WHEN HE’S GONE

by Kay White Drew

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

…do unto his Mar-a-Lago North
what he has done to the Presidential residence:
tear it limb from limb, let
the wrecking ball swing free.

Gather the people from the four directions
to bear witness. Sing and chant, each
in your own tongue. Release your grief
and joy: the reign of terror is finally over.
Trash or melt down the tawdry gold things.
Remove with care the remnants
of happier days and the relics of the founders.

When the dust has settled, bring sages
and shamans and clergy of all denominations
to purify the space with prayers, smudge-sticks
and incense, libations and offerings
in rituals of repentance and reconciliation.

Dig a new foundation, build a new structure
that reflects our mongrel variety,
embraces us in all our multifarious glory.

       Not the White House.
       The People’s House.

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The Intima, Gargoyle, and The New Verse News. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test, about medical school in the 1970s. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Reading and spending time in nature keep her sane(ish) in these difficult times.

PROJECT 2025

by Janet Blair

Call me crotchety and loud
ineffective and utopian 
unrealistic and wasteful.

Laugh as I hold postered signs 
made with markers and glitter 
waving them at street corners downtown 
chanting about democracy 
calling out to the cars honking in agreement.

Roll your eyes.
Say it will not make one iota of difference.
We are awash in red here, completely surrounded. 

As the blood seeps in,

words are banned and bodies under lock.

They machete through decades of progress
rewrite dictionaries and craft spells to spoon feed 
the dozing people around us.  

Still, I will stomp
call out to the moon and paint my face 
bottling up today's screams 
to send floating toward the future

never choosing silence or submission. 

You see, I was trained for this shit early on—
learned how to cradle a cry inside when the belt lashed
how to hold my head up the next day 
and look a tyrant straight in the eye

how to march through the 

shredded gift-wrapping paper

and blooming bluish bruises 
toward an exit sign 
at the end of a long, long hallway of years. 

I know how to crawl 
                                toward the light... 

Janet Blair lives and works in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, she is a weekend poet who dreams of writing full time. Her most recent work can be found in South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), The Florida Bards Anthology and The Eckerd Review.

STANDING UP, POURING OUT

by L. Lois

Vancouverites rallied at the U.S. Consulate [last month] to protest the imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports. —City News, March 4, 2025

runways paved through city
blocks for us to walk
places to put our protest
cars stopped
by the coupling of bodies
massing to chant
the poison must be choked
 
texting the message
email chains binding keyboard wrists
worn raw by tyranny
feet shuffling out the door
marching down
cement plazas giving way
to anger echoing between the buildings
 
hubris weights its own downfall
compassion and arrogance
feel the same in a cold heart
the court jester turns to inform
sacred trust scattered across ballots
gathered by the greedy
presumes civility requires passivity
 
voices lift
to swing their signs
feet pound
freedom's patience
taxed and thin
hydrants knock open
spewing cleansing

Author’s note: As a Canadian, I will be joining the April 5th mass movement by gathering with other concerned global citizens outside the US Consulate in Vancouver, British Columbia.

L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting through her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Breakfast, Open JA&L, Fictional Cafe, The Mid-Atlantic Review, Washington Square Review, Sparks of Calliope, and other literary publications.

LSD AT T***P RALLY

by Nate Alaska

A bronze extraterrestrial preaches to an ocean
of oscillating flesh and bright red mesh

He is deep sea indigo, scab scarlet, moss green
Phoenician purple, and labia pink

Weeping faces shift expression beneath
ripples of power and contort themselves in concert

The orchestra of discarnate beings that shouldn’t be
issues forth gentle hymns of revolution

A secret of forbidden lust dribbles from
every observable orifice with peculiar viscosity

Chanting declarations of rage summons forth
a parade of creatures from their nightmares

Millions worship together in silence at an
altar of pain beyond language or feeling

Nate Alaska is an amateur poet, author, and a student of philosophy from Chicago's Southwest suburbs. When he isn't counting syllables toward sonnets, he enjoys coffee and wine, hiking, cooking vegetarian cuisine, and practices meditation.

MOTHER OF ALL

by Mimi German

Marker Painting "PIETA-2" Black Pieta Ethnic Folk Art Black religious art African

The Mother

of all

Bombs



the

(space)

mother

(space)

of

(space)

ALL

(space)

bombs

The
Mother
of all
bombs

repeated chanted repeated chanted
sung liturgized canonized infantilized eroticized epitomized

into being

a mantra of man

the Mother
of All

Bombs

the mother of ALL bombs

chants the news so many times
that it becomes a thing

this

Mother

of all
Bombs



My
nipples
lactate
blood




tonight
cloaked inside
my Grandmother’s blanket
my mother’s mother,
i write
with mourning sickness
under my fingernails

the taste of burnt skin
inhabits my tongue

my grandmother
had a scar
on her abdomen
a c-section.

my mother
wanted
to enter life
feet first

the Mother
of ALL
Bombs

an
empty
womb
is
bleeding



mother
mother
mother
mother

mother of all
mother of ALL
Mother of ALL

bombs

goes the chant


mother
of dead child
on exploded soil
on Mother Earth
in the Mother Land
in Afghanistan


314,000,000 dollars worth
of
mothers
of
dead children
and
children
with
dead mothers

wrote a poem this morning
about shadows

while

the Mother
of All
Bombs

was chanting itself
into being

there are

no Mothers

of

Bombs


only
men
who
make
bombs
to
drop
them
on
Mothers.


Mimi German is a Queer Poet, Free Radical and an Activist for human rights in Portland, OR.