A RESOUNDING SILENCE

by Valentina Gnup

For those who lost their lives in the Nepal flood of August, 2026.

The faithful believe Mount Kailash 

is the center of the world—
the most sacred peak, the ultimate abode of Lord Shiva.
 —Hindol Sengupta, religious historian


   Over rocky ground and icy rivers, believers walk 
to honor whichever God they trust to answer their prayers.

   We still don’t know how many of the faithful lost
their lives in flash floods on their final pilgrimage. 

   Some called them foolish, though don’t we all hope
for glimpses of wonder, a spare house key to heaven?

   Early this morning, I lay in bed listening to the rain 
ticking in the drainpipe and wondering if I’ll ever 

   kiss anyone again. No need to tell me, my spinster 
sorrow has no place in this elegy for the drowned.

   Sengupta said, Gods walk among men in these mountains,
but the pilgrims circling Mount Kailash are forbidden 

   to climb its sacred slopes. Perhaps God craves privacy, 
or maybe he’s as hungry for kisses as I am.

   Although these gray clouds look more like November,
it’s still August, the world on fire. I won’t lament

   our frightening climate, I won’t condemn pretend kings. 
I’ll ask you to consider the grass—it’s already greener 

   than it was last night. If I ever visit the holy mountain, 
I'll pray, God, let the world recover quickly as grass.

Valentina Gnup's poetry collection Ruined Music was published by Grayson Books in 2024. She has won the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for Poetry, the Lascaux Prize in Poetry, the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, the Rattle Reader’s Choice Award, and the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including Palette Poetry, December, Brooklyn Review, Nimrod, and The New Guard. She has chapbooks published by Mille Grazie Press and the North Carolina Writers' Network. She lives in Mill Valley, CA.

TREES IN SPRING

by Royal Rhodes

David Hockney, who died on Friday, painting in Normandy in 2020. Photograph: David Hockney in The Guardian

Hockney shaped the Lockdown into art --
an old half-timbered house in Normandy,
and made a cider-press his studio.
The synchronized, rich colors that we see
in pallid light with white tonality
in fruit trees and a pinkish sky take part
with summer greens around a bright blue pond.
"My little Bayeux tapestry, " he called
these scenes of painted whorls and arabesques.
Reflections show reality exists
in splashing drops of rain and morning mists,
as wind and moving boughs create a bond,
even if no breath of wind is felt.
One storm can set the blossom's wind-blown fates,
transforming how we viewers see ourselves.
A world we know intensifies, inflates
the voices of laments each throat creates.
We see a light that helps the winter melt,
as trees pass nutrients from heart to heart.
The openness of strokes has moved his brush
in twisting marks appearing in the hundreds,
a deft illusion of the real we rush
to feel before Corona comes to crush
us just as hoped-for Spring can truly start.

Royal Rhodes is a poet whose poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including several times in The New Verse News. 

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, ODE TO JOY AT TANGLEWOOD, AUGUST 2022

by Phyllis Wax

 

 

 Michael Tilson Thomas 1944-2026

 

 

Aggressive glioblastoma                                       
rampant weed                                     
slashed                                                 
hacked
but no guarantees                          
 
Still, there he was
energetically coaxing the best  
from the musicians
 
luring them boldly                                    
through the gardens of music
gardens growing wild and free
 
sharing beauty                 
and terror
with the audience
 
who rose
in homage                 
at the end
stood applauding
for over six minutes
 
Unseen
in the background
that noxious weed
still crept 

 

 

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world and is being cured of her delusions. 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. 

CONVERSATIONS

by Liam Boyle

 

in memoriam Jürgen Habermas (1929–2026)  

 

In his later years, Jürgen Habermas was sometimes described as “the last European” – a reference to his passionate commitment to the ideals of the European Union (although not always its modern reality). The great German philosopher was also the last surviving exemplar of a generation of postwar intellectuals formed by the experience of the second world war. Like Jean-Paul Sartre in France, Habermas was as at home in the public square as the seminar room, debating the future of a continent that needed to be rebuilt ethically as well as physically. In the new age of unreason, where brute exercise of power is explicitly prized above the force of moral argument, the loss of any such figure is to be mourned. But Habermas’s death at the age of 96, as the US and Israel wage an illegal war of choice, and the far right is in the ascendant in France and Germany, feels particularly poignant. A member of the Hitler Youth as a boy, Habermas then made it his life’s work to philosophically ground the democratic values which are now under threat again. A renewed focus on the great insight that drove his thinking would be an appropriate legacy. The Theory of Communicative Action, his 1980s magnum opus, was not (to put it mildly) as accessible as some of his newspaper opinion pieces. But its central idea – that our nature as linguistic beings puts reason and the search for consensus at the core of who we are – remains an antidote both to intellectual relativism and Trumpian “realism”, which elevates national or individual self-interest above all other sources of human motivation. —The Guardian, March 18, 2026

 

I have to think that it matters
my own small contribution 
to the project of democracy
going door to door at evening time
arguing the merits of my candidate. 
 
And I know there isn’t time enough
to trace each reason back to source
and I know, between my tired feet
and families readying meals,
this is not the ideal public sphere 
that you described.
 
