SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

by Lynn White

A Scottish pro-Palestine activist is facing charges for “threatening and abusive behaviour” after reading a poem about children killed by Israel. Bill Williamson, 74, said he had been at a weekly Palestine vigil outside Dunoon Burgh Hall on July 4 when he was approached by a pair of police officers while he was reading out “Don’t Mention The Children” by the Jewish writer Michael Rosen through a megaphone. —The National (Scotland), July 19, 2026

Poets are dangerous.

Naming the dead 

leads to arrest.

The killing 

of some,

by some

is fine,

unlike

the threatening

nature

of reading a poem.

And the unmentionables,

the nameless

children,

must suffer silently.

Poets are ‘The Brave’

in Scotland today.

Poetry is dangerous.

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.

OBITUARY FOR WOMEN WHO STOP TRAFFIC

by Mary K O'Melveny

Cora Weiss, who was active for more than half a century in support of gender equality, international peace, the anti-Vietnam War movement, civil rights and nuclear disarmament, and who helped organize some of the most important mass demonstrations of the 1960s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 91. —The New York Times, December 8, 2025

          For Cora Rubin Weiss (1934-2025)

 

Women Strike For Peace detected

Strontium 90 in newborn’s teeth,

food, air, water. Filled Central Park

with a million activists for 

nuclear disarmament.

Pedestrian gridlock stilled horns,

thrilled peace advocates everywhere.

Atomic tests were later banned.

 

Later, Cora chaired justice protests,

led the New Mobilization 

Committee to end the American 

War in Vietnam. She carried signs:

Not Our Sons. Not Your Sons as she

pursued Pentagon bigwigs, garbed in

pearls, high heels, demanding war’s end. 

Hundreds of thousands followed her there.

 

Traffic came to a stop when she 

lay down on Park Avenue with 

her resistance sisters, each one

bearing names of  Vietnamese 

dead by US guns, bombs, napalm. 

She ferried letters from Hanoi

POWs to home and back.

Carried hopes, parried criticism.

 

Mentored by Eleanor Roosevelt

as a girl. In college, she met,

married Peter, a civil rights 

lawyer activist. Together, 

they fought against bigotry – from

McCarthy to Trump. Cora knew

the key role that women play in

teaching about love, unity.

 

Throughout her life, she stopped traffic-

king of hate. Fought for global peace

education. Fought for humanity.

She never gave up. Never walked 

away from a righteous cause. Never

stayed silent when protest was called

for. Never got up from a roadway

if something remained to fight for.

Editor's note: Peter Weiss died in November 2025 at the age of 99.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired attorney, is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent, If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird, is an album of poems, art and music. Mary’s award-winning poems have appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s collection Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her book Merging Star Hypotheses (2020) was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

POSTSCRIPT TO AN ACTIVIST'S LIFE

by David Chorlton

Unrest #1, a painting by Alyssa Liles-Amponsah

                nobody rich or famous…

                                Richard Shelton

 

The car in the driveway

has barely a pulse

and the windows don’t let in the light.

The palm trees no longer

aspire to the sky

and the garden hose hangs

on a hook.

Something’s eating the house from inside

say the neighbors,

no one answers the door when

they knock. The ceiling gave way

and a bucket of grief

stands under a hole where

time drips day

after day. The telephone’s hoarse

from repeating

I’m sorry I can’t speak now…,

the doorbell plays a dirge

and every minute makes

a tiny splash as it falls

into the unwashed dishes

in the kitchen sink.

 

He brought the border home with him,

unrolled it on the floor,

ran it through the kitchen to

the living room and cut

it into strips to hang instead of curtains

at the windows where a light

shone upon every nationality and exposed

the fault line between the rich

and poor. His trash bin

was filled with tailings from a mine

and every day he emptied it and

every next day it was full

again but he kept emptying. When the nails

fell out from where they held

the world together, he picked them up

to hammer back. Meetings.

Petitions. Meetings. Letters.

Meetings. Always somewhere to be,

to drive across town

on the sweating summer asphalt

with the windows down

to save money for gas.

 

Nobody knows for sure. It was

a mystery. The neighbors didn’t care much

for the man. He kept

largely to himself. Didn’t have a lot

to say. Kept going out, revving up

his car and coming back

then leaving again six

or eight times a day. The lady who lives across

from his house knows; she kept count.

Never really spoke

to him. And he spoke only

when spoken to. He was alone the last

few weeks. Come and go. Feed

the cats. People watched but didn’t know

what they were seeing. Didn’t

ask. Left him alone. And the weeds grew

like secrets in his yard

until one night the moon tipped

on its side, spilling

silver dust onto the moths around it

asking ancient questions

of the passionate light.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix, who continues writing, painting, and keeping track of the local bird life. His newest book is Unmapped Worlds, a collection of rehabilitated poems from his files of the past.

THE WAY PAVER

by Nan Ottenritter

“The Four Justices” by Nelson Shanks at the National Portrait Gallery.

for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

She liked to be inclusive,

provide comfort for everyone,

this woman-loved-by-most

who accomplished-so-much.

She preferred to say way paver over

pioneer-champion-prophet-ballbuster-

activist-change-maker-hero-leader

and I think I know why.

A way paver does not part waters;

she lays paver after paver for the journey ahead.

A way paver does not construct guardrails

but provides traction, focused action.

A way paver builds upon those before,

celebrates those after, serves tea along the way.

And when her journey ends, we sip our warmth,

thankful for this paver’s way. 

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

BERTA CACERES

by Darrell Petska

Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, has been murdered, barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project. Her death prompted international outrage at the murderous treatment of campaigners in Honduras, as well as a flood of tributes to a prominent and courageous defender of the natural world. –The Guardian, March 4, 2016

They come in darkness to kill you,
the cowards,
to kill you because they fear you
or because someone paying them fears you
because your words, sharpened on truth,
have ripped the facade from their villainies.

So they counter with bullets.
In darkness. Because daylight
exposes them for what they are.
The people know rapaciousness when they see it.
Nonetheless, the cowards kill you
as if that will be the end of you.

Now she is dead, they boast.
Her mouth cannot speak,
her body cannot block our path.

But you saw this day coming.
The cowards approaching.
The flash of their bullets.
That part is over. You are dead.
Your body rests in peace.
Now the heart of your work can begin.


Darrell Petska's writing appears in Blast Furnace, The Tule Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Red Paint Hill, previously in TheNewVerse.News, and other publications. Darrell cut short his career as a university editor to be the arbiter of his own words. He now is, in Madison, Wisconsin.