SO, GHISLAINE: A CANARY OR A HAWK?

by Catherine Harnett

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

are you melodious: a yellow-feathered thing, aloof
and loyal only to its keeper; from sunny Gran Canaria,
where nudists stroll along the bright blue seashore
and helicopters land and lift like damselflies
 
or a taloned bird of prey, a hunter of small mammals,
carnivorous and stealthy, sharp-eyed; with a spectacular loud
courtship: the female bares her claws, tempts a mate
attracted to her savagery, they stick together all their lives.
 
You play both roles with aplomb, content to charm,
perched in an unlocked cage; and hungry, swooping in
for the kill; but it comes down to this: both
are dangerous, a beak and claws, the chance you’ll
sing.

Catherine Harnett is a poet and fiction author from the DC area, the epicenter of corruption. She has published three books of poems and has completed another manuscript.

CHAPTER 11: THE SHRIMP WINS

by Katie Kemple

Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week citing $1 billion in debt, according to court filings. The announcement comes after a disastrous 2023 endless shrimp promotion in which, for around $20, patrons could order as much shrimp as they wanted, prompting eating challenges by users of TikTok. But while it brought customers to stores, it also put the chain $11 million in the red. —Vox, May 26, 2024

Who knew Red Lobster could be undone 
by its small cousin? TikTokers gone wild 
eating 70 shrimp at a time. Everyone 
desperate for a deal anywhere we can find 
it. All-you-can-eat-shrimp a sort of shrink-
flation in reverse. As our dreams squeezed 
shrimp size. Smaller houses. Apartments. 
We don't own them. Freelance gig status. 
No benefits. Red Lobster underestimated 
how desperately the rest of us needed that 
20-buck offer. We ate the chain out from 
under her majestic claws. Loved her too hard. 
Cracked her so humbly. She never saw it 
coming. Like that time, we borrowed my 
aunt's kayak, and her neighbor let us pull 
their lobster trap. How it tasted within 
the hour, boiled and full of ocean. How 
we cracked it and shared bites between 
the four of us. The best deal ever. I wore 
those lobster leggings. The seafood lover 
in me, loving the serendipity. The trap, 
the chain, in full view, we knew what we 
were doing, the freedom of it. The feeling 
we'd stepped outside of the capital, not
targets or markets. Not eating a commodity.

Katie Kemple is a poet based in Southern California.

WE AS CATS

by Brian Rihlmann

there comes a time
to sit in the sun
to sit in the sun
and do nothing
but take in the world
the sights, sounds, and smells
and then close your eyes
relax and breathe
feel the warmth on your skin

more of this
could be a revolution
quiet as an infestation of termites
could transform the world
more than any religion
any ideology or messiah
any new invention
more than any solution
we could think of

cats understand this necessity
the importance of inactivity
instinctively, they know this
they sleep a lot
they do just enough
and they are sane
they bring out their claws
when they have to
pad around on soft paws
the rest of the time
leaving no futile scars
upon souls, skin
or earth

Brian Rihlmann was born in New Jersey and currently resides in Reno, Nevada. He writes free verse poetry, and has been published in The Blue Nib, The American Journal of Poetry, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, and others. His first poetry collection Ordinary Trauma (2019) was published by Alien Buddha Press.

SHE WHO IS IN BED AT NOON

by W. D. Bumsted-Hind

"Girl Asleep" by Martin Wells <@mwportraits>

She has been too near a shooter,
She has fled a forest fire,
She has become a president,
She has lost two classmates.
She is twenty.
She is both strong and weak,
Secure and insecure.
She is happy and sad.
Home in her old bed,
She is nestled up like a cocoon,
Asleep still at noon.
Trying to repair all that’s broken.
Don’t let yourself fall down,
Get up.
Be present,
Be alive.
Put on your war paint,
Iron your hair,
Sharpen your claws,
Fly free again.


W. D. Bumsted-Hind, JD/PhD, is Vice President for University Affairs at the University of Nebraska.  She has published poems in several journals including The Healing Muse and Blood and Thunder. Her poem "My Tattoos" was featured on New York Public Radio.

EATING BREAKFAST AT COLONIAL AND READING HARPER'S ON THE EGG WARS

by Joan Colby

Meme source: Twitter

Reading how the hens suffer
Crammed by the thousands in metal cages,
Stacked stories high,
The air thick with dust and feathers,
Beaks clipped, thin necks bloody,
The dying decaying beneath calloused claws,
Adhering like bathmats to the wire floors.
Forced to lay seven times the norm,
Until spent, to be seized
By the handsful, gassed and ground
For pet food. Never seeing sunlight
Or spreading wings or nesting in trees
Or taking dustbaths or establishing
The pecking order. Reading that to guarantee
A normal chicken life would mean
Paying triple or more for this
Scrambled plate, I tell you
I’d pay whatever it costs to let them be
Chickens scratching in the dirt, how maybe we
Should set up the nesting boxes
In our old coop and get some
Leghorns, though I know we won’t
Bother really, and much as I abhor
What I am reading, there’s the long distance
Between slick paper and the
Long, long barns and my fork.

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 was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). 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) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.