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).

MIDWESTERN AMERICAN DREAM

by Svetlana Litvinchuk

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News

My American husband wants a quiet life. He’s ready for it 
to be predictable again, as it unfolds across the flat, 
easy soil in the American Heartland. He says he knows 
what to expect from people there.
 
He’s nostalgic for the kindness of strangers
holding doors open for one another and for all 
the seasons to parade in and out in an orderly fashion. 
He wants rectangular plots of easy to tame lawn 
and fresh cut barbecue Sundays where the wildest 
thing is grass prairie housing clean water in gleaming
towers.
 
He wants starchy cuisine swimming in dairy, lactose 
intolerance be damned. He craves a place so bland 
that they ship newscasters there for vocal training 
to drop any accents that might offend. 
 
We’ve entered the low-drama era of our lives.
The low-stakes, low-excitement Zen that urbanites 
don’t know they’re missing.
 
He wants toothless fish that surrender to the hook 
from stocked lakes in subdivisions so that he can 
appear capable of anything, heroic in the eyes
of our daughter.
 
Soon she’ll take her first steps. So, it is time to decide
on our preschool of choice, their waiting list coveting 
our checking account. We’ll roll around the cul-de-sacs 
in the comfort of our Sienna minivan, a synecdoche 
of a humble family life.
 
We’ll choose our couple-friends, who will also be 
parents and he’ll swig beer with someone named Chris 
by the grill while I’ll have low-voiced table chats 
with someone named Emily as we keep watch out 
the sliding glass door as our children play in the yard 
and there will be 
 
no war planes flying overhead and we will be 
so safe that we’ll have the luxury of taking for granted 
just how safe we are.

Photo from US European Command video of Russian warplane over the Black Sea

Svetlana Litvinchuk is a poet and permaculture farmer who holds degrees from University of New Mexico. She is the author of a debut poetry chapbook Only a Season (Bottlecap Features, 2024). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apple Valley Review, Sky Island Journal, Plant-Human Quarterly, ONE ART, Apocalypse Confidential, Union Spring Review, Longhouse Press, and elsewhere. Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, she now lives with her husband and daughter on their organic farm in the Arkansas Ozarks where she derives satisfaction from watching cucumber plants climb their trellises skyward. She is a reviews editor with ONLY POEMS.

NEW BEGINNING IN ISRAEL

by Lenore Weiss

Menachem Begin (Mark Reinstein/Getty Images)

Menachem Begin was Dodo’s first cousin.
She and my mother were best friends.
Dodo lived on the ground floor.
We lived on the other side of the apartment building.
Sometimes I babysat her dog Cocoa who pooped
on the living room rug before she returned home
from vacationing in Israel where she drank coffee
with her cousin, the same Menachem Begin.

Dodo’s mother was Mrs. Bagoon who lived
under the elevated near Southern Boulevard
and painted her veins purple with Gentian Violet
wearing support stockings that made her feet sweat.
Her brother was Menachem’s son
whose family came from Russia, and as far as I knew,
Israel was a collection basket for the poor and huddled masses
all yearning. Sharon, from third-grade, went to Israel
with her mother every summer to plant a tree
in her father’s memory, and Aunt Clara sent money
through her women’s organization.

I never remember my mother or father
sending money to Israel even though Menachem Begin
was Dodo’s first cousin, but they did send me
to a Zionist sleep-away camp
because that’s where Dodo sent her daughter
who really liked it. My father didn’t talk much
about Israel, at least not in English, or about the family
he’d lost in Hungary, but made it clear
he didn't think Zionism was the same winning ticket
others hoped for, not the same
new beginning for the Jewish people
even though Menachem’s
last name was spelled like that.

Lenore Weiss serves as the Associate Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Editor for the Mud Season Review and lives in Oakland, California with Zebra the Brave and Granola the Shy. Her environmental novel Pulp into Paper is forthcoming from Atmosphere Press as is a new poetry collection, Video Game Pointers from WordTech Communications.

MY HEART GOES OUT

by Joan Mazza

The morning after the storm. Photo tweeted by @miguelmarquez.

to those many people who lost

their homes, flattened and inundated

by Hurricane Ian’s smack down.

To people sifting through mud

and debris to salvage what’s useful,

from homes without roofs.

The videos and photos are published

of houses floating away, smashed.

