MASK

by James Penha

 

Foot-Combat Helm of Sir Giles Capel (1485–1556) - possibly British - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

Four years ago, I would have seen a mask

certain to prevent a virus from infiltrating.

Now we debate whether masks that can hide

the faces of criminals or immigrants should

be legal. But there are no such restrictions 

on the bullies in the region of this museum.

Sir Giles reincarnate, they take on all comers 

to this country. They pull brown deliverers out 

of their Uber Eats cars… they tackle innocents 

checking in at the courthouse… they wrestle 

workers from warehouses… and pound them 

down with their bulk into our halls and streets. 

Who are you? let an observer ask. The answer 

is the mask. Steeled as a weapon for white 

Christian nationalists, it will hear no objection

from the White House overseers of art. Indeed, 

I can imagine this helm set on a block of ice 

emblematic of our new divine right of kings.

James Penha hosts The New Verse News. His short story collection Queer As Folk Tales really needs good reviews at amazon but can be bought at non-bezos outlets as well.

THE LARGE ONES HAVE JOINED I.C.E.

by Michelle DeRose

My grade school had no gymnasium.

The auditorium hosted PE class

on rain-darkened days or those slick 

with ice, the low stage across the front

shrouded in its thick brown curtain.

Sometimes a tumbling mat and low-

mounted 2 x 4 meant gymnastics,

balance practice as we dip-stepped

across the board, arms in airplane wings,

or body control while we somersaulted.

But when upcoming plays or assemblies

required a clear floor, rain meant dodgeball.

The largest classmates hurled soccer

and volley balls at the tiny and slow.

Me with two friends, hidden in folds.

Even across the room, a direct hit

could bruise, slap, jangle teeth. The large

ones were praised for their power,

their aim, the swiftness with which

one by one they took us out.

We just hoped to be unnoticed behind the brown,

that our quiet retreat to art’s cloaked stage

would enable us to endure the long hour,

return to our desk where Stuart Little

waited in its belly for us.

Michelle DeRose is Professor Emerita of English at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is writing a poem a day in her retirement. It might not be enough for sanity under the current administration in the US. She invites all who yearn for a holy heart attack to meditate on it at 10 a.m. EST every day.

TOXIC HYPERMADNESS

by Ron Riekki

“Hazing investigation into Mt. Ararat hockey team found pattern of ‘sexually inappropriate conduct’”

—Portland Press Herald, April 29, 2025

 

“Onondaga DA to Westhill Lax Players Involved in Alleged Hazing: Turn Yourself In”

—Finger Lakes Daily News, April 30, 2025

 

 

If you ask how long the effects of hazing lasts,

it’s till the end of poems.  No, longer.  As long

as the sleep of death.  It’s the length of a billion

leaves.  It’s the memory of dark in the middle

of your noon.  It’s fear ingrained in your home.

 

It’s moon in your chest.  It’s Macbeth debted

in the desks of my amygdala.  It’s absence of

absence when you just want peace.  It’s shaking

all night like an earthquake’s in your skin.  It’s

stronger.  Sin.  A hazmat at the door.  It’s a core

 

of pure Hell.  I know.  I was there, enlisted,

military, duct-taped mouths, ensuring futures

of gloom in your best days.  It’s essays I write

in the nightmares of night where I replay all

the replays of the fence and the ice in our eyes

 

when they gathered like witches, no, much

worse, more male, and more morbid, murmurs

of curse words and curses of teens carrying

canteens with jock-minds and abusive dads

recreating wrecks that had us calling suicide

 

hotlines for years with the gore of agoraphobia

from the memories of fence, but the problem

of your problem is forgetting our resilience,

all of those who have been hazed and are

battling the battles of the past—all the bullies

 

of the world can kiss my goddamn ass.  No!

On second thought, don’t touch us.  Just get

help, because you know what you did, and

who died—just one when I was in, one who

never got out; and I was more afraid of our

 

side than the enemy, but now that I’m free,

I turn to poets and poetry, which the bullies

don’t read.  But the resilient do.  And if you

were hazed, all poems are for you.  And this

world’s for you.  We inherit the earth by voice.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.

SERMON

by Daniel Romo

Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;
And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram.
—Matthew 1:2-3

The egg begat 
the chicken and 
the farmer begat 
overalls and
the middleman begat 
the supermarket.
 
The coffee begat 
the customer and 
the bean begat 
the roast and 
the desire begat 
the brand.
 
The strawberry begat 
the pickers and 
brown hands begat 
ICE and 
Native Americans begat 
the land.
 
MAGA begat 
the bullies and
an outdated amendment begat 
the gun and
the school shooter begat 
the bodies.
 
