TRAVEL ADVISORY

by Shalmi Barman

"A visa is not a right. It's a privilege," [US Secretary of State Marco] Rubio said on Tuesday. Trump administration officials have said student visa and green card holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel's conduct in the war on Gaza, calling their actions a threat to U.S. foreign policy and accusing them of being pro-Hamas. —Reuters, May 21, 2025

The State Department has told U.S. consulates and embassies to immediately begin reviewing the social media accounts of Harvard’s student visa applicants for antisemitism in what it called a pilot program that could be rolled out for colleges nationwide. —Politico, May 30, 2025

Counselors who work with foreign students eager to attend college in the U.S. are advising them to purge their social media accounts of posts that could attract the attention of U.S. State Department officials. —CBS News, May 39, 2025

To demonstrate that I don’t pose a threat,
I strip the stickers from my laptop case,
purge the Kindle reader, ctrl-shift-del
my browsing history as if the past
two, ten, eighty years had never been.
 
We’re experts here at inoffensiveness,
smalltalk savants, the brightest and the best
arriving on these shores to earn our keep,
inflate the GDP and pay our dues—
the price of entry to the winners’ club—
in labor, taxes, learned neutrality.
 
A privilege, not a right. In Khan Younis
the going rate for a sack of gritty rice
exceeds my weekly wage. Faucets frothing
overrun my glass. A legless child
plucks maggots from his wounds. I sink a knife
deep in the turkey, utter ritual thanks
for innocence far from the blasted plains
of Gaza, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon…
 
Purpose of visit? To become just like you,
I want to tell the agent matching my name
against a neutered profile. To shop at Target
on the Fourth of July, pledging allegiance
like a marriage vow. For this I stand in line,
bereft of fluids, jacket, shoes, and shame,
not-thinking of checkpoints a world away,
asking smilingly how much? how high?


Shalmi Barman is a South Asian national, a holder of a student visa, and a newly minted PhD. She spent several years at the University of Virginia writing a dissertation on class and labor in Victorian fiction, and doing other things that would likely be deportable offenses today. Her poetry has previously appeared in The New Verse News and also recently in Boudin, Blue Unicorn, EcoTheo Review, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere.

WHAT KIND OF TIMES ARE THESE?

by Bonnie Naradzay

Israel has grandiosely labeled its latest genocidal move "Operation Gideon's Chariots" wherein, moving from siege to seizure, it plans the bloody conquest, ethnic cleansing, and permanent recolonization of Gaza, using the rhetoric of holy war to justify unholy mass destruction - this, even as many of the Palestinian children who've somehow survived their savage 18 months of carnage now slowly starve to death. Photo: Osama Al-Raqab, 6, is one of tens of thousands of Gazan children slowly starving. Screenshot from NBC. —Common Dreams, May 6, 2025

What kind of times are these,
asked Brecht, when a conversation 
about trees is almost a crime 
because it entails a silence about 
so many misdeeds!  And so
is it fitting to converse about
the ephemeral cherry blossoms
that graced the Tidal Basin trees.?
Elected felons spout obscenities. 
“Have you no sense of decency,” 
someone finally asked McCarthy.
I have grown numb to incivilities. 
The Slaughter of the Innocents
continues again without a pause,
since Israel broke the ceasefire
two months ago and halted
all food, water, and medicine.
Yet people here are arrested
and deported for decrying 
the deliberate slaughter
and starvation of the people
of Gaza, the burning of tents 
in “safe zones” where 
the displaced are sleeping.
Israel calls its war crimes
“Operation Gideon’s Chariots.”
What kind of times are these?
Yesterday, and again today,
for those still counting, 
Israel detonated drones 
and US-made bunker bombs 
in Gaza, killing over 100 
people each day; and 27 
children were said to have 
starved to death already today 
you could count all their ribs 
in these dark times
when we cannot see
the forest for the trees.

