$100 A BARREL

by Hassan Ismail Adekunle 

The market celebrates first.

Screens bloom green
while somewhere
another mother counts
the hours between explosions.

A barrel crosses
an invisible number
and suddenly
every analyst has a sentence,
every politician
a target,
every headline
a price.

No ticker records
the cost of a fisherman
who does not sail,
a child who learns
the grammar of sirens
before multiplication,
or the cashier
watching gasoline
rewrite this week’s grocery list.

They tell us
energy is security.

Yet the lamps
burn brightest
in boardrooms
far from the sea
where ships move
like nervous prayers
through narrowed water.

History has learned
to invoice grief.

It sends the bill
to those who never voted
for missiles,
never traded futures,
never owned
a single share
of tomorrow.

The market closes.

The sea
does not.

Hassan Ismail Adekunle is a Nigerian poet whose work explores contemporary life, politics, memory, and identity. His poems have appeared in Willy-Wash and other literary magazines. He lives in Nigeria.

MAKE ARITHMETIC GREAT AGAIN!

by Philip Kitcher

In the first two weeks of his return as president, Trump has, like his first term, to issued orders to open up more American land and waters for fossil fuel extraction and started the process to yank the US from the Paris climate agreement. “We will drill, baby drill,” said Trump, who has promised to cut energy and electricity prices in half within 18 months. But Trump has this time also launched a blitzkrieg against renewable energy, with his department of interior temporarily suspending all clean energy development—but tellingly not oil and gas—on federal land. —The Guardian, February 3, 2025. AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Author’s note: I was inspired by an old Bill Clinton quip—“What new ideas did we bring to Washington? I always give a one-word answer: Arithmetic.”

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

BONE LIGHT

by Alejandro Escudé

What else could you collect with a sphere

Surrounding a star? In the era of artificiality

And commerce, would it be evidence

Of love? Would it leave a heat signature?

I picture an alien sphere—not metallic

As supposed, but translucent, amorphous,

Twinkling an arthritic light, a series of low-

Frequency whistles. Are there ripe stars

Where you are? Rhyming citadels, chariots

Like half-eaten strawberries? Scientists

Take the pulse of time, they inherit questions

And the questions give birth to universes.

But I wonder about such a powerful warmth

And the results of the search. Is energy

Stored in our marrow? The man himself

Said it would be more a collection of objects.

Like a home? Like most journeys, it might

Prove false evidence of wonder. A god

Unwanted. Light reflected off the bus stop

Bench of a galaxy. As of late, life’s become

A chain of human wrist bones, so we must

Look up and dream of a star-engine that’ll

Reveal the fluttering eyelids of another tribe

Mining the fumes of a celestial volcano.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

A YEAR'S LAST FLIGHT

by David Chorlton

The waking skies of summer

opened like a hand of cards spread daily

when the white sun rose

and a cloud held Heaven’s fire close

to Earth while all was golden light behind

Four Peaks.

                     Each day

broke into song against a stage set brightly

for the doves and mockingbirds and

flickers who arrived without

a campaign slogan or

a lie. Pigeons flocked together for safety

while hawks and candidates

hunted alone through dry heat

and monsoons. Anniversaries flew by

with months sliding

down a rainbow to

                                   disappear the way

time does when it has used up

its energy and wants to sleep the winter sleep

that follows an election when all

that’s left are losers crying foul

and birds lost in migration

showing up at the most unlikely

destinations. There is one late rain

turning to mist

                            on the south side

of a desert mountain. And hummingbirds

for whom each day is much the same as

the one before it. They are driven

by their unending appetites

and swear allegiance to the sugar

hanging from the sky.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix with great affection for the desert. His newest book is Poetry Mountain published by Cholla Needles Arts and Literary Library in Joshua Tree, CA. 

A BURST OF SUNSHINE

by Karen Warinsky

Scientists studying fusion energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced on Tuesday that they had crossed a long-awaited milestone in reproducing the power of the sun in a laboratory. That sparked public excitement as scientists have for decades talked about how fusion, the nuclear reaction that makes stars shine, could provide a future source of bountiful energy. The result announced on Tuesday is the first fusion reaction in a laboratory setting that actually produced more energy than it took to start the reaction. —The New York Times, December 13, 2022. GIF via The Hustle.

A wave went round the world this week,

congratulations for tapping in to star power,

but others did it first,

blending us into something new,

their gravitational pull undeniable

as we crashed into orbits without consent

no way to resist such talent and charm,

and we were changed,

the way the sun’s gravity compresses hydrogen atoms,

fuses them into helium

the complete transformation

a burst of irrepressible energy;

we became light!

 

Ah, who can forget their first love?

