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.

A PANDEMIC PRAYER

by Roderick Deacey

Don’t let me die a COVID death

pinned and tied by wires and tubes,

felled by fear and pain,

enduring dark visions

from potions that numb and confuse,

unable to touch the infinite,

losing the inevitable tussle for breath.

Instead, let me choose a worm’s death,

gently stilling movement

in the warm black soil.

Feeling the earth shiver and move

as it wraps me in its vast body

and cradles me

in its perpetual swing around the sun.

Or let me walk into the ancient forest

and sense the slow sap of centuries

sliding through the rough bark I lean against.

Let me mark the deep rhythm of the wood

as I feel myself slowly sink

into the tree’s heart,

to rest serene among leafy limbs.

Best of all, let me die a bird’s death,

swooping and swirling

high in a star-pricked sky—

not even aware

of tumbling flesh and feathers falling

as I joyously fly on

toward that brilliant rainbow slash of dawn.

Roderick Deacey is a performing poet in the DC area, based in Frederick, MD. In normal, non-viral times, he regularly performs with his drummer/percussionist and bass-player, presenting “neo-beat” poems inspired by the Beat Poets’ poetry and jazz forays of the nineteen-fifties. His beat poetry chapbook neo-beatery ballads was published in 2019. Deacey was awarded the 2019 Frederick Arts Council Carl R. Butler Award for Literature. Crossing genres, he won the Gold Award for best lyrics in the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Song Contest held by the Songwriters Association of Washington.

POEM FOR THE INAUGURATION

by Amy Elizabeth Robinson

So much blood

on his lie-drenched tongue.

Too much

to explore

in a poem. This poem

chooses

to turn in a new direction. 

It hears 

the heavy gates

of justice 

closing 

on his reign of infancy 

and terror.

It applauds 

the sharp-shinned 

hawks 

of empathy

who guard the precarious 

scales. This poem

will not forget, yet

it turns

towards 

the dawn. 

You know this dawn, this

tender filigree of

sun-soaked web. 

The spiders have been spinning

all through the night.

Their webs of diligence,

and promise, and 

shimmer of delight. This poem 

insists on making

a plea deal

with the moment. Guilty

of exhaustion, 

it ends its 

fractured sentences

with care. 

Amy Elizabeth Robinson is a poet, writer, historian, mother, and many other things. She did live in the eastern mountains of Sonoma County, California, but her collectively-owned community recently burned in the Glass Fire. She is a community leader at Flower Mountain Zen, and her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Literary Mama, West Marin Review, West Trestle Review, Vine Leaves, Rattle’s Poets Respond program, and elsewhere. She blogs at www.turningplanet.org.

HAIBUN IN ANOTHER FIRE SEASON

by Andrena Zawinski

The smell of ash wakes me in my bed, burning

my nostrils and throat, midnight, as I dream

of water webbed lashes and a cool, damp face.

Diablo winds sling fiery plumes all night across

grapevines, redwoods, schoolhouses, ranches,

livestock and wildlife left behind, everything

trying to catch its breath.

In the gloom of gray hours before down, I write

these words without paper or pen a half wake state,

while winds whistle and howl across the dock,

through trees, into my open window and this poem

                                    stumbling ahead

                                    as this dawn struggles for breath

                                    tears blurring the eyes.

Andrena Zawinski’s poetry has received accolades for lyricism, form, spirituality, and social concern. Her latest book is Landings; others are Something About (a PEN Oakland Award) and Traveling in Reflected Light (a Kenneth Patchen Prize). She founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com. Her poem, “Twilit Sonnet” appeared previously in TheNewVerse.News.

APPROACHING CERES

by Geoffrey A. Landis

This image was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft of dwarf planet Ceres on Feb. 19 from a distance of nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers). It shows that the brightest spot on Ceres has a dimmer companion, which apparently lies in the same basin. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

dimpled spinning ball
ice in bottoms of craters
glints bright in sunlight


Geoffrey A. Landis is a scientist, a science fiction writer, and a poet. As a scientist, he works at NASA John Glenn Research Center on developing new technology for space.  As a science fiction writer, he's written one novel and over fifty short stories, winning the Hugo and Nebula awards. As a poet, he has written numerous poems, including this one.

AWOL

by Rick Gray

Kabul sunrise. Image source: Panoramio

In a locked-down house of disconnection,
this is the hidden room of yellow exclamation.
Outside its mirrored windows dawn explodes the targeted capital
And strikes a starving boy on the corner waving a smoking tin can
Begging for a fragment of fresh luck.

Deserting an endless war of circling thought
I walk away from the blue face of my frozen screen
and step AWOL passed dreaming guards cuddling Kalashnikovs.
Digging down into the animal heat of my thigh
I grip metal jangling against a shriveled coma on antidepressants.

Oh, it’s so nice to stroll in the Kabul Sunrise!
“Give me muddy!” the boy on the corner orders me,
his English broken as my abandoned laptop.
I release my fist and watch Afghan coins drop 
Flaming into the yellow cracks of a hungry human hand.


Rick Gray teaches in Kabul. He has work forthcoming in Salamander and the book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock.