LIFE IN THE SUBURBS

by Alan Walowitz

I head off to pick up my meds,  

how I stay steady these uneasy days: 

Children going without. 

The Court implies he can shoot at will  

on the seas—and maybe where I walk?  

In time, he’ll get around to us. 

It’s warm enough these mid-Autumn days, 

but the early dark reminds the cold to come.  

 

When she sees my sunken countenance, 

the second time this week,  

the clerk says, beneath her breath, as is her way,  

A Higher Power will make it better soon. 

I suppose she means God, or the pharmacist, her boss, 

who doesn’t care or hear so much. 

Listen, she says to make herself clear,  

her forefinger waggling like a broken metronome:  

A bullet doesn’t graze someone’s ear 

not to make this world a better place.  

 

I tell her, gently, he’s still a crook, 

while she packs my pills.   

Everybody steals, she says,  

as if she gets the inside dope, 

dispensing meds to old guys like me. 

She reminds me, You live another day,  

it’s pretty much the same as stealing. 

Then, hands me my change and says, 

See you soon. Dismissal as wisdom.   

but I hope, this time, exactly what she means.  

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook  Exactly Like Love  comes from Osedax Press.   The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems  is available from Truth Serum Press.  From Arroyo Seco Press,  In the Muddle of the Night, written with poet Betsy Mars.  The chapbook The Poems of the Air is from Red Wolf Editions and is free for downloading. 

INCENDIARY SONG

by Matthew King

Art by Clay Jones

Baby you’re the Reichstag
I’m setting you on fire
You no longer represent me
I’m immediate desire
Our constitution is suspended
on a fence of barbed wire
Baby you’re the Reichstag
I’m setting you on fire

I’ve cancelled your election
I’ve exposed your fatal flaw
Trapped in your reflection
we argued to a draw
The people want perfection
they love to be in awe
Baby you’re the Reichstag
my will is the law

Our union needs annulment
our wedding was a sham
The preacher stole the word of God
now he’s on the lam
He said he’d bless the devil
he didn’t give a damn
Baby you’re the Reichstag
who do you think I am

Like lightning this befell me
not you but I self-crowned
No court can now compel me
my power is unbound
I dare you try to tell me
my methods are unsound
Baby you’re the Reichstag
I’ll burn you to the ground

I’m rounding up your lovers
each one of them a liar
They tell me they don’t know you
say it’s me they most admire
Now I alone can save them
or throw them on the pyre
Baby you’re the Reichstag
I’m setting you on fire


Author's note: Many, not on only one side of the political divide, have been watching for a "Reichstag Fire moment." The thing about historical echoes is you're never sure what you're hearing is exactly what it sounds like, but with some things sounding like them at all is bad enough. A hat tip to Leonard Cohen, whose shade I seem to be channelling in this poem, and who would have turned 91 on Sept. 21. Leonard! thou shouldst be living at this hour; lucky for you you're not, I guess.


Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto; he now lives in what Al Purdy called "the country north of Belleville," where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighboring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry. His photos and links to his poems can be found at birdsandbeesandblooms.com.

THE PECULIAR CASE OF COMPASSION

by Adnan Abbasi

A nurse at New York University’s Langone hospital was fired after mentioning what she described as a “genocide” in Gaza during an award ceremony speech. Hesen Jabr, 34, a labor and delivery nurse who worked at NYU Langone for nearly 10 years, made the remarks while accepting an award earlier this month for providing excellent care to patients suffering perinatal loss… In a statement, Steve Ritea, a spokesperson for NYU Langone, said: “Hesen Jabr was warned in December, following a previous incident, not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace. She instead chose not to heed that at a recent employee recognition event that was widely attended by her colleagues, some of whom were upset after her comments. As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee.” —The Guardian, May 31, 2024

In the Court of Selective Outrage, now in session,
Where empathy's on trial, facing suppression.
The jury: stone-faced statues, deaf and blind,
The judge: a mirror, cracked and ill-defined.

Exhibit A: A nurse with healing hands,
Accused of love that spans divided lands.
"How dare she care," the Prosecution cries,
"For suffering that we've chosen to disguise?"

Witnesses parade, with badges of disdain,
Experts in the art of curated pain.
They testify of horrors, oh so select,
While wearing blinders, perfectly erect.

The Defense presents a stethoscope that hears
All heartbeats equal, through walls and through fears.
"Objection!" roars the court in unified voice,
"Such equity of care is a dangerous choice!"

Evidence mounts: bandages stained with tears,
A speech that dared to bridge the gap of years.
The clerk records each word with trembling hand,
As Truth stands gagged in the witness stand.

In summation, Irony takes the floor,
Painting compassion as an act of war.
The verdict echoes through antiseptic halls:
"Guilty of healing beyond these sterile walls."

Sentence is passed in a language absurd:
Silence for her who made suffering heard.
As Hesen exits, head unbowed and tall,
Justice weeps softly in the empty hall.

Outside, the world spins on, in chaos and in pain,
While in the court, they sanitize again,
Preparing for the next case on the docket:
"The Olive Tree vs. Concrete in Its Socket"

Adnan Abbasi’s writings have appeared in Hindustan Times, EconLib, The Straits Times, and CNN-News18. He is associated with Students for Liberty's South Asia chapter.