In your obituary the familiar gripes –  
too much Enlightenment,
too out of its time,
too emphatically rational. 
But that’s what I liked, the ambition of it all, 
the long conversations 
step by step to consensus.
 
The horror of holocaust formed you.
You saw the mirage of Nazism
and its brutal reality. 
Your “never again” meant reckoning 
with the whole story of modernity. 
You sought to rescue its promise
from the twisted wreckage around you. 
 
And with the recent turn from talk,
all the strong men who do because they can, 
might is right, and all that gab, 
the giddy march of atavistic nativism, 
it can be said that you failed. 
 
But I thank you for the ideal you sketched 
of undistorted conversation
of reasons advanced and scrutinised
in the slow careful business 
of building understanding and agreement. 

 

Liam Boyle lives in Galway, Ireland. He was a featured reader in the New Writing Showcase at Cúirt International Festival of Literature 2025. Many of his poems deal with memory and heritage. He enjoys spending time with his grandchildren.

OBITUARY FOR WOMEN WHO STOP TRAFFIC

by Mary K O'Melveny

Cora Weiss, who was active for more than half a century in support of gender equality, international peace, the anti-Vietnam War movement, civil rights and nuclear disarmament, and who helped organize some of the most important mass demonstrations of the 1960s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 91. —The New York Times, December 8, 2025

          For Cora Rubin Weiss (1934-2025)

 

Women Strike For Peace detected

Strontium 90 in newborn’s teeth,

food, air, water. Filled Central Park

with a million activists for 

nuclear disarmament.

Pedestrian gridlock stilled horns,

thrilled peace advocates everywhere.

Atomic tests were later banned.

 

Later, Cora chaired justice protests,

led the New Mobilization 

Committee to end the American 

War in Vietnam. She carried signs:

Not Our Sons. Not Your Sons as she

pursued Pentagon bigwigs, garbed in

pearls, high heels, demanding war’s end. 

Hundreds of thousands followed her there.

 

Traffic came to a stop when she 

lay down on Park Avenue with 

her resistance sisters, each one

bearing names of  Vietnamese 

dead by US guns, bombs, napalm. 

She ferried letters from Hanoi

POWs to home and back.

Carried hopes, parried criticism.

 

Mentored by Eleanor Roosevelt

as a girl. In college, she met,

married Peter, a civil rights 

lawyer activist. Together, 

they fought against bigotry – from

McCarthy to Trump. Cora knew

the key role that women play in

teaching about love, unity.

 

Throughout her life, she stopped traffic-

king of hate. Fought for global peace

education. Fought for humanity.

She never gave up. Never walked 

away from a righteous cause. Never

stayed silent when protest was called

for. Never got up from a roadway

if something remained to fight for.

Editor's note: Peter Weiss died in November 2025 at the age of 99.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired attorney, is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent, If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird, is an album of poems, art and music. Mary’s award-winning poems have appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s collection Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her book Merging Star Hypotheses (2020) was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

TOM STOPPARD EXIT STAGE LEFT

by Paul Lander

Tom Stoppard is dead.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
await him in the wings.

Paul Lander has worked as a writer and/or producer for shows on ABC, NBC, Showtime, The Disney Channel, ABC Family, VH1, LOGO and Lifetime. In addition, he’s written standup material that’s been performed on ‘Fallon,’ ‘Maher,’ ‘Daily Show,’ etc. His humor pieces have been accepted at American Bystander, Light: Poetry, Weekly Humorist, McSweeney‘s, and Humor Times. He has won awards from the National Soc. of Newspaper Columnists, London’s Blogger's Bash and Univ. of Dayton’s Bombeck Workshop.

RIFF ON CLIFF

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

“Jimmy Cliff, Singer Who Helped Bring Reggae to Global Audience, Dies at 81”—The New York Times, November 25, 2025

 

Eager for a splendid riff?
Feast your ears on Jimmy Cliff.
Reggae songs bring light to all;
Hard they come and hard they fall.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has around 355 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, Light Poetry Magazine, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had thirteen previous poems in The New Verse News.

BJÖRN IN VENICE

by Julia Griffin

Björn Andrésen, Swedish actor who starred in Death in Venice, dies aged 70: Actor who also starred in Midsommar and became a musician was nicknamed ‘the most beautiful boy in the world’–a title he struggled with all his life. —The Guardian, October 27, 2025

"He is very frail, he is sickly," Aschenbach thought. "In all probability he will not grow old." And he refused to reckon with the feeling of gratification or reassurance which accompanied this notion. — Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (1912)

The man wanted him dead. That was the truth

Beyond the mere unspeakable, the shame,

The furtive stalking, the pretence at youth:

To have him die, this moonbeam boy whose name

He never knew, whose voice he never heard:

Blue eyelids closed, flesh drained to marble, cold

Child’s spirit thinned to air. The man incurred,

Thereby, his own death, endlessly retold; 

The boy survived, to manhood, middle age,

Seventy years. He did his best to grow:

He bristled out, became a white-haired sage,

Outlived the man, but not the mythic glow

That doomed them both. Behold the boy, love’s prey,

Who died, at last, but never got away.

