FOR MINNEAPOLIS

by Ruth Lehrer

They don’t tell you in the morning
you will die by noon 
driving in your car
walking on the street 
 
after you are gone
you see a picture of the gun
flesh as good as ashes
blood as good as painted pain 
 
But in that morning you just know
yesterday your neighbor was brave
so today you must be too
The boundary between trust and fear
torn open
 
We are all ash
We are all brave. 

Ruth Lehrer is a sign language interpreter and Pushcart-nominated poet living in western Massachusetts. She is the author of the young adult novel Being Fishkill. 

SCULPTURE

by Jan Chronister

In Duluth, Minnesota

a well-known snow sculptor

crafts a car on his front lawn—

Honda Pilot with smiling driver,

arm hanging out. 

He adds a sign that says,

“I’m not mad at you.”

Someone places flowers

on the white canvas.

A photo of the sculpture on Facebook

draws close to one hundred hateful comments,

some even rejoicing at her death.

It’s going to be cold in Minnesota—

wind chills as low as -60.

The snow car and driver

will be around a long time.

Perhaps long enough

for the haters to find 

their humanity.

Jan Chronister is a retired educator who splits her year between the extremes of northern Wisconsin (by Lake Superior) and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and twelve chapbooks. Jan edits and publishes the work of fellow poets under the imprint of Poetry Harbor.

WHIRLS

by Don Kingfisher Campbell

Click to read article and view video.

1: California Driveway

 

The unfurling of the calla lily

Like a white dress whirling

 

When fully open with the day

Orange pistil elicits pollination

 

2: Minnesota Video

 

Masked man’s bodycam sees driver:

“I’m not mad at you, boy.”

 

Nearby woman wielding cellphone:

“You want to come at us?”

 

3: Reflecting Poet

 

The whirl of wheels

The whirl of a weapon

 

What makes a mind whirl

What made our minds whirl

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA Antioch University L.A., taught at USC and Occidental College Upward Bound, board member California Poets In The Schools, publisher Four Feathers Press, host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading and workshop series in Pasadena, California.

HUNTING SEASON

by Alessandra Foster

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

It starts around Thanksgiving, 

a feast of treats

focused on the corpse

of a large dead bird 

who's been gutted, re-filled, roasted.

No thanks there.

Meanwhile, fleet-footed deer

frantic and fearful,

run for dear life

across roads, across farms,

through woods,

without their normal caution,

sometimes tricked and tempted, 

stilled long enough to be killed

by a human with a gun.

Or a car with blinding lights.

So much beauty to be grateful for,

so much thriving diverse life to be part of, 

yet we offer up gratitude for the deaths

of fellow creatures who might, like us,

be thankful just to be alive.

 

Soon we segue to Peace on Earth,

greeting card words that aren't for real.

Not while our hearts and minds,

right here, right now, right at home, 

every day, every holiday,

accept violence and killing as normal, 

as celebration,

as having no season.

 

 

Author’s note: There are environments too harsh, and/or humans too poor, to sustain a non-violent diet. They may need to hunt or fish or farm a couple of domestic animals in order to survive. This poem is not for them.

Alessandra Foster - lifelong and long-lived reader and writer of poetry. Forty-three year vegan. Published: The New Verse News, Literary Veganism, Verse-Virtual, Moss Piglet, Rat's Ass Review.

HE COULDN’T CARE LESS

No eggs I can afford!

     Couldn’t care less

No job with government

    Couldn’t care less

Can’t pay for room and board

    Couldn’t care less

Can’t afford a car.

    Couldn’t care less

Can’t keep health insurance

    Couldn’t care less

My children have measles

    Couldn’t care less

But cod liver oil’s sold out!

    Couldn’t care less

Campaigning again

    Dems should care more

Because He Couldn’t care less

By Joe Blow who couldn’t care more

Ralph La Rosa invented this Joe Blow.

STOP THE CAR!

by Craig Cowden

“Stop the car… We want dramatic change. We don't get to go to Disneyland until we figure this out.” — Senator John Curtis on Face the Nation, February 23, 2025

Climbing out our 60s wood-panel station wagon
somewhere in the wilderness of eastern Oregon,
we scurry behind Mom as Dad rages about
our whining, his money, the heat, the route.