Bonnie Naradzay’s manuscript will be published this year by Slant Books.  For years, she has led weekly poetry sessions at homeless shelters and a retirement community.  Poems, three of which have been nominated for Pushcarts, have appeared in AGNI, New Letters, RHINO, Tampa Review, EPOCH, Dappled Things, and other places. While at Harvard she was in Robert Lowell’s class on “The King James Bible as English Literature.” In 2010 she was awarded the University of New Orleans Poetry Prize – a month’s stay in Northern Italy – in the South Tyrol castle of Ezra Pound’s daughter Mary.  There, Bonnie had tea with Mary, hiked the Dolomites, and read drafts of Pound’s translations. 

DOWN-SIDE-UP AND BACK-ASSWARDS

by Jennifer M Phillips

Bali's Tanah Lot temple being sucked down a sinkhole: AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Bali's Tanah Lot temple being sucked down a sinkhole: AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Jakarta (ANTARA) January 31, 2025 - Indonesia's special envoy for climate change and energy, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, said he considers the Paris Agreement no longer relevant for Indonesia following the US withdrawal from the deal. "If the United States does not want to comply with the international agreement, why should a country like Indonesia comply with it?" he asked at the ESG Sustainable Forum 2025 in Jakarta on Friday.

Today in the tabloids Indonesia is leaving Paris,
so many broken hearted occlusions
across the ways we fixed to meet.
Sports news has coined negative milestones.
I’m picturing
monuments earth sucks down like sinkholes
swallowing minivans. Drilling down
in our former refuge. Ignoring
acceleration
of ice-melt, diminishing aquifers, displaced bergs,
and this is just our warm-up act, witnessing
the double un-tundra.
Wondering if this might be the ending
of the beginning?

A much-published bi-national immigrant, gardener, Bonsai-grower, painter, Jennifer M Phillips has lived in five states, two countries, and now, with gratitude, in Wampanoag ancestral land on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her chapbooks: Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity (i-blurb.com, 2020) and A Song of Ascents (Orchard Street Press, 2022), and Sailing To the Edges (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming 2025). Two of Phillips' poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her collection is Wrestling With the Angel (forthcoming, Wipf & Stock)

OVERLOOKED VICES

by Philip Kitcher

“We have a vice president who is the least admired, least respected, and the worst vice president in the history of our country.” —Donald Trump’s lie at a press conference, August 8, 2024

Villains who drew a Vice-President’s salary?

Wander with me through an infamous gallery.
 
Dubya’s chief deputy, kindred of Vader –
Swap him for Kamala? Why would we trade her?
 
Spiro T. Agnew, indicted offender, he
Ended up pleading a nolo contendere.
 
Spiro was Vice to a Prez with a record:
Nixon’s own Veephood was… shall we say “Checkered”?
 
So many cases: Trump’s judgment’s a mystery –
So many scoundrels abound in our history.
 
How could he quell the desire to impugn
Militant slavers like John C. Calhoun?
 
Was it repression? Or was there a reason?
Secret respect for the Breckinridge treason?
 
Does he forget his self-righteous offense?
“Traitors must hang!  We should spare no ex-Pence!”
 
Flippant accuser, their peer in his felony,
Blind to the crimes of a shady miscellany!

 
Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years.  His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

RED LINE

by Lynn White

Thousands circle White House to demand Biden enforce Gaza “red line.” Demonstrators said that if President Biden would not draw a “red line” after Israeli forces began an assault on Rafah, they would draw the red line for him. —The Washington Post, June 8, 2024

It was thin at first,

the line of blood

hardly a trickle

easily crossed

though visibly

to those paying attention.

But with each crossing it widened

a stream bleeding out into a river

and then a sea

bleeding out

from the river to the sea

stronger and stronger

wider and wider

every crossing

widening it.

