dignity
and opportunity,
for economies to thrive,
as they compete,
with best ideas,
realized at best price.
 
We need to recognize,
she went on,
to honor
our collective individuality,
our shared commonalties,
the dissonant music
that entwines,
and enriches our lives,
rather than fractures,
if we let it.
To recognize the need,
she stressed,
for borders of heritage,
rather than walls
of defense,
for borders of possibility,
rather than denial.
 
We can all wish
for a perfect world,
she said,
in that dream
we all inhabit,
each in our own measure,
loving thy neighbor,
and the flowers
always in bloom.
Yet it is imperfection
that permeates life,
and the striving
to overcome it.
In that we are all joined.
 
Let America,
once again,
by word and deed,
by shake of hand,
hug or clap on shoulder,
remind we breathe
the same breath,
share the same night,
wake to the same sun,
shining on similarity
and difference,
without exception.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

ON THE DEBATE STAGE

by Anna Evans

via The Washington Post

He states (quite earnestly, for what it’s worth)
that Dems want babies murdered after birth.

The question on the Capitol disorder
he answers, “On Jan 6 we’d a great border.”

Opioid crisis? Claims the demagogue,
“We solved it when we purchased the best dog”

then boasts, although the stakes are very high,
about how far he makes a golf ball fly

and adds another lie that’s as bizarre:
no European drives an American car.

Yet somehow, all we’re saying the next day
is that the other guy is not okay.

Anna M. Evans is the lone Democrat on her five person Township Council. Her poems are widely published and she teaches poetry at West Windsor Art Center and English at Rowan College at Burlington County. Her new collection States of Grace is forthcoming from Able Muse Press in the fall of 2024.

FAYE’S INAUGURATION

by Anayo Dioha

Just over two weeks ago, Bassirou Diomaye Faye was a little-known opposition leader languishing in jail, detained without trial on charges including inciting insurrection, who had never held elected office. One week ago, he defeated the governing party's candidate, Amadou Ba, in the country's presidential election, winning 54% in the first round. On Tuesday, the 44-year-old has been sworn in as the fifth president of Senegal, becoming Africa's youngest elected head of state. In a region where a large majority of the population are under 30, his victory offers hope to those young people frustrated by a lack of economic opportunities, with old elites seemingly clinging to power. —BBC, April 2, 2024

Rotten roots from decades past

Sinking deeper. Branches

Decaying, falling apart

Into their rancorous unrest

From this foisted tree of shrouded

Democracy.

Evergreen leaves pruned, trampled

Black, mutilated barks

Of overburdened trunk and branches

Bearing colonial scars and fresh bruises.

The rape, the loot; plagues and

Persecutions–the tale of many

Dark cities.

But look! A spark ignites in Dakar!

An ecdysis seems in progress.

This bloom just may smile

At the sky; it could be left to bask

In the sun.

But how will it fare around the pack

Of predators gathered at the lounge—

The inauguration lounge?

 

Anayo Dioha is a Nigerian and has been previously published in The New Verse News.

IMAGINE

by Steven Croft

AI-generated graphic for The New Verse News by Shutterstock

If instead of munitions, we could send Ukraine a spring

without war,

see Russian soldiers march off singing, "There is No Rank

Higher Than a Soldier's Mother," as mothers

who love them call them back home,

As the Dnieper thaws, let Ukraine beat its swords

into ploughshares for its golden fields of wheat, the farmers

no longer molested by fighter jets,

Let its cities be beautiful European cities again, free of

shelled and crumbling buildings, with

vibrant commerce and carefree nightlife, let people

sit idly in cafes, reaching calmly for coffee cup, newspaper,

its list of dead gone – for now,

Unwind stacked car graveyards of burnt-out husks,

bomb-twisted chassis, put them new again on roads

unpocked by explosion,

Let the countryside host tortoiseshell butterflies and roe deer,

the sound of bees visiting flowers, instead of armies

of tanks,

Let unstartled horses and cattle whip their tails idly in pastures

behind mended fences,

Let Ukraine part the dark curtain of daily anticipatory death,

box up the war strategy, the screams of wounded and dying, grief

of the living, tape them shut—for now,

Send home its stretched-thin, worn-out army of war,

Let its President wear a suit again, let his face cast off its war

fatigue, his body the green battle fatigues,

All over Ukraine let bells of peace and respite ring from the shingled

belltowers of wooden churches, let them dance the hopak

with fevered joy.

