OH BEAUTIFUL

by Chris Reed

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

For the country’s 250th birthday celebration

my sister texts a collage of photos of our mother

in her last years before dying at 100.

At first it seems a strange birthday message

for the nation, until I start looking at the photos.

In my mother’s face, her seated posture, 

often holding flowers or her cat on her lap,

I see the inevitable wear of years, time’s destruction,

a loss of elasticity and nimbleness, 

a loss of focus, purpose and endless energy,

a loss of fitting in to how things work and get done.

 

Yet in her eyes and smile in photo after photo,

I see acceptance and memories of past joys

and loves, her ocean sailings, mountain climbs, 

her shore walks, and dance among multitudes.

I see a hint of denial, pretending that her place

in the family of things is not coming to an end,

only her eyes betraying her knowledge 

that the journey has already started.

Her face tells me all this, but also tells me 

that amid her brokenness and joys and losses,

ever courageous, she is finding new love

and meaning in this, her season of endings.

 

With no flowers for you, let me still say,

Happy Birthday America.

Chris Reed cared for her mother in her last two years of life and found beauty in her mother's decline in health and purpose.  Finishing Line Press recently published a chapbook of Reed's poems about this time, Two Years and Two Months.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CYNICISM

by Michael Mark

The doctor looks at the x-ray 

of my little toe and notices

a dip in his 

Money Market fund. 

 

He recommends surgery.

 

The authorization request 

is forwarded to the insurance 

company examiner who'd

been warned by management 

about being too liberal with 

approvals.

 

She reviews the doctor’s 

diagnosis, carefully 

considering her job security.

 

After reading the denial

my wife

asks why we pay so much

for insurance if we can’t

use it.

 

And why doctors go

to medical school to get 

all the knowledge 

when the insurance 

companies

have all the power.

 

And why do I 

go around without shoes 

all the time

because that’s what caused

the bump on my toe?

 

I go for a ride to blow off

steam and my car breaks down.

 

Bending over the engine, 

the mechanic 

glances at my expensive shoes

and I say,

Yeah, I know, this is going to be a big job.

Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet, awarded the 2022 Rattle Chapbook Prize. Poems appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, 32 Poems, The Sun, The Best New Poets 2024.

ALGORITHM

by Elaine Sorrentino

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

I’m no statistician
but I wonder if UnitedHealth factored in

the percentage of declined subscribers
who would rejoice over deadly revenge

when calculating risk for the most vulnerable─
a system predisposed to dollars over lives,

one with a ninety percent error rate;
what ailing patient is up for that legal battle?

I question where my claim would land
in the roulette wheel of computations;

having dipped into this well twice,
would my ball stop in the red DENIED pocket?

Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe,The New Verse News, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch,and Panoplyzine. She hosts the Duxbury Poetry Circle, was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. Her first collection of poetry, called Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit is in production at Kelsay Books.

TIME'S UP

by Richard Meyer

Follow the online bot that tweets the elapsed amount of the T***p presidency in 0.1% increments .

Deranged, incompetent, irate,

the loser won’t admit he lost.

Refusing to accept his fate,

he’ll lie and cheat at any cost

and even wreck the ship of state

while claiming he’s been double-crossed.

But he’s defeated, shamed, undone.

The unrelenting countdown clock

keeps dropping digits one by one.

He cannot stop the tick and tock.

He’s out of time. His end has come,

a failure there’s no hiding from.

He’s squeezed inside an hourglass,                 

dissipating grain by grain.

The dwindling moments come and pass,                    

and nothing of him will remain.

His legacy and final brand

will be a little mound of sand.

Richard Meyer’s poems have appeared in various publications, including Able Muse, The Raintown Review, Think, Measure, Light, TheNewVerse.News, Alabama Literary Review, and The Evansville Review. He was awarded the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize for his poem “Fieldstone” and was the recipient of the 2014 String Poet Prize for his poem “The Autumn Way.” A book of his collected poems, Orbital Paths, was a silver medalist winner in the 2016 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.

THIS IS YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING

by Chris Reed

Sunday, November 15, 2020

My mother napped yesterday,

while I finished Swann’s Way.

Her water retention is down,

and we hear that someone

is unlocking the secrets of aging.

