SILENCE, A CROW

by Francis Opila

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

Listen
to silence at dawn
the night still holds

you by candlelight
one poem wakes you
compels you to unravel

thread by thread
in breath, out breath
harmony in this moment

your 9 AM appointment
laundry, your next hike
bombs in the Middle East

until from a nearby maple
a crow cackles
arrested for free speech

yet he calls over & over
howls of a distant train
now a dozen crows

in breath, out breath
tapping of gentle rain

Francis Opila is a rain-struck, sun-loving poet who lives in the Pacific Northwest.  His poems have appeared in Willawaw Journal, Wayfinding, Windfall, and other journals. His poetry collection Conference of the Crows was published in 2023. He enjoys performing poetry, combining recitation and playing North American wooden flutes.

THREE CROWS AT DAVID GILMOUR’S LAST CONCERT ON HIS 2024 WORLD TOUR

by Terri Kirby Erickson

Sitting in front of us at David Gilmour’s Sunday night

show at Madison Square Garden, is a family of three—

mother, father, and teenage son. I have never seen hair 

so glossy and black, as if they are enchanted crows that 

will fly out of the stadium once the concert is over and 

the spell is broken. But for now, mother and son look 

like a painting called Madonna and Child, so close they 

are, so intricately bonded. He keeps laying his cheek 

against her shoulder, one dark head against another—

while his father gyrates and headbangs in his seat, fully

immersed in his experience of the incredible music, the 

multicolor lights. There is a tenderness to their boy, an 

innocence, as if he is a beloved only child not yet ready 

to leave the nest or mingle with other kids his age who 

would, by now, have toughened him up or damaged him 

in ways he cannot imagine. His parents will keep him

safe from anything that can cause him harm, or so they 

may believe. But my parents lost their only son when 

he was a few years older. I can still recall my father’s 

stoic façade, my mother’s decades of grief from which 

she could not be saved nor solaced. Meanwhile, David 

Gilmour goes on singing and playing his guitar while 

the boy splays his fine-boned fingers like talons on his 

mother’s arm, and his father belts those haunting lyrics 

like he wrote them—as if his body was never covered in 

feathers, his mouth an open beak crying caw, caw, caw.

 

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Rattle, The SUN, and numerous other publications. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize among many others. She lives in North Carolina, USA.

WHAT’S THAT ANIMAL DOING HERE?

by Cecil Morris

In this provided photo from Oct. 13, 2024, an arctic fox is sheltered at the Bird Alliance of Oregon, after being spotted in Portland last week. After her arrival at the facility on Saturday, an exam confirmed her species, and determined the young female was hungry and dehydrated. The Bird Alliance is working with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine her next home. Courtesy of Bird Alliance of Oregon via Oregon Public Broadcasting.

First the deer grew bold, wandered between houses
and ate the blossoms and tender new growth
from the ornamentals we had planted.
They lifted their long heads, their mouths trailing
some asters or dahlia greens, their eyes wide
and unblinking, unconcerned by our presence.
They stood in our yards as placid as spring
their big ears unbothered by passing cars.
Yes, the crows, the jays, the shrieking seagulls
have long been fearless, ever intrusive,
like blackberry brambles pushing through fence
and dandelions lifting through the dirt,
insistent, tireless, quietly present.
And hungry cougars came down from the hills
to threaten joggers, snack on yapper dogs,
and haunt our dreams with their sleek fitness,
prowling embodiments of fear and guilt.
And now this—an arctic fox in Portland,
a seldom snowy metro area
of millions almost half way down the globe
toward the equator. Escaped, illegal pet?
Intrepid advanced scout for nature’s
reclamation of lost lands? One more sign
that we and all our works are just a part
of nature, as much its environs as ours?
Sure, she has that cute dog face and could be
a good best friend, a companion fluffy
and warm, but what will come next? Rangy wolves?
Polar bears after new blubbery foods
arranged along a street downtown? Slick slugs?
We are selfish and we don’t want to share.
We want wildlife to stay where it belongs.

