ART

by Cheryl Waitkevich

 

 

On Monday, February 16, Presidents’ Day, 22 professional dancers from the First Amendment Troop performed a 90-second contemporary dance, titled The ResistDance. 

Yesterday, high fog, a marine layer, so gray even the air itself
casts a pallor. This morning, though the sun shines, the weather report
forecasts snow flurries. Before sunrise I watched a video made by dancers

in front of what was once The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,
dancers dressed in maroon, the color of blood after it has met air.
The choreography starts with an unassuming woman in a knit cap,

jacket, old jeans like I might have worn when dropping my kid off
at school when I thought I’d just hurry home for a second cup of coffee.
She stands as some of the dancers surround her, make the shape

of a SUV while two other dancers as masked gunman approach,
and without guns shoot her chest and head until she falls
limp against the bodies that could never protect her.

The dancers dissolve and they're dancers again, surround
a thin tall, bearded man, slight bulge in his waistband. (Is it a gun?)
Pandemonium, confusion, paper and people swirling.

He helps someone falling after being pretend beaten
for which he is also pretend beaten, then shot multiple times

his body pummeled and shuddering as bullets hit

until finally, he lies still as dancers transform into angels
dancing with a couple of souls, these new-made spirits standing
hand-in-hand to look at the Washington Monument,

their reflection in the vast pond
in front of them present
for even God to see.

 

 

Cheryl Waitkevich (she, hers) spent forty years working in healthcare. Now retired, she is enrolled in the Rainier’s Writers Workshop, the MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University. She has been published in West Trestle Review, Galway Review, River Heron Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, as well as other journals and anthologies. She lives on Squaxin land, known now as Olympia, Washington with her husband Robert Jorgensen and their wildly delightful dog Ollie.  

FOR MINNEAPOLIS

by Ruth Lehrer

They don’t tell you in the morning
you will die by noon 
driving in your car
walking on the street 
 
after you are gone
you see a picture of the gun
flesh as good as ashes
blood as good as painted pain 
 
But in that morning you just know
yesterday your neighbor was brave
so today you must be too
The boundary between trust and fear
torn open
 
We are all ash
We are all brave. 

Ruth Lehrer is a sign language interpreter and Pushcart-nominated poet living in western Massachusetts. She is the author of the young adult novel Being Fishkill. 

IN THE AGE OF NIXON

by Alan Catlin

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

An I.C.U. nurse shot by federal agents was an American citizen with no criminal record, the city police chief said. A New York Times video analysis shows he was holding a phone, not a gun. —The New York Times, January 24, 2026

after the shootings at Kent State
a national student strike shut down
the colleges

Led to massive protests in the streets

Everyone could see that
shooting unarmed college students
was wrong

Under Trump
shooting a mother of three
with stuffed toys in her glove compartment
and a mutt in the back seat of her SUV
was okay

They called her a domestic terrorist
as if those stuffed toys were IED’s

And now a gang of six ICE agents
beat down an ICU nurse and shot him
dead on the street

And that’s okay too

His job was to save lives
not to take them

Blood on the mother’s SUV airbag
and on the sidewalk where the nurse
died tells us all we need to know

Alan Catlin is the poetry and reviews editor of Misfitmagazine.net. His next full-length book of poetry is Still Life with Apocalypse from Shelia Na Gig Editions.

SCULPTURE

by Jan Chronister

In Duluth, Minnesota

a well-known snow sculptor

crafts a car on his front lawn—

Honda Pilot with smiling driver,

arm hanging out. 

He adds a sign that says,

“I’m not mad at you.”

Someone places flowers

on the white canvas.

A photo of the sculpture on Facebook

draws close to one hundred hateful comments,

some even rejoicing at her death.

It’s going to be cold in Minnesota—

wind chills as low as -60.

The snow car and driver

will be around a long time.

Perhaps long enough

for the haters to find 

their humanity.

Jan Chronister is a retired educator who splits her year between the extremes of northern Wisconsin (by Lake Superior) and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and twelve chapbooks. Jan edits and publishes the work of fellow poets under the imprint of Poetry Harbor.

HOW CAN I WRITE A LOVE POEM?

by Rose Mary Boehm

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

Do I write about poets with red holes

in their forehead? Students whose eyes

have been shot out, the mother of four

small children is rotting in a cell full of other people,

excrement, wails, the sounds of metal and wood

on flesh and bone.

 

How can I write a love poem when 

all I know is that planets no longer align,

that war has been declared on peace,

that all the crystals disintegrate into millions

of nano shards, shaken by the vibrations of hate.

 

How can I write a love poem when

I am no longer allowed to trust my eyes,

when blue is red, up is down, no means yes,

when, while I am hollow and starving

a blonde demon laughs and tells me I have riches

to look forward to. Perhaps even in this life.

All I have to do is believe.

 

And haven’t we all been taught to believe?

To believe that there is a big old man on a cloud

somewhere, an old man with a long, white beard

who has a big book and writes all your 

little misdeeds in big letters,

and who they say is love and who asks you to love

‘the other’ as you love yourself.

 

So, for many it’s easy to believe that in his name,

in the name of love, you are being hung

upside-down by your feet until you

confess how much delicious hate you feel,

and that you never had it so good.

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her work has been widely published mostly by US poetry journals. A new full-length poetry collection is forthcoming in 2026.

SPINNING HALF-TRUTH STRAW INTO BIG-LIE GOLD

by Raymond Nat Turner

Phil Maddox, a Minneapolis-area resident, told The Intercept he recorded the video [above] on Sunday morning during a quick drive around his neighborhood to keep tabs on federal agents in the area. 

