CUAUHTÉMOC

by Jennifer Hernandez

For the crew members who lost their lives in the tragic crash of the Mexican tall ship into the Brooklyn Bridge. The ship, Cuauhtémoc, was named after the last Aztec emperor.

 
Sometimes the power goes out. 
Sometimes, it’s smallpox. 
 
The most inconsequential events 
can change the course of a river, 
the course of a life. 
 
We never know 
where the journey will end. 
Nor when. 
 
The leader this morning 
might be gone by nightfall. 
 
Through it all, the currents 
keep pushing us forward. 
 
Each moment we are closer 
to the finale. So we must 
choose to resist 
with all our might. 
 
Like Cuauhtémoc—
to never give up, 
never give in, 
never compromise 
who we are and 
what we believe 
to be true. 
 
We must don the fairy lights, 
wave the big, beautiful flag. 
 
We must stand on the bow, 
watch as the sunset plays 
between clouds at dusk, 
glimmers on the water’s surface.
 
Life is fragile. 
Life is glorious. 
 
La vida siempre 
vale la pena vivirla.

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Once again, her recent writing has been colored by her distress at the dangerous nonsense that appears in her daily news feed. She is marching with her pen. Pushcart-nominated, her work appears in such publications as Sleet Magazine, Heron Tree, Northern Eclecta, and Silver Birch Press. She is working on a chapbook of hybrid writing about teaching as a political act.

CECCO’S ECHOES

S’ i’ fosse foco, arderei ’l mondo—Sonnet 86 

by Cecco Angiolieri (Siena, c.1260–c.1312)

translated by Julie Steiner

Source: IranCartoon

Trump Tries to Make Sure States Don’t Fight Climate Change, Either: The Trump administration wants to block states from trying to limit the “astounding” costs and impacts of climate change. “This seems to be part of a larger effort to not only do nothing when it comes to climate change but to actively dismantle the climate science and climate accountability enterprise that is being built in response to the costs of climate change that are manifesting in everyone’s daily lives,” says Justin Mankin, a climate scientist at Dartmouth College. —Rolling Stone, May 24, 2025

If I were fire, I’d scorch the world all over.
If I were wind, I’d blast its storm-wracked ground.
If I were water, I’d make sure it drowned.
If I were God, I’d give it Hell forever.

If I were Pope, I’d gleefully endeavor
to prank all Christians, just to mess around.
If I were Emperor—what then? You’ve found
the answer: I’d behead all sorts, whoever.

If I were death, I’d give my dad a visit.
If I were life, I’d turn from him and scram.
And how I’d treat my mom’s no different, is it?

If I were Cecco—as I’ve been, and am—
I’d take the younger women, the exquisite,
and leave for other men each vile old ma’am.

Italian Original:

S’ i’ fosse foco, ardere’ il mondo ;
s’ i’ fosse vento, lo tempesterei ;
s’ i’ fosse acqua, io l’ anegherei ;
s’ i’ fosse dio, mandereil en profondo ;

s’ i’ fosse papa, sare’ alor giocondo,
chè tutt’ i cristïani imbrigherei ;
s’ i’ fosse ’mperator, sa’ che farei ?
a tutti mozarei lo capo a tondo.

S’ i’ fosse morte, andarei da mio padre ;
s’ i’ fosse vita, fugirei da lui ;
similmente faría di mi’ madre.

S’ i’ fosse Cecco com’ i’ sono e fui,
torrei le donne giovani e legiadre :
e vecchie e laide lasserei altrui.

Francesco ("Cecco") Angiolieri corresponded with Dante Alighieri, and addressed one of his 120 extant sonnets to him. Most of his work is humorous.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego. Her most recent verse translations from Classical Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian can be found in (or are forthcoming from) Literary Matters, The Classical Outlook, The Ekphrastic Review, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.

SOMETHING ABOUT NERO

by Lois Marie Harrod

Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com

Though writing poetry
often seems like fiddling
while Rome burns,

perhaps we should remember
violins were not invented
until the 15th century,

long after the Great Twiddler died.
Neither pencils or pens then,
nor ballpoints and computers

on which we’ve been fiddling
since confined long term
to our virtual prisons.

In fact  (it’s nice to have a fact)
if Nero played on anything at all,
it was on a cithara—

though Tacitus claims
Nero did not scrape the strings,
but warbled The Sack of Troy

in his best operatic voice
while Rome burned faster
than California.

Tacitus offers no eye-witnesses
to confirm his story, just as now
no known epics attest

how many times or in what situation
Nero referred to his legions as losers.
It is has been corroborated though

that this Nastiest of Emperors
used the land cleared by his fire
to build a Golden Palace

with surrounding Pleasure Gardens—
and that perhaps is worth noting
in a poem or two of toppled monuments.

Lois Marie Harrod’s latest collection Woman was published by Blue Lyra in February 2020. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey.

STYMIED

by George Held

T***p wears mask in public for 1st time. The president told reporters, “I've never been against masks,” before departing the White House for Walter Reed Medical Center. Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP via ABC News, July 12, 2020

That is no planet for old men, or young –
the Earth contaminated by a virus
so deadly that in one great city
one in three hundred has become

infected and in a tiny Arkansas town
one in nineteen, and all the while
the most powerful man on Earth
wears no mask, except at Walter Reed.