Cecil Morris, a retired high school English teacher, has poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. He and his partner, mother of their children, divide their year between the cool coast of Oregon and the relatively hot Central Valley of California.

DRONE SHOW, NEW YORK CITY

by Jennifer Phillips

River in flood, night flocks flickering

among the skyscrapers, down canyoned glass
and concrete tunnels, southing,
all their stars obscured. Even at sunset, brass
reverberation highlighting the ledges,
zigzagging a maze like the airport lighting
flashing along their pattern's edges,
splash of solar panel panes squaring 
off on rooftops, while all the unseen soft bodies
steer, or smack and ricochet to paving,
losing their way, losing their lives.
 
In Central Park, the artist paints the same skies,
that glow with missed comets and  lunar eclipses,
with a flock of drones, loose from their hives,
cruising and folding the black air, like a fizz
of fireflies the news compares to starlings'
wondrous convolutions—of all the ironies—
iron substitutions for the flesh and song and wings
belonging even here, city-center, ground zero
for terrors we make in every size. The crows,
tough and wise, don't migrate much. Sad that we do
not notice, or speak of a murder of swallows.

Jennifer M Phillips is a  bi-national immigrant, painter, gardener, Bonsai-grower. Her chapbooks: Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity (i-blurb.com, 2020) and A Song of Ascents (Orchard Street Press, 2022). A poem is like a little brass pan to carry fire's coals through the winter weather, and so she writes. 

NORTH AMERICAN MIGRATION

by Elizabeth Kerlikowske

Canadian wildfire smoke created a hazy red-orange sky over Lake Michigan on June 23 at the Michigan-Huron watershed. Wildfire smoke is causing poor air quality in the Great Lakes this week. —Fox Weather

Just a whiff of Armageddon seems worse
than a year of Covid precautions. Canadian fires.
Some jet stream sending a radar plume of it 
like a purple hot dog cuddled up to the blue bun 
of Lake Michigan. Thinner but more toxic
than mountain fog, smoke blurs horizons
and pulls a gray film over every noun,
smothered in adjectives. Diluted sun thins
the smoke like cream into soup, a color
variation, same raw taste. Ash residue
floats on bird baths. Only the crows sing. 
It’s a song they learned on their migration
from Hell. Not long ago. North of Thunder Bay.

Elizabeth Kerlikowske is a Michigan native. She is a poet, visual artist, and mother of three. Her publications include dozens of print and online journals, five books of poetry, and inclusion in several anthologies. She would never live anywhere else.

STRIKE

by Katie Kemple

We placed the blue trash can

and the green recycling bin

filled with the detritus

leading up to Christmas

in front of our townhouse

garage, like we always do,

and our neighbors too, and

they stayed there, all the way up to

and well past Christmas,

past New Years. The brown

cardboard boxes of mail-ordered

gifts stuck their tongues out

at us, papers glued like stickers

to the pavement courtesy

of the rain, and the sanitation

drivers never came. The neighbors

built cities of empty boxes.

Shrimp skins haunted us.

We wore yesterday's diapers.

The CEO of the sanitation

company makes 154 times

the pay of his average employee:

twelve-million dollars a year. 

Crows swung down to feast

on the new year's abundance. 

Katie Kemple (she/her) is a poet, parent, and consultant based in San Diego. Her work has appeared recently in Longleaf Review, The West Review, and The Shore Poetry. 

KĀKOLŪKĪYAM

by Nicholas Katsanis

An Afghan soldier pops up from his tank to signal a U.S. warplane bombing Al Qaeda fighters in the White Mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan on Dec. 10, 2001.(David Guttenfelder / Associated Press via the Los Angeles Times)

