2045

by Zev Shanken

AI-generated image by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

In the year 2045 my great grandson will ask
what it was like when people really believed
they were in charge if they watched the news,
called in C-Span, and voted.
 
Well, son, I’ll say, you’ve read about when
everyone in Europe knew their place in 
Christendom and thanked God 
for giving life meaning?
 
Yes, grandfather. The Dark Ages. 
 
Well, son, that’s what it was like.
Only in our day we had History
and thanked our Founding Fathers. 
 
Did you pray?
We voted.

 Zev Shanken’s  two full length books Memory Tricks (2016) and If I Try to be Like Him, Who Will be Like me? (2019) are available on Amazon. The New Verse News has published three of his poems in the past.

IN STATES OF SUSPENSION (& HOPE) :: OF LEAKS, TWEAKS, & BREACH

by Jen Schneider

amidst stunned

states & stunning

breaches

 

alongside

whispers 

turned quakes

 

& leaks 

turned looks

 

that suggest pens

both feared 

and feathered

 

have chosen a line

on which to claim 

their fight

 

            stains 

                        stomps           

squashes 

states 

   rights

 

one can pray (in spaces

of religious neutrality)

 

that the ink 

blot will be contained

           

stains 

                        stomps 

squashes 

            states 

   rights

& that the breaking

news is merely 

a sign of the times

 

turbulence

amidst days 

heavy of bait

 

            stains 

                        stomps 

squashes 

            states 

   rights

 

rather than

an alert  

of the (dark) ages

& finalized pages

 

            so that fifty years

 

of reproductive rights

remains on & of books 

produced

with no breaks

 

stitched tight

not of patchwork

but of federal right

 

& of plights

with no turns

 

& of nights

with no detours

 

& ideologies

remain unstamped

 

in sacred (politically

neutral) spaces

of individual (personally

critical) places

 

            of individual

rights

 

before

the ink dries

 

hope resists

            & remains      

resolute

 

that quakes  

settle 

& reproductive 

freedom

 

persists

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.