Dad yanks the jack out of the back and liberates
the car of regulated seatbelts, warning lights,
“dem wasteful mandates,” while mumbling “CAFE”
to the catalytic converter — what is that anyway?

Out goes the spare tire unmaintained and flat.
Power steering? “When you’re a man, who needs that?”
Jettisoned is the rear facing seat where we escape,
a privilege we apparently no longer rate.

Tossed are my anime, smashed is brother’s tablet,
to the ditch goes sister’s faded rainbow jacket
followed soon by Mom’s remote workplace laptop
while the bumper with peace stickers lies on the blacktop.

Turning to his scions now in shock by the road,
he demands that we just stop, but we aren’t told
what to change in our dysfunctional family
or how to reboot the ruined car and make it to Disney.

Author’s note: On CBS’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan on February 23, 2025, Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, repeats the metaphor of “stopping the car” to confront the disruptive kids 11 times in response to multiple oversight questions in this 8 minute interview. This poem imagines what transitions might occur during this “stop the car moment.” Margaret Brennan fails to ask, and Senator Curtis doesn’t offer, how the car gets rebooted — maybe jumper cables, heart defibrillator, Ctrl+Alt+Del?

Craig Cowden is a retired director of program management from Oracle Corporation.  With his engineering background, he thinks it quite logical that the same skills that architect efficient, elegant software can also inspire measured, meaningful verse. He relishes writing cynical poems from alternative perspectives covering current events and life in general.   Craig's poems have appeared in Lighten Up Online, Birdy Magazine, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop Anthology Collections of Poetry and Short Fiction.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CYNICISM

by Michael Mark

The doctor looks at the x-ray 

of my little toe and notices

a dip in his 

Money Market fund. 

 

He recommends surgery.

 

The authorization request 

is forwarded to the insurance 

company examiner who'd

been warned by management 

about being too liberal with 

approvals.

 

She reviews the doctor’s 

diagnosis, carefully 

considering her job security.

 

After reading the denial

my wife

asks why we pay so much

for insurance if we can’t

use it.

 

And why doctors go

to medical school to get 

all the knowledge 

when the insurance 

companies

have all the power.

 

And why do I 

go around without shoes 

all the time

because that’s what caused

the bump on my toe?

 

I go for a ride to blow off

steam and my car breaks down.

 

Bending over the engine, 

the mechanic 

glances at my expensive shoes

and I say,

Yeah, I know, this is going to be a big job.

Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, awarded the 2022 Rattle Chapbook Prize. Poems appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, 32 Poems, The Sun, The Best New Poets 2024.

CAR PARTS

by Matt Witt

U.A.W. Halts Work at 3 Plants in Contract Fight With Automakers 
Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have all raised their pay raise proposals since their opening bids—but to no more than 20%, just half of the union's 40% ask, Fain said. The companies have also rejected the union's pension and retiree healthcare proposals, according to [UAW President Shawn] Fain. Other economic issues, including cost of living adjustments and profit sharing, remain points of contention. "We do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifice and contributions our members have made to these companies," Fain told union members. "To win, we'll likely have to take action." —NPR, September 13, 2023. "The Big Three CEOs saw their pay increase by 40% over the last four years, while our pay only went up by 6%," UAW President Shawn Fain said at a news conference last week. —NPR, September 14, 2023

I did a simple internet search

for “the major parts of a car”

 

And Google said the answer is

Chassis,

Engine,

Transmission system,

Car body,

Steering system, and

Braking system.

 

It left out each worker’s

Hands,

Arms

Back

Knees

Ears

Nerves, and

Lungs.

 

Another search found that

auto workers suffer

injuries and illnesses

at more than twice the rate

of other private industry.

 

Maybe next I will search:

What is the true cost of a car?

Who pays the price?

And who gets the profits?

 

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon. His work may be found at MattWittPhotography.com.

