IF I COULD BLOCK YOUR ANTI-BLM TWEETS, BY GOD, I WOULD

by K Roberts

“All lives matter,” you sniffed,
and I marvel at how glibly
a cry for help
is transformed into a grammar lesson.

We are dying, they said to you,
and within your bleached brain
you donned a miniaturizing monocle.
You placed a mirror over your ears, like a hearing aid.

If a man is drowning
will apostrophes keep him afloat?
If a house is burning
will conjugating “veni, vidi, vici” dowse the flames?

America, the stones in your foundation are on fire.
Put down the textbook. Pick up a bucket.
The colorless gas
of cowardice and silence
is poisoning us all.


K Roberts is a professional non-fiction writer.

THE GRAYS

by Andrew Frisardi

In Greek mythology the Gray Sisters shared one eye and one tooth. Graphic via Pinterest.

The sisters had one tooth, one eye,
for all three: each had a day or week
to bite to eat, to see to seek.
But they got by fine, none said “mine.”

The Grays were weird, and no one’s seen them,
yet Congressmen have learned their trick.
You might say men are politic,
sharing a single testicle between them.

Originally from Boston, Andrew Frisardi is a writer, translator, editor, and independent scholar who lives in central Italy.

MICE

by Samantha Pious

TheNewVerse.News construction from images found at Zimbio and Meridian Magazine.

after Eustache Deschamps’ “But Who’s the One to Bell the Cat?”

Among the mice (I’ve heard it told)
a special Congress was convened
against the Cat, their hated foe,
to seek some implement or means
whereby they might at last live free
in safety and security
without resorting to extremes.
—Why not achieve a coup-d’état?
Together we can bell the cat!

The caucus met, the bill was law,
the congress-mice adjourned their session.
One country-mouse, from out of town,
she shoulders in to ask a question —
what’s been done? We have a weapon,
they reply, to smash that wicked feline flat.
This bell, which shall be hung from round
his neck, will sound whenever he attacks.
Together we can bell the cat!

There’s strength in numbers. One gray rat
requests to know to whom the Bell
shall be entrusted. As to that,
none of the congress-mice can tell!
The Speaker squeaks for personnel.
Not one brave mouse will go to bat
(not even for a subcontract)
though catchy slogans always sell:
Together we can bell the cat!

These words ring hollow now. Alack.
But there’s still time for one last act.
Can we protect our habitat,
Republicans and Democrats
together? We can bell the cat!

Samantha Pious is the author of A Crown of Violets (Headmistress Press, 2015), a selection of translations from the poetry of Renée Vivien. More of her translations and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Doublespeak, Lavender Review, Mezzo Cammin, and other publications.

TRAP DOOR SPIDER

by Devon Balwit

Image: windowlicker by M0L0D0Y at Deviant Art

Distraught at the news of machetes and truck bombs,
shooters and hostage-takers, scrolling through death tolls,

searching out agency, this man mutters, kill them all,
mutters round them up.  He curses and bangs, yet

flees the first splash of film carnage, protests I am too
tender, faints at the needle tugging blood.  He looks

no different than any other man, sleeps with his feet
tucked beneath his dog, goes any distance for a friend,

caresses his wife, hugs his children.  He’s a man as
ordinary as the leaf litter around the den of a trapdoor

spider, but trespass there, even lightly, and out he snaps.
What darkness in him awaits its trigger, what holds him,

palps at the ready?  He swears it isn’t bluster, but I
deny it, hoping that the humanness of his prey would

disarm him, that compassion would leave him hungry.
Surely, the cunning of his design was not made for this.

Devon Balwit wears many hats in Portland, Oregon.  Her poetry does likewise. Some homes it has found: TheNewVerse.News, Leveler, drylandlit, Birds Piled Loosely, The Fog Machine, The Fem, Dying Dahlia Review, The Yellow Chair, The Cape Rock, The Prick of the Spindle, Of(f) Course, txt objx, and 3 Elements.