FIRE THIS TIME

by Gary Lark

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

This time 
this time
like any other time
like no other time
our time.

Now I understand,
we’re disposable.
After a long life,
tasting the wind 
from all directions
I get it.

Fires in Europe,
Canadian forests ablaze,
drought and floods,
we reach into the night
asking consciousness to save us.
The great beast of us
wheels and turns
desire in every hand.

Exploit and plunder marches on.
We could have,
we should have done something yesterday.
I know, I know
it will be different this time.

If I were a giant, I might pick up Congress
and shake it until the rats fall out
but I wouldn’t mess 
with the janitors and secretaries.

I go to the river in the evening
to watch it flow through town.
I don’t want to drink it
but I do.

Gary Lark’s most recent collections are “Coming Down the Mountain,” “Easter Creek,” and “Daybreak on the Water,” His work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Catamaran, and Rattle. Gary and his wife Dorothy live in Oregon's Rogue Valley.

A ROTTEN TIME

by Marge Piercy

After violent months of war

no one can win, men with

assault rifles doing what they

were built to do, kill many,

 

world burning, people dying

of heat, hurricanes stronger

more often, tornadoes

fiercer, drought scorching

 

land to desert, Animals,

trees dying off and gone,
let’s not just hope, pray

but work to leave an earth

 

we’re not guilty of spoiling.

Despair is just laziness.

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

Marge Piercy is the author of twenty one poetry collections and seventeen novels, including Woman at the Edge of Time, and SEX WARS. A lifelong feminist, socialist, and anti-war activist, her writing has been exploring labor, environmental justice, and the struggle for a more equitable world over the last five decades.

WHEN THE FORECAST CALLS FOR MORE PAIN

by Dick Altman
in Northern New Mexico

 

Wind and dry weather will again pose a critical fire risk this week for the Land of Enchantment. —Santa Fe New Mexican, April 21, 2026

Another day,
another day,
you,
weather,
and I,
face off over
the extreme
risk of fire.
How I wish
it were merely,
between us,
a matter of words.
Instead,
your high desert’s
majestic cloud
cover
has transmuted
into six months
of winter’s
unyielding
emptiness.
 
My hand-grown
conifer glade,
years in the making,
can only stand
and wait,
as chances
intensify
for a sudden burst
of dry lightning.
Fierce gusting
winds,
like a giant,
out of control
bellows,
can turn
a single spark,
so it seems,
into a winged
flame
capable
 
of destroying
everything,
near and far
in its path.
 
I wish
these words
were simply
a meditation
on a barren
winter.
But the pain
is real,
and when
risk explodes
into reality,
as I have seen,
the destruction
can go
unmitigated
for months.
Not two
or three valleys
over,
but as if
on the tindered
bluffs here
I call home.
 
Come summer,
it may not be
a blaze
that swallows
our forests
and farm lands,
but dry throats
dying of thirst.
And untillable soils,
desert hard
as long dead bone.


Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, and others here and abroad.  .  Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 300 poems, published on four continents.

DRY SPRING GARDEN IN CALIFORNIA

by Corey Weinstein

Elizabeth Marriott at Unsplash

 

Drought’s parch is again upon the west,

the great desert uncloaks herself in dusty despair,

stunted snails hunker ‘til moist mornings return.

 

Spiders stealthily trap and suck essences from

crawlers stuck in English ivy’s webbed sinews,

harmless hiding little ones just ‘cause they’re there.

 

Tenacious ivy pours over our 

backyard fence, volunteers its fidelity,

comforts our wine barrel hoop peace sign.

 

I bench sit watching week by week

wax green leaves crawl to obscure earth’s 

need for congenial tolerance well earned.

 

Galvanized steel hope for disarmament

must hide its embarrassed shine this year 

while bombs carpet Gaza and lately Iran.

 

Our fallen just a few in this war,

names get said each and every one

while cluster and bunker buster bombs for them.

 

Bluster and lies can’t hide the dead,

ours a few soldiers, theirs mostly like you and me,

harmless ones hiding just ‘cause they’re there.

Corey Weinstein’s poetry has been published in Haight Asbury Literary Journal, Vistas and Byways, The New Verse News, Our California 2024, The Ekphrastic Review, Forum (City College of San Francisco), California State Poetry Society, Visitant, Abandoned Mine, Speak Poetry of San Mateo County, California State Poetry Society and Jewish Currents, and he wrote and performed a singspiel called Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me.   In his free time, he hosts San Francisco OLLI’s Poetry Workshop Circle and plays the clarinet in his local jazz band, Tandem, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.

A DRY SPELL IN UTAH

by Susan J. Wurtzburg

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

Statewide drought, evaporating lakes, whirlwinds, catastrophe; 
amidst this mess, our Governor pleads “Pray for rain.” Angels,
witches, devils descend from the sky to the chosen, but no blessed water.
 