Pets gone. My heart goes out

to the people of Pakistan weeks

after one third of their country

was flooded and now their children

are dying of cholera. Swathes

of forests have burned all over

the world. Whales are eating

plastic because the ocean is full

of it. Covid isn’t over. People

are dying every day, gasping

for breath. My heart goes out

to those too cold or too hot, breathing

mold or dust or smoke and ash.

For my friends Shaun and Karen

in a marathon to outrun cancer.

For Charlotte who said goodbye to her

beloved hound Maggie after sixteen

years. For everyone suffering

as humans always have in a world

that throws us beauty and abundance,

love, pleasure, and plush comforts,

leaves us anticipating, eager for more,

and then snatches it all away.

My heart goes out to you, to us. 

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops  on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her poetry has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, Poet Lore, Slant, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia and writes every day.

MY DAUGHTER, A HISTORY AND HOLOCAUST EDUCATOR, SAYS IT’S IMPORTANT WE BEAR WITNESS; WE BOTH KNOW IT’S NOT ENOUGH

by Laurie Rosen

Two days after their daughter, Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, was shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, Kimberly Rubio and her husband are urging elected officials to pass restrictive gun laws to help prevent future tragedies. “We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us, you know, that it’s not the time to be political, but it is—it is,” Ms. Rubio said, her voice breaking through tears. “Don’t let this happen to anybody else.” Their family was contacted by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office on Wednesday, she said, and asked if they would be willing to meet with the governor. Ms. Rubio and her husband declined. —The New York Times, May  26, 2022. Photo: People visit a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 28, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images via CHRON

He lays still, pretends to be dead. 

He frantically calls his mom from his classroom,

she hides under a desk, covers herself with her dying friend’s blood,

she whispers on the phone to 911, send police,

he hears a bullet crack his friend’s nose.  

She hears a cop shout to her, yells help, gives away 

her hiding spot, then promptly succumbs to gunshot. 

A husband dies broken-hearted two days after his wife perishes 

by gunfire—four children, left parentless.  

A mother’s son never returns home.

A father’s daughter, a cousin, a nephew, never return home. 

This is not a war zone/This is a war zone/We live in a war zone.

Our children grow up in a war zone, are taught to escape killers, guns

and madmen/Our children learn they won’t escape madmen with guns, 

that bullets meant for war pierce metal doors, tear off locks. 

Bullets ravage the faces and bodies of teachers and best friends, forever haunt 

survivors' dreams––nightmares of pooling blood and mangled flesh.

Our children promise to stay still and quiet/If only they stayed still enough, quiet enough. 

I did good Mommy, I stayed still, I stayed quiet.  

A lifelong New Englander, Laurie Rosen’s poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Oddball Magazine, Zig-Zag Lit Mag, Peregrine, The New Verse News, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere.

SATURDAY

by John Guzlowski

Mayfield, KY Daylight Drone Footage Aftermath - December 11, 2021

Where I sit, the world 

is quiet, unassuming.  

Snow falls & becomes 

rain, rain falls 

& becomes snow.  

I write on a pad of paper 

& think of the tea  

steeping in the cup next to me.

200 miles away in Kentucky 

The wind shook the world

And my friends died.

John Guzlowski's poems and stories have appeared in North American Review, Ontario Review, Rattle, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review. Garrison Keillor read his poem “What My Father Believed” on his program, The Writers Almanac.  Guzlowski's poetry book Echoes of Tattered Tongues won the Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Award for most thought provoking book 2017. He’s also the author of the Hank and Marvin mysteries. Now settled in Virginia, Guzlowski lived in Kentucky for a while.

DELIVERED

by Julian Matthews

“Dinner With Friends” Painting by Victoria Coleman

A poem on our first meeting after being in a writing workshop on Zoom for six weeks, and in various lockdowns for a year and ten months.

And so we sit at the table partaking of a meal,

the home-made, home-cooked, home-delivered

a gathering of friends, new and old,

unmuted, unzoomed, live, in-person, fully embodied,

greeting each other like refugees

meeting on the dock, our boats having survived

the treacherous crossing of middle class suburbia

and stepping back onto the shores of human connection again, 

wetting our cold feet and lapping up warm chatter about pets, 

pasta, pastries, prices, politics and the pandemic, always the 

     pandemic,

and, thankfully, of our common love of books, and writing and 

     poetry

and missing sitting in darkened theatres with strangers, to watch 

     a movie,

or a play or just chilling with a warm-up, pre-concert cocktail, 

     perhaps a long island tea, 

or two, before listening to an orchestra, fingers fondling keys, 

     bows caressing strings,

lips pressed against mouthpieces, hugging tubas, the tsk-chizz 

     of sticks on cymbals, 

being enveloped by the sensurround sounds of music played by 

     real, in-the-flesh humans...

