ENDANGERMENT

by Pepper Trail

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

The Trump administration on Thursday revoked the basis for federal climate regulations, undermining the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect the environment and public health. —Yale Climate Connections, February 12, 2026

There are always choices

 

There are measles, whooping cough, and polio, or there are vaccinations

            Measles, whooping cough, and polio

 

There is humane law enforcement, or there is brutal intimidation

            Brutal intimidation

 

There is value for public service and competence, or only for blind political loyalty

            Blind political loyalty

 

There is protection of election integrity, or there is manipulation for partisan advantage

            Manipulation for partisan advantage

 

There is respect and cooperation with allies, or there is contempt and extortion

            Contempt and extortion

 

There is the possibility of action on climate change, or there are unconstrained profits for fossil fuel corporations, drought, flooding, glacial melting, sea level rise, ocean acidification, crop failures, deadly heat domes, species extinctions, spread of tropical diseases, coral reef bleaching, extreme wildfire events, ocean current disruptions, and mass human dislocations.

Unconstrained profits for fossil fuel corporations, drought, flooding, glacial melting, sea level rise, ocean acidification, crop failures, deadly heat domes, species extinctions, spread of tropical diseases, coral reef bleaching, extreme wildfire events, ocean current disruptions, and mass human dislocations

 

There are always choices.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

BEAR WITH ME TODAY

by Linda Laderman

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

Bear with me today 

because I’m thinking

about what’s in front

of us in this second, 

whatever, wherever 

you might be—bear 

with me. I’m almost

out of my mind. Feel

my chest, tight, like

elastic ready to snap.

Put down a metaphor

for brittle, body, break.

My body is taut. Rat 

a tat: a series of knocks 

at the door. Slam it shut.

Do you have a warrant?

I don’t do much sleeping.

My body weeps, pulled 

into the undertow. I’ve no

resistance to the rising

tide. Silt, salt, foam, wall.

Bear with me. I beg you,

you who believe, let your

god know this would be a

good time for it to lift up

its countenance among us.

Bear with me if I repeat my

fears—if my refusal to let go 

scares you. I want to know

why you wander door to door,

in pursuit of something you

imagine, but haven’t found. 

Do you hear? The rooms rife 

with past choices, old voices.

I don’t know how this ends. 

Bear with me. I’m searching for a conclusion.

Linda Laderman is a Michigan poet. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Action-Spectacle, SWWIM, Rise Up Review, and Rust & Moth. She is a past recipient of Harbor Review’s Jewish Women’s Prize. Her micro-chapbook What I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know can be found online at Harbor Review. In past lives, she was a journalist and taught English at Owens Community College and Lourdes University, in Ohio.

SUPREME CALLOUSNESS: A THEME SONG FOR THE RIGHT WING

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

Cartoon by Terry Torgerson

In a 6-3 decision, which broke along ideological lines, the court’s conservative majority said that regulations penalizing people for sleeping in public spaces such as parks and streets do not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment, even when a community lacks indoor shelter and its unhoused residents have nowhere else to go. —The Washington Post, June 28, 2024

Don't let the homeless sleep outdoors.
We really need to quell them.
When they deface our public space,
We might as well expel them.

Just keep them out of sight and then
Ignore their angry voices.
It's time for them to learn the truth:
They're not the ones with choices.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, The Galway Review, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Options (Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ magazine), The Providence Journal, Scientific American, Sparks of Calliope, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had six previous poems in The New Verse News.

TISSUE & NERVE

by Art Goodtimes

Illustration: Jonathon Rosen for Mother Jones, 2011.

One of the books Capt. Barefoot’s been reading

Crews’ Freud: The Making of an Illusion

details how Freud’s entire legacy

constitutes a tissue of lies

 

Only 'tis you and yous who believe

who put the lie to lies, even

poorly disguised with political handstands

cheap shout-outs & calisthenic flash mobs

 

Truth is, truth can be torn

& so mangled it’s not just-us or justice

but tissue & nerve that compensate

for the loss of all muscle

 

Just one rip & a deep

unconditional dive into the bliss of belief

whether odi et amo, for, out of the fabric

to leap lizard bots & borgs

 

Aye, citizens. Let’s inaugurate our hills to climb

Unzip the science. Unmask the threats. Let’s be

born again believers in the freedom of choices—not so

much the answers, but the friends we make of the questions

 

Art Goodtimes was an Earth First! poetry editor before getting elected to five terms as a Green county commissioner in Southwestern Colorado, where U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Rifle) now represents the Third Congressional district in Congress. Art is co-director of Talking Gourds, a local and regional poetry program under the non-profit aegis of the Telluride Institute.