A BLOT UPON THEE

by Zumwalt

 

 

 

 

"One prominent House Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said Monday afternoon that he had reviewed the unredacted documents [of the Epstein files] and saw  'tons of completely unnecessary redactions... I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,' Raskin said." —CNN, February 10, 2026

 

 

What Blindness now doth mark this stream of text,
Where Blame falls dark, and we are left perplexed.
The blurred distinction between right and wrong—
The weak are blistered by the brazen strong.
The blundered records, bleached of wealthy name
Won't bear the Guilt, now blotted free from shame,
While those who bled a trail of broken trust
Are bluntly bared, the others cloaked with dust.
What blatant gall to hide the rich man's Sin,
To shield in blacked-out lines the wolves within,
Now battered, those who bear no Stain at all—
What Blight is bred in this corrupted hall?
There is no Justice, just the shattered teen,
Her blank Betrayal b-l-i-n-k-i-n-g on our screen. 

 

 

Zumwalt's poetry feeds on alienation, shifting reality, and forced adaptation. Zumwalt is a proud repeat contributor to The New Verse News, and was recently nominated for Ink Sweat & Tears "Pick of the Month." 

DOOMED

by Richard Meyer

a sandwich board pessimist proclaims the apocalypse

the blighted land, a globe on fire,                     

the sludgy oceans rising higher,

the sky an ashen winding sheet

no place to run, nowhere to hide,

a species bent on suicide,

extinction on a dead-end street

maybe a plague, or flood, or war

or greedy scoundrels gulping more

on a planet wrecked, made obsolete

or tumbling toward us through the void

a stone and iron asteroid

the size of old Minoan Crete

no matter what the fatal blow,            

from up above or down below

no refuge in our self-deceit

it’s doom and doom and doom from here

the die is cast, the end is near,

a final reckoning complete

Richard Meyer, recipient of the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize, lives in Mankato, MN. His book of poetry Orbital Paths was a silver medalist winner in the 2016 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.

OUR BODY POLITIC

by Vera Kewes Salter

The praying mantis turns its head 
to destroy soft-bodied insects 
with its armored limbs

 

and giant ants use their  

mandibles to sever 

the mantis' narrow neck.

 

We sawed the limb 

of the flowering cherry to protect 

ourselves before the storm.

 

Now the wounded branch seeps

amber onto the blond wood

and green shoots grow.

 

There is a walnut tree that casts an even

shade and bears heavy lime-green fruit

but excretes toxic juglone that poisons 

 

all growth on the ground 

around and causes a permanent 

blight even after it is felled..

 

Will our wounds 

succumb to poison

or can green shoots grow?

Vera Kewes Salter lives and writes in New Rochelle New York.

THE DREADFUL FIGURE

by James Penha

Cartoon by Jeff Darcy, cleveland.com

after “The Great Figure” by William Carlos Williams

Among the reign
and blight
I see the figure 45
in orange
on a dread
crisis stuck
moving
tense
tweeted
to red caps
lying howls
and spiels rambling
through this gloomy nation.


James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

INFESTATION

by Jean L. Kreiling


Our town’s been stricken by an infestation
more visible than gypsy moths or bees.
These pests won’t sting or cause deforestation;
in fact, they look a little bit like trees,

but short, malformed, and ugly. They sprout words
instead of leaves—red, white, and blue, all caps;
no green-clad limbs support alighting birds
or shelter chipmunks for their morning naps.

Instead, the stunted, manufactured trunks
support annoying pleas for our support
of earnest men and women—and some skunks
and swindlers—who pursue an autumn sport.

Theirs is, in fact, a most important game;
the outcome could affect our lives and work.
But while the roadside vermin swarm, each name
propped on a pole looks like that of a jerk.

This plague will end; we must try to remember
that time always exterminates these lines
of lurid boldface blight.  By late November,
we’ll cheer the landslide loss of campaign signs.

Image source: Duane Burnett.com

Jean L. Kreiling's work appears widely in print and online journals and in anthologies.  She was the winner of the 2011 Able Muse Write Prize for Poetry, and she has been a finalist for the Dogwood Poetry Prize, the Frost Farm Prize, and the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award.