LUNCHTIME FOR BILLIONAIRES

by Karen Warinsky

AI-generated graphic created by Nightcafé for The New Verse News.

President Trump is rolling back anticorruption efforts and ethical standards for himself and allies like Elon Musk. —The New York Times, February 12, 2025

 
The millennial check-out clerk
holds my 50 toward the florescent light,
squints hard to find a fake
which is harder by the day 
with so much fakery about,
and I wonder
who will exchange those phony notes
along with those played for the crowd 
at rallies and events?
 
Who will teach the young
the dimensions of truth;
how large, how important it really is,
how to hold assertions to the light,
see if they are real?
 
Hot with anger I ponder
what will be left after
the stuffing’s been kicked
the juice squeezed 
as billionaires slice us thin
try to make grinders
of us all,
garnished with dollar bills.
 
Will they realize in time
that people are worth more 
than money,
and will we do whatever it takes
to keep from being
eaten alive?

AI-generated graphic created by Nightcafé for The New Verse News.

Karen Warinsky is a former finalist of the Montreal International Poetry Contest and a 2023 Best of the Net Nominee. She is widely published in anthologies, journals and E-zines. Her books are Gold in Autumn (2020), Sunrise Ruby, (2022) (both from Human Error Publishing), and Dining with War (2023, Alien Buddha Press). Warinsky coordinates poetry readings under the name Poets at Large in CT and MA.

EARTH LIGHTS

by Sally Zakariya

Artist's Conception of the Humanity Star from Cumbrian Sky.

Rocket Lab Just Launched a Disco Ball into Orbit—

And It Could Be the Brightest Star in the Sky 

—Newsweek, January 25, 2018

In the Big War, I’m told,
they turned off all the lights
at night to fool the bombers

But now earth lights shine
out to space, tracked day
and night by some celestial
bird circling with a camera
tracing longitude and latitude
orbit by orbit, building a map
of where we light up, where
we outshine the stars at night

Our lights spill out like dirty
wash water from a pail
across a shiny clean floor
and now someone launched
a fake star into the sky—a
disco ball that will reflect
the sun’s rays back to earth

Humanity Star the makers call
their sparkling orb, and just like
the humans it was named for
this flashing star pollutes
the heavens, graffiti in the sky

Sally Zakariya’s Pushcart Prize-nominated poetry has appeared in some 70 print and online journals and won prizes from Poetry Virginia and the Virginia Writers Club. She is the author, most recently, of When You Escape (Five Oaks Press, 2016), as well as Insectomania (2013) and Arithmetic and Other Verses (2011), and the editor of a poetry anthology Joys of the Table (2015). A former magazine editor, Zakariya lives in Arlington with her husband and two cats.

THE WEEKLY NUISANCE

by Edmund Conti

"Trump Time" by John Mavroudis, The New Yorker

You want to be a cover boy
And that is good and well.
But let me tell you, Lover Boy,
Time will tell.


Edmund Conti has never been on the cover of any magazine, real or fake. Sad.

COVFEFE

by Jonel Abellanosa

Image source: Joey Mancuso

If you want to wag the dog, covfefe!
If you want people to take their eyes
            off your hands, covfefe!
If you want to distract the FBI, covfefe!
If you want to distract the media, covfefe!
If you want to calm yourself, covfefe!
If you want anger management, covfefe!
If you want to enrich yourself from
            the environment’s degradation
            without people noticing, covfefe!
If you are just simply dumb, covfefe!
If you are faker than the news you peddle,
            covfefe!
If you are corrupt as hell, covfefe!

If you want to covfefe the planet, enjoy!
If you want to covfefe NATO, enjoy!
If you want to covfefe yourself,
            don’t bring the rest of us
                        with you!
Just covfefe yourself !

We don’t give a covfefe!

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Marsh Hawk Review, Anglican Theological Review, Star*Line,  Poetry Kanto, Spirit Fire Review, Carbon Culture Review, The McNeese Review, GNU Journal and Dark Matter Literary Journal.  He has two chapbooks, Pictures of the Floating World (Kind of a Hurricane Press) and The Freeflowing All (Black Poppy Review).  He is a Pushcart Prize and Dwarf Stars Award nominee.

ELEMENTS: CUBIC ZIRCONIA

by Joan Colby

The authentic from the fake;
Even experts find it hard.
The man-made crystal
8.5 on the Mohs scale.
The diamond a perfect 10.

The naked eye cannot discern
Brilliance from brilliance.
The cheap version vs.
The blood diamond men die for.

Consider this ring: the 5 carat sparkler,
How it is envied
Or suspected.

The zircon entirely colorless
As a man without character.
The diamond leans into the prism
Of faint hues, like a man
Who still has doubts.

When it counts
Who can tell
The real glitter from the falsehood.
Facts of the matter
Or fake news.


Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press), Dead Horses and Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press), and Properties of Matter (Aldrich Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.

DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE

by Howard Winn

where lies have become dogma
and law breakers rise to the top
for no good reason except they
kiss the feet of he who has lied
the most to achieve notoriety
that fills the coffers of the star
in the fake world of so-called
reality which has always been
scripted by the alternate world
populated by the anarchists
who want a war to prove that
they are manly enough to get
others to kill for them in a
martial view of what is success

Howard Winn's work, both short fiction and poetry has been published in Dalhousie Review, The Long Story, Galway Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, 3288 Review, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Blueline.  His B. A. is from Vassar College. His M.A. is from the Stanford University Writing Program. His doctoral work was done at N.Y.U. He is Professor of English at SUNY.