Maybe a mask offers no more protection
than a rubber with a hole in it
but still, the President might wear one
at least to show concern for prophylaxis;

so those who mask up to walk to the post
office must encounter strapping young women
and men whose aplomb, arrogance, or disregard
for more vulnerable citizens

lends even a commonplace sortie
a risk like charging a machinegun
nest on Iwo Jima. But most old folks know
their time is up and dying from the virus

can be more efficient than falling victim
to a malignancy. An aged human
is but a decrepit thing, unlikely to remain
a golden bird upon a golden bough,

much less to sing to a careless emperor…

George Held, a longtime contributor to TheNewVerse.News, is sheltering in Eastern Long Island.

ROMAN NUMERAL C

by J. D. Mackenzie





Novices learn in wax and clay
Freemen with mallets use stone

When the numbers grew so large
That the Emperor declared victory
Senators looked the other way

Mounds of bodies
Too many to count—
One hundred thousand?
How could this be?

Let the record show a single letter
At least for now, at this moment
Let the victors tell their story
Until we stop this madness
Someday

J. D. Mackenzie is holding up well, if by holding up well you mean writing poems every day and desperately trying to convert classes from traditional to online for an American community college in western Oregon. He and his family live in the foothills of the Coastal Range and are quickly relearning the art of growing their own arugula. 

CORONA THE GREAT

by David Radavich





At last, the Emperor
has no clothes!

Before, his courtiers
held up one fake
outfit upon another,

each one more ugly
than the last.

But now the nakedness
is complete—

the folds of flesh,
the missing heart,
the feet that refuse
to march, the skin
that crawls.

He becomes himself
utter and alone—

the spawn
of mirrorers
and mercenaries

who now cough
and sneeze

into oblivion.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019) is a companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007).  Recent lyric volumes are Middle-East Mezze (2011), The Countries We Live In (2014), and the forthcoming Here's Plenty (2020).

THE MAN WHO WANTED MORE

by Nancy Gauquier     

via GIPHY

Once upon a time, before sustainability,
in a land far away and ruled by greed,
there was a man who wanted more

he was born to riches and power,
a lot more than most, but to him
it was just a ghost of what could be
in his imaginary reality,
though he was treated like a prince
of the most elite and revered,

clearly, he needed more,
he didn’t want to be loved,
he wanted to be adored
why couldn’t the people see
that he was the emperor of all
that best that could possibly be
from sea to shining sea

the people thought
he must be right
what he says must be true
he has more than I have
he has more than you.

He surrounded himself with sycophants,
men who worshiped him on their knees,
and women who exercised their spleen,
until they were so skinny and mean,
they looked like beauty queens on meth,
addicted to important men who shot up death
and preached hate, but they didn’t come
cheap, they came with silver bullets, bombs,
and armored jeeps.

The poorer people were in so much pain,
that they started to complain.

FAKE NEWS! The big man sputtered,
FAKE NEWS! He cried,
It’s all lies, and I should know
I’m the bigliest liar and that’s how it goes,
BELIEVE ME,
I’ve talked at every business meeting,
I’ve danced at every entitled ball,
I know how it works, I know it all.

And the bullets and the bombs began to fall,
again and again and again,
the war makers became so rich,
on the blood of the poor,
they thought it was only their due,
their egos overcame their brains,
they were better than me,
they were better than you,
no one could beat them,
nothing could stop them now,
they chanted More, more, more, more,
and they didn’t care how.

They would rape their own mother Earth for oil,
regiment their own children to feed on the fear,
rob your piggy bank because their money is dear,
they would do it all and cheer,
More, more, more, more,
Year after year after year.

Until finally the people got so sick
of being so poor,
they just couldn’t take it anymore,
and they started going door to door.
We need to take back the power
they said, we need to give it back
to ourselves instead.
Let the rich sleep in their soft little beds,
we’ve got work to do,
you for me, me for you,
all together, for now and for all
take out your cell phones
and call all your friends!

They rushed through the cities,
they rushed through the towns,
the nurses, the teachers, the actors,
the clowns, they rose up all together
and they put their feet down.

The statesmen all shook in their shoes,
they tried to stifle the news,
but the people all twittered and tubed,
they called and they shouted out loud,
You cannot hide the truth anymore,

it’s time to open the doors and let us in,
to let us breathe, to live without poverty
or fear, and they all began to cheer
for themselves, hand in hand,
black and white and red and tan,
every color, every size, every sex
and otherwise, they marched together
and strong, in a line that was so long,
you couldn’t see the end of it –

the plutocrats all ran for their lives,
they ran to their islands where their money
was stored, and stockpiled so high,
it formed a wall for them to hide behind,
but the surrounding seas began to rise,
they swallowed the islands whole,
along with all the pollution and coal,
the ones who cowered there disappeared
without a sign, they did not even have time,
the wall they built to keep them above
the sea of humanity, gave way, so the people
and all the other creatures could finally be
free
of all the lies and hypocrisy.

Nancy Gauquier lives in central CA, and has been published in many off-beat obscure lit mags, online and off, including Defenestration, Hermaneutic Chaos, Melancholy Hyperbole, and Lummox. She is a single parent and has worked in child-care, and as a nanny, and has been influenced by one of her favorite authors, Dr. Seuss.