There are no words for the US 

reaching eleven million cases

of coronavirus this morning,

although the eucharistic minister 

wore a mask when she delivered

the host earlier.

The bird feeders were filled today

and promptly visited by a finch

and a red-bellied woodpecker.

Currently we are recording 

the Giants-Eagles game, in which

Daniel Jones and the Giants are

getting downfield, as constriction

threatens a transfer of power,

school reopenings and life itself.

I search for an artificial wreath. 

We have some breaking news—

a stag is walking past the window,

and we are making the call

that he is at least four years old. 

My mother sees him and reaches

for the word that means him,

although we still have no word

on reality out of the White House.

The Giants won this one.  Enjoy

what remains of your weekend.

Although relatively new to poetry writing, during the pandemic and sheltering in place with his post-stroke mother,  reading and writing poetry have become Chris Reed’s go-to survival activities.  Attending a zoom weekly poetry workshop has also been a gift and helped sustain sanity.

APERTURE

by Erin Murphy

Embed from Getty Images

November 2020  

 

The cloud bank is a mountain— 

no, a continent—in the gun metal                               

 

sky and beneath it a cavalry  

of trees, mostly oak, limbs rhyming  

 

in Vs. Look closer to see the anarchy  

of leaves—some refusing                                

 

to surrender even after three nights  

of frost. What will it take? 

 

Remember the film in which  

the boys were cloned from evil DNA. 

 

Remember half your neighbors 

voted for—and from—hate. 

 

Who has won? Who has lost? 

Zoom in to the tip of a twig  

 

where a caterpillar—backlit  

by sunlight—stakes its claim,  

 

chrysalis of history spooled tight  

as a movie plot. Inside: maybe  

 

a monarch. Maybe a tiger 

moth. 

Erin Murphy’s eighth book of poems, Human Resources, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Her work has appeared in such journals as The Georgia Review, Field, Southern Humanities Review, Glass, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. She is Professor of English at Penn State Altoona and serves as Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review. 

T***P TAKES ON THE FOUR SEASONS

 by Anita S. Pulier

Editor's Note: @TotalSeasons is a parody account on Twitter.

The world hears him

banging on the courthouse door

filing comical briefs,

blustering nonsense 

against Fall,

against colors turning,

against leaves falling,

against gearing up for Winter.

And in liberty’s fading light 

he waves his flabby arms, 

proclaims Winter will never arrive

he simply will not allow it, 

screams plot, fraud, fake.

Eyebrows raised, we

take a deep breath,

await Winter's chill.

In this pandemic year of challenges Anita S. Pulier can share some good news: her second full-length poetry book Toast will be out from Finishing Line Press in February! In a past life, she was an attorney. Now she writes poetry (published in many journals and anthologies) and hangs with poets.

THE AMERICAN GOSPEL (2020 EDITION)

by Avalon Felice Lee

In the beginning…

January judgment 

Red hat, white lies

"The flu is worse!" he scorns

as his gavel cudgels China, the blue-faced, the blue-lunged

The pen of law

holds the ink for healthcare blueprints. 

The dough in his fist

for swab tests; for the people. 

              

February denial

Nailed wrists, or tied hands?

Our savior, or an excuse?

Americans,

             repent!

                          Beware of

                                       fake news

                                                    sham gold

                                                                 idols— 

Nothing to worry about! Nothing at all!

Come to the altar, worship whoever’s crowned

The winged choir guard the American garden

from Wuhan fiends

And so, nib unscathed

Pockets heavy

The Gospel

Good thing he cares for his shares 

The yeast for His bread

unrisen, decayed

So, He Marches forward

And trumpets that “the numbers are good” as is

apparently

contrarily

But April showers make faith dour.

Just in case, behind Jericho bricks

He breaks bread

for swab tests; for His people

crumbs

Oh, you sinner

Cast doubt from your mind!

May you rejoice!

The Savior saves His people!

Good thing he cares for his shares.

Revelation

Though idols dine in violet silk, one day

the synthetic dye will blanch

Dress in your Sunday best, filter masks

Earth will soon steal the recipe for

manna

Sacrifice pedestrian beer

for communion wine, Purell

June bugs, heathens, see the sunup

The world ends not with a virus!

(But by the folly of man.)

Avalon Felice Lee is an Asian-American Californian. She has been writing poetry and prose since the age of eleven. Her works have been published in The Heritage Review, Kalopsia Literary Journal, and elsewhere.