NEXT WEEK—DEO VOLANTE

by Joan Leotta

I’m supposed to drive to Raleigh,

2.5 hours from here and stay 

in a hotel alongside a creek

that sometimes floods

(as does the creek behind my house), 

to immerse myself in 

a sea of poety.

 

All of these plans could 

be swept away by the winds

and water of the pending hurricane.

 

So, why do I still plan?

Life had  taught me

all can change sooner than

the weatherman predicts,

sooner than my doctor thinks.

In an instant, crossing the street,

or stumbling on a sidewalk crack,

a new virus,

waiting at a bus stop

shopping in my favorite grocery

Someone’s car, my clumsiness,

germs, someone’s gun fueled anger,

all of these can take me

to the “other side.”

I know because my son

was hit by a car on a night 

he had plans,

so as I plan, I add, God Willing,
Deo Volante, to my notes,

knowing all could end now

but not worrying because once I step

to that other side, there will 

be loved ones who await me there.

Joan Leotta. Author, Story Performer

PLEASE

by William Aarnes

poetry makes nothing happen 

          —W.H. Auden 

 

poetry is never really part of anything 

          —John Koethe 

 

It can kill a man. 

          —Wallace Stevens 

 

                         It is difficult

to get the news from poems

          yet men die miserably every day

                                            for lack

of what is found there. 

          —William Carlos Williams 

 

Of course, there are other ways 

to kill—a knee pressed down 

on a neck; a quick, hard shove 

 

off a subway platform; a swerve 

onto a sidewalk; a brick 

dropped from a roof; the slow, 

 

sure work of something tasteless 

stirred into a sauce; a knife  

stuck through a partner’s heart... 

 

—but guns are so easy to have  

on hand they’ve help us fall  

into the habit of reaching for them 

 

to win lost arguments  

or end marriages or conclude 

our own lives by aimless firing 

 

into crowds.  Having guns around, 

has moved us to elect whoever  

will pass and keep in force  

 

permissive laws meant to insure  

we’ll need guns to defend each other  

from gunfire.   

 

                       So can someone  

 

please post the poem everyone 

(even readers who prefer 

firing guns to reading)  

 

will want to share with friends  

because the poem’s so compelling  

about how we need justices 

 

who think laws must meet 

standards suggested by the phrase  

“well regulated militia” 

 

and (in a brilliant burst  

of well-targeted words)    

about how it’s criminal  

 

not to make crimes committed  

with guns the responsibility  

of not only the culprits but also  

 

the weapons’ makers and dealers? 

 

Please, someone, that poem.  

 

Stop me from buying a gun. 

William Aarnes lives in New York.

P-22

by Barbara Parchim

The famous Hollywood-roaming mountain lion known as P-22 is drastically underweight and was probably struck and injured by a car, wildlife experts who conducted a health examination on the big cat said on Tuesday. The male cougar, whose killing of a leashed dog has raised concerns about its behavior, probably will not be released back into the wild and could be sent to an animal sanctuary or euthanized, depending on its health, the California department of fish and wildlife said. —The Guardian, December 14, 2022

you overstepped your allotment

designated when we took over the landscape—

 

wandered into the backyards of

designer dogs that scamper like prey

 

crossed the wrong freeways—

a concrete grid overlaid on the land

 

meaningless, artificial boundaries

not mapped in your DNA

 

how could you know

only certain spaces were allowed?

 

how solitary your existence

far from the Santa Monica mountains

 

the occasional park,

a checkerboard of wild between our constructs

 

what happens next is our decision

as we decide everything in our dominion

 

your celebrity may evoke some empathy

as the wild slips away

 

 

Barbara Parchim lives on a small farm in southwest Oregon.  She enjoys gardening and hiking and volunteered for several years at a wildlife rehabilitation facility.  Her poems have appeared in Allegro, Isacoustic, The NewVerse News, Turtle Island Quarterly, Windfall, Front Porch Review, Jefferson Journal, Cirque, and others.  Her first book What Remains was published by Flowstone Press in October, 2021.

HALO

by Linnet Phoenix

for Romain Grosjean

I know the angels of November.

Those that hover as low cloud

over the undulating motorways

on pre-darkened autumnal evenings.

