A NIGHTMARE OF COLOR

by Dick Altman

 

 

As reports come out across the country of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining Native Americans, a couple dozen New Mexico lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow tribal citizens to update their state-issued IDs to reflect their enrollment status. House Bill 20 would give people enrolled in a federally recognized tribe the option to request a “distinguishing mark” identifying them as Native American on their driver’s license or other identification cards. A similar law passed in Arizona last year went into effect in January. On a sample license posted online by that state’s Motor Vehicle Division, “Native American” is written on the bottom left side of the card. —New Mexico In Depth, February 12, 2026

Northern New Mexico

In my mind

it begins,

a Pow Wow

of dance,

chant,

drum,

lofting

my Anglo dreams

to heights

of ritual

more ancient

than Columbus.

Despite the festive air,

masked figures,

I don’t

recognize as Native,

badged and holstered,

lurk in the shadows,

beyond

the drum circle—

waiting.

*

I try to sense,

living as I do,

in Indian Country,

what you,

a Native American,

feel like

awakening now

to a face

in the mirror,

that greets

morning’s light,

not with a smile,

but fear

your complexion,

perhaps only a shade

darker than mine,

might find you

in ICE’s

angry grasp,

two steps away

from expulsion.

*

Identity docs,

once sacred sources

of pride,

and connection,

sat vaulted

in your tribal home,

rarely,

if ever,

in need

of exposure,

to the world

outside.

Now,

I’m told,

you dare not leave

the reservation,

without

your paper shields

of origin.

*

Your biggest fear—

how could I not feel

the same—

likely separation

from your children,

an old fear,

dating back

to early last

century,

when federal agents,

as if yesterday,

drag off

Native offspring

to attend

schools,

to acquire

more “whiteness”.

A curriculum

leading often

to forced labor

and early death,

as history’s

numerous

graves attest.

*

I hesitate,

these days,

to stroll

the town square,

birthed

and sustained

by Puebloans

like  yourself,

long before

the arrival

of Europeans.

I reel,

with broken heart,

as ICE grabs you

off the street,

to challenge

your sovereign right,

stretching back

a thousand years,

to call America

home.

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press.  Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 290 poems, published on four continents.

A POLICY STATEMENT FROM HOMELAND SECURITY

by Pepper Trail

US President Donald Trump on Sunday directed federal authorities to ramp up deportation efforts in Democratic-led cities, doubling down on a politicized anti-immigration drive after major protests in Los Angeles. "We must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America's largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. "These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center," he claimed, citing debunked right-wing conspiracy theories that undocumented immigrants are voting in US elections in significant numbers. —AFP News, June 16, 2025

Welcome to the New America
Homeland Security will not be interrupted
Agents stand ready with their zip-ties
See? The Senator is thrown to the floor
 
Homeland Security will not be interrupted
No dissent, no questions are permitted
The Senator is thrown to the floor
Understand? You are powerless. You are all powerless
 
No dissent, no questions are permitted
Every immigrant is “the worst of the worst”
Understand? You are all powerless.
Don’t want the National Guard? Here are the Marines
 
Every immigrant is “the worst of the worst”
Every day laborer, janitor, and nanny—a criminal

Don’t want the National Guard? Here are the Marines
Let’s be clear—there is nothing we won’t do
 
Every day laborer, janitor, and nanny—a criminal
Nowhere is safe—no school, courthouse, or church
There is nothing we won’t do
We have a mandate. You have no rights
 
Nowhere is safe—no school, courthouse, or church
We will take you, and you are gone.
You have no rights. We have a mandate
We will dispose of you as we please
 
Our agents stand ready with their zip-ties
We will take you, and you are gone
We will dispose of your rights as we please
Welcome to the New America
 

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

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.

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.

FOSSIL FUGUE

by Dustin Michael

Researchers in Australia have confirmed the discovery of Australia's largest dinosaur species ever found. Australotitan cooperensis was about 80 to 100 feet long and 16 to 21 feet tall at its hip. It weighed somewhere between 25 and 81 tons. For comparison, the Tyrannosaurus rex was about 40 feet long and 12 feet tall. Photo: Scott Hocknull and Eromanga Natural History Museum Director Robyn Mackenzie hold a model of what the humerus of the dinosaur would have looked like next to the fossilized remains of the humerus. Credit: Eromanga Natural History Museum via NPR,June 8, 2021.

What is the price for a puppet show with 

fewer puppets but more stories? Always 

the same story endlessly staged, 

every age’s marionettes and the same 

tired tale, a shifting cast of shadows 

behind the age-old screen.

Study any desert, and behold 

that same sun blistering their backs,

baking their bodies and bones, the breadcrumbs 

of immigrants, their grim trail markers and that same

the docile plodding rhythm, a drumbeat of footsteps 

from the fossil record ringing through time. 

Here is another variation. 

They walked, shielding their young 

with their own bodies, their necks 

like cracked leather, craned high

toward new skies, the breath

of hunger, thirst, and danger fogging 

each footfall, their scaled feet disturbing 

the dust, scattering already ancient rocks, stale

wind whistling faint melody in the world’s eternal 

fugue.

The news reports these dinosaur bones came 

from creatures as big as basketball courts

whose Patagonian ancestors crossed connected 

continents and arrived in Australia. 

No boats to be turned back, no papers to be denied, 

no armed agents or bureaucratic barriers to halt them—

only land in stretches longer 

than even their tales and necks,

and vengeful heat, and hungry earth

whispering Not to worry, not to worry, 

even if they never find all of your bones

the story of your journey 

will always be retold. 

