HOW TO MAKE THE RICH EVEN RICHER

an American Senryu

by William Aarnes

The companies making billions from the Iran war. —BBC, May 8, 2026

Declare war (well, don’t).  

Declare doubtful cease-fire deals.  

Declare losses wins.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

MORNING IN THE APARTMENT, MARCH 2025

by William Aarnes

After Jane Kenyon’s “Afternoon in the House”

This morning’s news has been nothing

but reports of mean-spirited wrong

after misguided wrong—pardons, tariffs,

layoffs, threatened arrests, betrayals.

There’s no hope of a quiet day.

.

We know, though, how the world works—

our dog, who once had a whole backyard

to herself, worriedly snuggles   

next to me on my reading chair.

More carefree, our Christmas cactus

seems healthy, blooming again in March,

every cladode ending in a blossom or bud.

The moving company had refused

to assume responsibility

for keeping the cactus alive on the haul

from South Carolina to Manhattan.

It was at least as old as our daughter

and way older than our dog,

so we couldn’t desert it.

We paid a graduate student

who was driving to a conference in Boston

to deliver it at the curb.

In its pot the plant is so heavy

we’d bought a special tote to lug it

through the lobby to the elevator.

It now sits in its west-facing window,

happy, a show-off content with its home.

We don’t know what it thinks of the news

but it won’t object to hearing a poem.

Nor will the dog, though for her there’s a better pick

than Roethke’s “The Meadow Mouse.”

So I’ll choose something by Kenyon,

good as this morning’s sunlight,

comforting as memories of a fenced-in yard,    

healthy as the hope of enduring

whatever else is going to go wrong,

a bud of a poem flourishing out loud—

a poem about settling in,

though we worry we should move again.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

THE JOB INTERVIEW

by William Aarnes

AI graphic by NightCafe for The New Verse News

Want a Job in the Trump Administration? Be Prepared for the Loyalty Test. —The New York Times, December 7, 2024

The dinner was ample, pretty good,

the service obviously obsequious.

I had the third-best seat in the room,

at his table, just to his left, Musk on his right,

Melania nowhere in sight. He kept telling me

I was ideal for the office he had in mind.

I kept saying I’d do whatever he’d want.

How often did I repeat, “Just say the word”?

I heard myself echoing, “Got to innovate... got to disrupt...

got to get the government out of everybody’s way.”

Kind of glad I told that joke about my wife.

He didn’t laugh but showed his teeth.

I was all deference, nodding my head,

mumbling, “It would be an honor,”  

as he listed the scores I’d help him settle,

all the haters I’d help him put in jail.

He was pleased with himself, telling me again

I was the top guy for getting the government  

out of everybody’s way. Before turning back to Musk,

he said he was sure that I’d enjoy dessert.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

THE DEMOCRATS' POST-MORTEM 2024

by William Aarnes

Graphic credit: Eniola Odetunde  Axios

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

What tactic worked? Beyoncé’s walk-on song?

We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

Resentful people rule. So why inflame

them more with hopeful talk they hear as wrong?    

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

You’d think by now we’d play a better game.    

Why hint at climate? Why not go along—

back fossil fuels? We have ourselves to blame.

The ads we ran were far too nice. So tame.

Why not something like Haitians don’t belong?

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

Our nuanced stances came across as lame.    

Why didn’t we present ourselves as strong  

enough to bring—in days!—world peace? We’re to blame.

Next time let’s make attracting men our aim.

Why didn’t we bring up that golfer’s schlong?

That shamelessness could triumph is our shame.  

We have nobody but ourselves to blame.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

GARBAGE

by William Aarnes

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

             persona sin valor

I like to imagine

a Puerto Rican mother

who, despite herself, caught

one of those rolls

of paper towel

tossed into the crowd

with utter contempt.

She’s kept it, the plastic

wrapper still intact,

atop her refrigerator,

a trophy to remind her

what the word useless—

inútil—means.

Some day, she hopes—

ella espera!—

she’ll feel free

to ball it up,

hoja tras hoja sucia,

and light a fire

to celebrate—

por fin! por fin!—

the tosser’s loss.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

FEMA AND MY DEAD PARENTS

by William Aarnes

FEMA was authorized in 1979

 

Lately, it seems raging storms have gotten worse

and the news about people hunting FEMA agents

has me thinking of my parents, my father

dead six years before FEMA got funded,

my mother dead ten years after FEMA

began helping clean up Love Canal.

My mother voted Republican.

My father voted Democrat.

                        

When our house blew away in 1957,

FEMA didn’t exist, so my parents

                              

had no thought of receiving $750

to help them recover from our loss.

The window wells filled in a millisecond.

Lifted out of the garage, the Bel Air landed in the front yard.

Somehow the piano stood alone in the living room.

Only my bedroom retained all its walls.

                              

Neighbors we barely knew and lived

—their home untouched—a block away

offered a place to sleep (as if my parents slept).

The day after a volunteer van arrived, women

dressed as nurses offering to sell

egg-salad sandwiches. I was ten

and now don’t recall how long

it took my parents to contact

their insurance agent. The tornado

left us little. Picking through debris

my parents laughed empty laughs.

They could do nothing else but rent

an apartment while having our home rebuilt.

They could have used $750

(or whatever the equivalent

might have been back then). My mother

would have hated taking a “handout”

but would have claimed a little extra

as “rightfully” ours. My father

would have diligently filled out the forms

to apply for any additional funds

a federal agency might grant

to help cover some of any shortfall.

My mother, worried about her brothers’ farms,

continued to vote Republican. My father, in favor

of teachers’ unions, kept on voting Democrat.