Making a line that can never be crossed

however many times it is crossed

its crossing becomes impossible.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

OUR ENEMIES SUTRA

by Laurence Musgrove

AI generated graphic from Shutterstock

This evening, the Buddha and I 

sat and scrolled through our phones

before retiring for the night.

I read to him about the latest

retaliation strikes in Syria and Iraq,

and he read to me about our deportation

flights of refugees deep into Mexico

designed to discourage their return

and the hopes of those now streaming

to our razor-wired border.

“It was Thich Nhat Hanh,” he said,

“who wrote our enemies are not people,

but our ideologies, fears, and attachments

to views that justify our ignorance

of cause and effect with absolutely

no guarantee of freedom or peace.

The fires we spread always burn us, too.”

Laurence Musgrove is the author of three poetry collections Local Bird, The Bluebonnet Sutras, and A Stranger's Heart. He teaches creative writing and literature from a Buddhist perspective at Angelo State University in West Texas.

BLEEDING

by Mykyta Ryzhykh 

All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday. All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday. —Reuters, December 10, 2022

Today, we are imposing sanctions on three Russian entities connected to Moscow’s growing military relationship with Tehran – a relationship that includes the transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from Iran. The Kremlin is deploying these UAVs against Ukraine, including in large-scale attacks on civilian infrastructure. —US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, December 10, 2022

while the metal birds of death 

want to peck out our eyes 

 

bald eagle of flesh and blood 

flies towards winter

 

frosts are not terrible for 

those who are bleeding

Mykyta Ryzhykh from Ukraine (Nova Kakhovka Citу). Winner of the “Art Against Drugs” international competition. Published in the journals Dzvin, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route , Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press.

CHESS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

by Claire Matturro

We ran and jumped and bounced

over monkey bars in sandy school yards

then raced inside at the bell’s

shrill scream and covered our heads

as we crouched beneath wooden

desks that smelled of crayons and

fruit punch while outside

the open jalousie windows

cardinals and mockingbirds sang

their sweet wild songs

as soulless men hid

missiles in Cuban silos and

played chess with the end of the world

but we didn’t worry

because we were seven

and our mothers stockpiled

food and juice in pantries

and our fathers turned

the TV low so not to wake us.

 

We ran and jumped and lobbed

volley balls in sandy school yards

and the slap of leather against

our hands made us laugh

while soulless men

tested nuclear bombs and

played chess with the end of the world

but we didn’t care

because we were thirteen

and besides one of us had

a left-over bomb shelter

in her broad backyard where

we once played dolls and drank

canned juices from stockpiles

hidden behind concrete and steel.

 

I no longer run or jump and

the sandy school yard is silent

with pandemic and children gone

inside and the bomb shelter

long traded for a swimming pool

and its stockpiled juices tossed

into landfills yet soulless men still

play chess with the end of the world

as troops mass at borders and

the hurricane which will find

me in my glass house

breeds silently in melting ice

and the oil keeps flowing and

the coal keeps burning and

the missiles stockpiled in places

where children hide

their heads under thin arms

guarantee the collateral damage

we’ve learned to turn away from

as cardinals and mockingbirds

go quiet in the world outside my windows.

Claire Matturro has been a journalist, a lawyer, and a legal writing teacher at Florida State University and University of Oregon. She is the author of seven novels, including a legal thriller series published by HarperCollins, and is the co-author of a recent novel. She is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and lives in Florida.

A HEART FROM UKRAINE

by Mel Cápec

BBC Photo January 26, 2022

In a tweet today, poet Ilya Kaminsky reminds us: “People say Ukraine is on the brink of war with Russia. That is not entirely accurate: Ukraine is *already* at war with Russia. Parts of Ukraine are occupied by Russia since 2014. A piece I did at that time might give some context & introduce new poems.”

“Will Russia invade?”

“They better not.”

I now live abroad, far away from the front.

 

They talk about my country,

I try to act calm

I feel like they always forget where I’m from.

