BEN SHAHN VISITS ICE DETENTION CENTERS

by Rikki Santer

ICE Detention Center in North Carolina to Be Among Largest on East Coast: The new complex near the Virginia border signals that even as ICE has retreated from its plan to buy warehouses, the agency remains determined to increase its detention capacity. —The New York Times, July 23, 2026

“Allegory” (1948) by Ben Shahn (Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX)

Tomorrow’s art, if it is to be at all stirring, will no doubt be performed upon today’s forbidden territory.  —The Shape of Content by Ben Shahn  (1898-1969)

 

What will he paint to make the terror stop?  

This red kettle bell ringer whose blotted, stuttered 

lines contoured a lifetime for social justice.

In this circuit of fatelines, it is those whose lines 

of flight crossed an administration’s line

into cruelty. To make detention so bad

they’ll want to deport. So it’s not a formal

visit because they don’t know who he is

and artists are damned liars anyway.

Will his palimpsest of thrashing marks show

what’s behind locked doors and spirals 

of barbed wire? Tiny holding cells

with insects crawling, scant food, water,

medical care or contact with family or lawyers, 

sewage bubbling up from shower drains, cold 

nights that some wear socks on their arms,

other nights some in suicide surrender. With 

currency of pictorial language, will he paint 

another raging, demonic chimera with flaming

mane, refusing to suckle its children, leaving 

their lifelesss bodies beneath its udder 

in a heap of time-tested allegory?

 

 

Rikki Santer’s poetry collection, Resurrection Letter was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books. In 2023, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year and currently serves as Artist-in-Residence at the Fran Ryan Center in Columbus, Ohio and a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council. Her fifteenth poetry collection, Could Be, was published this spring by Sheila-Na-Gig Press.

AVERAGE DAY IN AMERICA

by Tina Williams

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

I’m not hearing so well lately 

and as my audiologist enters 

values on her computer 

my eye catches her cup 

which has a goat on it 

and I remember the time

I was at the coffee shop

named for a ruminant 

and there was a woman 

sitting outside

with a latte in one hand, 

paperback in the other, 

and a goat jumped 

on her table and with 

one jerk snatched 

the book and began

to eat it, whole 

chapters at a time, 

looking her in the eye 

all the while while 

everyone watched.

What could any of us 

have done at such 

a moment in history?

It was an average day.

All the words were there. 

Then they were not.

 

Tina Williams lives in Texas where the ACLU tirelessly monitors and battles the banning of books from libraries.

COOKIE BLAZE'S QUESTION

by Anne Harding Woodworth

Cookie Blaze is a persona created by the poet, but 89-year-old Penny Starr (above) stripped on America's Got Talent two years ago.

I’m 81, and I want to ask you

if that’s too old for me to return

to the excellent career I’ve had,

the career that made me happiest.

See, I was a stripper. I stripped

in Lou’s bar there in upstate New York,

and sometimes I sang, and sometimes

I stripped and sang all at the same time.

When you’re 81, you need affirmation—you know,

an assurance that you didn’t live in vain,

that you still have the moves, Cookie,

that your crowds still love you

and want to see your new acts,

that they deny anything’s happened

to your skin and your voice.

Oh, maybe I’m a little off-key at times,

and forget a word here and there.

If the crowds were to notice

these trivial changes, they wouldn’t care.

Tell me, is 81 too old for me

to get back up on the stage at Lou’s?

I feel good when you watch me.

Yeah, watch me.

I’m fine for just a few more years,

maybe four. What do you say?

Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of an 8th book of poetry Gender: Two Novellas in Verse and of a 5th chapbook The Spare Parts Saga which looks at the USPS from the perspective of her trying to mail her 2008 book Spare Parts to a friend in Ireland.

HUMANITARIAN PAUSE

by Matthew Murrey

“Two Turkeys ‘Liberty’ and ‘Bell’ Pardoned by Biden” —VOA, November 20, 2023

For Thanksgiving week, forty-six million, 

while the sweep of a year will reap 

over four times as many, but not these two. 
 
