MIGRACIONES

by David Chorlton

on World Migratory Bird Day

Music in flight from the border tonight

and it’s pulling miles

of starlight behind it. Darkness

tuned to grosbeaks, orioles, homesick songs

and the Black-necked stilts

who come down at the golf course pond.

There’s an echo

to the ads between corridos

and the high romance that ends

in a flourish no matter

who stays and who leaves. The trogons

cross to occupy a canyon lined

with pine-oak where sycamores sing

to the daylight. Gray hawks

in the cottonwoods, tanagers where

the edge of woodland

overlooks a wide

and open valley dark priests occupied before

they named the land for

saints, and Black hawks looking down on it

from an indifferent sky.

Doves take back their city

for the summer in tune

with the natural order

of hunger and survival. 103.5, La Tricolor,

playing until morning and then

in the yard, russet crest and

greyly greened, the unmistakable

Trepador cola verde.

David Chorlton lives in Phoenix, Arizona. He writes, paints, and keeps track of which birds show up locally. Originally from Europe, he has learned that not all truth and beauty is to be found in museums and cathedrals (much as he enjoyed seeing them) but in wildlife.

JOUSTING WINDMILLS

by Zumwalt

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

The Trump administration said Monday it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast due to what it said were national security risks identified by the Pentagon. —NPR, December 22, 2025

Our Leader stands upon a fairway green,
Curses white-armed giants, cool and lean.
"Monstrosities!" he cries, with twisting claims,
"I spot our world's decay upon their frames!"
Such ugly things cause huge real estate declines:
"A seventy-five percent plunge," he knowingly assigns.
"Cancer, rust, rot, and ruin are all they can provide,
It's time to take them on— 
               and I will be your guide!"

"Down below the treacherous windmill's feet,
More dead birds than alive—an entire fleet!
Mills chop up our eagles, and—look like hell,
Emit toxic fumes, and sounds that kill!
And in our oceans where whales were once happy 
Damn windmills have driven them completely batty
And maybe—when time to hear my words so wise and true
Your TV won't work— 
               the wind may not blow on cue."                                                                                 

Our Leader had issued an order across the land
But a judge overruled—left-wing sleight of hand!
On Monday our leader again pursued his cause 
Five offshore leases were put on pause.  
"Rogue windmills threaten our eastern shore!
If they don't desist, we go to war!
We fear not Putin, China or 
                illegal immigrants eating up our pets,
But, if necessary— 
                we will launch our nukes —    
                more than anyone has ever launched before— 
                to stop these pesky, ugly, windmill threats!"

Zumwalt's poetry explores themes of alienation, shifting reality, and personal adaptation.

CLIMATE CHANGE

by Michael Gould

Copyright (and/or) © 2025 Earthday.org. This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

In a forest, sitting on a fallen log
with my best pal, my gal, my dog
at my side, on constant alert
for any sign of harm or hurt
that might come our way
we’re having fun, so much
on this sunny day
feeling like life has just begun
the air is fresh, spring’s just sprung
and the leaves are newly green
meanwhile city life is dirty and mean.
 
Trees and streams inspire our dreams
so too the sounds of buzzing bees and birdsong
here, far from the smog, I’m breathing
in sync (!) with a dog; lost in thought
fully being who we are
not trying to be what we are not
and I say, we came for the good air
and so that you could wag your tail.
 
Oh, nature
serene and sweet
your perfect scheme has become obsolete
earth’s climate is changing, and here we sit
wondering when the shit will hit the fan.

Michael Gould is a gay Canadian New Zealand writer whose poetry has appeared in publications, academic and popular, in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2021, at the age of 71, he was awarded by the New Zealand Society of Authors as an emerging poet. He is also the author of Surrealism and the Cinema: Open-eyed Screening (1976), one of the first English language books on that topic. He lives in Wellington (NZ).

DOES IT UPSET YOU?

by Mariam Saidan

After Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks”

 

I have been woman

for a long time

youth was fragile

scary at times

most of the times

nonadjustable to 

the shape I was becoming.

Misunderstood I was.

Out of mind, troubled

when I didn’t quite like 

the safety of home, 

control or harassment. 

I died many deaths  

each time returning

with a new survivor in me.

Fear no longer suited me. 

I’ve grown into a 

thousand-year-old tree.

They cut a branch,

take a leaf,

it grows back.

It always grows back.

Try and take the sun out

of day. 

There are birds living in me,

one always sings,

and a fox curled up on the shed

just a stone’s throw away in 

my garden, looks at me.