The owls and the crows are at war

Embroiled in bitter struggle for control of their dominion

Ill-defined by borders and perceived advantages

The owls are old and therefore wise

Or so they tell themselves to make-belief

Convince their childrens’ children of their superiority

Supremacy of poise and purpose, they persist

Until foibles morph into fact,

Poorly begotten truth whose tangled roots are lost—conveniently—in antiquity

The crows are young, confident, energetic

The skies’ embrace belong to them, they preach

For they are fast and nimble

Intimidating in their murder, or so they teach their children

Schooling them in the virtue of their virility, their singularity of purpose

The owls and crows are at war

Bickering over holes in trees

Despite the endless forest that surrounds them

Beak on beak and claw on claw

They decimate each other’s numbers

Each pointless victory and defeat

Treated by triumphalism and defiance in equal measure

The owls’ corpses are offered eternal absolution

The crows’ mangled bodies heavenly promise of peace and honey

Both declaring divine providence over the Final Rights

Both bereft of true wisdom

The owls and the crows were at war

Embroiled in bitter struggle for control of their dominion

Until the lightning in the forest burned

And the rain fell upon the smoldering stumps

And there was nothing left to war over

Author’s Note: Inspired by the Panchatantra collection of classic Indian fables, this adaptation examines the current/perpetual secular and religious tension in Afghanistan post-collapse.

Nicholas Katsanis is an author and poet of magical realism. You can find some of his micro fiction (50-word stories, stories in 100 words) as well upcoming pieces in Literary Stories and elsewhere (including magazines that do not have the word ‘Story’ in their titles). He lives and works in southern Florida. Follow him on Twitter @nicholaskatsan1

THE DAY THE CROWS CAME

by Susan Carlson

Crows by Mary Quite Сontrary

A crow floats past on level wings

noiselessly.

—D.H. Lawrence, "Winter-Lull"

You woke up dark.  Troubled by a murder
of crows, the ones that were circling our roof.

I was reading the New York Times, focused on words
flocked in columns, the orderly murmuration of print.

The world’s a scary place, sure, and worse
is today.  Of course I knew that, holding

as I was, so much of it right there in my hands.
But not enough for you.  You wanted to know

why we continue cruelly to evolve when there is enough
to eat.  Why does now have to be a harbinger flying

the foreboding flag of then?  I wanted you to leave me alone
in my Midwest nest where I am responsible and planned

to recycle the paper I was folding up, green citizen that I am, despite
refusing electronic notification of the state of our planet, its trees.

You refused your morning coffee, asked me to google what it means
when a place is centered in the silent swoop of level wings.

You made me watch them, those crows, made me wait for
their caw.  Look, you said, just look at the effort their occasional

intermittent conversation requires.  And when one came to rest
on a branch just long enough for me to see his brunette breast

compress with the quick bark of what he had to say that day –
I was compelled to hear it again.  And so we found ourselves

silence-bound beneath their somber wave.  All those crows folding above
ground, weighting our wait for what was to be a dire and dismal cry.


Susan Carlson lives, works, and writes in southeastern Michigan. She has attended workshops including Tin House, the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Her poems have appeared in Your Impossible Voice, Pretty Owl Poetry, The Literary Nest, The Other Journal, and Typishly, among other journals.

WINTER FRUIT

"Empire" star Jussie Smollett was hospitalized after “a possible racially charged” and homophobic assault and battery, Chief Anthony Guglielmi of the Chicago Police Department said in a statement Tuesday. —USA Today, January 29, 2019

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

A CHILD SPEAKS

by Jonel Abellanosa

Amal Hussain, who died at age 7. “My heart is broken,” her mother said. Credit: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times. Listen to ‘The Daily’ for the story behind this portrait that brought the widely overlooked human catastrophe in Yemen into devastating focus: The Daily, December 7, 2018.

I dreamed of snow and
crows, God carving a Yemen
in our small stomachs

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, Poetry Kanto, McNeese Review, Mojave River Review and Star*Line. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars award. His fourth poetry collection Songs from My Mind’s Tree was published in early 2018 by Clare Songbirds Publishing House (New York), which will also publish his collection Multiverse in late 2018. His poetry collection Sounds in Grasses Parting is forthcoming from Moran Press. His first speculative poetry collection Pan’s Saxophone is forthcoming from Weasel Press.