They won the lottery of born 
right time, right place: were given room 

to roam, good food, and the light of the sun.

 
Their beaks and toes weren’t scissored, clipped; 
they weren’t warehoused for a life of stink and filth.
They are the inverse of scapegoats: suffer liberty 
and tender, attentive care to cover for the rest—
multitudes hoisted and hacked, gutted and wrapped. 
 
Thankful at the table, see and smell the golden, 
roasted bird—headless, plucked, and stuffed—
and give thanks for the generous spread of luck:
you here, and not there. Surely that rings a bell.

 
Matthew Murrey is the author of the poetry collection Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019). He's published widely, most recently in The Dodge, Bear Review, and Redheaded Stepchild. He was a public school librarian for 21 years, and lives in Urbana, IL with his partner. He can be found on Instagram, Twitter/X and Bluesky under the handle @mytwords.

THE HOUNDS OF DOGMA

The Story of an Uncaged Mind

by Katherine West

At first I didn't even know there was a cage.  I knew only the wind and cold of my cliff.  At night the wind slept, so I could fly.  Where did I not travel?  No land not open to my wings.  No black mountain, no turquoise sea, no rumpled forest, no littered beach.  No red-roofed pueblo, no city of glass and steel.  No ruin of stone. 

I flew through time as well as space.  I saw apes descend from trees.  I watched the glaciers retreat.  I watched pyramids attempt to touch the stars. I watched the first book being printed. I watched trains try to circumnavigate the world.  

My wings reached the future too.  I saw the sky turn from blue to brown.  Saw the oceans flood.  Saw the deserts grow with their own white tides.  Saw the libraries close. 

I saw the Hounds of Dogma waiting every time I tried to land.  The Guardians of Thought standing at attention on either side of the cage I now saw for the first time.  Oh!  How it glowed in the sun's first light.  Like a little sun itself, offering my heavy wings a rest. 

 

One by one I watched the birds of the world enter the cage, burn, die and never rise again.  With each friend, I burned and died as well, feeling every feather that shriveled in the flames.

I died.  But my wings did not.  They beat and beat above the molten ash that was the grieving rest of me. 

Once.  My wings hovered before the golden door.  Once.  They soared back and forth as the Guardians of Thought shoveled me up and tossed me into the cage. 

Once.  They swooped so low the Hounds of Dogma snapped and feathers drifted to the ground.  Once more, my wings rose, circled, then faded into sky, releasing one blue plume that rocked gently as it floated through the bars of my cage and touched down on my bed of ash like a windblown seed. 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. She is also an artist. 

LAST DAYS OF FREEDOM

by Mickey J. Corrigan

What about the women who think
they are shore birds in startled flight
over the unruffled sand, eggs nestled
in jagged rock crevices slap-fed
by the bathe and bash sea?

Don't blame the shoreline, comfortable
in the lap and suckle, the eating away
the sloping of high grass dunes
hillcrests ever flattened by time
and growth spurts of starlit cities.

What about the clotted clapboard graves
narrow streets, neighborhoods blissful
in their ignorance, their pancake morning
sameness, their white cream frosting
smothering rich cakes of desire?

Don't blame the strong men barging
onto the ark, boarding forcefully
pillage in their knife eyes, hammy fists
full of weaponry, double strapped bullets
draped across broad hairy chests.

What about the meat-and-potato talk
in the pubs and pastel living rooms
all our fears shrunk to shadows
blued under hot white moons
gibboning in a lurching black?

Don't blame the suck and slur of the tide
days trailing by, forgetting themselves
in the flutterkick to a shared illusion
spoon-fed to us in flying dreams

the windswept sky like a blue door
that will swing shut behind us.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. 

WHAT MAN HAS MADE OF MAN

by Katherine West

“Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?”

