10 OCTOBER 2026 VERNACULAR

by Joe Couture

Furnace oil’s 2.20 a litre ‘nd the world’s gettin’ colder ‘nd it’s ‘neath the thumb uva megalomaniac paedo, so ya try ta escape in this mind-numbin’ screen ‘nd the first thing ya read—after bombs, gena-cide, ‘nd stocks—is another plague, ‘nd a headline ‘bout seven over-privileged rapists, somethin’ ‘bout an arsehole who spells Megan with a y, ‘nd the US is murderin’ some guy they'd trained ta kill others ‘nd they’re goin’ ta do it livestream, which isn’t at all surprisin’, ‘nd oil’s 2.20 a litre ‘nd risin’, ‘nd soon it’ll be cold inside, ‘nd my hometown was busted before this, so I wonder how many kids who talk like mine’ll freeze this holiday season.

Joe Couture lives in rural Nova Scotia. He is the author of work published in NYU's Washington Square Review, The Gorko Gazette, Mad Swirl, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions 2027.

CORNELL

by L. Roger Owens

ID 49525974 ©Chengusf | Dreamstime.com

Would it have made her day
easier, the day she scrolled Instagram
during Chem II, during lunch, during
AP Lang, during band, the day she read
the news of a gang rape two years ago,
would she have been prepared had we
sat her down—and at what age, 3, 7, 13?—
and told her of men who do not consider
her body her own, of men who fly planes
into towers, of men who tie bombs
to railroad tracks, of powerful men
who launch missiles into girls schools,
of men who believe her body to be
the plane, the towers, the train, the school
and her life potential charred debris
to be forgotten amidst their boasting?
But she already knew of these men,
the Epsteins, Weinsteins, the boys
sitting next to her in class who
might grow into them. And she wasn’t
prepared—how could she have been?
As I tucked her in that night, she said,
“I hate school,” said, “I want to go home,”
and of course she was home.
But I knew what she meant.

 
L. Roger Owens teaches spirituality, ministry, and creative writing at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is an MFA student at Ashland University.

SORROW OF SIRIK

a wedding requiem

by Nolan Sahand Dannels

they heard the jets before arriving

the kids came to revel with the rest

but now

with immeasured breaths

they stumble ‘cross the bricks

that broke all ‘round them

now surrounded

by the faces of lost loved ones

encircling their heads in midair 

no matter how hard

they close their eyes

no matter how soft

those voices still are

no matter how wide

they extend their arms

no matter how narrow

they squint with eyes

made squalid by knowing

the greatest weight of sorrow

by way of sight

by way of thought

by way of love

joy hope compassion

they heard the jets before arriving

but the kids and the rest still knew

this wasn’t supposed to happen

perhaps enough of the world does too

perhaps most already understand enough

while the rest don’t want to

all our heartaches ablaze in some way

tender to the touch

but too sharp to shut

when the fire wants to stay

wants to burn within us

all the while and all the longer

so we say what we may

knowing it won’t make us stronger

but at least our words and thoughts

can love our lost with honest honor

pinching the kids’ smiling cheeks

as their faces float around us

now surrounded

by worlds and worlds and worlds

holding what we could have been

that sorrow can’t be explained

only understood within

Sirik knows

Minab knows

and many more do too

as you may have guessed

the sorrow burns through the heart

before it makes its way out the eyes

lachrymose and drenched

like a fire that can’t put itself out

no matter how many tears are wept

like a love that must live on

because love is all we have left

they heard the jets before arriving

the kids came to revel with the rest

and then

the jets struck as they went

sticks and stones hitting homes

before they returned to their nest

Nolan Sahand Dannels is a Persian American writer-musician and Best of the Net nominee with a Master's in English Language and Literature from the University of Edinburgh and a Literature PhD from UC San Diego, where he served as the Editor in Chief of Alchemy. His writing has appeared in Kissing Dynamite, Trouvaille Review, Wishbone Words, The New Verse News, Qafiyah Review, San Antonio Review, and elsewhere. His music appears in Hare's Paw Literary Journal. His poetry chapbook, Horizontal Ensemble, was published by Bottlecap Press in 2025.

QUID NO PRO

by Virginia Aronson

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

The art of his deal
pay for play global
he gets the jet
he lets them get
bombed he shrugs
signs the agreement
changes and cancels
unceasing ceases
after public hoopla
after the rule of law
after the highest courts
more shaky trades, fines
brazen gifts and lawsuits
thrown out, mocked
taxes and wars forever
never true to his word
on anything deals
wives children sex lies
while the world suffers
the land in flames
the seas raging
the children dying
and he grins, shrugs
he's got his quid
and folks, look
there ain't no pro.

Virginia Aronson is the author of many published books. New poetry collections include Collateral Damage (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Whiskey Islandand Whiskey Straight Women (Cyberwit Press).

IMAGINAL POEM MEANT TO BE READ ON A ROOFTOP

by Richard Jackson

You begin / somewhere/ to cry the/ murmur of life

     —Parnia Abasi, d. June 13, 2025

 

This is a poem about hope despite the fact that it

begins with the death of the twenty three year old

Iranian poet, Parnia Abassi, along with her family,

among the twisted pipes and chunks of concrete,

amid the fragments of some missile that targeted

her apartment building.

                                       This is a poem about hope 

despite the presence of swarms of flies investigating 

the ruins, searching for pieces of flesh pasted to concrete, 

despite the satellite photos that hold these specifics 

at a safe distance.

                             This is a poem that makes its appeal 

to the Imaginal world of the Persian mystics, Suhrawardi 

and Hafiz, of a world where rocks become clouds, where 

cypresses dance, where graves become doorways to

the gods and angels, a world between this one and

the one we hope to rejoin.