Steven Croft lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. His latest chapbook is At Home with the Dreamlike Earth (The Poetry Box, December 2023). His work has appeared in Willawaw Journal, San Pedro River Review, So It Goes, Anti-Heroin Chic, The New Verse News, and other places, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

THINGS I DIDN’T DO WITH THESE EYES & THINGS I DID

by Gil Hoy

The Witness by Matt Paw

1.

I didn’t witness the iceberg-flanked passageways of Antarctica, didn’t spot a kangaroo giving birth to a joey, didn’t see the Beatles live, didn’t descry a proton or an electron, didn’t read all the best books, didn’t see my best friend’s wedding, didn’t read the physics texts that my father taught, didn’t see the world explode in a thermo-nuclear war, didn’t witness democracy crash and burn as of yet, didn’t watch the last polar bear step off the last piece of melting arctic sea ice and drown, didn’t spot God, and didn’t see any sign of Jesus. Instead, I squinted and stared, focused and buckled down, and managed to

                                                                                                              
2.

See a hummingbird at my feeder fly close to my face, spilled tears with them, closed them in rooms filled with smoke, closed them in rooms filled with bigotry, opened them when instructed to do so, opened them when I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, saw too many 100 plus degree days, saw a police officer put his knee on a man’s neck, saw a criminal become President, saw sycophants flatter him, saw the brainwashed follow him, saw Republican challengers afraid to challenge him, saw his fingerprints taken, saw a mugshot taken, and generally witnessed the greatest threat to American democracy since the founding of the Republic with no way yet to see with what effect and what result.

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 and The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy is a semi-retired trial lawyer. His poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Galway Review, Right Hand Pointing, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review,  Third Wednesday, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, and elsewhere.

AFTER THE ELECTION

by Joan Mazza

“The Truth Dawns,” a painting at Fruitful Dark.

                I’ll never tell a lie. —Jimmy Carter, 1976.

And now the long trek back to sanity, without

a daily outrage or ten, without the avalanche of lies,

earthquakes of violations of the Hatch Act,

projecting corruption onto others. We’ll climb

back to believe in science based on evidence,

dismantle claims of conspiracies without basis.

We’ll embark on a clear plan to tackle a virus

that has tackled us, one that will kill another million

in the world before its spread slows. Let us return

to curiosity and real conversation without name-

calling, without mocking names and appearance,

without shaming skin shade and hairstyles. Let’s

educate ourselves about nuance and subtlety,

the fluidity of gender and identity, how temperament

and preferences change across our lives. Let us teach

our children how to manage complex emotions

and validate their experience of confusion. Let’s preach

honesty as a practical living strategy, more than a virtue.

Finally decent, we end the gaslighting and distortion,

the refusal to be transparent after the promise.

Let’s accept truth as not always pretty, but embrace

it as a guide toward what is real and tangible

as apples, tactile and heartening as someone

looking into your eyes and squeezing your hand,

comforting as a poem at a president’s inauguration.

Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia where she writes a poem every day and has been baking bread since before Covid19.

ELECTION NIGHT AFTER DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

by Jan Steckel

A blazing stateroom of clapping blondes. 

The President dropped the match. The windows 

blew out like a thousand Kristallnachts.

 

My husband slept through the little Hiroshima.

In the morning we’d have to pour into the streets.

I tried to curl up like the cat and snooze.

 

But voices whispered, “Anyone can march. 