Under my living room where 

I keep vases in different shapes 

and colours, painted and 

filled with wildflowers, 

there’s a cellar

and below that,

an ocean,

pounding.

With every tide 

I become water.

Offending waves.

Dramatic drops.

Vast freedom.

Bewildering imagination.

There’s no end to this thirst.

I’m not scared of pain,

it makes things interesting.

My eyes sometimes

look into yours,

but no, not asking to be

touched.

I’m here

to live this life

like no one but

the woman I have

become. 

I’m not ashamed to

drown in this sea.

Mariam Saidan is a Specialist Advocate for Women’s Rights and has worked as a Children’s Rights Advocate, studied Human Rights Law at Nottingham University (LLM) and Creative Writing at Kent University. She is Iranian, based in London, and has lived in Iran, France, and the UK. She wrote her first journal at 8 years old while living through the Iran-Iraq war.

ON THE JOB

by David Chorlton

AI-generated image by Canva for The New Verse News.

Late glow on the slopes, desert streaming
between the ridgeline
and the streets below, Friday afternoon,
T-shirts spotted with the stains
a day’s work leaves behind
                                                  and cashiers
at the supermarket scanning
what the weekend needs. Mourning doves
for restfulness, grackles for
opportunism and he who all day
wheels the carts
                               stacks another line to steer
back to the entranceway. So much
to be done: bread to bake and orders
to compile, restrooms to be cleaned
and a country to be run. A painter
splashed white is picking
up fruit,
              a man dressed in black
casually steps between coffee
and the cookie shelves with a sidearm strapped
conspicuously at his side. So much
to be done:
                    wash the floors, make
appointments, secure domestic peace
and spray the fruit to keep it fresh. Almost
Saturday, but there’s work
for the workers to do even when the sunlight
looks nervous. No rest
for the doctors, mechanics, plumbers
and all
           who believe that even
a rudderless ship reaches port in a storm.


David Chorlton lives in Phoenix close to a mountain preserve. He likes to keep track of the wildlife at the meeting of desert and the urban zone as well as the people at the nearby supermarket. His book Dreams the Stones Have was published last year by The Bitter Oleander Press.

KAMALA: A SANSKRIT WORD MEANING LOTUS

by Lana Hechtman Ayers

 

This morning I realized I was feeling something

I hadn’t in a long time,

though the cedar and spruce may not have noticed me,

themselves dancing in the cool late summer breeze,

nor the robins threading the grass with their beaks,

seeking worms, nor the sky the color of humpback

whale milk, or so I’m told, nor the river that listened

to the plucky birds, but the wind, perhaps, intuited,

suddenly glistening as if the air were filled

with thousands of tiny silver glass beads,

and the robins hopped, 

and that feeling I barely recognized, hope, 

hope rose from the back of my throat

like a love song I wanted to croon to no one in particular,

or to everyone, proclaim that all is not lost,

rain is coming, and more sun, and worms are wiggling

in the ground, some not to be found, living on,

and the lotus continues blooming in our pond,

all is not lost, not lost, not lost,

not even the darkness that holds the stars together

in this glorious poem of a shared cosmos we call home.

Lana Hechtman Ayers, managing editor of three small presses, writes over a garage in coastal Oregon where she lives with her husband and several fur babies. Her latest collection of poems, just released from Fernwood press is The Autobiography of Rain. 

HEAT-STROKE

by David Chorlton

There’s a picture postcard sunrise
back of the apartments
at 48^th and Warner
and a fire truck in the parking lot. Smoke on the second storey,
three bodies, no clues, this neighborhood is zoned
for stillness in the afternoon. Water
for the sparrows, suet for the doves, a whole sky for the hawk
who flew through the yard this morning.
A hummingbird drinks light,
the sun drinks desert
and the desert drinks a hundred years
of silence in a single gulp.
 
*
Dustbathing quail in a hollow; eight half-grown
and one adult, each
with a tremble in its throat. Two flickers
on the tallest palm, a hundred
degrees high and climbing. 
Night on its way, the rabbits are out
to listen for darkness. Sure enough, it’s crossing
the ridge now, leaving nothing
but the bones of light behind. 2:20 a.m. reports
of swimming pool shots,
monsoon clouds arguing again, no arrests
are made.
 
*
An evening when homicide
hangs between the trees
and stops halfway along the path
to where a hawk’s nest is woven into the wind
the sky turns suddenly electric.
All the stars are flashing.
City lights behind the mountain,
Heaven’s rain falling
and thunder wipes the darkness clean.