My garden meadow browns to wasteland, crisp crackle underfoot,
hummingbird departs. Has he expended all his heartbeats in July’s
harsh heat? Warm colors of swallowtails, monarchs—gone. 
Finches, sparrows silent, beaks gape wide, throats too dry for song.
 
City residents stop sprinklers, while farmers, and our Governor
grow water-hungry alfalfa—drain rivers and aquifers. Spinning drops
irrigation-spread, artificial rainbows brighten verdant fields. Cloudbursts 
transformed to feed chug across the ocean, as our lakes recede. 

Susan J. Wurtzburg has won or placed in several poetry competitions. She is a Commissioned Artist in Sidewalk Poetry: Senses of Salt Lake City, 2024, and an Associate Poetry Editor at Poets Reading the News. Her book, Ravenous Words, with Lisa Lucas was published in spring, 2025.

AI SHANTY

by Joel Glover

LA Wildfires and AI’s Data Center Water Drain: The explosion of data center demand for AI use is draining water resources. Even with efforts to mitigate cooling demands, municipalities and companies struggle to find a balance. —Information Week, January 17, 2025. 

[Refrain]

Oh, the sea was wide, the sun is high

The land is parched, the soil is dry

And clouds swirl over cooling stacks

And soothing rain is what we lack

[Verse 1]

There’s vapour in the atmosphere

And bubbles form, that much is clear

Pyramids and Ponzi schemes

Built on algorithmic dreams

[Refrain]

Oh, the sea was wide, the sun is high

The land is parched, the soil is dry

And clouds swirl over cooling stacks

And the cooling rain is what we lack

[Verse 2]

Profits for some, for us the loss

Ice caps melted, no more frost

Towns in rolling blackout pall

No showers, storms, or thunder squall

[Refrain]

Oh, the sea was wide, the sun is high

The land is parched, the soil is dry

And clouds swirl over cooling stacks

And the cooling rain is what we lack

Former waiter in a Love Boat themed restaurant, reformed mandarin, and extroverted accountant, Joel Glover lives in the woods of Hertfordshire with two boys, one wife, and not nearly enough coffee. His poetry has appeared in oddball magazine, Little Old Lady Comedy, Radon Journal, 5-7-5 Journal, Epistemic Literary, Pulp Lit Mag, and As It Ought To Be. He published a chapbook Untimely Poetry, taking a cockeyed view at the news of 2024.

A REQUEST TO THE STATE

by David Chorlton

Aaron Gunches is not going to get his wish to be executed on Valentine’s Day. In an order Jan. 8, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected a Gunches pleading to forgo any more legal maneuvering and finally put him to death after he pleaded guilty to the 2002 murder and kidnapping charges of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband. Instead, the justices said they want to hear arguments from all sides, including Attorney General Kris Mayes, who wants Gunches executed, but not on his schedule. —Arizona Capitol Times, January 8, 2025

The sun must wish events
were kinder when it climbs the sky
and looks down on
the latest shooting incidents, fires
gone wild
                  and a prisoner deciding
his time is due to die. The forecast here
is for deportations but
no rain. It’s playoff time, every touchdown
seems like another shot
and the elements are favorites to win
against all opposition. No sign
                                                         of clouds today
just wind in California
and Arizona waiting for an execution. 
Department of Corrections, chemicals
imported, nostalgia for
old West public hangings with the law
as violent as the criminals.
                                                 Legislation’s
language does not cover  peace
or love. A man condemned
can do no more than ask
that he become the state’s revenge
on Valentine’s Day.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix who finds comfort in keeping track of local birds and creatures on the fringe of the urban world. Having spent his early years in Europe, he still observes his surroundings with the pleasure of being in a foreign place.

SIRENS IN THE DISTANCE

by Nancy Byrne Iannucci

Drought has parched the Northeast U.S. for weeks, draining reservoirs, priming the landscape for damaging wildfires and pushing politicians to implement water-saving measures. More than 58% of the Northeast is in moderate drought or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. —NBC News, November 15, 2024. Photo: The Jennings Creek Wildfire burning behind homes in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., on Nov. 10. Credit: Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

In the name of the Bee —
And of the Butterfly —
And of the Breeze — Amen!  

—Emily Dickinson, "The gentian weaves her fringes"

                                                       

The rustling leaves 
sound more like abandonment
to me now than the innocence of autumn.
 
Tumbleweed has traveled from the West,
kicking up dust in foreign streets,
making me squint like Clint
 
in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
this time, I’m convinced,
it’s the Devil breathing,
 
tempting Grandma Moses’s
rolling fields of matchsticks
to give him just one spark.
 