Take up your pen. Write an anthem we can

sing again.” Dead poets filled my bedroom.

 

Victor Jara lifted broken hands.

García Lorca slid down a bullet-riddled wall.

Mandelstam starved and shivered in a transit camp.

 

My dead friend, Berkeley poet Julia Vinograd,

read new poems in my dream, turned to me. 

“Open your mouth,” she said. So hear me:

 

Tomorrow some will march, some write, 

and others sing. Though glass and bone shatter,

America will never bear another king.

Jan Steckel’s book Like Flesh Covers Bone won 2019 Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital also won awards. She lives in Oakland, California.

KAKISTOCRACY

by Susan Terris

THE ONLY WAY TO WRITE ABOUT THIS IS TO USE ALL

CAPS FOR THE RAGE I FEEL ABOUT HAVING A GOVERNMENT

 

FILLED WITH INLAWS. EX-LOBBYISTS, STOOGES AND A PRESIDENT

WHO IS UNQUALIFIED FOR THE JOB. IT’S THE WORST OF

 

THE WORST. My husband, who has left this world, used 

to say what we needed as a president was not 

 

a politician but a businessman. I may have to dig under

the birch tree to find his ashes and try to tell them 

 

just how wrong he was.

Susan Terris’ recent books are Familiar Tense (Marsh Hawk) 2019; Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn) 2017, Memos (Omnidawn) 2015; and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk) 2012. She's the author of 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and one play.  Journals include The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos was in Best American Poetry 2015. Her newest chapbook is Dream Fragments, which won the 2019 Swan Scythe Press Award. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and a poetry editor at Pedestal.

A NOTE TO MS. WARREN, MS. HARRIS, AND MS. KLOBUCHAR

by Gil Hoy




When you see
a little girl

Particularly if she
does not smile
very much,

Or has a tiny tear
on her tender cheek,

You be sure
to tell her—

Please be sure
to tell—

Drawing deep from
within your own pain

That you, too,
can be a Senator,

Or perhaps
even President.


Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Ariel Chart, Social Justice Poetry, Poetry24, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, I am not a silent poet, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, the penmen review, and elsewhere

SEARCHING FOR PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHIES FOR CHRISTMAS COMING

by Gil Hoy

Grant is one of the year’s best 10 books according to the editors of The New York Times Book Review.

Looking for a Christmas present for my son.
He wants to be a politician.

Not the merriest of Christmases
nor the happiest of New Years
for politics in America.

Abraham Lincoln is neatly
standing next to Teddy Roosevelt
at our local bookstore

With best-selling volumes
of FDR and Washington
stacked comfortably nearby.

With another somewhat dusty
book sitting far to the right
On another shelf in the non-fiction

biography section titled
Donald Trump: America’s
Failing President.

Sitting next to a few dull
panned volumes excoriating
Richard Nixon.

My son is a passionate
progressive Democrat.
He is wondering how a racist

With his money God, occupies
the White House in America
with Christmas coming?

As billionaires get tax cuts,
beggared sick lay dying
in their beds

Anti-Muslim venom spews,
gay pride flags are burning,
the NRA controls Congress.

Did our President really just
tweet that a New York
US Senator is a whore?

Did our commander in chief really say
that Rocket Man will be met with fire
and fury like the world has
never seen before?

Looking for a Christmas present for my son.
Not an easy choice to make. Perhaps FDR,
but he seems so far away.

My son wants to be a politician.
He's a sophomore in high school
and wants to save America.
He's always been such a good boy.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and trial lawyer who is studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program.  Hoy’s poetry has appeared, most recently, in Ariel Chart, Poetry24, Social Justice Poetry, The Penmen Review, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, TheNewVerse.News and Clark Street Review.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A CANDIDATE

by Edmund Conti

Image source: DonkeyHotey

I

Among thirteen showy Mountebanks
The only intelligent thing
Was the hair of the Donald.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three Muslims.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
What would Ayn Rand say?