Karen Warinsky  has published in various anthologies and literary magazines including the 2019 Mizmor Anthology. She is the author of Gold in Autumn (2020), Sunrise Ruby (2022), and is a previous finalist in the Montreal International Poetry Contest. She loves to kayak and organize poetry readings.

IN LOVE AND POETRY

by Indran Amirthanayagam

“Hope,” a painting (1886) by George Frederic Watts and assistants.

Call it now. Out loud.

Without shame. By

its name. Call it

this morning on waking

in the still dark. Call it

reading last night

your words on the screen.

Call it banishing sleep.

There is no energy

more sweet that sustains.

Call it for the one

who corrects these verses.

Call it on streets of

suburb and city,

in the fields. Call it

in front of the Capitol

on top of Mount Baldy

on Waikiki Beach,

by Lake Superior.

We are going far my dear

and we are walking back

home for Thanksgiving

Let us invite Kamala

and Joe to the table.

Let us boil sweet potatoes,

serve elderberry jam,

make a bean and onion stuffing,

let our friends know

the meal will not involve

killing a turkey

or any other fowl.

Let us give thanks God

for this vitamin flowering

in the early dark, guiding

our fingers as we write,

saying call it now.

in the day, at night,

to friends and enemies

alike. In love and poetry

we are going to make

table and bed, and

we are going to write

our songs in these days

of the plague until

we see light come up

above the trees on fire,

the befogged clouds,

until the back of beyond.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. He has 19 poetry books, including The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and Sur l'île nostalgique (L'Harmattan, 2020). In music, he recorded Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, is a columnist for Haiti en Marche, won the Paterson Prize, and is a 2020 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts fellow.

LOOKING BACK

by David Rosier

“But perhaps what’s most scary about this scorching summer is how little concerned Americans seem to be. So far, climate change has barely registered as an issue in the midterm elections, and, where it has, the optics couldn’t be worse: 'Trump Digs Coal' was a slogan that appeared on placards at a West Virginia rally with the President, staged on the day that the new power-plant rules were published. As a country, we remain committed to denial and delay, even as the world, in an ever more literal sense, goes up in flames.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, September 10, 2018 issue

There was a time when summer wasn't hell.
The way to know is simply to remember
before our avarice had grown so well,

before the weather changed, when snowflakes fell
just as they should and did in deep December.
There was a time when summer wasn't hell.

Recall the April rain when you could tell
that day was spring.  Recall a cool September
before our avarice had grown so well,

before self-serving progress spread pell-mell,
exchanging peace for strife for all Earth's members.
There was a time when summer wasn't hell.

The season did not pass as sentinel
on watch for flames and smoke and end in embers
before our avarice had grown so well.

For wealth and ease appeal to us, but sell
out Earth, which sends us August in November.
There was a time when summer wasn't hell
before our avarice had grown so well.

David Rosier lives in a small town in the American West, which has suffered through the worst drought and worst fire season on record. This poem hopes to put blame where it belongs.

EXHALATION

by Pepper Trail

"The T***p administration has hailed its overhaul of federal pollution restrictions on coal-burning power plants as creating new jobs, eliminating burdensome government regulations and ending what President T***p has long described as a 'war on coal.' The administration’s own analysis, however, revealed on Tuesday that the new rules could also lead to as many as 1,400 premature deaths annually by 2030 from an increase in the extremely fine particulate matter that is linked to heart and lung disease, up to 15,000 new cases of upper respiratory problems, a rise in bronchitis, and tens of thousands of missed school days. "—The New York Times, August 21, 2018

Edenton, North Carolina


Mother, your breath shallow and slow, almost gone
Barely moving the sheet on your hospice bed

You are reluctant, now, to inhale
To bring in the world, its noise and its pain

So much easier to breathe out, to gentle
And at the end of that emptying, to stop

But the stubborn body kicks, the heart turns over
Begins again, will not yet let you go

Mother, it’s all right.  You are strong
Nothing, in the end, will stop your dying


Ashland, Oregon


The world, the west, is on fire
Vancouver to Yosemite, all tinder, alight

Halfway between, we must breathe
What air there is, what we are given

When we speak, smoke is what we say
And so we have stopped speaking

The mountains are gone, the valley
Through the windows, everything

The smoke is where we live now
What we breathe in, and then out


Washington, DC


He does not mind the world, the President
Thoughtless, he inhales its floods and its flames

Exhales this atmosphere in which we live
Gives us, this week, the “Affordable Clean Energy Plan”

Not Affordable, or Clean, or Energy, or a Plan
Simply another act in a lifelong history of harm

Power plants, cars, planes, you all and me
Together, we contribute: 408 parts per million

We are told there is nothing to be done
We are told there is no choice.  Just breathe

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. In his spare time, he leads natural history tours around the world.