I think the phrase, hell on Earth,
has been said too many times,
our words have become
 
a self-fulfilling prophecy.
the bees have warned us. 
the rains in Spain have explained
 
why Whitman’s grass is dead
and Kimmerer’s sweetgrass
 won’t braid, and now,  
 
the Earth is responding
in sirens, sirens blaring,
blaring in the distance
 
getting closer
and even closer,
are we listening now?

 
Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a librarian and poet who lives with her two cats: Nash and Emily Dickinson.  THRUSH Poetry Journal, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Eunoia, Maudlin House, San Pedro River Review, 34 Orchard, Bending Genres, and Typehouse, are some places you will find her. She is the author of four chapbooks, Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021), Primitive Prayer (Plan B Press, fall 2022), and Hummingbirds and Cigarettes ( Bottlecap Press, 2024). Instagram: @nancybyrneiannucci

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL OF TEARS

by W. Barrett Munn

In four days, it will be November, 
and the expected temperature for today
here in Tulsa is 88 degrees Fahrenheit—
an obscene number so near Halloween.
The good news is we have no water to drink,
this I read on a sign 
held up by a thirsty lawn whose brown 
is this season’s fashion statement.

Drill, baby, drill says the untrained actor, 
the miscreant trying to get us to self-destruct.
Avoidance is a technique of psychological 
origins, a thrill for the adoring crowds
who no longer care how much damage
is done as long as they can hurt someone else
more—like a dentist without gas or Novocaine—
Drill, baby, drill. 

W. Barrett Munn is a graduate of The Institute of Children's Literature where he studied writing under Larry Callen. His adult poetry has appeared in The New Verse News a number of times, in print editions of Awakenings Review and Copperfield Review Quarterly, a printed edition of Sequoia Speaks, and online in Volney Road Review, Speckled Trout Review, Book of Matches, San Antonio Review, and many more. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

BLOOD SPORT

by Geoffrey Philp

Sebastiao Brito de Mendonca walks in a dry area of an affluent of Rio Negro river, as the region is hit by a severe drought, in Santa Helena do Ingles community in Iranduba, Brazil October 13. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly

The forest might be recovering from one drought and then get hit by another while it’s still recovering,” said Chris as we sail down the Rio Negro, the scent of burnt-out mahoganies clinging to our shirts while caracaras screeched overhead.

 

he hangs up his gloves—

 

We pass barges on the shoreline, tipped on their sides, like pink dolphins trapped in the silt.

 

the next punch could be the one

 

“If that happens, it can take even longer to get back to normal, and eventually it reaches a point where it can’t get back to normality.”

 

he couldn't answer.

Geoffrey Philp, a Silver Musgrave Medal recipient, is the author of Archipelagos, a book of poems about climate change which was long-listed for the Laurel Prize. Philp’s poem, “A Prayer for My Children,” is featured on The Poetry Rail—an homage to 12 writers who shaped Miami's culture. He  lives in Miami and is working on a children's book Marsha and the Mangroves.

SOUTHERN BIRDS MOVE NORTH

gigan by Martha Deed

The dense, green woodlands of Germany that gave rise to the "Grimms' Fairy Tales" are turning gray and dying. Forest still covers a third of the country, but 80% of all trees are sick. Weakened by years of drought, they now face another onslaught—bark beetles. As Esme Nicholson reports, some blame commercial forestry, but others say it's climate change. —NPR, July 26, 2023

The trees have gone gray.
I can see the sky.

Bark Beetles take advantage
of the drought that has weakened the trees.
I remember the young professor’s wife in 1960

weeping that we are ruining the planet
when others were distracted by nuclear threats

when my father in 1950 had already said
Cardinals and other Southern birds

are moving North. They are building nests.
The trees have gone gray

weeping that we are ruining the planet
while the doomed children focus
on learning how to tie their shoes

learning to focus on what we can control
and to ignore the rest.

Author’s Note: Ruth Ellen Kocher invented the gigan form.


Martha Deed’s third poetry collection Haunted By Martha was released by FootHills Publishing, July 2023. She has published ten books (poetry, mixed media, non-fiction) and ten chapbooks along with inclusion in more than 20 poetry anthologies. Individual poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Earth’s Daughters, First Literary Review—East, Shampoo, Gypsy, and many others.

SUMMER OF THE ELEMENTS 2023

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS

a seething cauldron

fire   water   drought of air and earth

                       

bitter flames

birthing a dying cough of dust

indifferent flooding

arrid soil

are you

the voices boiling

out of our restless anger

our restless fear

the restless grief

of our barren and fractured hearts

 

         

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, US Catholic, Commonweal, The Christian Century, Presence, Prism, and several anthologies. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2017 and 2020. Five poems from her book, she: robed and words, set to music by James Lee III were performed on May 11, 2021 as part of a concert held at Y92 in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.” Another concert was held in Cleveland, Ohio on March 28, 2023.