And in the end there is laughter, ribbing and the teasing out

of each other's backgrounds, our reasons for being, why the 

     need to put words

on rectangular screens, this unboxing of the isolation inside us, 

     this shedding of thickened skins,

double-vaxxed, immunized, and unmasked, fully ensconced in 

     that most singular of human acts,

the Art of Conversation, manifesting our ancestral DNA of 

     gathering around the embers of dying

fires under stars, trading stories, sharing opinions and yes, even 

     gossiping,

just to know we are alive, 

we are still alive.

Julian Matthews is a former journalist finding new ways to express himself in the pandemic through poetry, short stories and essays. He is published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nine Cloud Journal, Poor Yorick Journal, Borderless Journal, Second Chance Lit, Poetry and Covid, the anthology Unmasked: Reflections on Virus-time (curated by Shamini Flint), cc&d magazine, a Scars Publication, and forthcoming in the American Journal of Poetry. He is based in Malaysia.

I AM DRAWING A MAP

by Howard Winn

the little boy said

as he hunched over

his crumpled bit of

paper with the stub

of pencil clutched in

one dirty little hand

of the street he added

so I will know where

all my friends and

enemies live and then

I will know where

it is safe to go and 

where not to go

for there are good guys

and bad ones my mother

says mothers know

she says and my father

agrees and i wonder

how they learned to

tell the good from the bad

A new collection of Howard Winn's poetry has just been published. It is titled Comedy and other observations. Howard Winn continues as Professor of English SUNY.

THE CREW

by Mark Danowsky

Never enough love
for friends of our youth

some of whom get left behind

or so it feels

Hearing one of us went down
unnatural, too soon

I don’t know what to tell myself  

with each fresh loss
I turn a little more inward  

not ambiguous

layer on layer 

What is it we all wanted for each other back then? 
Glory? Fame? No―

togetherness

Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia poet, author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press), Managing Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Editor of ONE ART poetry journal.

PROFESSIONS DURING OUR WORLD'S CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Coalition for the Homeless

                there are thousands of gaping holes now
                and there will be too many more
                spaces once filled with art music love
                such a long list of griefs
                a census list too long
                doctors
                nurses
                parents
                friends
                priests
                                     sisters
                          as well as the other invisible
                                     hospital cleanup crews
                sanitation workers
                                     truckers
                stock boys
                cashiers of every stripe
                then there is the government’s own:
                the workers of neither rain or shine
                delivering our mail
                                     those who served
                                     the never counted away invisible
                the homeless addicts prisoners . . .
                each and every empty space
                a sterling silver invitation
                a call  a challenge
                to those who will come after
                                     to fill these gaping holes
                with the sacred earth of their lives

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S. is a certified spiritual director whose poems and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and journals as well as four anthologies. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless (Press 53) was published in 2015.

ON FACEBOOK

by Anton Yakovlev

On Facebook, cats have been deemphasized.

We only see them from our closest friends.

You think they swarm you, but you’d be surprised:

on Facebook, cats have been deemphasized.

The bots climb trends. Cambridge has analyzed

our timelines dry. Here come the flaming hands.

Where are the cats? They’ve been deemphasized.

O, let me see them. Let them be my friends.

Anton Yakovlev is from New Jersey. His latest poetry collection is Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Amarillo Bay, Prelude, Measure, and elsewhere. The Last Poet of the Village, a book of translations of poetry by Sergei Esenin, is forthcoming from Sensitive Skin Books.

OPERATION SARAH

by Matt Witt

LONDON — Facebook was hit with the maximum possible fine in Britain for allowing the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest the information of millions of people without their consent, in what amounts to the social network’s first financial penalty since the data leak was revealed. The fine of 500,000 pounds, or about $660,000, represents a tiny sum for Facebook, which brings in billions of dollars in revenue every year. But it is the largest fine that can be levied by the British Information Commissioner’s Office, an independent government agency that enforces the country’s data-protection laws. —The New York Times, July 10, 2018. Photo via MadhouseNews.

I asked Facebook
for the key words
they have been selling
to anyone who wanted to
target me
for any purpose.

There were 139 words or phrases.

