INTO THE DARKNESS

by Karen Marker

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

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is.

I didn’t always wake up feeling this weary, 

feeling the pain of the wound in my chest

like I held a dead child. Like someone 

had stolen my sword and the light

of the grail was gone. I used to sleep 

through the night, trusted the widening gyre 

was leading me out of the dark.

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is 

after he flat out said he’s sending the military 

into our cities because he’s sick of the mentally ill, 

addicted, disabled, veterans, the hungry, unhoused, 

that he’s sick of those who come in needing shelter, 

jobs, a better life, that he’s sick of protestors.

 

I didn’t always wake up this worried

that if the Department of War blows up ships 

in the Caribbean they say are carrying drugs,  

ignoring all laws, it won’t be long before 

they’re waging war on us to make the world safer 

for the billionaires, sending off the unwanted

to concentration camps in the desert.

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is 

after the government shut down goes on and on

while the thugs on the streets get paid

to carry out “the Lords’ work.”

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is

except a comet coming straight at the Earth 

and all of it exploding.

Karen Marker is an Oakland, CA. poet activist who has committed to  writing a poem a day of protest and hope in response  to current events. Her first poetry book Beneath the Blue Umbrella came out recently with Finishing Line Press and explores family mental illness, stigma and healing. 

ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BANK JOB

by Raymond Nat Turner

Humor Outcasts Cartoon, May 25, 2025, Written by: Paul Lander; Artist: Dan McConnell

Masked. Armed to the teeth. Synchronized
Rolexes. They left Lamborghini and Maserati
Motors purring… softly in the shadows on 
Capitalist Hill

And then—suddenly—in sonic boom unison they
Shouted at The People:
UP AGAINST THE WALL—MUTHAFUKKKAS!
GET ‘EM UP!         THIS IS A FUCKIN STICKUP!

Yo, fatso! Yeah, you. Waddle your way over to Senator
Sadist. You, on the crutches; swing over to Congressman
Cruel. Move it! Don’t make me bust a cap in your poor
Ol’ tired cripple ass! Did it in Afghanistan. Did it in Iraq.

Outta that wheelchair and on the floor, Pops! 
And, while you’re at it, gimme me those teeth.
Move it! Quick, fork over the hospice money.
Chop-chop, drop life expectancies in Golden Dome!

Hey, Bag Lady, drop those damn vouchers in the 
Billionaire bag over there! Yo, Sambo! Down on the
Ground! Keep your fuckin mouth shut and no one will get
Hurt … Well, at least until …  after we make our get away

Hey, Granny, gimme those meds! 
Hand over the Medicaid, ol’ maid.
Listen up, kids! Drop those school lunches in the
Billionaire bag. Yo, Teach, handover Head Start!

OK—simple-minded sukkkas—quick, up on your feet!
We’re breaking you for the billionaires; and Boss Tweet—
Robbing and plundering you, for the Murderous 1% Mob
Pulling off—yet another—One Big Beautiful Bank Job!

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

MIXED MESSAGE: A HISTORY LESSON 2017

by Alan Catlin

Capitol Police drag disabled protesters out of wheelchairs during Trumpcare protests. Forty-three people were arrested in connection with the protest. In some instances, police helped protesters back into their wheelchairs before forcibly removing them, but others weren't treated so generously Jacquelyn Martin/AP via The Independent (UK) June 22, 2017.

This is what
the Fascists did
in the 1930s and 40s:

cleansed the race
of the genetically impure

the mentally ill
sexual deviants
gypsies
jews

the cripples
and the infirm

Now here
in Washington DC
Today in June of 2017

republicans release
details of crafted-in-secret
No Health Care bill

arrest the protestors
in the halls of Congress:

the disabled in wheelchairs
on oxygen
disability disadvantaged all

and either forcibly carry them out
or escort them from in front
of the Majority Leader of the Senate’s
office door outside

to where the box cars are waiting.





Alan Catlin is poetry editor of online journal misfitmagazine.net. His latest book of poetry is American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press.

TERRIFIED

by Marsha Owens

Image adapted from Scott Brundage Illustration.

Who are you? roared the Cyclops.

I’m terrified, I whispered back.

And well you should be, Cyclops said, because it’s like snakes in the baby’s crib.

We are babies, you know, we haughty Americans, two-year olds running around aimlessly, peeing our pants, little boy babies pulling their diapers down to gawk at their penises, all self-absorbed, too young to understand how grown-up 21st Century countries behave, grown-up men and women, you know, the ones who build high-speed rail, and grow a belief system that says YOU, you, and you, all of you will be educated and be able to pay for your blood pressure medicine and be able to have food enough, and YOU, you, and you will live in houses, unlike stray dogs scrounging downtown, still some say YOU, you and you are undeserving because you don’t pray to our father who is in heaven, you don’t speak English, you wear a scarf on your head, you walk with a limp, you run away from bullets shot at your back.  Yes, YOU . . . be afraid, feel the dead of the darkest night, guiding stars dimmed, voices of reason gone underground, black faces smashed, bodies dumped on the trash heap beside McDonald’s wrappers, throwaways, mountains of loss, and the red truck sits in the yard outside my window, says nothing, all metal and strong.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond VA. #Resist

SOME YEARS ASK

by Carol Dorf

Some years ask, "Which side are you on?"
You might answer, "I'm on the side of the bees,
and the waters rising against the coastal shores."
You listen to a debate, and wonder, "Have I been
clear. Or I'm ok about reading dystopias, but
don't think I live in one, and don't want to find
myself there." I'm on the side of the kindergarten
children who tumble together on the rug, eager
for a story, after eating school lunches portioned
onto small trays. I'm on the side of the whales
who need quiet to hear each other calling across
the sea. And I'm on the side of the fat women,
and the crips, and every contractor who wanted
to be paid. "Which side are you on?" is
the refrain, while the future echoes on the screen.


Carol Dorf's chapbook Theory Headed Dragon is available through Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has been published in Glint, Slipstream, Spillway, Sin Fronteras, Antiphon, Composite, About Place, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, Maintenant, OVS Best of Indie Lit New England, and elsewhere. She is poetry editor of Talking Writing and teaches mathematics.

UNSHED TEARS

by Jean Thurston Liebert

Image source: Lowbrow Art Company

In this never-never land of the disabled
    there are unshed tears, I know.
    Tears of pain, stoutly endured,
Tears of frustration stopped in mid-flow.

Intermittent drops causing concern
    are those of loneliness - forever alone.
    Sometimes a good cry can be of comfort
After being deprived of all that one owns.

My unshed tears near the surface
      when I meet tiny Alice
      wandering the halls endlessly,
Seeking her life that used to be.


Ninety-four  year old Jean Thurston Liebert, a New Verse News regular, has moved from her home into an assisted living/residential care facility where she has taken-up the banner for society's oldest. Her daughter tells us, “Because of fading vision and her lack of mobility, Mom taught herself to use an iPad.  And as soon as Comcast connects her, she'll be emailing the next in her poetry series on those ‘sentenced to life’ in facilities for the aged. For my mother to live in this environment,  resist being treated as a child -- a ‘non-person’ -- and to so ably write about the indignities encountered by the very oldest of our seniors, gives hope of a better future for all of us."