QUESTIONS

by Katy Z. Allen

Cartoon by Clay Jones

President Donald Trump declared Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world. –The New York Times, January 8, 2026

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread out… —Exodus 1:12
 
asking yourself a question / that's where resistance starts // and then asking someone else, the same question —Remco Campert, "Someone Asks the Question"

The money began to disappear

and the people, 

adherence to the law,

whether ours or everyone’s,

environmental protection,

childcare and other services,

a sense of safety and security,

more money,

more people.

The killing and wounding began—

always with an explanation—

adherence to personal morality alone 

prevailed.

Yet questions were spoken,

whispered and shouted, 

in the open and behind closed doors, 

among friends and in public, 

on airwaves and in cyberspace,

by children and by grandparents, 

by the energized and by the exhausted,

in solitude or to another

question were repeated, 

multiplied 

and spread out,

until 

they were on the lips of every caring woman 

and child 

and man,

every caring human being.

And that was the moment that led,

in the end,

to the beginning.

Katy Z. Allen is a lover of the more-than-human world, poet, retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, former healthcare chaplain, co-founder of a Jewish climate organization, and eco-chaplain. She has been writing in one context or another all her life. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in print and online in such places as Amethyst Review, The New Verse News, The Bluebird Word, Cosmic Daffodil, and Art on the Trails: Number 9. Her book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text was published by Strong Voices Publishing.

ODE TO A MAGA FUTURE

by Peter Witt

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

I don't care if 
Ukraine ends up a satellite of Russia
Israel annexes all Palestinian lands
Poland goes the way of Ukraine
NATO goes defunct

as long as egg prices go down.

I don't care if 
all judges are Trump appointees
gay marriage is outlawed
trans individuals are discriminated against
raped women must still have their babies

as long as bread prices go down

I don't care if
rich people get huge tax breaks
oil and gas wells are drilled on pristine national lands
regulations allow polluting rivers and waterways
steps to reduce climate change are abandoned

as long as the cost of a gallon of gas goes down

I don't care if
things I buy that are made in China become more expensive
illegal immigrants are rounded up and sent home
people to harvest the nation's crops become scarce
workers who build housing and infrastructure disappear

as long as Christian nationalism becomes the law of the land

Peter Witt is a Texas poet, a frequent contributor to The New Verse News and other online poetry web-based publications.

[THIS POEM WILL PROBABLY GET US KILLED]

by Sharmila Voorakkara & Ron Riekki

Planned Parenthood officials on Monday announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic—a 37ft recreational vehicle that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned the procedure since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade earlier this year. —The Guardian, October 4, 2022

                                                               for Alexis McGill Johnson

There has always been a running, either away from

or to.  And sometimes, just the promise of anything other than

where you are is all you need to leave. To live.  This fills me

with worried peace… My friend told me that I need

to practice gratitude, to be thankful for mobile clinics

and mobile apps and even my mobile home—

these places of temporary comfort, where people 

might treat you like a person, can understand you are

a being, human, like them, to help with the need to avoid

suffering, needlessly, and perhaps be understood, 

be under caring hands, especially after the hands

that strangled you, tried to own you, drown you,

breakdown you, in your nightgown, you in front

of your children and the law-and-order and the Bible 

that want to shame you, and then, at the border,

this safety, waiting, at the border, thank God, at the border.

Sharmila Voorakkara received her MFA from the University of Virginia. Her first collection of poems, Fire Wheel, was published by the University of Akron Press.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).

THE FLAMINGO CUP

by Jenny Doughty

The last time I cried was when I heard my daughter try and explain events on the TV to her three year old. There were protest marches, she started to say but Katie interrupted, What’s a protest march? My daughter hesitated. Katie flourished a cup picturing a pink flamingo. She’d liberated it from her baby sister earlier. Was it over a flamingo cup? The strain hit me of a week spent watching a black man die under a white cop’s knee, hearing I can’t breathe, seeing blood flow from baton blows, people gasp and choke from tear gas or bruised by rubber bullets. Baby girl, yes, it was all about a flamingo cup. It was about some people wanting all the flamingo cups and others having to use their cupped hands. It was about some people whose flamingo cups overflowed with the juiciest juice while others drank lead-tainted water from faucets. It was about cops stopping black people who had flamingo cups because they might have stolen them from white people. It was about people with the biggest and best flamingo cups taking them from others who were left, like your baby sister, crying on the floor. Sometimes it was about stopping somebody else from taking your flamingo cup when they already had their own but wanted more. It was about caring about that flamingo cup so much that you no longer cared about the person holding it, even if that person was left with only cupped hands to drink from or crying on the floor or crushed under a knee, not breathing.

Jenny Doughty is a former English teacher and Education Adviser to Penguin UK.  Originally British, she has lived in Maine since 2002. Her poems have appeared in The Aurorean, Pulse online review, Naugatuck River Review, Four Way Review, and several anthologies. She is currently President of the Maine Poets Society. Her first book of poems Sending Bette Davis to the Plumber was published by Moon Pie Press in 2017.