SONNET FOR GOVERNOR NORTHAM

by Diane Elayne Dees





I had to shine my shoes that day. I might
have inadvertently smeared polish on my face.
I don’t recall—but I’m more or less contrite
(for those who get all worked up about race).
I know that I’m a doctor of neurology,
but I have a lot of brain fog and confusion.
That photo in my yearbook’s an anomaly;
it may even be an optical illusion.
I may have donned a baptismal-like robe—
pure white (and perhaps it had a hood)—
and though I’m trying really hard to probe
my memory, it isn’t very good.
In summary, I’m the short guy. No—the tall!
But wait.....I think I wasn’t there at all.


Diane Elayne Dees’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

LIFESTYLE OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

by George Salamon

At the top of our society, abuse
Sports the faces of distinction,
Oozing professional achievement.
Practicing the habits of the highly successful,
Trained in academies for the
Acculturation to country and golf club.
Learned in the language of denial and deceit
By masters in think tanks and public relations.
They have what it takes to stay in
And rise to the top by the  laws of the jungle.
Women were assembly-line bodies,
Some disagreeable challenges to be
Overcome by booze or by force,
Until each great man chose his
Love goddess to keep his home.


George Salamon is following the Brett Kavanaugh saga from the heartland in St. Louis, MO.

DENIAL VILLANELLE

by Judith Terzi

Cartoon by Rob Rogers.

I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.
I didn't leave the front door ajar all day.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

I didn't leave the bathroom light on. Energy blight.
I didn't leave the water running in the sink, btw.
I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.

Pas moi, pas moi. Must have been Mike.
I didn't leave the toothpaste top off in the mêlée.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

I didn't take the papers off the desk. No sleight
of hand in dawn's early light. No fingerprints, eh?
I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.

Yes you, you ate the apple pie. We have to indict.
I didn't, I didn't steal the cap, the coke, the hearsay.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

I didn't eat the last Twinkie. Pas moi, alright?
Then who stole the cookies from the cookie tray?
I didn't leave the fridge door open all night.
I didn't leave the water boiling. Fire fright.

Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay Books, 2018) and five chapbooks, Judith Terzi's poems appear widely in literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry has been read on the BBC, nominated for Best of the Net and Web, and included in a study guide for the artist-in-residence program for State Theater New Jersey. She holds an M.A. in French Literature.

SELECTIVE MEMORY AS FUTURE TOPIC FOR AN ELEGY

by Lyndi Bell O'Laughlin


The “good old days” induce a thin,
waxy coating on the outermost cells
of the lining of the throat,
carry a subliminal aftertaste
of Let's pretend that didn’t happen,
our capacity for denial so dignified
it should wear a chimney pot hat,
its name unmentionable, like Yahweh,
multiplied by seven billion.

The pain of contradiction and repetition
destined to repeat the curly climb
of Pacific Salmon full of eggs,
ignoring the promise in each other's eyes,
there is just the blinkless
death spiral of instinct to extinct,
this being the only way
some are able to rise each morning,
are able to shove a foot down a pant leg
before brushing their teeth with the frightful paradox
I am not to blame, but the blame is mine,

and the sunrise spreads its royalty over
bombed-out ruins and refugees,
exiles, gut piles, and Goldman Sachs;
water and air grow confused,
don’t know where to go

Image source: Smith & Wesson

to escape the uncle's hand,
dry earth shrivels and shrinks,
tries to swallow.

The poets conjure sublime descriptions
of the beauty of a spruce bough in winter;
poems that sing rhythmic sunrise colored
sleights-of-hand that make me yearn for the day
my sister and I snuck into our parents' closet,
hoping to catch the loose corner
of a shiny-bowed Christmas present;
and for a moment we did,
then remembering hard enough,
the glittering gift of my imagination disappears,
and there is only the stack of dog-eared Playboys,
the empty vodka bottles,
the battered 20-gauge shotgun
leaning cockeyed in the corner.

Lyndi Bell O’Laughlin is a poet from Wyoming, USA. Lyndi’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone: An Anthology of Wyoming Writers (Sastrugi Press, 2016), TheNewVerse.News, Gyroscope Review, Unbroken Journal, and elsewhere.