MEAL FROM HELL

by Kay White Drew

AI-generated graphic from Shutterstock for The New Verse News

Mash together lies and conspiracy theories,
minced fine. Knead graft and greed
until soft and pliant. Chop bodily autonomy
with the knife of corrupt judgment
on the devil’s cutting board. Peel
rights and freedoms inexorably,
till only slivers remain,
then boil what’s left in oil.

Serve on a platter made of microplastics,
fossil fuels, and radioactive waste,
to all those white supremacists who dare
to call themselves Christians.

Pour the dish, still piping hot,
over their heads.

Kay White Drew, a.k.a. Katherine White, M.D., is a retired neonatal physician. Her essays, poems, and short stories appear in several anthologies and online journals; an essay in the Loch Raven Review was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her memoir Stress Test came out on 6/4/24. She lives in Rockville, MD, with her husband.

CAN WE SEE THE SUN?

by William Aarnes

Beth and I are wearing masks

and, as can happen on the subway,

 

the unmasked man across the aisle

raises his voice to everyone

 

in the car to tell us that wearing masks

and getting vaccines just shows

 

we’re brainwashed by the “slime”

of lies told by the government

 

and the media.  We’ve been tricked

into believing all kinds of fictions.

 

“Take the sun,” he says, his voice

rising.  “Yes, take the goddamned sun.

 

You’re telling me you can see something

that’s ninety-three million miles away?

 

Anyone who thinks for himself knows

his eyes can’t see that far! You’d need

 

a Hubble, though that Hubble’s

just another made-up lie. Anyone

 

who’s reasonable and thinks for himself

knows he’s not seeing the sun. Read

 

your Plato and stop looking up

at the useless sky. Don’t listen

 

to those swindlers that are telling you

any different. And stop going along

 

with the idea that something invisible

can make you sick. Or just go ahead.

 

I don’t give a damn. Why would anyone               

give a damn? You’re all just pathetic!” 

As we leave the train, we don’t dare

wish him well—what would he do?—

though we want to. Beth and I wear

our masks the two blocks home.

It’s a gloomy afternoon, light rain.

And the first thing I do in the door

is—trusting the internet—open my laptop

to look up the diameter of the sun.

Then how much light the sun gives off—

enough, I’m told, to leave you blind.

William Aarnes lives in New York.  He worries about what the conservative response to COVID has done to our thinking about public health.  And yesterday his appointment to get a COVID booster was cancelled because the pharmacy had yet to receive its supply.

BELIEVING IS SEEING

by Phyllis Frakt
inspired by Ian McEwan, Enduring Love

cartoon by Bob Englehart

Self-interest is our malady.
The child cries mine! then grows up
to try a more wily strategy.
She invents suspect evidence,
then advances a conspiracy.
He amends the next textbook
to deliberately distort history.
Deniers, decriers, and liars 
turn science into travesty.
Their desires are a twisted warp
that thwarts all objectivity.
But the rut is cut so deeply
we’re all guilty of complicity – 
Yes, you! Even me, just possibly.

 
Phyllis Frakt's previous poems in The New Verse News are "Teach to the Test," "Caught in Between," and "Not in Our Star..." She lives in New Jersey.

QANON AND THE BUTTERFLIES

A Found Poem with the Species List of the National Butterfly Center

by Pepper Trail

Why did the National Butterfly Center in South Texas close last week? 🦋

Because of a conservative conspiracy, of course! @mehdirhasan brings you the troubling tale: pic.twitter.com/FLTzl14LeT

— The Mehdi Hasan Show (@MehdiHasanShow) February 8, 2022

In a country where many believe that Satan-worshipping pedophiles 

run the government and the resurrection of John F. Kennedy Jr. will 

 restore a Trump presidency, the Butterfly Center has become 

the latest unlikely victim of wild misinformation 

and outright lies spreading rapidly online.

 —The New York Times, February 6, 2022

 

How are we to make sense of this?

The Question Mark

 

Among the flowers are butterflies, only butterflies

The Monarch and the Soldier and the Queen

The Blue-eyed Sailor and the Painted Lady

The Dainty Sulphur and the Silver Emperor

 

All mingling together in peace

The Black Swallowtail

The Great Southern White

The Mexican Yellow

 

Outside the fence, all is fire and storm

The Malicious Skipper

The American Snout

The Fatal Metalmark

 

But here, can we not agree on beauty, at last?

            The Common Banner

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.

IN JEOPARDY

by Gary Glauber

 

My potent potable’s amber glow

reflects the lights and I reflect

that we are in jeopardy.

Everything has become a contest.

Surviving a Global Pandemic for 1000, Alex.

Science becomes a new focal point.

The game is charged with toxic partisanship

and many ignore even the obvious clues.

It’s a contest rife with unfathomed wonder,

close and chaotic and requiring an overall knowledge

that frightens the general populace,

yet the game continues to another round.

Heading to commercial, the camera

pans over a studio audience—too old, too white.

Suddenly, a few minutes of pharmaceutical ads

tells me of exotic brand names that can cure my ills

so long as I’m fine with a litany of side effects 

that seem worse than the targeted ailment.

And soon we are back. Alex battling

against his own threatened mortality;

contestants making small talk 

while trying not to self-embarrass

through slow or ignorant response.