 

My classmates are angry,

they say they’re afraid…

I don’t think they get it, it can’t be explained.

 

I’m scared for my friends

who live in Ukraine –

we’re over 18 now, hope they won’t see war terrain.

 

Tensions are rising,

US sends lethal aid.

It’s gonna be bad, my heart is dismayed.

Mel Cápec is an 18-year-old emerging queer writer. She moved to the Czech Republic from Ukraine. She is now a high school student and would like to pursue a degree in journalism.

I SHOULD BE ABLE TO WRITE A PROTEST POEM

by Margaret Rozga

Cartoon by Steve Sack, Star Tribune, July 7, 2021

I should be able to write a poem

about Afghani interpreters being given asylum

or rather not being given asylum, being dangled

the delicate hope of asylum for whatever that is worth.

 

Asylum acquired narrow connotations

as in insane asylum, not a refuge

but a silencing, an abandoning.

 

I should be able to write

with the insistent beat of a heart on fire,

the passion of Whitman’s barbaric yelp,

the precision of an accountant

totaling the debt to be repaid.

 

Airlift Afghani allies to the Field Station

where I write of black-eyed susans

counting their thirteen brilliant petals

flower after flower, utterly dependable.

 

We should. I should. What is power for?

What are words for?

 

If they do not set deeds in motion,

if they do not celebrate good,

if they do not open up space,

if they allow moral failure

if they do not uncover names

of the unnamed who throw up

obstacles to justice,

        then

be forever silent.

 

As 2019-2020 Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Margaret Rozga co-edited the anthology Through This Door: Wisconsin in Poems (Art Night Books, 2020) and the chapbook anthology On the Front Lines / Behind the Lines (pitymilkpress, 2021). Her fifth book of poems is Holding My Selves Together: New and Selected Poems (Cornerstone Press, 2021).

RELATIVE RIGHTS

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Graphic by Brian Stauffer to accompany The Washington Post editorial “Mohammed bin Salman is guilty of murder. Biden should not give him a pass.”

Jamal Khashoggi has been killed

for a third time. The first killing

happened just before a bonesaw

shaved his bones in the Saudi

consulate in Istanbul after

he had been kicked, stabbed,

dismembered. The second killing

took place during the show trial

in a Saudi high court, which led

to three acquittals, three prison

terms, five men condemned

to death. Described as foot

soldiers in the murder, not

the masterminds who got off

free, the five were pardoned

later at the behest of Khashoggi's

children. Now, Khashoggi,

father, journalist, betrothed—

remember he visited

the consulate to sign papers

regarding his new love,

impending marriage--

is killed again, this time

by friendly fire. The US

government has decided

that the special relationship,

the oil, the wars in the region,

preclude any punishment

for the crime. The Crown

Prince who ordered

the killing of the scribe

will remain free to engage

the US and any other

government he wishes. Where

do the scales break down?

Why does Jamal Khashoggi's

memory get sawed again,

and how can we live with

our failure to condemn abuse

everywhere, every time?

Indran Amirthanayagam writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. He has 19 poetry books, including The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and Sur l'île nostalgique (L'Harmattan, 2020). In music, he recorded Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, is a columnist for Haiti en Marche, won the Paterson Prize, and is a 2020 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts fellow.

TRAGEDY IN [...]

by Devon Balwit

Lebanese security forces confronted protesters during clashes in downtown Beirut on Saturday, following a demonstration against political leaders blamed for a deadly explosion in the city. Credit: Agence France-Presse—Getty Images via The New York Times, August 9, 2020

The United States is becoming like Lebanon and other Middle East countries in two respects. First, our political differences are becoming so deep that our two parties now resemble religious sects in a zero-sum contest for power. They call theirs “Shiites and Sunnis and Maronites” or “Israelis and Palestinians.” We call ours “Democrats and Republicans,” but ours now behave just like rival tribes who believe they must rule or die. And second, as in the Middle East, so increasingly in America: Everything is now politics—even the climate, even energy, even face masks in a pandemic. 

—Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, August 9, 2020

How does a city fall, how does a nation?
A raft of catastrophe floats in & is lashed
to a bollard & then forgotten, pleas for attention
ignored or handed on, fears quashed

beneath derision. Those at the helm creep
away in the dark after pocketing what they can.
Those who cannot leave tremble at the seep
of decay & instability, hoping to withstand

the blast that finally comes. Many won’t.
Their names will be added to a list, misspelled,
the list lost, their ashes scattered amidst
a hundred thousand livelihoods propelled

into calamity. Then, blistering recrimination
& grim survivors doing what must be done.


Devon Balwit's most recent collection is titled A Brief Way to Identify a Body (Ursus Americanus Press). Her individual poems can be found in here as well as in Jet Fuel, The Worcester Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, Apt (long-form issue), Tule Review, Grist, and Rattle among others.

DELIVERY

by J. D. Smith

Yemeni children vent anger against Riyadh and Washington as they take part in a mass funeral for the 40 children killed in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition last week. Photograph: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian

“US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus” 

—The Guardian, August 19, 2018

At this late date I have accepted
how the rain falls on the just and the unjust,
as does the air-dropped ordnance.

The downpours’ frequency still eludes me.

Another front, another deluge
far from page one, that is,
far from its readers, and we
might ask “What in the actual hell?”
except that it is already on display
by way of a blasted bus and limbs distanced
from their shattered frames.

What’s left of the means is marked
as coming from my country,
yet I don’t remember being asked
if I wanted to contribute, as if many would
outside of an alternate universe
where a collection might be taken up
as for flowers to send a co-worker
in the hospital, such as can no longer aid
those counted in the story.
Instead of “Best wishes” or “Get well soon”
the card might read “Thinking of you”.

J. D. Smith's fourth collection, The Killing Tree, was published in 2016, and he has received a Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. His other books include the essay collection Dowsing and Science and the children's picture book The Best Mariachi in the World. Smith lives and works in Washington, DC.

ISIL OR ISIS OR ISLAMIC STATE

by Patsy Asuncion

Image source: Aljazeera

One can be a brother only in something.

Where there is no tie that binds men,

men are not united but merely lined up.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

no matter the tag, they’re Sunnis who hate  
Shiites who dominate the Iraqi state
since Hussein departed in ‘03
"helped" by US-defined democracy.

Concerns from Mid-East neighbors,
resistance a flop since US departure –
weapons seized from fleeing soldiers,
relics smashed in the promised land
oil fields reclaimed in beat-up Iran.

ISIS eyes Syria since Assad is Alawite,
a heretic because of his ties to Shiites.
Syrian Sunnis fight to oust him
with money from Saudi Arabia, Jordan,
Emirates, Egypt, even Bahrain.

Assad fights back with his mob of brothers,
Hezbollah – holy Shiite terrorists and others.
Yes, Lebanon’s faithful kill one Sunni, another.
Then Shiite Iran’s top weapons are given
for Iraq is seen as birthplace of religion.

Are you getting this straight? Do I need to conjugate?
And what’s official position of the United States?
Obama, now Trump, decries weapons of mass destruction
(seems we’ve heard this in yet another’s election).
He wants no nukes and stable oil production,

no threats to Jews or Christians with destruction
despite Republicans heating Israeli relations.
Netanyahu came to curse nuke negotiations
with Iran, much to Obama’s aggravation.
Is fight in our nation like Islamic coalitions?

Weighing terrorist bloodshed of innocents,
what can be done to prevent more incidents?
Seeing more inter-Muslim murders a day,
should we let Allah sort it out his way
as Palin retorted, and stay out of the fray?