—William Wordsworth, 

“Lines Written in Early Spring”

At first she took everything
Boxes tied with string
Old sugar sacks
Filled
With books
Socks
Grandmother’s sweater
Grandmother’s cider
A journal
A pen

She followed rivers
Creeks
Run-offs
Through orange dirt
She followed the birds
They always knew
Where to find water
And at each
Oasis
She left something behind
A thanks
An offering
A sacrifice
A song

Until it was summer
And she walked barefoot
Over the hot rocks
Of foothills
Hands empty now
Even her songs
Only in her head
Her throat
Her mouth
The cider
Inside her
The socks
Decorating trees
The sweater
A scarecrow

She came at last
To the high country
Green mountains
A long meadow where wild iris
Still bloomed
As if time had stopped
And spring lived always
In this one place
Where a large chair
Throne-like
Had been set on a rise
At one end
Commanding
An eternal view
Of beauty

Red velvet cushions
Gold painted arms
All looked new
As if weather were not allowed
To touch it
She
Did not touch it
Did not sit
She tried to go on
But the throne
Pulled her back
Once
Twice
Three times
She left the meadow behind
Only to turn
To return
Following her own path
Through damp grass

Finally
Exhausted
She lay down at the far end
Of the meadow
And slept
And when she woke the moon
Was up
The meadow filled
With people
Thin
Sick
They surrounded
The throne

A bowl filled with rice
Sat before it
One by one
The people stood
Came forward
And took a single
Grain of rice
Until the bowl
Was empty

Then there was silence
Then out of the silence
Came a song
Like the wind in winter
Rising
From the people
And the words of the song
Were names
Only names
On and on
The people sang
Rocking
Weeping
Singing
Names

Until the sky began to fade
And the song
And the people
Faded too
But the throne
The golden throne
Glittering in the new sun
The throne remained


Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness, performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov, and teaches seasonal poetry workshops that revolve around "wilderness writing."  She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and TheNewVerse.News  which recently nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize.

KINDNESS

by Mary K O'Melveny

José, 5, carries with him a drawing of his father, whom he has not seen since they were separated upon arriving in the United States from Honduras. —“The Daily,” The New York Times, June 20, 2018. "And the president’s order does nothing to address the plight of the more than 2,300 children who have already been separated from their parents under the president’s 'zero tolerance' policy. Federal officials said those children will not be immediately reunited with their families while the adults remain in federal custody during their immigration proceedings. "—The New York Times, June 20, 2018

Some of us are always trying to be kind.
Even in smallest ways.  Even as the known
world self-destructs around us, shards of
optimism falling from the sky before we even
have a chance to look up to see what has
shifted us off our comfortable axis.

I’ve got a chipmunk problem in my yard.
The tiny furred creatures have popped up
everywhere, sending showers of dirt
into the air like it was Yellowstone.
I cannot kill them even though I want to.
They will not leave even though I have raged

at them, insulted them and their ancestors.
My neighbor brings a have a heart trap
so I can remove them kindly.  He baits it with
peanut butter.  Soon the trap has a frightened
occupant.  I cannot bear to look out for fear
of crying.  The prisoner is soon relocated.

The trap is replaced.  A new chipmunk takes
the bait.  He too is repatriated to a new territory.
Capture and repeat.   The metal trap looms larger
each day as an unending array of innocents are
tempted by creamy nut paste.  Soon enough,
I begin to worry about babes left behind in tunnels,

about mothers and fathers  grieving for lost children.
One day a chipmunk plants itself on my deck
and looks in through the window.  My kind self
huddles behind the blind.  I will not make eye contact.
This is the humane way, I say to myself, even as I begin
to imagine each trapped rodent wearing an orange

jumpsuit as interrogators gather nearby with pen
and paper waiting for the inevitable confessions.
One night, the trap is sprung, its detainee freed from
house arrest.  I am thrilled.  Then I learn that a bear
has likely done it.  Probably thanked me for the easy meal.
Now I am lost in my worst fears.  There is no kindness in my yard.