Alex may chide them for being too young

to know a particular answer, and this

is the microcosm of how culture shifts,

the ways generational views differ on 

what defines patriotism, which lives matter.

Rule of Law for 600, Alex. 

Conspiracy Theories for 800.

The numbers indicate much is at stake

as we collectively head into the final round.

The category is irrelevant:

life revealed as a ruthless game.  

What are the parameters of true compassion?

When is a life worth less than economic progress?

Do the necessary math, then

wager it all when you realize this:

all the answers have been phrased as questions 

for far too long.   

Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He champions the underdog, and strives to survive modern life’s absurdities. He has three collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit) as well as two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize. Another collection, A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing), is forthcoming soon. 

Q

by Kathleen Murphey

What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally. —The New York Times, August 1, 2018

Questionable, quagmire, quack, quackery, quandary, qualm, quail, quarrel, quash,
            quasi, quaver, queer, quell, quench, querulous, quibble, quid pro quo, quietus,
            quip, quirk, quisling.

Q,  a fictional, Star Trek, New Generation, character, who thought humanity was a waste of time.

Q, an anonymous, conspiracy-theory blogger, who is content to further lies on
            T***p’s behalf despite the hate and harm of T***p’s verbal slime.

Captain Picard, on Star Trek, was put on trial by Q over the fate of humanity.

T***p, backed by Q, is shaking the foundations of American democracy
            and its integrity.

Q Clearance or Q Access Authorization, the Department of Energy’s highest security
            clearance level—similar to Top Secret Clearance, hence Q’s claims to legitimacy
            by association.

Q, the 17^th letter of the alphabet, when uttered by T***p, confirms the validity of Q’s
            crazy conspiracy claims.  “Follow the rabbit whole.” 

            Everything is fine, T***p has everything under control, and everyone who
                        stands in his way will soon be sent to prison.  “Trust the plan.”

            Leading Democrats are wearing ankle monitors because they are criminals.

                        “Bread crumbs”

            Kim Jong Un was placed in power by the CIA.  “The Storm.”

            JFK, Jr., isn’t dead.  “Activated, the beam of LIGHT.”

T***p just has to be right.

            The Clintons are crooked, child molesters.  “Lock her up!”

            The media is unfairly critical of T***p.  Just look at SNL.

            The media is spreading fake news:  “Enemy of the people” and “CNN sucks!”

            Illegal immigrants are taking our jobs, “infesting” our country, with 
                        “criminals” and “rapists.”

            Climate change isn’t real; it’s just a scam to make us weak and lower our
                         productivity.

            T***p didn’t collude with Russia.  “The Mueller investigation is a
                        Witch Hunt!”

            The 2016 T***p election is a victory! “God bless fellow Patriots!”
                        “Great Awakening”

            It can’t be a scam!  “We are Q!”

            I can’t believe it is a scam, so I’ll believe Q and T***p.  I just have too!

The alternative is too terrible to contemplate:

            That we elected a traitor (a quisling),

            That the Russians have compromised our country,

            That we would be better off with crooked Hillary,

            That we, T***p followers, are helping to destroy the fabric of our country,

            That Fox News is Fake News and the major media outlets are right
                        and under assault,

            No that can’t be!  It just can’t!  “Where we go one, we go all!”

QAnon!

QAnon!

It must be true!

We are Q!

Q!  Q!  Q!

Anything, but rational thought.

Kathleen Murphey is an associate professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia. She has been writing fiction lately, both poetry and short stories.

CONSPIRACY THEORETICAL WITCH HUNTS

by Richard Hacken 

Image source: Unload and Unwind

            Hillary, it has been shown, created ISIS.
            Everything we know shows how that terror crisis
            Came from Clinton’s wicked wish to sacrifice us.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            In Libya she only made things worse, because she
            Purposefully waited to send in the posse
            At the embassy when needed in Benghazi.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            Email servers were her tools of choice for treason
            As she lured and let the spies of the Chinese in,
            Laughing as she lied about her sordid reason.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!
         
            Shocking to our sensibilities as humans,
            Hillary dropped bombs less ethical than Truman’s,
            Pimping out her husband to young female students.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            Hillary remains untouched by House committees
            Searching hard to bring her down by her Achilles,
            While bribes she paid stack up in banks in offshore cities.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

Richard Hacken enjoys trochaic political satire.  While slightly amused by conspiracy theories and witch hunts, he hates to see them linked to each other. 

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

by Chris O’Carroll

He wasn’t good.  He wasn’t great.
It’s 50 years now since he died.
Weird fantasies proliferate
About who plotted and who lied.

We crave real grandeur.  “Camelot”
Suffices as a substitute.
The romance of who might have shot
Trumps the dull fact of who did shoot.

We did not lose a golden age
Because the sniper found his aim,
But truth is never all the rage;
Myth is a more crowd-pleasing game.

When presidents are rated, he
Ranks as a gilded bantamweight,
More tawdry than he seemed to be.
He wasn’t good.  He wasn’t great.


Chris O’Carroll is a writer and an actor.  On November 22, 1963, he heard the news over the intercom in a Massachusetts junior high school.  Since then, he has published numerous poems in The New Verse News, and also in First Things, Light, The Rotary Dial, Snakeskin, and other print and online journals.