Patsy Asuncion’s 2016 debut poetry collection Cut on the Bias depicts her world from the slant of a bi-racial child raised by an immigrant father and WWII vet. Indiana University’s Spirit this spring, The New York Times, Prevention Magazine, vox poetica, Cutthroat Journal, Snapdragon, Loyola’s The Truth About the Fact, Reckless Writing and others feature Patsy’s writings. The only local female emcee, Patsy promotes diversity through her open mic (6900+ YouTube views) and local initiatives, e.g., Women of Color, International Mother Language Day and International Women’s Day events.

FIFTY-FIVE DEGREES

by Laura Rodley

USA Today

What do I do, what can I do,
in the face of global warming?
I paint my house, cover holes,
burn less oil, wear sweaters,
give praise for the fifty degrees
to get one more coat of paint on
before we’re clobbered with snow,
give thanks for the large moth
that slept by my doorway last night,
forgetting how to knock,
all moths welcome, birch moths,
lunas, crecopias, though not
clothes moths; I climb on the roof,
slather paint like shaving cream
on the face of my house, work it
in, lubricate each cedar siding board,
hoping such a shield will require less oil,
hoping for peace on earth,
hoping Santa will find his way
in the dark with no snow to reflect
the light of his lanterns.


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

AT A CONCERT BEFORE THANKSGIVING

by David Chorlton

Security forces stood guard on Rue des Bouchers, a street famous for its restaurants, on Monday in Brussels. Credit Stephanie Lecocq/European Pressphoto Agency via NY Times, Nov. 23, 2015

What happens far away
is audible in the pause
between movements:
                  the silence
of a transit system stilled, the rustling
curtains when somebody looks out
at troops in the street, asking
       does anyone appear suspicious?
              does anyone not?
The world stretched taut as a wire
ready to snap,
            ready to snap,
with cities shut down
and the news ticker telling us
to stay calm,
           stay calm,
the bomb is in our minds,
and it is,
      where nobody knows
               how to defuse it.


David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications on- and off-line, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His most recent book, A Field Guide to Fire, is his contribution to the 2015 Fires of Change exhibition in Flagstaff, Arizona.

BIBI BLUSTERS

by Charles Frederickson





I scream for eye cream
Bibi risking US – Israeli relations
On partisan politics dangerously revolting
Insulting Ugly American mental floss

Vainella unilateral Bibi sitter bluster
Insolence impudence impertinence arrogance dance
Butter toasted butt-out pee-can
Stinging cheeky slap in faceoff

While Obama opposed invasion costing
Trillion greenbacks thousands of lives
Creating geopolitical ballyhooed wink debacle
Bibi championed Iraqi Road invasion

Washington DCeit caramel knowledge poisonalities
Cabana Oreo banana Obama split
Cheery cherry Kerry no-go-tiation pits
Caramel kvetch chutzpah Nutty-Yahoo

Imagine Whirled Peace froZEN meltdown
Never too shockolate yo-yogurt
Game of cones no surebert
Why can’t we be friends


Dr. Charles Frederickson has been a regular contributor to The New Verse News since 2006.

POTASSIUM CHLORIDE

by David Chorlton

(CNN) -- A double murderer was executed in Florida Wednesday night, becoming the third man put to death in an American prison during a 24-hour period. All three died by lethal injection.

A gurney stands still on its wheels
beneath a square of light intense enough
to reveal a human soul.
The floor is polished so clean
it floats from wall
to unblemished wall.
There’s a pillow,
freshly cleaned, and straps
no grief could ever break
to contain the spasms
when the clock shows time
coming to an end.
A neatly-typed protocol
describes every step
from cooking the final meal
to escorting witnesses away,
but has nothing to say for an instance
of the cocktail’s failure,
as if it had been written for a firing squad
and could not describe a dead man
spitting bullets out.


David Chorlton came to Arizona in 1978 after living in England and Austria. He has spent more than three decades stretched between cultures and writing poetry, the pick of which has just appeared as his Selected Poems, from FutureCycle Press.