How could I have thought otherwise?  This is how
it always begins.  Good intentions vanishing
like some dying star,  rationalizations
reverberating across celestial centuries.
Turns out it is our unwavering belief
in our self-righteousness that is the trap.


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals.  Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age will be published by Finishing Line Press in September, 2018.

THE SNAKE

by Ana Garza G'z
after the song of the same name by Oscar Brown, Jr.

Sisters Africa and Maggie Brown, daughters of Oscar Brown Jr. who wrote the song "The Snake,” criticize President Trump for using it as an anti-immigration reference during rallies.

“The Snake”: Donald T***p brings back his favorite

anti-immigrant fable at CPAC —CNN, February 23, 2018

With her remote control one evening flipping past commercial breaks,
a media-driven nation saw a narcissistic snake.
His orange colored hair had been all sprayed back with some goo.
"Oh, wow," she laughed, "I'll take you in, and I'll watch what you do."

Taken in, Media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, Media nation, by a snake.

She watched him on her TV in her jammies and her quilt,
giving him high ratings, his land of honey and of milk.
Then hurrying home to couch one night to giggle and to gasp,
she found the orange snake she'd taken to was in command.

Taken in, Media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, Media nation, by a snake.

She shrieked and clutched her bosom, "You were spectacle," she moaned,
"and if I hadn't brought you in, by now you would be gone."
She picked up her remote, and then she gripped it tight.
The orange head came up and out for a narcissistic strike.

Taken in, media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, media nation, by a snake.

"But I watched you," whined the nation, “and you've poisoned me and mine—
“guns, banks, oil, insurance companies, and white nationalism poised to thrive."
"I hear you, fake-news nation," said the reptile, from his notes.
"You knew damn well I was a snake before all those tremendous votes.”

Taken in, media nation.
Taken in, for heaven's sake.
Taken in, media nation, by a snake.

Ana Garza G'z has an M. F. A. from California State University, Fresno, where she teaches part-time. Sixty-five of her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies, most recently in Unmasked: Women Write About Sex and Intimacy After Fifty. She also works as an interpreter and translator.

COST

by Neil Creighton

Parkland students watch as Florida legislators vote down a resolution to discuss a ban on assault weapons.

So Sam rose early, saddled his donkey,
and took his children up the mountain.
And his children said
“Where is the offering, our father,
and who is this god we praise?”
“You are the offering, my children.”
Then hail of fire descended
and bright blood flowed until all were gone.
Sam sighed, thought he would pray,
wept a little as he descended the mountain.
A congregation waited below.
“It’s hard,” he said, “so hard.
But what can we do?
We don’t wish it but we must worship.”

And the great congregation shouted “Amen”.

Neil Creighton is an Australian poet whose work as a teacher of English and Drama brought him into close contact with thousands of young lives, most happy and triumphant but too many tragically filled with neglect. It also made him intensely aware of how opportunity is so unequally proportioned and his work reflects strong interest in social justice. Recent publications include Poetry Quarterly, Poeming Pigeon, Silver Birch Press, Rat's Ass Review, Praxis Mag Online, Ekphrastic Review, Social Justice Poetry, Peacock Journal, Poets Reading the News and Verse-Virtual.

SHOVELING OUT A MOOSE

by Skaidrite Stelzer




most of us do what we can
if we believe we can do it
if someone has not whispered in our ears
that the world is too cruel
a world that will kill us (it’s true)
yet we must move against the snow banks
dig deeper than we believe
a moose in a snowbank
that in summer would throw us
trampled in grass
now knows we are animal
surviving all of us
as best we can

Skaidrite Stelzer lives and writes in Toledo, Ohio. Growing up as a post-war refugee and displaced person, she feels connected to the world and other stray planets. Her poetry has been published in Fourth River, Eclipse, Glass, Baltimore Review, and many other literary journals as well as TheNewVerse.News.