This data about a person’s interests
is valuable
to help someone to
sell you a product,
decide whether to hire you,
rent to you,
accept you as a student,
or disrupt your community group
or social movement.

Many were accurate about me,
or I’d like them to be.

“Fine-art photography.”
“Hiking.”
“Lakes.”
“Community organizing.”
“Working families.”
“Racial equality.”
“Feminism.”
“Climate change.”

But bots are only human.
So Facebook was also selling
fake news
about me
with irrelevant words
out of the blue.

“Lotus Cars.”
“Salerno.”
“Beetroot.”
“Pro-Ject.”
“Bible.”

And “Sarah.”

Maybe because I have 16 Facebook friends named Sarah.
A community organizer now on the city council.
A muckraking journalist.
A longtime neighbor.
A local painter.
And a dozen more.

Or maybe the same bot
that mistakenly included “Bible”
thought I might be a student of
Sarah, biblical wife of Abraham,
who at the age of 90
gave birth to Isaac,
and lived to be 127.

Last night I dreamed that
all two billion Facebook users
started occasionally “liking” things we don’t like,
commenting about topics of no interest,
inserting random words into posts,
forming strange sounding groups.

Since we were all doing it from time to time
our “friends” were not confused,
but, together,
we made Facebook’s data worthless
so no one would buy it.

In my dream, we called it “Operation Sarah.”

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer who lives in Talent, Oregon. He was recently selected a Writer in Residence at Mesa Refuge in California and has been selected an Artist in Residence at Crater Lake National Park, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and PLAYA in Summer Lake, Oregon. His writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, the literary journal Cirque, and many other publications.

AN INVISIBLE COMMUNITY OF LOVE AND CARING

by Marguerite Guzman Bouvard

At her regular spot on East 46th Street and Park Avenue, Nakesha Williams could often be seen surrounded by her belongings, including books that she was reading. Credit Luis Alfredo Garcia via The New York Times, March 3, 2018.

thrived around a grate on 46th street in New York City,
where people hurry past to their destinations. Nakesha,
a brilliant and promising student whose life spiraled
into homelessness because of mental problems
made this grate her dominion. Surrounded by a cart,

bags of clothing, books and papers, she read
Anna Karenina, The War of Worlds, and wrote letters,
refusing to stay in homeless shelters, because she knew
they were unsafe or to accept medical care because
she didn't want to be labeled. But there were people who

passed by and became her friends. P.J. who brought
her toiletries, a raincoat, leather boots, and underwear.
A street vendor, a Moroccan immigrant, who parked
his coffee cart near the grate made her a breakfast
of eggs, a bun and cranberry juice, and protected her

from a man who taunted her, blocked another one
from stealing her purse. Another vendor,
an Egyptian immigrant who operated a sandwich cart
prepared her favorite lunch, chicken and rice. An optician
who passed by left her small gifts, hand lotion,

socks, and sneakers. When Nakesha died, P.J. knew
that her body would have been buried with unclaimed bodies
in a mass grave, and so she had her cremated, placing her ashes
in a mother of pearl urn flecked with gold. An office worker
who learned of P.J.'s efforts collected donations for the funeral

service and sent P.J. an envelope with money
and 21 signatures. Nakasha's college friends
gathered at the grate and lit candles for
her memorial service, reminding us of the
light that too many pass by.

Marguerite Guzman Bouvard is the author of nine poetry books, two of which have received awards. She has also written a number of non-fiction books on social justice, human rights and women's rights. She is a former professor of Political Science and Poetry and is now a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Studies Program, Brandeis University.

BETRAYAL

by Beth McKim

by EvanOfTheYukon at Reddit.

To think I trusted you all that time.
From the first, I revealed intimacies:
what I ate (and with whom), where I went

(and with whom), my sacred political views,
the deaths of my parents, birthday greetings,
family photographs, reunions with friends,
exotic travel plans. In other words, touts

of the good parts of my life. You seemed
to be my friend, asked only for a personality
test, occasionally, to display my narcissism.

You were sterling, helped me renew friendships,
introduce beloved newborns to our world,
confirm my wit and smarts to everyone.
Now I am shocked, baffled by your betrayal

of my love. You apparently sought the money,
sold my secrets to the most lucrative bidder,
placed my finances in jeopardy,  traitorously

sabotaged a presidential election, made fools
of us all. And suddenly, you want me to pay
for protection against thieves.  Not on your
life.  I’ll miss you the way we miss habits

thwarted . But I won’t have the pressure to record
my life for the world to admire. You’ll never know I’m
gone. Goodbye Facebook, my unfaithful friend.