 

I have felt their wings catch me

as my car was clipped left rear

by an undertaking Ford Scorpio.

 

A terrifying loss of control

as my steering wheel grew teeth

snapped at my wrists,

spun hard and fast

lock-end left to lock-end right.

 

Time itself moved to slow motion

as the seconds screamed with me.

At 90 miles per hour

the car should have flipped and rolled,

a steel gymnast on a tarmac mat.

 

Yet we commandeered three lanes

bucked and shied like a bronco

released fresh out the crush.

 

After eight wild swings

I came to rest in hard shoulder,

the line of headlights waited

an audience stood well back.

 

My fingers were melded on

a becalmed steering wheel.

It happened twenty years ago.

 

Today, watching Bahrain footage

I saw his car flung in the barrier,

torn in half, engulfed in a fireball.

 

The red flags of safely raised

as he walked out the flames

with only burns to his hands.

 

A titanium halo hailed his saviour.

I wondered if they stole his voice

for just an hour, as they did mine.

Linnet Phoenix is a poet who currently resides in North Somerset, England. She has been writing poetry for years. Her work has previously been published in ImpSpired Magazine, Heroin Love Songs, Punk Noir Magazine, Open Skies Quarterly, and others. She has poems upcoming in Poetica Review, Dreamscape (Open Skies), and ImpSpired. She also enjoys horse-riding in rainstorms.

POSTCARD FROM HOPEWELL CEMETERY

by Kathleen McClung

A Michigan woman accused of stealing flowers from local cemeteries that authorities say she used to decorate her home has been sentenced to jail. [She] was arrested after someone saw a car full of flowers leaving a cemetery. —The Detroit News, July 24, 2017

Such lavish praise on nearly every stone.
Nobody ever cheated here, I guess,
or bounced a check, defaulted on a loan,
or lit evictions with a black Zippo. Success
blooms here in jelly jars of peonies,
hibiscus, orchids, mums. They go to waste
each Tuesday though, when short-timers turn keys
on mowers, ride around, bring home bouquets
to wives. (My ex did once, ten years ago.
Then he left town with Viv.) On Monday nights
I make my rounds at dusk. I drive real slow
and pay respect, then load the car—blues, whites,
and fuchsias, sweet ceramic bowls the shape
of shamrocks, doves. They match my couch, my drapes.

Kathleen McClung lives, teaches, and writes in San Francisco. She judges sonnets for the Soul-Making Keats literary competition and hears the poetry in people trying to make ends meet.

GOD KEEP ME

by Alejandro Escudé

One can organize well.
Hate in sharp angles:
Triangles, crosses, swastikas.

Checked boxes.
If you believe this,
You can't believe that.

Then there's the vitriol
That anticipates understanding.
Firewalls of reaction.

Dull, bright colors.
In the midst of this,
A bullet the size of a car.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

CHOSEN VENUES

by Joan Colby


Where you are dancing.
Where you celebrate.
Where the bands play.
Where you congregate for coffee
Or conversation. Or to view the match
Or the marathon.
Anywhere you go to enjoy
Invites the strike. The explosive vest
Or car aimed at the thick of things.
What they seek to destroy is this:
Free pleasure. The authoritarian shift
To beheadings in an arena
Where you learn what to expect.


Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press), Dead Horses and Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press), and Properties of Matter (Aldrich Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.

LONDON FLASH

by Linda Stryker

Image source: Belfast Telegraph

I forfeit my untroubled life
flashed in Parliament’s windows
he yells in a rose-red voice
when noise is the only turn
hang my body on the news

who-the-devil on the bridge
vile car shoots forward
runs down the oblivious
revs onward to double the dead
screams of agony and loss

a flashed knife toward an innocent
a yell      get the crazed runner
stopped sound of many breaths
a chaotic quiet in the aftermath
tourists on their pleasant strolls


Linda Stryker writes from Phoenix, Arizona, and is a volunteer radio reader and musician. Her work has been published in Highlights for Children, Ekphrastic, Chiron Review, and New Millennium Writings, among several others. Terrorists, like a pack of hungry coyotes, tear at the flanks of of civilization.