BIPARTISAN TO BIPENNATE

by John Beaton

Eagle with One Wing by Christopher Hall.

I saw a bird with just one wing.
The poor thing could not fly;
it fluttered in a clockwise ring.
Another squawked nearby,

similarly handicapped,
but anticlockwise in
the one-winged way it feebly flapped.
They filled me with chagrin

and then a bright idea brewed—
what if I was to tie
the two together? Then they could
Siamesely fly.

And so they did, the left wing and
the right, united, flew.
It happened in cloud cuckoo land—
one wing was red, one blue.



John Beaton, a retired actuary who was born in Scotland, is a widely published poet and spoken word performer from Vancouver Island, Canada.

CHICKEN

by Susan Vespoli

“The body of someone who has died from a suspected opioid overdose. In January, 2017, there were sixty-five overdose deaths in Montgomery County [Ohio]. At times, there has not been enough room at the morgue for all the bodies, and the county coroner has been obliged to rent space from local funeral homes and lease refrigerated trailers for more space.”  From “Faces of an Epidemic,” The New Yorker, October 30, 2017 issue. Photo by Philip Montgomery; text by Margaret Talbot.

    “I didn’t cause it, can’t control it, can’t cure it.” —Al-anon slogan

I tried to write a poem
about how the opioid epidemic
had stolen one of my children,
now an adult,
and how it threatens
like a terrorist
to take another,
about how there’s nothing
a mother can do but watch
the way a body thins, how teeth dissolve,
how beings disappear
from behind their own eyes:
the brown or green irises darkening,
the eyeballs resting
in more hollow sockets—
but the words, lines, stanzas
of my poem attempts
were all failures.

So instead I will tell about a golden hen
that appeared in my backyard
like magic
to stand on her four-prong-star feet,
her body an oval covered with feathers
a strawberry blond fluffy as fur
backlit by the sun
when she bent to sip water
from the pale green bowl
I’d placed beneath the Palo Verde tree.
At first she strutted like a little queen
around the center of the grassy expanse
surrounded by oleanders,
sort of haughty, wide-eyed, solo,
but then she began to trust me,
sidling up to my ankles,
saying bwak, bwak, bwak
like she had some news to share
and I grew to sort of love her.
Then one day, as it happens,
I looked for her and she was gone.


Susan Vespoli lives in Phoenix, AZ where the opioid epidemic is alive and well. Her work has been published in a variety of spots including Mom Egg Review, TheNewVerse.News, Write Bloody, and dancing girl press.

AT THE CROSSROADS

by James Cronin

The Seven Acts of Mercy by Caravaggio

The first time I saw "The Seven Acts of Mercy" . . .  I knew I wanted to write a play about it: its generosity, its complications, its aggressive, violent compassion. —Anders Lustgarden in his introduction to the 2016 Bloomsbury Methuen edition of his play The Seven Acts of Mercy.

The artist painted a swarming crossroads where
two alleys, winged heaven and Naples did
intersect; all to show the fruits of fair
mercy, with the knife edge of its need not hid.

The city’s shame is so public, its wanton
cruelty on display. Does it want us
to keep moving, and not gaze at that fountain
replenished on its own? No, the chorus

reaching from the heavens bids us instead
to stare: as a noble hands a cloak to a nude
beggar; a weary pilgrim with a red
beard is pointed to shelter and food;

a servant moves a corpse for burial;
and a prisoner, condemned to starve in jail,
is suckled by his child, a surreal
story of old Rome. All true? Isms fail

where story succeeds. We are numbed
by numbers. Empathy demands a tale,
a face in the crowd. Compassion can’t be summed.
But now, even a clear summons can fail.

Where once only moral truth was needed,
our leader, peacock-brained, sees but his tail.
With miles of devastation unheeded,
his gloried behind dims all loss from the gale.