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and  a blackbird
Are one for the books but not The Book.

V

I do not know which to prefer
The beauty of my  inflections
Or the beauty of my brother’s.
Or Dad whistling
Just after Reagan.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass
The shadow of the candidate
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
A Princeton man

VII
.
O thinking men of Ohio,
Why to do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how my resume
Puts to sleep
The women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the Bible is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the candidate flew off the radar
Only Senator McCain
Seemed to notice.

X

At the sight of motorists
Merging  after  a green light,
Even the bawds of gluttony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

She throws stones
From her glass house.
Once, a fear pierced her,
In that she mistook
The shadow of her imagination
For babies.

XII

The tide is turning.
The candidate  must be flying
But not back to Cuba.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon
It was snowing
Even in Louisiana
The candidate sat and waited
OHMMMMMM


Edmund Conti is a retired poet.  He is still looking for his golden parachute.

SONG TO MYSELF

by Gil Hoy




Where is the iron
Brahmin, traitor
to his class,

Man of
The people---

You can’t cajole
You can’t frighten
You can’t buy?

With bones
stronger than
All of them
on the stage,

Please stop
the rain from
falling down.

It's time to rise up,
It's time to rise
up.  It's time
to rise up!

Grit those big
teeth, hold
assassins’ bullets
in your chest,

Until you are
drowned out by
the faithful sea.

Listen to
the bells ring,
Listen to
the robin sing,

Until the hail
washes your soul,
away.


Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer and writer. He studied poetry at Boston University, while receiving a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Gil 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. His writing has appeared most recently in The Montucky Review, The Potomac, The New Verse News, The Boston Globe and The Dallas Morning News.

WALKER MANIA

by David Southward

Image source: DonkeyHotey

Amazing, what a guy like me
can do for voters who can’t see
what’s good for them. I’ve hatched a plan
to make their state a wonderland!

I broke the unions, stripped their rights—
and though it sparked some ugly fights,      
the squawking’s dwindled to a peep
and labor now comes oh-so-cheap.

I turned the federal money down
that would’ve linked up town to town
with light rail. Jobs were lost, but hey,
it kept the socialists away.

Natural gas? Now that I’d tap.
It’s ours if we just frack the crap
out of Wisconsin’s woods (though first
her residents must be coerced).

The jobs report still sucks, the budget
can’t be balanced. Hell, let’s fudge it:
keep the taxes low by raping
schools, the poor, and park landscaping.

I passed a law that welfare queens
must view their fetuses on screens
before aborting. God will care
for those unwanted babes, I swear.

With cuts in funding, it’s a breeze
to gut state universities.
They nurture liberals, stir up minds
and threaten us with picket lines.

I’m loved by all the billionaires,
which may explain why no one dares
to question me.  If someone tries,
I’ll stare him down with my dead eyes.

If I could gain complete control,
I’d sell the public sector whole
to the highest-bidding financier—
and run it like an overseer.

It seems to me we’ve turned a page:
I’ve ushered in a bold new age
in which a scoundrel goes scot free.
An age of proud cupidity.


David Southward teaches literature in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Lyric, and Voices on the Wind.

SIDES?

by Gil Hoy

So it’s bound to be

    Hillary (thank god)

Obama can’t and

      Warren gave her word 

and if donkey's second best’s lust

       full hubby     can please

keep his      self-destructive philandering

                  habits to himself         

   and both of you please stop         

                       taking big money for

            giving speeches because

      it’s all about public service and       

remember  to              get all money

             out of politics anyway             and it better 

be Bush                      on the elephant side 

just in case because 

                         for one reason

     who could begrudge a man for 

defending his own brother  against wmd

        and another is anyone but    those fruit cakes 

from Texas Florida or            Wisconsin  and also 

he’s better than the other wacky tea party folks and

Editor's note: Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush images from DonkeyHotey.