Faith-based groups are working to protect migrants and honor those who have died while attempting to cross the southern border from Mexico into the United States. Humane Borders is an organization that sets up water stations in the Arizona desert on routes used by migrants to cross the border. The group also works with Pima County chief medical examiner Dr. Gre Hess to document the discovery of bodies of those who died on the journey. According to the Associated Press, Hess's office received the remains of 79 border-crossers this year as of late May. In 2020, Humane Borders documented 227 deaths, the highest in a decade after a record hot and dry summer in Arizona. Activists fear this year will be even worse. —Newsweek, July 5, 2021. Photo: Unidentified bones found in the desert and suspected to be that of a migrant are assembled together for examination at the Pima County Medical Examiner's forensic labs in Tucson, Ariz. Credit: Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press via The Journal, July 5, 2021.

Dustin Michael lives in Georgia and teaches college writing and literature. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and his favorite dinosaur is stegosaurus, not that anyone asked.

INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL

by Stephen Barile

 

Bill told me when he was a boy

Two federal officers and an Indian agent

Came to his parent’s hogan,

 

And against his mother’s will

Put him on a bus with other Navajo boys

He knew and delivered them to Tolatchi.

 

On the bus trip there,

From the window, he kept careful watch

Of the position of the sun

 

In the afternoon sky as a means

To guide him home to Chinle,

He said, pointing to the clouds.

 

Bill moved closer as he bragged,

Navajo were experts at disappearing

quickly and hiding in the vast lands.

 

At Chuska Indian Boarding School

He would be assimilated

Into American culture,

 

Given an American-style haircut,

Dressed in a white child’s clothes,

Forbidden to speak his only language.

 

From the moment he arrived,

He could no longer be an Indian.

They cut off his hair,

 

Forbade singing and dancing.

He waited until dark, then ran

In the direction of his family home.

 

Bill figured he ran south

Near Tse Bonito. At Separate Hill,

A search party nearly captured him.

 

He kept on running in the night

South to Mexican Springs and Nakaibito

At sunrise, he was west of Kinlichee.

 

Over the next two days, he found food

And rested, then ran to Nazlini, then Chinle.

It took him three days to get there.

 

His mother hid him carefully

When Indian agents came around

To check on his whereabouts.

Stephen Barile, a Fresno, California native, educated in the public schools, attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. He was a long-time member of the Fresno Poet's Association. Stephen Barile taught writing at Madera Community College and CSU Fresno. His poems have been published in Featured Poets, Santa Clara Review, Kathmandu Tribune, Tower Poetry, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Rue Scribe, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Metafore Magazine, From Sac Literary Journal, The Heartland Review, Rio Grande Review, The Broad River Review, The San Joaquin Review, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and Pharos, among others journals.

IRON RULE OF DAS DRUMPF TRUMPF FUHRER

by Matthew Scott Harris

Image source: YouTube

Tell me this haint no nightmare, or refashioned twenty first
century episode of the twilight zone from the outer limits
of believability! Reiteration of oft told hankering before
these forty eight contiguous established whirled wide webbed
surveyed enclaves (plus Alaska and Hawaii) wove a tapestry
withal as one benightedly August democratic continent got
trampled, sear suckered, and punched thru with utter jingoism,
narcissism, and racism, activating ramifications radicalizing
homegrown terrorism (where hot pockets of anarchy a minor
threat during last Democratic dénouement), now finds nearly
every citizen righteously bear arms to the teeth, so please do
feel at ease to question me if ye will be so brave of heart to risk
your life and limb to hear mine kempf redolent recitation, when
(by George) bushwhacking days of yore, this generic garden
variety guy revisits (ha, then how populace did quail!) at scant
qualification of post Clinton dynasty, now appears quaint in
retrospect, and my parlaying such opprobrious opinions
condemning, damning, and emasculating current Baby loving
T***p (as aired in this communiqué), could find me punished
for note treason at all in attempt at expression per usurpation of
dereliction against the rubric of our forefathers furtherance for life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness, free trade and TruMark brand
(ye oh man lumpenproletariat feigning deprecation loathing)
pacification since day one, there rumbled a seismic shock, a
throwback to King Kong, chest pounding oppression, now illegal
immigration stopped dead in the tracks viz secret service agents
privileged with narco-trafficking leeway in collusion with forced
emigration, such public events commander in chief warrants,
whereby notification amongst G-men stationed at every and any
strategic borderline for maximization, the White House a coven
and denizen grooming henchmen toward lionization catering,
favoring, inculcating, levying taxation without representation
privately parlaying billions of dollars per proscribed philanthropy
(pivotally predicated upon particular political partisan programs—
there’s no app for that), where said action committees passively pander
(provided penthouse suites as an incentive) to cozy up and keep in
Czech insubordinate slow vox sing traitors, who v lad lee host pewter
tinned (miniature Taj Mahal) shaped coffee cakes (tea total ling
participants) possibly celebrating a birth err day, and/or crowning
of baron ness (exhausting government coffers) behold Kenya bully
eve klatch cha feted victory, pillaring (with figurative little rocks).

Hi (Matthew Scott Harris—berthed January xiii, mcmlix). Hi yam juiced a penniless dime a dozen bitcoin (a chip off the ole nick culled blockchain) bending, bloviating, branching... off the rushing limb bough tree (shawn of ha nitty conformity) with men dos city skeined webbing courtesy humanity.