Julia Griffin has published in several online poetry  magazines; lives with a socially-engaged basset hound, a regular on local demonstrations.

BEATRICE'S TURN

by Michelle DeRose

Beatrice (a Portrait of Jane Morris) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

If poets are the unacknowledged 

legislators of our world, then may

their list come out as a sonnet,

an epic, an elegy for their lost

childhoods. They have more cause

than Dante to assign names

to descending rings. Only in dreams

and nightmares have sinners paid,

limbs frozen in impotent angles

like bent wisps of straw, forced

to face forever through lids locked

on open how their flesh partook in fraud.

Michelle DeRose lives and writes in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is Professor Emerita of English at Aquinas College, where she sometimes used her specialty in epic poetry in her teaching. Every new nation/kingdom/regime established in an epic is built upon or requires the destruction of another.

NOT JUST A DAY IN THE PARK

by Paul Lander

Poisoning pigeons

In your honor, rest easy
Mister Tom Lehrer

Paul Lander has worked as a writer and/or producer for shows on ABC, NBC, Showtime, The Disney Channel, ABC Family, VH1, LOGO and Lifetime. In addition, he’s written standup material that’s been performed on ‘Fallon,’ ‘Maher,’ ‘Daily Show,’ etc. His humor pieces have been accepted at American Bystander, Light: Poetry, Weekly Humorist, McSweeney‘s, and Humor Times. He has won awards from the National Soc. of Newspaper Columnists, London’s Blogger's Bash and Univ. of Dayton’s Bombeck Workshop.

SHHHH

by stella graham-landau

in memory of Andrea Gibson 
13 August 1975 — 14 July 2025

quiet settles on the sheets
eyelids closed
one final rest

their smile remains
last memory last touch
last blessing inhaled exhaled

their passion lifts 
into the air around us
ignites our faith

their lines of poetry 
vine around our hearts 
their legacy already in bloom

be inspired
let yourselves lean into joy
dig deeper into all aspects of life

every step 
every breath
carry hope forward

shhhh
now smile
all is well

stella lives in richmond, va and has been published in The 

New Verse News several times as well as in regional publications. she's grateful for the wonderful poetry communities that exist, encouraging all of us to find our voices and share our truths and wonderings.

AN ODE TO DAVE (DAVID LYNCH)

by Christian Ray

Author’s note: The quotation from Lynch in this image has always resonated with me and inspired the final line of my poem.

Mystery, movies, murder, music,

the lens was the paint Dave used to show something surreal,

I still scratch my head at why he called it Eraserhead.

Dave was taught in my school, 

we learned nothing is smoother than Blue Velvet, 

and in the 80s Kyle MacLachlan was a hunk. 

Thanks for the weird stories, and unique writing Dave. 

The unreal used to seem more real when you were here. 

Watch over Twin Peaks,

your films will keep speaking to the rest of us.

Christian Ray is a third-year literature student in the heart of Western North Carolina. He loves fantasy stories and beat poetry. One can rely on Christian to watch some television or play with his dog. 

A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

by Jennnifer Schneider

Barbara Taylor Bradford, one of the world’s best-selling novelists, who captivated readers for decades with chronicles of buried secrets, raging ambitions and strong women of humble origins rising to wealth and power, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 91. —The New York Times, November 25, 2024

She filled blank pages with words of

multiple meanings and suits tailored for stories

of queens. She crafted plots that resembled 

her own life story and offered a staircase to portals

rich in descriptive imagery. A rags-to-riches arc 

that avoided and, at times, created, as many markers 

of cliche and peculiarly timed climaxes as it delivered

tension and reams of dreams

strung of form-

fitting predictability. A twist to the standard 

plot, on ice, of dice—she dined with hands of Margaret 

Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth and, in her own 

way, revealed subtleties

of character. An admirable trajectory to fill any library. 

Of Substance—a single proper

noun. 

In a series of serious words

she doubled down on Doubleday. 

She made child’s play of words and commerce of play.

A woman of

humble origins. A staircase built for empires

and umpires tracking stars in eyes 

and star-struck skies. Arms stretched wide. 

The dictionary lacks a proper word for a character

of her sort. Charades neither game nor fame. A novel protagonist 

of the written word. My word. She penned thousands of sentences,

But her greatest act of all is a simple form—her, as a verb. A fiery 

engine of commerce and craft and compulsively consumable plot 

twists. Amidst sudden changes of heart and the wonder 

of it all—a trusted pen, a loyal friend. Neither weapon 

nor contempt for the reality of the wor(l)d. She wrote the story 

as she lived it. To Remember. As any woman that could 

and would and should dream it. Hold it.

A heroine so bold. 

She lived and wrote and broke her own rules. 

Of voice and of heart. Of Just Rewards.

As the plot unfolds to its final page. 

The finale in her words

She remains a work and Woman of Substance

A celebrity in the rarest of literary terms form.

A story (unedited) well told.

A dynasty (unscripted) all her own.

A strong verb.

To be continued. A sequel, well-earned.

Jennifer Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.