The Bible begat 
the commandments and 
scripture begat 
cherry-picking and
nationalism begat 
hypocrisy.
 
Adam begat 
Eve and 
the rib begat 
the barbecue
and the flames begat 
the fire.
 
Injustice begat 
the boycott and 
hope begat
light and 
the day begat 
the struggle.

Daniel Romo's latest book is Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets.

I IMAGINE THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING OVER MICHELANGELO'S DAVID

by Cecil Morris

A Florida charter school principal said she was forced to resign this week after some parents complained about their sixth-grade students being shown images of Michelangelo’s “David” statue in class, with one parent believing the art lesson on the Renaissance masterpiece amounted to pornographic material. —The Washington Post, March 24, 2023

A mob of sixth grade students complained

that David defied the school dress code

and came completely naked to school

where he stood, hugely white and naked,

aloof and silent and all judge-y,

with his extra-large, not-even-erect thing

and his hanging sack on display. 

The boys said: he made us feel uncomfortable

and maybe even a little guilty

because, because, and we don’t want to say this,

but we will because we have to stand up

to bullies like him. We have to speak up,

that’s what our parents and teachers tell us,

so here goes, David made us feel bad

because we are white

but not nearly as white as him

and our things are not as big.

It’s like he’s judging our heritage

and putting us down. And those sculpted abs

and pecs and biceps and muscled thighs

and his tremendous height, it's just not right.

And some girls added their complaints

about double standards and sexist favoritism.

They said: you know David was naked

and we can’t even wear spaghetti straps

or off-the-shoulder tops or crop tops

that show a strip of skin and belly buttons.

How is that right or fair?

The boys and girls together said: we want him

removed and the teacher who invited him

and the principal and maybe you, too.

State law says you can’t teach stuff

that makes us feel bad. We saw that on the news

so we want David gone, and no more Cs

or Ds or Fs cause they make us feel bad, too.

Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English and now has turned to writing what he used to teach students to understand and (he hopes) enjoy. He has had a handful of poems published in The Cimarron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, English Journal, Hole in the Head Review, The Midwest Quarterly, The New Verse News, Talking River Review, and other literary magazines.

ANOTHER FALSE NARRATIVE

by Catherine Gonick

Wojciech Kossak "Cossack on Horseback", 1918, watercolour on paper, 24 x 14.5 cm

My Cossacks just left, taking with them

everything they could carry.

As usual, my books, notebooks,

my rubber crutch. I can’t even climb

the walls. But deep in my closet,

a locust swarm gathers. I ride it

back to the desert, scan for signs,

a dung-beetle track, ripple of sand,

to find an oasis of laughing doves.

 

Scribbling again has meaning, yet certain

as ink on paper, as bullies’ lies

on social media, these scimitared

thugs will return. In a garden

of sunflowers outside Odessa, my aunt

fell in love with one of the Cossacks

on horseback passing her house.

 

She was only a child, but her story

reminds me not to be fooled

if now and then, they are handsome.

A pogrom against words is still a pogrom.

 

Catherine Gonick’s poetry has appeared in publications including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Sukoon, and in anthologies including in plein air, Grabbed, and Dead of Winter 2021.  She is part of a company that fights  global warming through climate repair and restoration projects around the world. Pogroms early in the last century drove her grandparents and their first two children from Odessa to California, where her aunt painted sunflowers and worked in the San Francisco Public Library, and her uncle was a leader in the Longshoremen's Strike of 1933 and a lifelong activist. 

CASTING SPELLS BEFORE DAWN

by Joan Mazza

Purified by a long bath in water scented with lavender,
I perform old rituals, light every candle I own,
daven in veils, and say the rosary, chant and meditate
to cast out darkness, rage, desire for revenge.

Ishtar, Aphrodite, Thor— I call upon you. Venus,
Sekmet, Horus, bring kindness, restore gentle words.
Jesus, Moses, Mother Mary, let us welcome those
who suffer, offer food and housing to shunned women

with unplanned, unwanted babies. Let us educate them
in the skills of mothering the next generation, teach boys
peace-making, eye-gazing, empathy, how to plant
a garden, how to cook. Let us join again in dance

and song, teach music rather than how to operate
drones and guns. We must stop marching toward the cliff,
stop degrading our air and water, defiling habitats.
I pray to every god I don’t believe in to step up now

when we need help most. Our bridges and roads
are deteriorating, our land is eroding, the ocean
is full of plastic. Oh, gods of any color or country,
quell my fear of demagogues, bullies who foment hate,

the greedy elite who eat and eat and will not share.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Kestrel, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist Poetry Review, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.