If alive now, my mother wouldn’t understand

the telling and repeating of hateful lies.  

If alive, my father wouldn’t mind, too much,

being told he tends to condescend.

My mother would now vote for candidates

who support tax breaks for small businesses.

My father would vote for candidates

who support improving ventilation in every school.

They’d agree to give something to Planned Parenthood.

There’s rubble and there’s rubble; they’d agree

to contribute to the children in the Ukraine and Gaza.

They’d worry about where best to donate hurricane relief.

My parents would have welcomed FEMA’s help.

But lately, it seems, raging storms have gotten worse.

William Aarnes lived in Fargo, North Dakota in 1957. He now lives in Manhattan.

LEAFLET

by William Aarnes

Imagine yourself old enough

to have survived Operations

Cast Lead and Protective Edge.

 

Imagine a fellow refugee

            videoing flyers drifting

down from a blue sky,

 

then focusing on you

            as you pick up a leaflet

                        at once a plea for news

 

about pictured hostages

            and an implicit warning

                        that soon your current shelter

 

will be demolished by bombs.

Imagine knowing the world

can see what’s happening.

 

Imagine knowing the world

keeps failing to react.

Imagine your dulled terror,  

 

your bewildered loyalty,

your desperate rage.

Imagine your aimless trek.

 

Imagine your imagining

there’s somewhere to go

where the flyers

 

won’t drift down again

to tell you to keep moving.

Imagine the leaflet

 

as one of the keepsakes

            that will give purpose

to your children’s lives.   

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.  For perspective he recommends Norman C. Finkelstein's Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.

AMERICAN SENRYU: FRAMED DIPLOMAS ON THE WALL

by William Aarnes

Despite PhDs,

administrators will fail

the test of protest.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

THE DREAD

by William Aarnes

 after reading Stanley’s Kunitz’s translations of Anna Akhmatova

        for the contributors to The New Verse News

“He’s Threatened To Put Them In Jail”: Joe Biden Tells Katie Couric That Journalists Have Told Him Of Their Fears If Donald Trump Returns To White House —Deadline, February 22, 2024

Of course, they will jail

the journalists first

 

but the time will come

when you will pass your days

aware that the authorities

are letting you live

a circumscribed life,  

 

a couple of years

of the woman at the window  

of the apartment across the street

always fixing a stare

on you when you draw

your curtains open 

an intimidating reminder

that whatever you do

on your cell and laptop

is under surveillance,

your movements tracked,

 

a then two, three years in,

impossible to miss,

the agents in the parked car

always quick to get out

to openly follow you,

one just a few steps

above you on the escalator

and never standing more

than four people away

on a crowded subway,

you beginning to wish

you dared to confront them

with your puzzlement

about how much they are paid,

 

the time at last coming

when, one of your shadows

sipping coffee four tables away,

a dear friend will fail

to show for the lunch     

where you planned to lie

that you are too scared

to write any more poems,

not even in your head,

 

your friend not responding

to texts, you lingering

over your salad, dreading

the escorted ride home.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

HURRY

by William Aarnes

Bird populations are declining — a staggering loss of 3 billion breeding adults, or nearly 30 percent of the population, in just a half century. —The Washington Post, January 17, 2024

Say, in your hurry,

you fail to notice

 

that the flocks of doves

and sparrows are gone

 

from the sidewalks—

until a ding on your phone

 

distracts you from work

with the news that all

 

the doves and sparrows

are gone from the city,

 

no sign of where they went,

the searches for stragglers

 

having come to nothing,

the mayor expressing

 

his worry about what

their sudden disappearance

 

might portend, birdseed

scattered everywhere

 

to no avail, many

quoted as saying

 

the loss improves

the city, many responding

 

with angry lament,

hours spent online

 

finding the best videos

of cooing and belatedly

 

learning to distinguish

different kinds of sparrows,

 

then as time passes

the ongoing debate

 

about what to do

becoming of less

 

and less concern

to you and everyone else

 

in a hurry…

William Aarnes lives in New York.

CAN WE SEE THE SUN?

by William Aarnes

Beth and I are wearing masks

and, as can happen on the subway,

 

the unmasked man across the aisle

raises his voice to everyone

 

in the car to tell us that wearing masks

and getting vaccines just shows

 

we’re brainwashed by the “slime”

of lies told by the government

 

and the media.  We’ve been tricked

into believing all kinds of fictions.

 

“Take the sun,” he says, his voice

rising.  “Yes, take the goddamned sun.

 

You’re telling me you can see something

that’s ninety-three million miles away?

 

Anyone who thinks for himself knows

his eyes can’t see that far! You’d need

 

a Hubble, though that Hubble’s

just another made-up lie. Anyone

 

who’s reasonable and thinks for himself

knows he’s not seeing the sun. Read

 

your Plato and stop looking up

at the useless sky. Don’t listen

 

to those swindlers that are telling you

any different. And stop going along

 

with the idea that something invisible

can make you sick. Or just go ahead.

 

I don’t give a damn. Why would anyone               

give a damn? You’re all just pathetic!” 

As we leave the train, we don’t dare

wish him well—what would he do?—

though we want to. Beth and I wear

our masks the two blocks home.

It’s a gloomy afternoon, light rain.

And the first thing I do in the door

is—trusting the internet—open my laptop

to look up the diameter of the sun.

Then how much light the sun gives off—

enough, I’m told, to leave you blind.

William Aarnes lives in New York.  He worries about what the conservative response to COVID has done to our thinking about public health.  And yesterday his appointment to get a COVID booster was cancelled because the pharmacy had yet to receive its supply.