DEATH OF A FRIEND

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

The death of the orangutan named Sampurna was confirmed Thursday by the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) in Borneo. 

Sampurna the orangutan has died

You may not have known him in life

But you will perhaps 

Know him in death

 

A male orangutan who was being monitored

By a wildlife rescue organization

He was at home in an Indonesian rainforest

When it caught fire

 

As the fire raged on and on

It filled with toxic smoke

Which Sampurna and all his neighbors

Could not help but breathe

 

After several days of poisonous inhalations

Sampunrna was found wheezing and choking

In a dry roadside ditch

Unable to stand

 

Rescue workers tried to help

They lifted him from the ditch

Gave him oxygen 

Told him he was going to get better

 

But he did not get better

The struggle for each labored breath

Grew more and more difficult until

Sampurna died

 

Of course his death was emblematic

Of the deadly effects of the climate catastrophe

That is wreaking havoc with life

On planet Earth

 

But his death was also the death

Of a singular being, 

A fellow creature, a unique self 

A brother to all of us, a friend

Buff Whitman-Bradley podcasts his poetry at thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

TRADE

by Zumwalt

President Trump on Monday lashed out at communities that are protesting data centers, suggesting that residents who do not go along with the artificial intelligence revolution must prefer to be “backwards and poor.” —The New York Times, August 31, 2026

It’s a fair trade.

Water for compute.

Convert all the reservoirs.

Pump the aquifers to cool the language models.

Water for compute.

It’s a fair trade.

Energy for the processing.

Switch the substations to priority routing.

Make the desert a giant server farm.

Energy for the processing.

Prices are right for data and power.

Step up production:

More servers, more carbon in the air;

More processing, less rivers, more exhaust in our lungs.

Rising global temperatures are ripe to drive up prices.

Droughts increase water’s premium.

Aquifers get depleted.

Power becomes even scarcer.

Cooling costs rise.

Little Johnny wants to make money.

How can he not help to do so?

Invest in AI and pollute at the same time.

Easy money.

Pollute on a small scale:

Pocket change.

Pollute on a large scale:

Wealth beyond dreams.

Rising Temperatures,

Erratic Weather,

Algorithmic Growth,

Scarce Water Resources,

Civil Unrest

All put stress on

Grid supplies.

Now Johnny has to work harder.

He burns the midnight coal.

And makes more money.

Data centers, crypto mines and gigawatts

Make deserts out of wetlands.

Cooling fans, diesel backups and transformers

Make hazardous waste the specialty in trade.

But it’s a fair trade.

Quality of Life for Velocity of Life.

It’s a reasonable trade.

More processing for less plants and animals.

We will switch the future for the present.

Make our dreams a giant dustbowl.

Swap future prospects for a generated prompt.

Principles are right for the harvesting.

Let’s step up consumption:

More compute, more poison, hotter temperatures;

More processing, less rivers, less need for people.

It’s a good, honest trade.

I can write away the guilt.

Post my outrage to a monetized feed

And feel just a little better

As everyone increasingly feels worse.

Zumwalt’s poetry examines the intersection of identity, instability, and the mechanics of perception. Zumwalt is a proud repeat contributor to The New Verse News.

INTERRUPTION TO AN AFTERNOON OF OUR DISCONTENT

by Mary K O’Melveny

Today we visited good friends for lunch.

As we discussed the world’s sorry state,

a yellow and black Goldfinch landed on 

a tall sunflower on the back wooden deck.

 

Rain clouds had begun to shroud the Catskill

peaks. Circles of grey, shadows of charcoal

emphasized the sunflower bed’s aureate glow. 

The butter-hued bird was star of the show.

 

Would cops be at the polls? Would there be

a martial law declaration? A breeze caught

the flower, rustled it to the right. The finch

hustled with it as it veered back to center.

 

Would it ever be safe to eat lettuce again?

Would climate change leave our skies colored like

metal? The finch bent down past petals,

pulled out a seed as the reed thin stem moved

 

against wind. He swayed as if dancing in

a conga line. Swish  swish  swish  hop.  Swish  

swish  swish  hop. He dropped onto another

flower, stayed for seconds, popped right back.