HOW I LOVE YA, STORMY

by Catherine Gonick

So he called you a toilet, you called him a turd
you could flush. You talked so fast
the court reporter couldn’t keep up.
You were made out to be rough, a body
made for rough treatment. Then you proved
a slut is a spy in the world of men,
a refugee who threads the mountain pass
through snow, barefoot. She wears 
the veil turned inside out
to expose its scarlet lining, floats
her soul upon the ceiling. She is smart
as the whip he asks her to use
on his sorry ass, his little-boy mouth.
She is his punisher, he her power.
They are connected by a belt of gold
in a tug-of-war, an umbilical cord
of blood smeared to dry on paper. 
And you weren’t meant to be funny
but couldn’t be stopped 
when he and the law were served
official notice of your humor.

Catherine Gonick has published poetry in journals including Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, Grabbed, and  Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a company that slows the rate of global warming through projects that repair and restore the climate. 

CLEARVIEW AI

by Alan Walowitz

So the way it works is that you upload someone's face—a photo of someone—to the Clearview AI app, and then it will return to you all the places on the internet where that person's face has appeared, along with links to those photos. —Kashmir Hill, author, Your Face Belongs to Us, on Fresh Air, September 28, 2023

 

The haze stalls long enough

to allow us to continue our work:

to make ourselves seem here, and not here,

in equal measure—to assure anonymity

yet convince the world, and us, we’re real.

Our wish to be seen, but not a target,

of the law or of derision.

Though it might be wise to wear bright colors

when we walk among the trees.

 

The sun in our eyes or an unsteady hand

might account for any low resolution,

what the app might call, Failure to recognize. 

Still, we might someday desire

to see the face from our dreams,

who’s bound to be found, among the billions

of images kept in the cloud

for moments when we’re lonely.

 

No one owns our face, we claim,

not the sun, or the trees, or the gently bleeding sky

where our image has been scraped from the assorted

public places we’ve foolishly lent ourselves.

This the price for being bound to this planet?

Though, in the end, perhaps a Court will claim,

we had no inherent interest being here. 

Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry.  His chapbook Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The full-length The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. Most recently, from Arroyo Seco Press, is the chapbook In the Muddle of the Night written with poet Betsy Mars. Now available for free download is the collection The Poems of the Air from Red Wolf Editions.

DJT’S HAIKU INDICTMENT DAY

by SusanTerris 

In court      

      
Not guilty, said Trump
Yes.  Okay, thank you oh yes
Yes. I do. Yes. Yes.
 
At Mar-a-Lago

blah ba lunaticans thTfake
criminalhateyeashittypersecution
bbwitch huntuckjail them all
 

SusanTerris is an editor, a poet, who has published books and chapbooks and has been given a Pushcart and has been in Best American Poetry.

JOHNNY DEPP WINS, AND I, LIKE SO MANY OTHERS, THINK OF THE MAN WHO ABUSED ME

by Emma Rhodes

I’m in a courtroom with him in my dreams.

Years live, tangible and growing inside of me.

Stench rotting from the inside out makes me gag, and

the judge thinks I drink and doesn’t believe a word I say.

 

As things rot, their appearance, smell, stories change. 

Leave something to fester long enough it becomes absence, 

memories warp but sickness remains. 

 

We beg you to believe our guts even when they stink.

 

There is a constant drip on the windshield of this car. The evidence is shown 

through the screen so it’s water-warped & memory-warped & 

dream-warped but he doesn’t deny a thing

 

The jury appreciates his honesty, his charm. 

 

Court takes a break. He says we need to play laser-tag—the judge said so. 

That can’t be true and yet suddenly I’m shot by light from all angles, 

put me under a spotlight and call me a liar.

 

The water continues to drip on the windshield.

 

They tell me I had the means to get out. Look at me now. Just drive away they say. Just drive away if it was so bad why didn’t you leave but facing the other wall is a boot on the wheel and I am stuck in his bed, his bathtub, pacing the one single hallway while he left in a car to see 

 

his parents (who are so proud of him, by the way. He was always a great boy.)

 

And Taylor Swift hasn’t said anything this time, none of the #MeToo baddies have spoken.

The water on the windshield breaks through and shatters. 

Glass shards in the courtroom. Everyone yells 

 

“violence!”

 

And I am left. Picking up one shard after another. He walks by, stomps on a shard so it crumbles into a million more (another inconsistency), says 

 

“thanks for keeping me around.”

 

I’ll stop writing about violence when I stop seeing it. 

I’ll stop writing about violence when the world stops trying to kill its women.  

Emma Rhodes is an emerging Queer writer currently living on the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee people. Her work has been published in places such as Prism International, Plenitude, Riddle Fence, and elsewhere.

EVERYTHING MARJORIE MAY HAVE NEVER SAID

by Chad Parenteau

We swore an oath. Does anyone remember the oath?

Free speech is essential, whether or not we recall it.