Beth McKim is a writer and actress. Her poetry, essays, and  short stories have been widely published in anthologies and literary magazines.

I HAVE HAD FRIENDS IN GREAT NUMBERS

by Judy Katz-Levine




There are barbed wire fences in my dreamless nights.
And hands caught in nets, children growing who cannot whirl.
There are torches tonight, and chants to drown saints.
And simple good people who want a steak at lunch, or hummus with a carrot.
I have had friends in great numbers, who watch with prescient eyes
of brown and green and black and gold and hazel  and azure-
The marches of hatred, the chants of those with bludgeons for
Writers, and I am one, journalists, and the films in black and white
Reeling through the avenues where magnolias should bloom,
Where souls are not crushed , because we will not permit it.
Where freedom fighters/writers are ploughed down like deer on the highway
In the nights of barbed wire fences in my dreamless dreams.
Because we will stop it, my friends.
I could tell you, my friends, who will come into my garden of ripening tomatoes, roses.
Who will give me echinacea with pink flowers, who will swim with me in sweet lake water,
And who will read my poetry for 40 years, keeping it a secret until the most crucial moment
That determines a hidden mountain behind the mist of decades.
I have had friends in great numbers, who take me to the ocean, and we have shared
The small rises and falls of our children in laughing texts.  We will not tolerate
We will not accept, these marches from a haunted hunted slaughtering, a genocide past, a genocide that echoes other genocides, and other genocides, and others
To be revived?  Forget it.  We’re here.  We know the score.
The lurid lips of nazi clowns shouting hatred slogans, the mowing down
Of friends?  We will speak/act now, we will stop this insanity.

Judy Katz-Levine is the author of these books: When The Arms Of Our Dreams Embrace, Ocarina,  and When Performers Swim, The Dice are Cast.  Her new collection The Everything Saint will be published by WordTEch  in August 2018.  Poems have appeared recently in Kritya (India), Stanzaic Stylings, Ibbetson Street, Salamander, Blue Unicorn, Springhouse Journal, Peacock Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, and many others. Also a jazz flutist, she just played a 3 hour gig at the Farmer's Market in Needham MA.

RODRIGO TREATS DONALD

by Jonel Abellanosa

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, previously praised and invited by President Trump to come to the White House, said he will not visit the United States during or after his term because the country is “lousy.” Duterte's remarks about one of the Philippines' oldest allies was in response to Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who said he would protest if the Filipino leader utilized Trump's invitation. “There will never be a time that I will go to America during my term, or even thereafter. So what makes that guy think I'll go to America? I've seen America, and it's lousy,” Duterte told reporters Friday about McGovern. —Washington Post, July 22, 2017

eye

scream

eye scream

eye scream eye

scream eye scream

eye scream eye scream

scream eye scream

eye scream

*********

********

*cone cone*

cone cone

**cone**

*cone*

cone

co

ne

co

ne

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Marsh Hawk Review, Rattle, 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 three chapbooks, Pictures of the Floating World (Kind of a Hurricane Press), The Freeflowing All (Black Poppy Review) and Meditations (Alien Buddha Press).  He is a Pushcart Prize and a Dwarf Stars Award nominee. Several of his poems have been published on TheNewVerse.News.

A CLASP

by George Held





So as I left the hygienist’s chair, white-clad Reesha
Said she’d taken a cruise to Turks and Bermuda
And, despite sunscreen, her tawny skin had turned
Black as the Nigerian queen Amina’s,

And I said, “Look at my sad white skin,”
Reddened and pebbled by actinic keratoses
(and smeared with cream to spare it from cancer)
And then I said what was on my mind about

Charleston, the city of Charles (whose name isn’t even
In the Bible), where white-racist hatred had burst
From a gun barrel and killed Pastor Pinckney
And his prayer-meeting sisters and brethren,

And I thought of all the black forbearance, the black
Sympathy, the black nobility that has steadied
A course that might have burst into whirlwind, war
And more deaths of worthy men and women,

And we two, Reesha and I, standing face to face
In the cramped space between high-tech dentistry
And the human race, the only race, clasped hands
And said to each other that in our own history

We at least are friends as I hoped that I was not
Just a superannuated white man
Deluded that he was without the taint
Of racial prejudice.


George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.