OIL COUNTRY

by Pepper Trail

 

 

 

 

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.  

WHEN HE’S GONE

by Kay White Drew

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

…do unto his Mar-a-Lago North
what he has done to the Presidential residence:
tear it limb from limb, let
the wrecking ball swing free.

Gather the people from the four directions
to bear witness. Sing and chant, each
in your own tongue. Release your grief
and joy: the reign of terror is finally over.
Trash or melt down the tawdry gold things.
Remove with care the remnants
of happier days and the relics of the founders.

When the dust has settled, bring sages
and shamans and clergy of all denominations
to purify the space with prayers, smudge-sticks
and incense, libations and offerings
in rituals of repentance and reconciliation.

Dig a new foundation, build a new structure
that reflects our mongrel variety,
embraces us in all our multifarious glory.

       Not the White House.
       The People’s House.

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The Intima, Gargoyle, and The New Verse News. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test, about medical school in the 1970s. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Reading and spending time in nature keep her sane(ish) in these difficult times.

NO ROOF, NO DOOR

by Paul Burgess

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

To get the house of which I'd dreamed,
The fastest route, or so it seemed, 
Was knocking down each door and wall, 
Destroying ceiling, den, and hall.
With wrecking ball, I'd swiftly smash
And relish every violent crash. 
 
The pile of rubble where I stand 
Was all I'd thought about or planned. 
Rebuilding seemed the easy part, 
But now I wonder where to start. 
I'd barely planned the building's frame, 
But bragged I'd surely put to shame 
The house in which I'd lived before,
Yet now, I've got no roof, no door, 
No wires, no pipes, but just a heap
Of rubble where I'll have to sleep. 

Paul Burgess lives in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the sole proprietor of a business that offers ESL, translation, and interpretation services. He speaks several languages fluently. When not writing strange poems, he enjoys playing guitar, reading, and hiking. He has contributed poems to Blue Unicorn, The Orchards, Parody, Lighten Up Online, Dirigible Balloon, The New Verse News, OEDILF, and other poetry publications.

STOP THE CAR!

by Craig Cowden

“Stop the car… We want dramatic change. We don't get to go to Disneyland until we figure this out.” — Senator John Curtis on Face the Nation, February 23, 2025

Climbing out our 60s wood-panel station wagon
somewhere in the wilderness of eastern Oregon,
we scurry behind Mom as Dad rages about
our whining, his money, the heat, the route.

Dad yanks the jack out of the back and liberates
the car of regulated seatbelts, warning lights,
“dem wasteful mandates,” while mumbling “CAFE”
to the catalytic converter — what is that anyway?

Out goes the spare tire unmaintained and flat.
Power steering? “When you’re a man, who needs that?”
Jettisoned is the rear facing seat where we escape,
a privilege we apparently no longer rate.

Tossed are my anime, smashed is brother’s tablet,
to the ditch goes sister’s faded rainbow jacket
followed soon by Mom’s remote workplace laptop
while the bumper with peace stickers lies on the blacktop.

Turning to his scions now in shock by the road,
he demands that we just stop, but we aren’t told
what to change in our dysfunctional family
or how to reboot the ruined car and make it to Disney.

Author’s note: On CBS’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan on February 23, 2025, Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, repeats the metaphor of “stopping the car” to confront the disruptive kids 11 times in response to multiple oversight questions in this 8 minute interview. This poem imagines what transitions might occur during this “stop the car moment.” Margaret Brennan fails to ask, and Senator Curtis doesn’t offer, how the car gets rebooted — maybe jumper cables, heart defibrillator, Ctrl+Alt+Del?

Craig Cowden is a retired director of program management from Oracle Corporation.  With his engineering background, he thinks it quite logical that the same skills that architect efficient, elegant software can also inspire measured, meaningful verse. He relishes writing cynical poems from alternative perspectives covering current events and life in general.   Craig's poems have appeared in Lighten Up Online, Birdy Magazine, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop Anthology Collections of Poetry and Short Fiction.

A TIDAL WAVE POEM

by Gil Hoy

in my dream, the strongman threw my pages 
of poems into a wastebasket and told me 
not to write another poem about democracy. 
no more poems about human rights 
and fundamental freedoms, free and fair 
elections, independent branches of government, 
freedom of expression and press, 
constitutional guarantees of civilian authority. 
no more poems about democratic principles 
that fashioned my poems, they, that turned chaos 
and madness into people power, would no longer 
have permission to enter my poems. so instead, 
I wrote a tidal wave poem about a tidal wave coming.
not an about-democracy or about-democratic principles 
type of poem, not a poem about diversity and inclusion, 
one man-one vote, international law, or equal justice 
under the law. no, this poem was about a tidal wave. 
a tidal wave so strong and so powerful, 
so potent and so heavy, it could destroy evil 
in its path. a tidal wave thousands of miles long 
propelled by the strength of the sun, 
the moon and the earth. a tidal wave so 
demanding so dominant that his eyes 
and his lungs looked drowned. 
a tidal wave that yelled
don't ever fuck with my country again. 
a tidal wave so powerful, so so heavy
and strong, that, yes, it deserves its own poem.


Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Tucson, Arizona poet and writer who is studying fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and previously at Boston University. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy is a semi-retired trial lawyer and a former four-term elected Brookline, MA Selectman. His poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Third Wednesday, Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review,  Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, The New Verse News and elsewhere.

HOW DO I, A SOLDIER, DESTROY THEE?

by Lavinia Kumar

            Based on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)”

Surge in Russian drone strikes test Ukrainian defences and devastate families

New wave of mass killings in Sudan alarms UN

 
How do I destroy thee? Let me count the ways.
I kill thee by bombs, and drones from great height—
my mind out of reach, yes, I stay out of sight
for the ends of being in this race
to destroy, to level thee and thine, each day
where there’s no quiet, and only candle-light.
I destroy thee freely, as you strive for what is right.
I destroy thee completely, and I am praised.
I destroy thee with passion and put to use
my grievance, so with my childhood faith
I destroy you, with a will I shall never lose
with my bullets. I destroy thee with each breath,
each gun—with all my might; and if God choose,
I shall destroy thee even after death.


Lavinia Kumar is author of poetry and flash fiction. Her latest book is a reprinting of her short book Beauty. Salon. Art.

WALKING LEAVES OF SPRING

by Dick Altman

Donald Trump and Herschel Walker. Photograph by Tom Brenner / Reuters / Alamy via The New Yorker

The World’s Democracies Ask: Why Can’t America Fix Itself? Conversations across continents reveal alarm over the United States’ direction, as it slides away from ideals it once pressed other nations to adopt. —Damien Cave, The New York Times, November 8, 2022

The Midterm Elections Deliver a Stunning Return to the Status Quo: The red wave never materialized, Trump’s handpicked candidates underperformed, some new faces emerged—but the country appears as evenly divided as ever. —Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker, November 9, 2022

I imagine next spring—when I—along

with the rest of America—walk a path

of autumn’s golden leaves—the period

of quiescence before the next electoral

storm—our metaphorical nuclear winter—

the end—many fear—of we the people—

we who have waged war for the peace

of others—unable to forge peace

among ourselves—

                              *

I walk autumn’s golden leaves—

as goodness that rebuilt the world—time

and again—begins to turn into winter’s

snarl—I hear it wail at night—rattle

doors and windows—seep into dreams—

the storm cellar of my heart beckons—

I want to hide my thoughts—shield them

from anger sweeping the land—a land

with enough destruction at hand—

to kill each one of us ten times over—

                                *

I walk autumn’s golden leaves—

in spring’s bloom—and the music

of the rose that I should be hearing—

sounds like distant thunder—cannon

out to destroy—to mutilate—lines

of kindness that have—through peace

and war—stitched together the fabric

of America—the cloth that so gallantly

waved—slowly—inevitably—by word—

by sword—by we the people—singly

and together—we rend into bits

of voiceless thread—of elegiac confetti

signaling spring’s end—and winter’s

birth of America the beautiful—scarred

beyond knowing

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

TINY CHAIRS IN BETHLEHEM, AUGUST 2017

by Bonnie Naradzay





On the outskirts of Bethlehem
Israeli military jeeps
late at night arrive at a school,
newly built, as locals prepare
for next morning’s grand opening.
Shooting tear gas, and rubberized
steel bullets used for crowd control,
soldiers clear villagers from there.
Then bulldozers and flatbed trucks
show up and take the school away,
including tables and teaching
aids, leaving only tiny chairs.

Bonnie Naradzay's poems have appeared in JAMA, Poet Lore, Split This Rock, Delmarva Review, Passager, Pinch (Pushcart Prize nomination), The Guardian, Anderbo.com, The Seminary Ridge Review, Innisfree, Atlanta Review, Salt River Review, Energeia, TheNewVerse.News, and others.  In 2010 she won the Poetry Prize, New Orleans MFA Program.

POLITICIAN

by David Spicer

Landlocked again in frozen Iowa,
I’m still the captain of my ship,
I’ll still charm all of you sardines
and mackerel until you swoon,
all of you sharks and seagulls
who’ll swallow anything,
I won’t show mercy when you
float in the fever you catch.
I can cajole you to destroy each other,
or dazzle you to hug in a unified trance
before you lose grip and slide
into the twilight of your dance.
I can convince you to swim in oil-soaked ice,
and you’ll delight in this devilish smile
while we brandish my motto for the mission:
Our Love of Me Beams Like a Hundred
Lighthouses. Your wet minds are useless,
I’m a trickster who’ll defeat any fool
or liar, so when belief sinks in your
hypnotized faces, I’ll swagger
toward you — I’m a riot of one,
and you’ll stutter at my beck and call,
for I possess the ships, the oars, the nets,
I’m my own harpoon: none of you can
elude the epidemic of me as I gore
you, skewer you, and sell your
sorry souls to the highest bidder.


David Spicer has poems accepted by or published in such magazines as Reed Magazine, The Curly Mind, Slim Volume, Yellow Chair Review, Jersey Devil Press, TheNewVerse.News , On the Rush, Circle Seven, Phantom Kangaroo, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., and elsewhere. He is also the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, plus eight unpublished manuscripts.