ON THE EVE OF A NEW ERA

by Lis Anna-Langston

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

I am waiting for the sun to dip

low over the hilltops in an act of defiance.

I am waiting for our government
to rise up again and say,
Give me liberty or give me death.

I am waiting for the free flow moments
to carry me to the seas that bump against
the belly of Savannah

and I am waiting for the tenderness to return to the night.

I am waiting for the spies to reveal their secrets
and cast aside the masks they’ve
considered identity

waiting for the bells to toll,
announcing the coming of relevance

I am waiting for elementary particles
to create their own game show
challenging anti-matter to a bet.

I am waiting for the Aztecs to conquer the Spaniards
with wit, beguiling them with the crooked smile of Montezuma’s revenge.

I am waiting for the hot neutron glow
of the sun to illuminate our place in the Universe

and I am waiting for the Warlords
to cast off their weapons and disappear into the mist.

I am waiting for the ghost of Elvis
to return to the white house
in Tupelo, Mississippi where his Mama
is standing on the front porch calling for the shadow of him
to return
from the long lines of fans
waiting
at the gates of his grace land.

I am waiting for Thomas Jefferson to bow to the
kindred spirits in the streets of Philadelphia and
walk back to Carpenters Hall to call a meeting
regarding the state of delinquent bets with the Republic
and its people.

I am waiting for the catcher in the rye
to take the hand of John Lennon and pull him back to earth.

I am waiting for my grandmother
to return to this life
so I can tell her I miss her
and I am waiting for the mailman
to bring my new book of poetry.

I am waiting for art to express form,
not just feeling
like the gut of Picasso driven and seeming.

I am waiting for the unmarked grave
of Che Guevarra
to sprout one thousand wild flowers.

I am waiting for God to find the box of crayons
I sent him
special delivery
with the sharpener on the side.

I am waiting for Dorothy to wake up in Oz,
get out of bed
and do something about that pedaling witch
once and for all.

I am waiting for the Disciples to stop serving redemption at the last 
supper.

I am waiting for Truman Capote to stop drinking
and finish another novel
and waiting for the raven
to return weary
back to the door of Edgar’s dreary.

I am waiting for the Romans to take back the Empire
on a Sunday morning
while all the good heathens are praying.

And I am waiting as patiently as a kidnapping plot
hashed out over coffee
for the scavenger angels
to walk out of the alleyways
cloaked in darkness
dragging the age of enlightenment
with their dirty hands
to rise up and startle us
with utter abandon
again.

Hailed as “an author with a genuine flair for originality” by Midwest Book Review and “a lovable, engaging, original voice…” by Publishers Weekly, Lis Anna-Langston is the author of Skinny Dipping in a Dirty Pond, Gobbledy, Tupelo Honey, Maya Loop, Wild Asses of the Mojave Desert, and the short story collection Tolstoy & the Checkout Girl. Raised along the winding current of the Mississippi River on a steady diet of dog-eared books she attended a Creative and Performing Arts School from middle school until graduation, went on to study Literature at Webster University, Creative Writing through the Great Smokies Writing Program through the University of North Carolina at Asheville and recently graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2023. Her novels have won the NYC Big Book Award, Independent Press Awards, and dozens of other book awards. As writer and producer her films screened and won at film festivals around the world. A three-time Pushcart award nominee, her work has been published in dozens of literary journals including The Literary Review, Emerson Review, Hobart, Barely South Review, and Emrys Journal.

COLOSSAL LOSSES

by Timothy Kercher

The Soviet monument symbolising historic ties between ex-Soviet Ukraine and Russia being dismantled in Kyiv on April 26, 2022.

Today I read that Russian

casualties are colossal, Latin

for larger than life,

the Romans using the word

to describe the statue of Helios

in the harbor at Rhodes,

a term now used to describe

abounding death, the day before

a colossal eight meter-tall Soviet

-era statue of two men

representing Russia and Ukraine

holding a banner of friendship

was taken down, the heads

rolling right off in the middle 

of Kyiv, where, in the surrounding

towns, colossal losses

were suffered, larger than life

numbers of dead civilians

strewn in the streets, add 

to this the soldiers on

both sides, the mass 

casualties on the eastern 

front in the cities, apartments, 

theaters, schools, hospitals eclipsed 

by heavy artillery, the war's

collective losses larger

than a toppled statue depicting

friendship, larger still

than a statue of the sun god.

Timothy Kercher lives in southwestern Colorado with his family and teaches on the Navajo Nation. He has lived much of his adult life overseas, including time in Ukraine, Republic of Georgia, Bosnia, Mongolia and Mexico. His essays, poetry, and translations have appeared in many literary journals including Crazyhorse, Plume, Ruminate, Guernica, and Quiddity.

WHEN JESUS TOOK A KNEE

by Alejandro Escudé

When Jesus took a knee
beside the palm tree
and the Romans there
paused, gulped the air,
no one could believe
Pontius Pilate’s decree
that all those who
did the same, who
took a knee as Jesus
did, those dividing us,
meaning the Romans,
should be treated as
traitors to the empire
and be set on fire
or hung upon a cross
which is cut of cypress.

A vision was bestowed
to those alive, glowed
a white H upon a field,
with a ball, oval-shaped,
alighting over the center
emitted by a gladiator
below, a ball or a skull,
one couldn’t really tell
but watched it soar high
as a crowd sprang nigh
to cheer the spectacle,
the human-like tentacle,
a wingspan to the bars
and then the long limbs,
finally the head, eyes
like blackened starlight,
the man hanging there
for all to witness, bare
save for a shoulder pad
nimble and heavy, a hood
red-gold, an eagle spread,
a man who cried, bled.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.