HOW TO SURVIVE AN ELECTION

by Steve Zeitlin

Smokejumper

My cousin Rod McIver—smoke jumper—

parachuted into Missouri wildfires

became famous for escaping the great Montana blaze

by igniting a flickering ring of fire round himself,

hunkering down so the 

sea of flames—

passed over and around

 

teaching us—when the infernos of the body politic

hurl down upon your fragile soul

light a passionate, fiery circle 

round yourself, your family, friends

 

let the fires of this wicked world

pass over and around

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

Steve Zeitlin is the Founding Director of City Lore, New York City’s Center for Urban Folk Culture, and co-founder of the Brevitas poetry collective.  He the author of a volume of poetry, I Hear American Singing in the Rain, and twelve books on America’s folk culture. In 2016, he published a collection of essays, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness with Cornell University Press.  In 2022, he published JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling (JPS/U. of Nebraska Press).

TO THE ASHES IN L.A.

by Alexis Krasilovsky

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

A poem is a monument

when there aren’t enough stones

to place on the burial grounds

to hold ghosts

in place.

 

A poem is a monument

when you’re exiled from the land

and poems are portable.

 

A poem is a monument

when tears

evaporate before

words can be written down.

 

When you’re fleeing flames

that multiply like stars

in a darkening firmament,

only a poem

can speak to it.

 

When lies propagate

into your flickering

consciousness,

sweeping under rugs

the killing fields.

 

When your bare feet

step onto

radioactive sand.

 

When rose petals fly

in fiery winds,

replaced by embers

and ashes.

 

A poem is a monument

when pots filled with ashes

are left in the rain,

overflowing.

 

When seeds of memories

sprout anew,

and trees grow

high enough to bring shade.

 

          A poem is a monument

          when you take time to imagine

          the gravestones

          of your ancestors.

 

Alexis Krasilovsky most recent book Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems (Cyberwit) was a finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards. She is also the author of Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling and has traveled to twenty countries making and screening her global documentary features Women Behind the Camera and Let Them Eat Cake—available for free streaming on Kanopy.com.

DON’T MOURN THE THORNS

by Corey Weinstein

Did you smile, even laugh aloud,

A smirk tumbling out of simmering glee?

Yes I was among the first 26,743,226

to feel joy when Notre Dame burned,

A spire collapsed shooting fireballs

through the attic, crashing the crosses,

Yellow flames licked the towers

and tickled my giggle bone,

 

From what abominations the fire sparked?

Of what burnt and musty stench like earth

where children are buried unmarked?

Rats running from their snuggle spots,

The ancient rot to their liking,

Dirty sins in the Savior’s name purified

Plastic icons oozed and bubbled black,

and is the toxic smoke pleasing to God?

 

The grand Dame’s construction marked

two hundred years of persecution

of expulsion, return and expulsion.

Built on the bones and bank notes 

of two centuries of violation,

feeding off the destruction

and exile of the Jews.

 

I won’t be contributing to the Church

where kings were crowned,

Where the crown of thorns stands in state.

Ask me again when plans include

a health center for family planning

and care for survivors of priestly abuse.

 

My joy only muted by the despair of the faithful

and knowing the stinking thing will rise as before.

Corey Weinstein’s poetry has been published in 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.  He has been an advocate for prisoner rights and founded California Prison Focus, and he led the American Public Health Association’s Prison Committee for many years. In his free time, he hosts San Francisco OLLI’s Poetry Interest Group and plays the clarinet in his local jazz band, Tandem, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.

SHE THINKS OF MOLTEN THINGS

by Dana Yost

I breathe

But nothing goes in

Or out. But this

Is not true.

I open my eyes

But they see nothing.

A darkness, early-morning

Darkness. Into infinity.

Is this dying?

My ears hear the

Mad-man screams

Of killers. Then the

wails of those

About to die.

A woman thinks

Of molten things:

Eyebrow melting,

Walls to a home

Curling in flames,

Dead bodies in the

Desert, not charred

But dark with bullet

Holes, torn fabric,

Hearts burnt in mid-beat.

Tracers orange, skyward

Flares red. In a room

An evacuee is given

Tea but says no, her

Mother dragged off

Like fire down a hill,

Lurching, shrieking, 

So hot an image

She curls on a cot

And thinks of molten things.

Dana Yost says of this poem: It is allegorical, about the war in Israel. It troubles me deeply and I feel the need to say something about it, but rather than write a direct, reportorial piece about it I wanted to get at the pain of it. I hope this works.

THE PERFECT HOME

by Indran Amirthanayagam

while Lahaina, Maui burns August, 2023

May I imagine the scene? Do you

agree? Coffee in the studio, light

streaming in, brushes and easel,

a multi-hued cat? But flames

are rising at five hundred yards.

Oh to leap beyond particulate

matter, to dream, go native 

again, python wrapped  round 

banyan branch, peeping through 

the window while monkey hops 

over the ledge and books, 

to the sugar bowl, scatters 

the grains, attracting flies, 

mosquitoes, the ubiquitous 

roach. Paradise does not look 

sweet. Fireball blows up history, 

belief, certainty, and cars,

drivers burned at the wheel, 

while thousands of miles

away as all birds fly,

by pure chance, living

on the mainland, in another 

corner of  the great expanse

of the once blue ball,

I try in vain to catch 

and douse embers flying 

this month’s perfect storm.

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is the newest collection of Indran's own poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

CONTROLLED BURN

by Joan Leotta

 

One might think that in an area 

Used to the force of hurricanes, 

Uncontrolled forces of wind and water

That wreak havoc on the land 

Might better understand

The paradox of their mission.

Setting a “controlled burn”

That’s how it started, they say.

To burn four hundred wooded acres 

to lessen fire’s damage.

“They” ignited the flames, watched, and left, 

not realizing until the next day

embers had reignited, blazed hot

and traveled on the wind

in the night.

Now, as I write, 

a week later,

almost sixteen thousand acres of 

woodland are now ash. Countless

animals, birds have lost homes,

people not as yet,

but the flames are still unextinguished,

blaze still only partly contained.

Red suns at dawn and dusk are beautiful 

but terrifying at the same time.

Wind, fire, water, earth—

four elements have already shown themselves

to be beyond our ability to reign them in.

We poets have known since forever, 

that these are forces beyond our control.

The only true controlled burn is anger.

Forgiveness extinguishes those flames.

We wait now for heaven’s forgiving

soaking rain to quench these flames

to stop this fire’s spread.

Joan Leotta is an author and Story Performer.