FLEET WEEK IN SAN FRANCISCO

by Margaret Gannon

The grandchild of 

Vietnamese survivors

manicured the nails of an 

aging antiwar activist

in an upscale San Francisco spa,

ambient quiet music defeated by

aggressive thunder of jets 

in arrogant military formation,

come and gone 

in the time it would take 

napalm to strip the skin

of the tourists on Fillmore Street. 

Death dressed up as 

circus performance.  

Margaret Gannon is an aging antiwar activist in San Francisco.

DEATH OF A FRIEND

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

The death of the orangutan named Sampurna was confirmed Thursday by the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) in Borneo. 

Sampurna the orangutan has died

You may not have known him in life

But you will perhaps 

Know him in death

 

A male orangutan who was being monitored

By a wildlife rescue organization

He was at home in an Indonesian rainforest

When it caught fire

 

As the fire raged on and on

It filled with toxic smoke

Which Sampurna and all his neighbors

Could not help but breathe

 

After several days of poisonous inhalations

Sampunrna was found wheezing and choking

In a dry roadside ditch

Unable to stand

 

Rescue workers tried to help

They lifted him from the ditch

Gave him oxygen 

Told him he was going to get better

 

But he did not get better

The struggle for each labored breath

Grew more and more difficult until

Sampurna died

 

Of course his death was emblematic

Of the deadly effects of the climate catastrophe

That is wreaking havoc with life

On planet Earth

 

But his death was also the death

Of a singular being, 

A fellow creature, a unique self 

A brother to all of us, a friend

Buff Whitman-Bradley podcasts his poetry at thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

WHAT SETTLES WHEN WE LAY OUR BODIES DOWN TO REST

by Paula J. Lambert

Source: The New York Times

Really, it’s just the claggy kind of snot struggling

to decide if it wants to stay low in your chest—

 

where your heart beats and every breath passes

through—or if, rising, clinging to the last breath,

 

it has the strength to finally release itself

to the world. We know by now what can travel 

 

on the tiny particles of our gasping exhalations: 

disease, devotion, the promise that death is no end. 

 

We might wish otherwise, drifting in and out 

of these strange dreams of drowning. We know

 

what happened in Nepal, North Carolina, Texas. 

We all might be called mystics when, prone, 

 

our bodies wrestle with desire, each wobble of faith 

in our resolve to go on a little death of its own.  

Paula J. Lambert of Columbus, Ohio, has published eleven collections of poetry including Terms of Venery, Revised (Sheila-Na-Gig 2025) and Sinkhole (Bottlecap 2025). Her work has been supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.

A MARRIAGE OF EAGLES

by stella graham-landau 

From Nest to Deathbed, Jackie the Eagle Entranced California and Beyond. The bald eagle and her mate gained fame during the pandemic, as a livestream tracked their nesting attempts. She died while being treated for anemia. —The New York Times, August 10, 2026

mated for years

jackie is larger than shadow 
her compadre of the skies 
both hardwired to protect 
each egg each feathered chick
perhaps they met in a playground of clouds 
an accidental encounter 
not paired by families imagining 
a coupling worthy of majesty 
they soar
own the sky 
build aeries in the tops of giant trees
relying on architectural instinct
carried in their bones
jackie 
an unpretentious name 
for a mother 
tasked to save her species
eons of ancestral instructions
to keep eagles aloft

build a nest
mate
lay eggs
hatch
fledge 

repeat

stella graham-landau is a poet in richmond va. she has been published on the new verse news and other journals, websites, and anthologies. she loves the generous community of poets she has found online and welcomes conversations with other creators.

YELLOW FINCH

by Tara Menon

A yellow finch with blacks stripes on wings

stands on what’s left of a yellow zinnia.

The yellow finch explodes like the sun

after the rain and gloom of the day’s news.

I don’t bury my head in the sand.

The world throbs its troubles

and I feel its accelerated pulse.

The wars, the famines, the wildfires,

and zooming in, the family tragedy

of a woman, dedicated to her three children,

who strangled them when her husband 

went to fetch pizza. She leaped to the ground

from a second-story window, 

hoping for death, only to end up paralyzed

and put on trial.

It’s bad enough immigrants are put behind bars,

killed or handed trumped up charges.

It’s bad enough Black men are killed

for routine traffic violations.

Mothers with postpartum psychosis 

are taken to trial and some are imprisoned

when they should be treated in hospitals.

The tragedy of lost children is compounded.

The yellow finch. The yellow finch.

The explosion of yellow on yellow.

Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is a two-time finalist for the Willow Run Poetry Book Award. Her latest poems have appeared in Gray Sparrow Journal, The New Verse News, The Sucharnochee Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Blue Heron Review.

CONUNDRUM

by Phyllis Wax

Few crimes carry
the death penalty.
Why do so many police 
summarily impose it?

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral.

POLITICAL THEATER

by Jim Kelly

Cartoon by Gary. A Huck

When death darkens
the occupied space
of the political theater,

and the curtains,
somber and heavy,
are stitched with memories
of acid speech,

the audience pauses.

Not because the performance
was noble.

Not because every act
deserves applause.

Not because every wound
has healed.

The record remains.

The speeches remain.

The injuries,
the divisions,
the grievances,
remain.

Yet death changes
the lighting.

For a moment,

The spotlight shifts
from ideology
to mortality.

From victory
to loss.

From power
to the frailty
shared by every human being.

There will be time
for historians
to sort through the record.

There will be time
for critics
to weigh the consequences.

There will be time
for citizens
to debate the legacy.

But in the first shadow
cast by death,

when kindness is impossible,

Silence may be
the most humane response.

Not surrender.

Not agreement.

