THE KIBOSH

by Steve Straight

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

Something that serves as a check
or stop; to halt, squelch, or cancel;
to bring to a sudden end.

Example: “We put the kibosh on that
to prevent another tragedy.”

Whatever its origin––
Yiddish, Irish, Arabic,
or perhaps just the streets 
of 1830s London––, though,
kibosh is still just a word.

When I put the kibosh on something,
I want it to stay kiboshed.

I would prefer a kibosh
to be a giant winged creature
with long talons and fierce eyes,
a mythical creature come to life.

I’m thinking some kind of griffin,
capable of plucking a certain human
out of his bunker
before he reanimates again
and causes another disaster,
or maybe out in the open,
on a golf course, say.

The kibosh would simply spirit this human
away, some place isolated
and barren and far from civilization.

This needs to happen soon, 
because God knows I can’t wait
much longer to taste the champagne.

Steve Straight’s books include Affirmation (Grayson Books, 2022), which won the 2023 William Meredith Award for Poetry, The Almanac (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, 2012), and The Water Carrier (Curbstone, 2002). He was professor of English and director of the poetry program at Manchester Community College, in Connecticut.

HAIKU FOR TORY MEDLEY

by James Penha

Tory’s death declared

suicide but his hanging

reprises strange fruit

James Penha edits The New Verse News. His latest book is Queer as Folk Tales.

TRAJECTORIES #7

by David Chorlton

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo and Video by Getty

It’s such a pleasant and deceitful
day, with the afternoon light
lying back on the green
side of the mountain
and quail in a covey scurrying
for cover as the hearings wind
down until tomorrow. The local Red-tail
prowls the atmosphere,
circling the golf course
pond while pigeons
flock for safety in numbers. Witnesses
appear one
at a time, exposed to words
that fly from a questioner’s mouth
and don’t know
where to land. Is good the bright
and bad the shadow, or
the other way around? It all depends
which side a person’s on,
and the small birds know their place.
Seventy-three degrees; not a cloud
in sight; the whistleblower’s name
is still a secret; there is
no wind to turn the turbine
vent that complains every time it blows,
aching as only
metal can.

David Chorlton  is a long time resident of Phoenix, who loves the desert and its wildlife but can't quite stay away from watching public issues unfold. He recently produced a long poem, Speech Scroll, which will surface in the not too distant future thanks to Cholla Needles Press.

NO SINGULAR COUNTRY

by Alejandro Escudé

Harrison Ford was injured last Thursday afternoon when his vintage single-engine airplane crashed on a golf course shortly after taking off from Santa Monica Airport. Photo of the plane by Alejandro Escudé.

Oh furious desire for the present! That nose!
Like the botched schnoz of a prizefighter,
the splayed yellow wings, aluminum body,
the star, a model-slick Army Corps roundel.
Ford’s plane, whole, stark,  not the protracted
present, but the breakneck speed existence,
unafraid, the kind that wolfs one across time
despite failure. Have you risked it? The plane
asks, Or are you pulling back? Other cars
maneuver around me, stopped to cellphone
snap the pic. Say what you want, but the man
that took down that plane, that wasp-like,
double A battery-shaped plane, that metallic
cereal box, met the abounding void and tore
through it, no perturbation over loose ends
nor much hindsight, no babble or echoing
self-talk, just the return home with no home.
No singular country but the loosened sky and

there it sits, intact, on that cool green grass.


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.