They continue to take our freedoms away. Can anyone

tell me what those freedoms were? I don’t recollect 

putting any of those freedoms back on when my mask 

came off. Who took my mask off? I can’t remember 

everyone who voted for me, but I know everyone did, 

and the only way I can win is if everyone forgets that 

I won. Protect the integrity of elections. If this could 

happen during the time of my election, whenever that 

is, I would really appreciate it. Remember when Black 

Lives Matter and Antifa fought over who would storm 

the capitol,  or so I’m told by people I can’t recall. Political

power  comes from the barrel of a gun. Mumia Abu Jamal

said that, according to my notes. That wasn’t free speech 

when he said that. Has America proven those words 

to be true? I’ll have to get back to you if the smoke 

ever clears. There’s two schools of thought to research. 

One of them is CNN, which lies about me. The other 

is NewsMax, which uses my complete sentences

but omits everything else I’ve ever said in my life, 

which I may or may not have said. I don’t remember.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, and Nixes Mate Review. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. His second collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award.

AS EMPATHY FAILED

by Imogen Arate

Cartoon by Nate Beeler (Cagle Cartoons) via Tulsa World.

Let them face the insecurity of not knowing 

if home will remain haven 

in the hours separating dawn and dusk

Let them taste the bitter metal of cruelty

that tosses life into uncertainty

while hiding behind secured gates

Let them be exposed without retreat

to ready canines famished for sinking

into the bleeding of abused flesh

As empathy could not sway

the concrete heart

let them be cast into the weight

of lead shoes drowning 

without fail in the muck 

below the azure of waterlines

Let the stirring chaos made

by unsympathetic hands

swallow their owners 

into the whirlwind they 

conjured with others in mind

Let this ouroboros birthed

in ill intent latch onto

its diseased umbilical tail 

and ensnare those who

envisioned its callous trap

in its tightening coil

Imogen Arate is an award-winning Asian-American poet and writer and the Executive Producer and Host of Poets and Muses, a weekly poetry podcast that won second place at National Federation of Press Women's 2020 Communications Contest. She proudly hails from an immigrant family whose previous undocumented status and associated economic burdens nearly robbed her the opportunity to pursue higher education.  She has written in four languages and published in two. Her works were most recently published on the Global Vaccine Poem Project and Documented Experiences and in The Opiate. You can find her @PoetsandMuses on Twitter and Instagram.

WHITE TURNS TO BLACK

by Mary Clurman

i.

don’t know Black

don’t think Black

don’t speak Black

but like to listen

hear the sharp breaks

twists and turns

White is privilege.

In COVID

we garden

        cook

 think bitter thoughts

await a different regime.

ii.

Hasn’t changed yet!

Not for better:

Made the ballot secret 

  Blacks can’t vote if they can’t read—

can’t win anyway—

  Don’t even try!

  Only eggheads need good schools

   and what do eggheads know?

 Bus ‘em!
     so what,

      got no brains to think with anyway.

Then came jazz.

Music changed.

Boys of Summer

black, winning

Shut the doors!

  Keep ‘em out!

basketball 

Blues 

Hip-Hop

Thurgood Marshall Martin King Anita Hill

strong black middle class

iii.

Who was it

Packed the court,

just stacked ‘em in!

forgetting

           They still get to serve us coffee

coughing 

while our white blood flows as red as it can get. 

It’s time Whites learn from Black.

Mary Clurman, Princeton, NJ, retired Montessori teacher, struggling with the virus news and changing what I can.

DONALD

by Nan Ottenritter

occupies too much real estate in our heads.

T***p/Pence billboards line our neural highways.

T***p towers pierce our amygdalas, blunting

our love of country, collective compassion.

 

His necrotic amygdala somehow lives on in his head

while our neurotransmitters careen around curves and

our collective blood pressure soars out of control.

Reality’s glare sears through dilated pupils.

 

Our cognitive brains reflect upon where to flee

while, oversaturated with cocktails of our own adrenalin

and miracles of modern chemistry, we continue to fight.

A contribution here, a conversation there; an

 

early ballot here, a court victory there.

The rule of law, shattered, lies at the side of the road.

My American soul runs to the scene, screeches to a halt,

and finds herself saying, yet again:

 

“I can’t wait for this to be over.”  

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

SACRED

by George Held

The governor’s statement places
the key word, “God,” in the place

of emphasis, at the end, where
it makes the most of her pious case

but most offends those who question
when a fetus has become a “life”

or even doubt there is a god,
at least one who can give sacred gifts,

and those who believe that a woman’s life
is her own to join in sex with whomever

she wants and once pregnant whether
or not to delete that tiny comma without

the intervention of the almighty state.
What sort of Handmaid’s Tale

is ‘Bama spinning here now that its Senate
and the Court are packed with Medieval

men of the Right who consign women
to the stove and the marital bed,

where all conception is authorized
by a Fundamentalist Godhead.

What country is this where theocracy
struts its stuff in public and democracy

hides under the bed to avoid
a vengeful thrashing? My count-

try, ’tis of me, I sing, sweet place
of Liberty, of thee I sing . . .


George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News and other periodicals, has received ten Pushcart Prize nominations and published or edited twenty-two poetry books.