David Chorlton has long been at home in Phoenix. He has a forthcoming book from The Bitter Oleander Press, Dreams the Stones Have, dedicated to the desert. 

BEQUEATHED

 a golden shovel by Bonnie Proudfoot

No meaning but what we find here.

No purpose but what we make.

 

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:

Turn me into song; sing me awake.

                               —Gregory Orr

 

 

Say you are at the supermarket, no

say you are at the farmer's market, meaning

you don't go in for plastic wrapped food, but

you bring your stringy hemp bag. How nice, but what

did you think, that one tomato at a time we

can stop climate change, find

a way to keep butterflies and songbirds here?

 

Say you'll install solar panels on your roof, no

say you've already installed them, your purpose

feels urgent, you are off the power grid, but

the sun feels stronger every day, what

you never expected was tornados, floods, we

can barely hold on to any progress we make. 

 

Today each weather warning lasts longer, that

way the window of safety shrinks, and

we huddle closer, protect ourselves, our beloved,

while lightning sparks, we wait for all to clear

though we need more time to prepare, instructions

 

to face this new future. The earth will turn

against us, beyond the ladders of light leaning into

the clouds, beyond the hymns and songs

to creation, show me a new song to sing,

not king coal, not drill baby oil, give me

more songbirds to hallelujah my grandchildren awake.

Bonnie Proudfoot is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and reviewer whose work has appeared in online journals and anthologies. Her novel Goshen Road  (OU / Swallow Press) was longlisted for the PEN/ Hemingway and received the WCONA Book of the Year Award. Her recent book of poems Household Gods can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.

NAVALNY: IS FREEDOM DEAD IN THE SIBERIAN GULAG?

by Mostofa Sarwar

You grew up watching: 
Birds open “The Sky Gate”

over the river Protva
 
You, awakened by the dreams of
chirping fieldfare and rock pigeon,
seagull’s greetings from the Caspian Sea
Dimensions, unbounded
 
Bathing in photons and sucking light’s nectar,
the birds whispered to you:
Infinite freedom, unshackled
 
Who knows? Those birds, perhaps,
decoded the stars’ cryptic notes
and then swam in the love wave of freedom
 
Near the bank of the Dnieper by the reed forest,
perhaps, you played with the sands
perhaps, those tiny particles,
the river carried as loads,
ended up, with your touch,
in the carnival of endless water
 
This gloomy morning, I read,
you are dead
in the “Polar Wolf,” a Siberian Gulag
An absurd tyrant pierced your body
with poisoned knives
It could be a rumor
Could it be?
 
Are you dead?
I saw you by the lake next to my home
You lead a demonstration
of seagulls, grasshoppers, doves, and egrets
I heard the slogan
Freedom and freedom and freedom
Nothing but the freedom
 
It echoed through the universe

Dr. Mostofa Sarwar is professor emeritus and former associate provost at the University of New Orleans, dean and ex-vice-chancellor and provost of Delgado Community College. His opinion essays were published in The Daily Star and Bdnews24.com of Bangladesh, The Strait Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, Phuket News of Thailand, The Times Picayune of New Orleans, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, The Daily Advent and The Opera News of New York. Recently, his English poetry has appeared in Sangam literary magazine, The Seattle Star magazine, New Verse Newsonline literary journal, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart. Sarwar published three books of Bengali poems. He frequently participates in Bengali talk shows at cable TV channels (broadcast out of New York, Washington, DC, and Dhaka).

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.

STREAK-BACKED ORIOLE

by David Chorlton

A cloudy desert day. The city smiles.

Slow rain falling. Circles of light on the pond.
The same sad news
                             drop by drop
and no umbrella for protection
against reports from far away. 
It’s numbers day
by smoking day with innocence
as no defence, a conflict over who belongs
and who doesn’t. It’s different
with birds,
              the ones who stray
out of their range are most sought after
like the Streak-backed Orioles
come north to the water reclamation park.
They don’t need papers.
No visas. Just an orange
cut in half
              for easy feeding. Welcome
bright birds. No borders in the air.
The newscast doesn’t reach
to where they are. They leave a question
hanging:
           are there orioles
in the Middle East? Has beauty ever been
a broker between the sides
of an old argument? One side does this, the other
does that.
             They keep doing what they know
to do. Every answer comes
in kind. There must be a field guide
for cruelty. It must be disguised
as a holy book.

David Chorlton lives in Phoenix and takes note of the local wildlife. He had a book out early this year called The Flying Desert in which many of the birds he sees even within the city limits are represented in poems and his watercolor paintings.