And those enablers of killing still stick
to their guns and sanctify murders’ ease.
No compassion! No mercy! What sick
huckster sells as freedom a deadly disease.

After a four decade career in the law, James Cronin returned to his first love, literature. Since his judicial retirement in 2007, he has participated in three poetry groups and has served as a facilitator in numerous courses for a lifelong learning program in Fall River, MA.

HURRICANE SEASON

by Jan Steckel 

Poster by Rusty Ford

The mercury was in triple digits, the moon
ocherous with smoke, cities submerged.
An orange gibbon necklaced in skulls
drop kicked brown-skinned Americans
over borders, polkaed over illegal bodies.

We sandbagged against the Klan,
stored water for dousing crosses,
hoarded fuel to flee Brown Shirts.
Cyclones whirled clockwise
south of the equator,
widdershins in the North.

We covered windows with plywood.
Black Bloc buffeted the downtown.
We all renewed our passports.
Churches built secret shelters
for the undocumented.
It was too late to evacuate the States.

We sheltered in place,
hunkered and braced for
depressions and disturbances.
A brassy trumpet’s wall rumbled up.
The Daily Stormer surged.
The Republic came tumbling down.

Jan Steckel was a Harvard- and Yale-trained pediatrician who took care of Spanish-speaking children until chronic pain persuaded her to change professions to writer, poet and medical editor. She is an activist for bisexual and disability rights who lives in Oakland, California. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her creative writing has appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her work won the Goodreads Newsletter Poetry Contest, a Zeiser Grant for Women Artists, the Jewel by the Bay Poetry Competition, Triplopia’s Best of the Best competition, and three Pushcart nominations.

THE ANTS

by Fred Nagel

Photo from a video provided by Newsy Newslook to USA Today.

Their round, brown bodies twinkling in the sun,
They came together, not like one of Marlborough’s victories,
But in a chocolate flow.

On my knees above the patch, I tried
To make out warriors or lovers.
But so small the ants, and teaming,
That their frenzy blurred their meaning.

Hours later, sun slanted low,
I surveyed again the field below.
Legless, the few that lingered there,
Writhed to follow, I know not where.

Fred Nagel is a US veteran and political activist whose articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Global Exchange, Mondoweiss, Popular Resistance, War Crimes Times (Veterans For Peace publication) and Z Magazine. He also hosts ClassWars, a show on Vassar College Radio, WVKR.

GRAB-ORIENTED FLEXION

by Jennifer Clark

Photo by Nathan Atkinson on Unsplash

I do as Greg says, for five minutes, three times a day.
I feel silly, sifting my fingers through a medley of dried
lentils, black-eyed peas, and rice, trying to grab and release.
Instead, my right hand wants to pull the skyscraper of weeds
rising through the weigela. My thumb and forefinger itch to pinch
the dead heads of zinnias and marigolds. I should be thinning
the obedient plants, trimming the crazy-haired boxwood.
There is so much work to do in this world.

Attempting to grab and release, my hand wants to seize and shake
the trumpet vine that my well-intentioned neighbors planted.
The orange thug invades the garden with fire and fury.
It loves to feast on fences, has been known to break windows
and pry the siding off homes. Round Up and yelling don’t work.

As the trumpet vine threatens to take over the neighborhood,
I recall one weary gardener’s opinion: it is not a plant, but a form
of domestic terrorism. Here is the best way to handle this noxious
vine that thrives in poor soil yet can attract the sweetest hummingbirds:
Do not ignore it.

Left locked and loaded to its own devices, it will only
displace desirable vegetation. Call it by its true names:
Campis radicans and cow-itch. Don’t fight it. Give it
excessive care. Water it. Nourish the soil. Love it to death.

We can not give up on this good world, even as it slips
through our fingers, we must keep trying. So, go ahead,
roll up your sleeves, plunge into this seeded and weedy
life, and grab and release. Grab and release.