POP-POP-POP … One, two, three kill shots disturbing

ICE-cold Minnesota morning. Morning frozen in the past.

Bloodstained airbag. Driver-side door ajar. A

Third Reich-ish morning ambush on crooked legs of big lies …

Expletives dripping from masked lips—shooter man struts

away after blasting 3 holes into the bullseye. No pulse to check.

No blood to scrub. No tears to fight. He prances away as if it was

routine rifle range target practice. Or, the video game of—Gaza.

Made his bones. No one to answer to but remote-controlled, traitorous,

CRC: Cruel Reich Cult. They got his back. The violence-worshipping

vampiric cult celebrates bloodshed. And for its Fox-box foot soldiers

heirs of Goebbels quickly begin to spin half-truth straw into big lie gold …

No semiautomatic “thoughts and prayers.” No “Political violence is 

unacceptable.” “Indefensible.” or, “has no place in our democracy.”

No “good guy with gun is the only thing that could’ve stopped bad guy

with gun.” Mother-poet-guitarist-legal observer’s character must die too.

Career criminal 34-count felon floods the zone riddling her body with dreck-

dipped bullets. Buckeye big lie “Haitians are eating the dogs” architect empties

his clip center mass. Puppy-killing princess of darkness, fires “domestic terrorist”

shots. “Weaponized vehicle” shots. Blonde Lil Eva Braun blasts “lunatic” rounds …

School Shooting Du Jour; War Of The Week; Nonstop Genocide—

Holy trinity, sacred triad of violence worshipped daily by Warfare State.

And besides, didn’t its high priest—pomade man—prance and pontificate to a roomful of medals “ Maximum lethality—not tepid legality.” “Violent effect—not politically correct?”

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.

DISRESPECTED

by Alan Catlin

For Renee Nicole Good

We came with whistles
and they came with guns.
If you see something,
say something,
blow your whistles
take pictures of malefactors.

Men with masks and guns
used to be called outlaws,
the bad guys.
Apparently, they still are.

“You should see the people
they are hiring now.
Background checks are
a thing of the past.”

We don’t need to see
the new hires, we’ve seen
what they old ones will do.

“I’m not mad at you, dude.”
are famous last words now.

The president says it’s her
own fault she was killed,
“She disrespected a federal
officer.”

Seriously.

There will be no investigation.

Alan Catlin is the poetry and reviews editor of Misfitmagazine.net. His next full-length book of poetry is Still Life with Apocalypse from Shelia Na Gig Editions.

LISTEN

by Susan Vespoli

Allex Gomes photo for Unsplash

     “I want to warn you. They shot a woman in Minneapolis and her story will trigger you, remind you of Adam’s murder.” —Christopher

When the world is crying 

and the newscasters are crying

and your email inbox is crying

and Facebook is crying 

and memories of your son 

are crying,    remember 

how he came to you 

as a hummingbird. How he still 

comes to you as light. Open

the patio door and step outside.

Look at the tubs of bright marigolds,

faces up. Pompoms of coral and blood

orange, persimmon petals like lace, 

rippley and delicate and flamboyant. 

Watch in awe as a butterfly lands,

flits from one blossom to another, 

perches on tiny wire feet, its wings 

wallpaper triangles or black dotted 

Velveeta cheese slices slit on the diagonal,

wings that open and close like a fan 

and the monarch lets you approach, lets you snap 

photos and it sees you and reminds you 

of the hummingbird, ethereal messenger 

sent by the sky. Lean in and listen 

till it lifts off, flies so close to your cheek 

as it leaves, it whispers: breathe.

Susan Vespoli’s heart goes out to Renee Good’s loved ones and community. Vespoli believes in the power of poetry to heal.

AUBADES FOR WOMEN LOST

by Andrena Zawinski

“Aubade,” 1942 by Pablo Picasso

So—

(An Aubade for a Woman Lost

So he gave her a pearl handled gun,

its skull and crossbones in a red red rose.

So she packed it moonlighting 

driving nights for a ride share.

So she never used it.

So it was used on her.

So he shoved it sideways inside her

mouth smeared bloody with lipstick.

So her temple bore a jewel of a bullet bloom.

So her dark eyes rolled backwards ghastly white.

So she kept on talking: no, oh no, oh no.

So he was a person of interest let go.

So they strung a cardboard toe tag

where she had worn his gold band.

So they put her in the cold bed 

silenced in a morgue drawer.

So at daybreak on her birthday, he ate 

that same gun, metallic on the tongue, 

crying out: no, oh no, oh no.

So it never even made the evening news.

—for Georgeann Eskievich Rettberg 

    (1952-2003)

She—

(Another Aubade for a Woman Lost)

She, mother of three

in the routine of another day,

shot down driving away 

in the Minnesota snow 

from ICE officers

mixed and missed dictates.

She, another woman lost, 

her wife and observers

in a chorus of fear

calling out

oh no, oh no, oh no.

She, a poet who wrote

of solipsist sunsets,

tercets from cicadas,

that the bible and qur’an 

and bhagavad gita…

make room for wonder.

She, now a metaphor

of lilies and lavender,

votives and tea lights

peace signs and queer flags

for what could have been,

what could be for any of us.

She, in a murderous

last rite anointed as fucking bitch

silenced by three bullets,

face awash in blood.

She, reduced

to an endless loop 

of twisted narratives

on the news circuits

while women cry out

again and again an endless

oh no, oh no, oh no.

—for Renee Nicole Good 

    (1989-2026)

Andrena Zawinski is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Born Under the Influence. Her work has been lauded for its appreciation of nature, spirituality, social concern, and craft. Her writing appears widely online and in print, including at Verse Daily. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, she has made her home on Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay Area.