MIRROR, MIRROR

by Jennifer Hernandez 

The single lines in the following poem are from Justine’s lecture “The Mirror Effect.”

for Justine Damond

Mirror her moves, sun salutation, cat and cow, warrior one, child's pose.
Mirror her breathing, peaceful expression, bright smile, calm voice.

The universe reflects back the energy you send out.

Mirror her concern, screams in the alley, a possible assault.
Mirror her fingers tap 9-1-1, watch out the window waiting.

We are all connected through a benevolent force.

Mirror her light footsteps, open the back door, step outside.
Mirror her strides to the police car, her shock at shots fired.

The quantum world is a world of unknowns and unpredictability.

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she works with immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Much of her recent writing has been colored by her distress at that which appears in her daily news feed. She is marching with her pen. Recent work appears in Anti-Heroin Chic, Dying Dahlia, TheNewVerse.News, Rise Up Review and Writers Resist.

TODAY

by Laura Rodley

For you, my grandchildren,
I am saving pine needles in the forest.
For you, my grandchildren
I am hanging up my clothes, saving energy.
For you, my grandchildren,
I am walking the hot sand at East Sandwich.
not flying using fossil fuel, not expanding beyond.
For you my grandchildren,
I am weaving the leafy fronds at Ashfield Lake,
swimming in it, swimming prayers.
For you, my grandchildren,
I drive as little as possible,
work as expeditiously as I can, conserve.
For you, my grandchildren,
I hold my hands over the cool breath
of the snow, so blue, so crisp, so cold,
so I can pat your cheeks with the snow’s breath,
so you can remember the feeling of snow.
For you, my grandchildren, I pray
for the earth’s forgiveness for walking
on her surface, how she holds me suspended
in this time, so close to your future.
For you, I wear sweaters, and burn less oil, no wood,
and send my emissary ghost to Standing Rock.
For you, my grandchildren,
I keep watch for the barred owls that rest
on the hemlocks in our yard.
I’m remembering it all for you:
their wide wingspan, their dark eyes
that hold the future of the long dark night, infinity,
and I tell you this, my grandchildren,
I chose not to be afraid, because I am remembering,
I am remembering all of this to give to you:
the cold breath of the snow, the people
at Standing Rock, the tall hemlocks, the green water
of Ashfield Lake, I am giving you the coldness
to hold onto when the sun bears down
and Massachusetts gets hotter,
I am giving you forests full of hemlocks, ash trees,
beech, canopies of leaves to walk under;
I am giving you the shelter of pines;
this is what I am handing down to you, my legacy.

Laura Rodley's NVN poem “Resurrection” won a Pushcart Prlze and was published in the 2013 edition of the anthology. She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

ATTITUDE

by Brigitte Goetze

Archive photo: AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Winnipeg Free Press-Wayne Glowacki

The alternative ways are in stark opposition, but if she works patiently through her difficulties, trusting herself to life, living each day as fully and as truly as possible, seeking through sincerity of living to solve the problem of their opposition, she may perhaps find a way to a reconciliation. —Ester Harding

Power will have its way,
no matter how damned
its path. Like flood water
it will widen a small crack,
splitting the land into two,
uprooting what stands innocently
in its commandeered course.

You, who live upstream,
pick up whatever tool you have,
wheelbarrow, shovel, hoe,
rush up the Hill, help
draw a ditch across the slope,
diverting the deluge’s downpour
away from seedlings and old shrubs.

And you, who live downstream,
join your neighbors,
fill sandbags or nourish those
working: many a place can be
cordoned off from the swollen,
murky, ice-cold torrent against
which weapons of war are useless.

Energy cannot be destroyed, but
it can be channeled. Even if some will not
be protected from the inevitable
mud flow, yet, it may not devour all.
We are able, willing, and ready
to defend with our hands and hearts
what we have labored so hard to build.

Brigitte Goetze lives in Western Oregon. A retired biologist and a goat farmer, she now divides her time between writing and fiber work.

BEAK BREAKERS

by Lylanne Musselman

Cartoon by Chip Bok.

Man-made
wind turbines
stand erect
in farm fields
like robotic soldiers
on high alert for
a spin at certain
death.

Bodies
of unsuspecting
victims collect –
bloodied
at the base
of these warlords;

the ones
that harness the wind,
to power human interests,
but strip the life
from natural flight –

collateral damage
in a war to save
the environment
from toxins and
corporate greed.


Lylanne Musselman is an award winning poet and artist, who lives in Toledo, Ohio. Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Literary Brushstrokes, Pank, New Verse News, Cyclamens & Swords, and The Prose-Poem Project among others, and many anthologies. She is the author of three chapbooks, and a co-author of Company of Women: New & Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013). Presently, she is Coordinator of Creative Writing at Terra State Community College, and teaches online writing courses for Ivy Tech Community College, while diligently working on a full length poetry memoir.