                                           I will become the most beautiful 

poem in the world, wrote Parnia. I’ll be the extinguished 

star/in your sky/ like smoke.

                                              This is a poem that makes

its appeal with the rooftop dwellers of Tehran, and

their own imaginal world between the rubble and the

sky, chanting slogans against the regime and us,

hoping for a life without bombs, without oppression,

unable to see where the sun is in the sky on the worst days, 

one says, but knowing it is there.

                                                     This is a poem about 

hope, for it prays with Hafiz, with Suhrawardi, with Parnia

who wrote, I row into your embrace, into this poem that

cannot go on without your own fragile lines and hopes, into 

a world only our poems can make, a world where they 

dance with the cypresses, and chant from the heart’s rooftops.

Richard Jackson is the author of 18 books of poetry including, Footprints, The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems, and 16 books of translation, Interviews, criticism and anthologies, as well as 30 chapbooks from eastern and central European poets.. Translated into 17 languages, he was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal by the President of Slovenia for Humanitarian and literary work during the Balkan Wars and has received Guggenheim, Fulbright, NEA, NEH and Witter-Bynner, Fellowships.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

by Jiang Pu

I want to bring you a heady symphony of roses, 

lavender and golden poppies as April unfolds

into giant butterfly wings in my yard, but 

I can’t sing; this morning my throat is choked 

like the Strait of Hormuz. 

I’m self-schooled in the art of drop-cover-shelter

from the bombing news, but o you wise one, 

teach me: how do I turn off this glaring pain

of my brothers and sisters constantly bombing

each other? And how do I forgive

the twin lakes of my eyes for shedding

useless tears—so useless they can’t even feed 

into desert desalination plants spared

by thirsty missiles? My tears sting more 

than the bitter horseradish a friend brings 

on a Passover. She teaches me to dip it 

into a nut paste, which is sweet, which, 

she says, tastes like 

hope. Maybe it’s time for a few Medjool Dates

grown from the cradle-land that I’ve visited

so many times in spirit but never once 

in body, so that I keep its soil and water

inside me to nourish a prayer for peace, so that

when I open my door to the unstoppable

spring outside, I can welcome Rumi’s sun

and other honored guests to visit

me today besides pain. 

 

Jiang Pu, Ph.D., is a first-generation Chinese American author and Ed leader. Her recent poems have appeared in California Quarterly, The Tiger Moth Review (Singapore), and Panorama (U.K.) among others and in several poetry anthologies.

DRY SPRING GARDEN IN CALIFORNIA

by Corey Weinstein

Elizabeth Marriott at Unsplash

 

Drought’s parch is again upon the west,

the great desert uncloaks herself in dusty despair,

stunted snails hunker ‘til moist mornings return.

 

Spiders stealthily trap and suck essences from

crawlers stuck in English ivy’s webbed sinews,

harmless hiding little ones just ‘cause they’re there.

 

Tenacious ivy pours over our 

backyard fence, volunteers its fidelity,

comforts our wine barrel hoop peace sign.

 

I bench sit watching week by week

wax green leaves crawl to obscure earth’s 

need for congenial tolerance well earned.

 

Galvanized steel hope for disarmament

must hide its embarrassed shine this year 

while bombs carpet Gaza and lately Iran.

 

Our fallen just a few in this war,

names get said each and every one

while cluster and bunker buster bombs for them.

 

Bluster and lies can’t hide the dead,

ours a few soldiers, theirs mostly like you and me,

harmless ones hiding just ‘cause they’re there.

Corey Weinstein’s poetry has been published in Haight Asbury Literary Journal, Vistas and Byways, The New Verse News, Our California 2024, The Ekphrastic Review, Forum (City College of San Francisco), California State Poetry Society, Visitant, Abandoned Mine, Speak Poetry of San Mateo County, California State Poetry Society and Jewish Currents, and he wrote and performed a singspiel called Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me.   In his free time, he hosts San Francisco OLLI’s Poetry Workshop Circle and plays the clarinet in his local jazz band, Tandem, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.

TAXES, SEEN FROM THE MOON

by Indran Amirthanayagam
NASA photo

I walked in the woods 

today, a spring in my step,

the Great Leader had

stepped back from 

his threats 

to the sovereign 

Republic of X,

and my tax deadline 

loomed even clearer; 

no more time 

to distract with poems, 

even this one a lazy 

fingering,  extracting juice 

from the rind of past fears, 

raising arms to God 

to say thank you

for your intervention.

But what’s ten minutes 

to a poet avoiding reckoning 

with the IRS?  Only ten 

minutes to say thanks, 

 to say I love you  and keep 

in touch always. Ten minutes 

to say tomorrow will come—

it already has—

 

despite the terrible words

and bombs exploded

until now in the latest 

killing fields 

of our one Earth

lit by the rising Sun seen 

now for the first time 

by the Artemis crew,

from the dark side 

of the Moon. 

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

BRIDGES

by Matthew Murrey

 

Anadolu Agency on Facebook

 

People build them to connect
one side to the other, to move
people, supplies and food
from here to there, to shorten
the journey and make it easier
to cross over a river or a bay 
or a deep, precipitous gorge.
 
People construct rooms and roofs
so doctors wearing green or blue
can focus on the work at hand, 
so teachers can greet children 
carrying books and backpacks,
so exhausted parents can settle
into bed after turning off the lights.
 
People also make cunning machines
and devices. From up in the sky
they can see what hugs the ground:
buildings standing exposed, unable
to move, and bridges lying flat 
out in the open, left to the mercies
of whoever is looking down from above.


Matthew Murrey is the author of Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026) and Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019). He can be found on Bluesky and Instagram under the handle @mytwords.