Gil Hoy studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in Philosophy and Political Science, and received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Gil started writing his own poetry in February last year. His poems have been published most recently in The New Verse News, The Antarctica Journal, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, and The Zodiac Review.

COURTING

by Gil Hoy

Should a black man
in America

love his country?

She should be
lovely to be loved,

not my country
right or wrong.

Only White Men
wrote the constitution with
their rich quill pens

from imperial England,
and white fruits flourished

atop Broken Black Backs,
Flagellation and snapped
roped necks.

America elected a President
of all colors, perhaps Her
finest hour,

But the slave's legacy
in America is still
one of subjugation---

So an NAACP office
is bombed, white
cops kill black boys

NYC mayor warns son
"be wary", whips

speak to supremacists,
and a homeless black man

named Africa
should be careful
where he reaches.


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.

THE FALL

by Tatyana Muradov 

Stanislavski as the Knight in The Society of Art and Literature's 1888 production of Pushkin's The Miserly Knight.

Welcome to Russia circa 1991.  

Ask but do not answer. Survive.

Positions are fickle. Open lies. 

Wolf eyes. Uniform responses.  

Family fuck ups and generations of militants.

Socialist foxes sucking on the nothings of your neighbor.

Zone out. Fade out. 

Whatever. 

You only exist in the reflection of your money. 

Don’t give input, just spend,

Survive. 

Push past the thieves and the games.

Don’t switch sides, nothing will change. 

Sleep, bitch.

I come from a battered peoples

I may look white, but I am muddied grey

From centuries of waiting for a parent

To teach my people how to live.

How to take a land so spanning and reign it right

How to use the resource full and make it use full 

How to take the money out of politicians pockets and put it into schools.

My sixteen year old cousin doesn’t go to school

She skips class to post pictures of herself on Tumblr

She skips class because no one taught her not to

Because the chances of her getting into college

Ride on the bank account of her mother

And the ride is short

And admission is partial.

I do not know how to tell her to behave in a country that teaches her daily to do what’s easy

To try less.

To play dumb.

To leave it to those in charge. 

I do not know how to love a country that gets away with murder, daily.

I do not know how to love a jungle,

A country with no name, just letters

that get shifted with each new president

who promises my people rights

and shits on them more than the last.

I do not know how to love a coward,

A country that does not fight back

A country that jails Robin Hood and cheers for the Joker

A country that gives itself a bad rep

With people that make me look bad.

I am so sick of being related to 

The mafia

The winter cold

The bad guy in every fucking movie

The mail-order bride

The Stalin

The Putin

The protests

The Pussy Riot,

The misuse of the word babushka, which means grandmother, you fuckers 

The word sneaky

The word evil

The word corrupt

The word communist

The word red

The word hate

The word fear

I have been soiled with hate and fear for years.

I had to put five thousand miles between us to feel safe,

And I’m still scared. 

But I miss her,

And every time I go there, I feel her underneath my feet, weeping.

Laughter is universal.

So is pain and pride.

But somehow here, at home, everything is more alive.  

Even the cigarette buds and pollen that pollute this city

Layer by layer.

But next to the industrial remnants stands a tree more beautiful than your own mother

And you breathe a sigh of relief

And remember about hope                                                                                       

And what could be

If only they cared more.

If only you cared more.

Apprehension lingers on your spine                                                  

Like food stuck in your teeth

And Pushkin’s “Land of Moscow” comes to mind:

“And where the luxury was thriving,

In shady parks and gardens, in the past,

Where myrtle was fragrant, limes were shining,

There now are just coals, ash, and dust.”

He’s right, the scent of dust is overbearing but what about the rose haw and the conifers?

There are still things to fight for, 

Aren’t there? 

Tatyana Muradov was born in Moscow, Russia and raised in a small town in Texas. She moved to New York two years ago and since then, has been a part of the poetry scene there in the city performing for spoken word/slam teams such as LouderArts and Urbana.