Jennifer Clark, whose left hand wrote this poem, is the author of Necessary Clearings (Shabda Press). Her second poetry collection Johnny Appleseed: The Slice and Times of John Chapman is forthcoming from Shabda Press. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

MICE

by Samantha Pious

TheNewVerse.News construction from images found at Zimbio and Meridian Magazine.

after Eustache Deschamps’ “But Who’s the One to Bell the Cat?”

Among the mice (I’ve heard it told)
a special Congress was convened
against the Cat, their hated foe,
to seek some implement or means
whereby they might at last live free
in safety and security
without resorting to extremes.
—Why not achieve a coup-d’état?
Together we can bell the cat!

The caucus met, the bill was law,
the congress-mice adjourned their session.
One country-mouse, from out of town,
she shoulders in to ask a question —
what’s been done? We have a weapon,
they reply, to smash that wicked feline flat.
This bell, which shall be hung from round
his neck, will sound whenever he attacks.
Together we can bell the cat!

There’s strength in numbers. One gray rat
requests to know to whom the Bell
shall be entrusted. As to that,
none of the congress-mice can tell!
The Speaker squeaks for personnel.
Not one brave mouse will go to bat
(not even for a subcontract)
though catchy slogans always sell:
Together we can bell the cat!

These words ring hollow now. Alack.
But there’s still time for one last act.
Can we protect our habitat,
Republicans and Democrats
together? We can bell the cat!

Samantha Pious is the author of A Crown of Violets (Headmistress Press, 2015), a selection of translations from the poetry of Renée Vivien. More of her translations and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Doublespeak, Lavender Review, Mezzo Cammin, and other publications.

AFTER THE MARE FINISHES JUMPING

by Tricia Knoll 

a hand holds out a cookie of molasses and oats.
Square in the center of that little cake,
red licorice, or black, a peppermint.
Job well done. Time for rest

and health care, cool water,
baths, consideration
of overtime, a refuge
with a solid roof,
greens, a kind hand,
good neighbors,
legal papers,
retirement benefits
and a living wage.

Tricia Knoll has loved to be around horses all her life. One of those kind of poet-girls. This poem came to her after watching a spectacular jumping competition in Wilsonville, Oregon. Tricia’s new book of poetry Broadfork Farm compiles love songs to a small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington—and includes one other poem about horses in the midst of those about dogs, chickens, pigs, goats, farmers, and orchards. @triciaknollwind

LORDY, I HOPE THERE ARE TAPES

by Alan Walowitz

Image source: Canadian Business

You call up the stairs to tell me what we’ll need
to make it through the long night ahead.
The water’s running and I can hardly hear,
though you’re known to assert
that to listen and to hear were never meant to be the same.
No matter, we know this part always ends in a caustic, Nevermind.
I do hear you slam the door
and imagine your short sigh before heading off into your day.
I’m alone now and can make mine any way I’d like--
though, Lordy, I hope there are tapes
for later when I get to the grocery
and this great forgetfulness is bound to come over me
surrounded by the bounty of America:
shelves stacked with goods, no one could ever use, given even a lifetime;
the produce shaped into so many pyramids
we’d once hoped to visit, but now know we never will;
the prepared foods, chilled, and ready to be reheated and consumed
but where should we put them if left uneaten when our day is done?
This is a great land with so many choices
of who to believe and why, and infinite possibilities of what to buy,
so please don’t berate me when I call
to ask what I need to bring.
I know we already have everything
and are likely still to feel we’ve been taken, and underserved,
and finally and fatally, misunderstood.
Though, Lordy, I hope there are tapes
of the long night so long ago when we first fell for each other.


Alan Walowitz has been published in various places on the web and off. He’s a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry, and teaches at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY and St. John’s University in his native borough of Queens, NY. Alan’s chapbook Exactly Like Love was published by Osedax Press in 2016 and is now in its second printing.