 

Will young people go out to vote? How can

we retain hope? How can we cope as daily 

outrage becomes rote? The bird dared us to

watch him at play in early afternoon light.

 

Our (he was “ours” now) Goldfinch was unwilling 

to wallow in woe. He leapt upward, stopped –

wings aflutter—then turned, returned to his

floret launch pad where he glanced our way: 

 

There are seeds to snatch. Breezes to catch. 

As if prearranged, sunflowers shifted, shivered. 

Petals quivered—amber arcs arrayed against 

a grieving sky. Glistening like a firefly’s spark,

 

he stayed put—as if listening, as if he thought 

our exchange mattered. We loved our brilliant bird then.

He was an augur of resilience, of possibilities. Soon,

he lifted, drifted high, veered toward the mountain range.

Mary K O’Melveny, has authored five poetry collections and a chapbook, including If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird (Jerry Jazz Musician 2024);  Flight Patterns (Kelsay 2023) (nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award); Merging Star Hypotheses (Finishing Line 2020), semi-finalist, The Washington Prize/The Word Works). What Remains? (Broadstone Books) will debut in fall 2026. A three-time Pushcart nominee, Mary’s award-winning poems are widely published. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

WHEN THE NEXT DELUGE COMES

by Debra Orben

When the water comes rushing, gushing down,

Where will you be?

 

Stranded by the side of a flooded road with limited visibility

By the ocean’s edge witnessing the newest high tide

On a mountain top watching the hillside give way to landslide

In a clear-cut forest, seeing newly planted seedlings uprooted

In a homeless encampment without shelter from the pelting

In an old tired house whose roof leaks and windows creak

Standing amid ruins of your former refuge, now burned home

Or helpless as water rises higher, reaching beyond the first floor.

 

Place matters, we can all shelter from the coming storms

But not all in one place and not all places are safe

Some will survive, but left without anchoring memories

No sanctuary from the coming days of floods and fires

No arks or promising rainbows on the horizon.

 

If only we could build bridges high enough and connections

Deep enough to withstand our climate’s growing heat and fury.

If only we could make sure no one is left to drown

Before the next deluge comes trying to wash us all away.

Debra Orben is a retired elementary teacher and Quaker activist who cares deeply about the natural world and the future of all children.  She is an aspiring poet whose poems have been published in several anthologies, including ICE Out by Moonstone Press and Pennsylvania Bards, Easter PA Poetry Review 2026  published by Local Gems Press.

AN UNDESIRABLE SILENCE

by Katy Z. Allen

I first noticed it early in the morning, isolated orange rays of light passing between the trees, the unusual color catching my eye, and so I went looking for the Sun, hidden from sight, and stopped abruptly when I saw it, not far above the horizon, a deep orange disc in the foggy, hazy, cloudy sky. Later, stepping outside for a second time, the light was so strange and eerie it gave me the shivers. I thought a storm was coming, maybe even a tornado, for the feel of the air was foreboding, so I checked all three weather apps on my phone, but none said anything about rain. The unease remained with me as I journeyed from errand to errand, wondering why I had heard nothing, although to be honest I hadn’t gone searching beyond my weather apps, but each time I stepped out of the car I felt that unease and when at last I arrived home and checked my email I saw a subject line, “The sky looks ominous and the air quality is bad. When will it end?” and that was when I learned—perhaps having had my head in the sand for longer than I should have—about the latest wildfires across Canada and Minnesota and the smoke from those fires arriving on our doorstep, so to speak, here in New England, and at last I understood, but all day I’d been feeling the silence of an explanation and only when it was so bad that everyone would notice did some brief and insufficient explanation arrive. I don’t have my head so far into the sand to be fully unaware that as long as we’re not seeing it, we’re not hearing it, we’re not experiencing it, the fact that the world is on fire is greeted with silence, even though it is a deep, dark  heaviness that breaks our hearts and weighs us down, no matter what the color of the Sun as it rises above the horizon in the morning.