Not absolution.

Only the recognition
that death
has already spoken
the final line.

Jim Kelly is a California poet whose work explores democracy, race, caregiving, and social justice. His poetry has appeared in Litro Magazine, Urban Pen Magazine, Urban Poems, and other literary publications. He is the author of the chapbooks The Quiet Witness: Civic Poems of Power, Memory, and Conscience and Caregiving Through Poetry.

WHAT IS THE GUT TO A PUNCH?

by Malaika King Albrecht

The shooting death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo occurred as immigration enforcement has ramped up across the country, with thousands being arrested daily. —The New York Times, July 10, 2026

          For Lorenzo Salgado Araujo (1974–2026), initially identified as John Doe.

 

A soft landing. We aren’t the first, scratching our matchsticks along a sidewalk, setting buildings on fire. We want to spark a future we all can breathe in. Family's not nothing, and we’re all relatives in an absolute kind of way, wearing our single-use bodies like prom dresses on our daily trips to the mailbox. The flickering space between birth and death is an unfolding dance of DNA and circumstance. Start the heart like a stopwatch. Let the ticking noise be background sound. Is it personal if it’s all of us? Here is the secret we tell one another in the closet of our dreams: you can’t sit this one out. We’re all John Doe as we pack lunch for work. This war is not a war but is a war if you resist. Behold our given names. Behold the milk poured over tear-gassed eyes. Behold how his speeches are tambourines full of bees.

Malaika King Albrecht's fifth book is forthcoming from Main Street Rag.

NO GUNS LEFT BEHIND

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Where are the parents
their kids running wild
down dark city streets
shooting each other
with fireworks, handguns
fighting and flocking
in one huge roiling mass
of raging hormonal insanity
preteens to twenty-somethings
alerted online, on phones
to create havoc together
a youth wilding
a teen takeover
flash crowds run amok
in Orlando, DC, Pensacola
a fatality on the 4th
ten kids shot and 
where are the parents
now that their children
are hospitalized
or dead?

Mickey J. Corrigan writes about death. A lot. It's kind of her thing. Poetry chapbooks include Days' End (Main Street Rag) which takes place in a fictional Florida suicide parlor, and Final Arrangements, a series of poems about burial practices around the world (Prolific Press). No Guns Left Behind (Cyberwit) shares a chronology of school shootings in poetic form. Mickey lives in the Sunshine State, where crime and bad deaths abound. Her latest novel is Lazy Palms (Cyberwit, 2026) about an experimental euthanasia trailer park.

MAJOR OAK

by Matthew Murrey

‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies —The Guardian, June 18, 2026. Photo by Mark Chelu via Shutterstock.

I hold a thousand years of rings—

laws turned crimes, outlaws

heroes: Robin Hood to Mangione.

I have remained here

as posts were sunk, fences strung,

and commons turned to cost.

I have known the sadness of air

heavy with smoke and all the burnings:

coal, humans, forests, oil and gas.

I know there are limits,

only so much time,

and all of us must perish.

I am stark. You can see

every gnarl, burr, split, and break

in the bark, scar in the wood.

I have not put forth one leaf

in this heat of twenty twenty-six.

You and I stand bare beneath the sky.

Matthew Murrey is the author of Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026) and Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019). He can be found on Bluesky and Instagram under the handle @mytwords.  

TO MADISON'S DAD

by Cathy Hailey

 

 

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said Monday that he will return to the upper chamber this week after taking time off for the death of his daughter, Madison. The Virginia senator wrote on the social platform X, “As we remember our incredible daughter, Maddy, my family has been deeply touched by the outpouring of support we’ve received. Thank you to everyone for your kind words.” —The Hill, April 27, 2026

You were the Northern Cardinal cheering me on, 

sending notes of congratulations in song 

as we celebrated student voices and publications 

across the Virginia Commonwealth we share.

I became the Carolina Wren of gratefulness 

as you shored up the forest of poets laureate—

my daughter among the honorees—     

supporting grants for the arts and the word. 

Now we are mourning doves together, 

clinging in a chorus of grieving parents, 

a child’s death disrupting the timeline of our lives 

and stealing future nests and dreams.                     

From Alexandra’s Mom

Cathy Hailey is a poet and educator (Prince William County Schools and Johns Hopkins University). She organizes In the Company of Laureates in Prince William County and works with youth poetry programs for The Poetry Society of Virginia and The Word Works.  Her chapbook, I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth, was published by Finishing Line Press. Publications include The New Verse News, FotoSpecchio, Little Free/Painted Pebble Lit Mag, First Frost, Making the Unseen Seen anthology and The Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poetry & others.

DEATH TAX

by Mark Hendrickson

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, President Donald J. Trump’s signature will appear on future U.S. paper currency along with the Secretary of the Treasury, marking the first time in history for a sitting president. —US Treasury Dept., March 26, 2026

According to a website calculator

what I paid in taxes last year

bought the government 

350 to 500 rounds of ammo.

 

I wonder if I bought the bullets

that killed Pretti and Good

in Minneapolis

by men in masks

 

Or perhaps I helped pay

for the tomahawk missile

that killed over 100 girls

in a school in Iran.

 

I protest policies,

but pay my taxes

the way I was taught

good Americans should.

 

In this way I’m complicit.

Every dollar I send

will be signed by the culprit,

and signed off by me.

Mark Hendrickson (he/him) is a poet and writer in the Des Moines area navigating the Sturm und Drang of daily life through wordcraft. His words appear in The Ekphrastic Review, The New Verse News, and Modern Haiku. Follow him @MarkHPoetry, https://www.chillsubs.com/profile/mhendrickson

 or on his website: www.markhendricksonpoetry.com