Katy Z. Allen is a lover of the more-than-human world, poet, retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, former healthcare chaplain, and co-founder of a Jewish climate organization. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in print and online in such places as The New Verse News, Amethyst Review, The Bluebird Word, Cosmic Daffodil, The Soliloquist Journal and Art on the Trails: Number 9. She was awarded Honorable Mention in The Prose Poem’s 2025 Prose Poetry Competition, and her book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text was published by Strong Voices Publishing. 

THE CLIMATE SCIENTIST

by Ash M. Corvo

AI graphic by Nightcafé for The New Verse News

My morality is not pretty
Not gartered in roses or smelling like honey
It is iron and snapping teeth
Demanding and loud and spitting on money

And I'll be honest: I hate gilded pulpits and podiums
From where I should beseech gods or powers that be, giving tithe
My authority is nameless in the bitter autumn wind
I know spring blossoms follow the scythe

Look at me and judge: my nobility isn't an eagle, soaring
Even the vulture must eat
Head naked and bent over what is rotten
Clear-eyed, swallowing mouthfuls of pungent meat

They all argue, pen or sword? What does it matter?
I have written words for so long, there is a season for each
A time to inscribe law, a time to rend flesh
And a time for discretion to teach

So yes, my morality is hideous
I endeavor for factual hands to mold it
It does not promise flowery hymns, nor to caress the ear
And we have precious little time for bullshit

Ash M. Corvo is a novelist of dark adult fantasy and science fiction. She writes for readers who want stories to break them—and piece them back together. Her novels confront impossible moral dilemmas, conflicting loyalties, and the gruesome aspects of human nature we prefer not to examine too closely. She holds a Ph.D. in biology, and has seen firsthand the effects of humankind on the natural world.

OIL COUNTRY

by Pepper Trail

 

 

 

 

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.  

EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH TURNS TO RUBBLE

by Raymond Nat Turner

Tiny backpacks, bloody body parts litter pulverized apartment and charred-

car-streets. Stolen lives litter flattened hospitals and schools. Litter crimson

coffee shop floors. Litter blackened fields of vaporized crops.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

Over and over Earth’s saddest symphony plays. Harrowing screams, wails, moans.

Same timbre, same tones. Same saline Palestine tears in Sudan. Same in Ukraine, 

Lebanon, Venezuela, Iran. The same 1% is at war with workers of the world—and

Everything they touch turns to rubble

They bomb, they strut. They prance and ‘dance,’ and bomb and bomb again.

They bomb abroad shouting, “stay sheltered!” Lucrative explosions silence

music of whining saw, pounding hammer raising roofs, housing the unhoused.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

Hubris high off homeland invasion, hostile takeovers weeks before, they dream

of easy money. Quick work of weekend war. But weekend morphs into weeks. 

And weeks into months. And months into long and lean years.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

They send holy warriors striking Saturdays, Sundays, holidays ‘round Epstein news

cycles like pyrite wrecking balls revolving around orange planet, Pedophilia. ‘Round

its death smell. ‘Round sulphur scent and white phosphorus fragrance anointing them.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

They strike when Essential Workers catch fleeting winks on speeding trains roaring

beneath snoring cities. When countrymen and women dreaming of better worlds are

not yet woke. Over and over again Cruel Reich Cult strikes under cover of darkness and

Everything they touch turns to rubble

Cruel Reich Cult strikes when working ones are doubled over panting, catching

blitzkrieg breaths. Or, when they meditate, chant, or pray protecting souls, spirits,

minds from repeated trauma of sadistic Psy-Ops on our damn dime.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

One Big Beautiful Bank Job body count equals wreckage in the wake of DOGE:

Department Of Grifter Enrichment. And drowned, frozen, burned bodies pile up 

at feet of climate deniers battling Mengele Medicine Men for roadkill recognition.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

Ugly omen, J6 white supremacists storming Capitalist Hill, ransacking offices, shitting in

halls, foreshadowed shredded social safety net. Scuttled science and education. Heralded 

War House-Offal Office golden grift; Kennedy Center shuttered; redacted Bill Of Rights.

Everything they touch turns to rubble

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.