IDENTIFYING CHRIST

by Joy Kreves

In his final speech in court before his latest conviction, Navalny quoted the Bible: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” —Yahoo! News, February 16, 2024

No, Donald Trump is not America’s Navalny. —The Washington Post, February 16, 2024

On the one hand

a living carcass of a coward

who leads the GOP by nose ring

 

On the other

the now dead Navalny

who suffered then died for democracy for all

 

One, belly expanded 

with the gaseous stench 

of mockery and hatred

 

The other, thinned frame 

filled with wit and love

and bravery

 

Even a toddler could discern

which is more Christ-like

yet half of America remains confused

Joy Kreves is a New Jersey artist/poet, member of DVP/US1 Poets.  She has had work published in art exhibition catalogs and in WORKSHEETS Anthologies 2022 & 2023.  She says, I still remember grade school lessons on The Golden Rule.  We had to pledge allegiance to the flag of our country.  These lessons were reinforced in Sunday School.  I am baffled by the ability of so many to justify rude, dishonest, selfish and traitorous behavior.  What were they taught as children?  

AMERICAN HERO

by Dawn Corrigan

Officer Daniel Hodges gained notoriety after footage of him circulated being crushed by a door during the capitol riots. Photo: CNN via WCVB.

Dawn Corrigan has a crush on an American hero.

ANIMAL FARM 2021:3. MEGAWA, THE HERO RAT

 by Tricia Knoll

HeroRAT Magawa has been awarded the PDSA (The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) Gold Medal for life-saving bravery. Magawa is based in Cambodia and supports APOPO's efforts to rid Cambodia of the deadly legacy of landmines. Magawa is an African giant pouched rat that was born in Tanzania in November 2014. He grew up at APOPO's Training and Research center in Tanzania where he learned how to detect the smell of explosives using his nose. Under the loving guidance of his human rat trainer,s he fully completed his training in 9 months and began to prepare to leave for the field. Magawa moved to Siem Reap in Cambodia in 2016 where he met his new handler Malen and began his successful career. To date he has found 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance, making him APOPO’s most successful HeroRAT. Over the past 4 years he has helped clear over 141,000 square metres of land, allowing local communities to live, work and play without fear of losing life or limb. (APOPO is an acronym from Dutch which stands for "Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling", or in English, Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development.)

wears a gold medal around his neck. 

Plain gray hero rat trained to stand up

on his back feet. He smells landmines;

more than sixty pieces of unexploded mayhem

in Cambodia. He alerts and gets banana. 

 

This acknowledgement comes grudgingly

from this woman with a rat trap in her garage

who has smelled rat urine on the lid of a steamer

in her pantry, who wiped up weeks of rat shit

under an antique cherry sideboard. Who when 

danger looms flinches from dream rodents

that scurry where walls meets floors. 

 

Today you asked me to find one reason for hope. 

You rescue orchids in discarded pots and coax

them into bloom. What I offer you after insurrection

and death in the Capitol is this: I give one rat

his due. 

 

Tricia Knoll recently spent more time watching events unfold in the Capitol than she did binge watching The Queen's Gambit. She is a Vermont poet looking forward to introducing a new collection of poetry this spring called Checkered Mates.

THE WAY PAVER

by Nan Ottenritter

“The Four Justices” by Nelson Shanks at the National Portrait Gallery.

for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

She liked to be inclusive,

provide comfort for everyone,

this woman-loved-by-most

who accomplished-so-much.

She preferred to say way paver over

pioneer-champion-prophet-ballbuster-

activist-change-maker-hero-leader

and I think I know why.

A way paver does not part waters;

she lays paver after paver for the journey ahead.

A way paver does not construct guardrails

but provides traction, focused action.

A way paver builds upon those before,

celebrates those after, serves tea along the way.

And when her journey ends, we sip our warmth,

thankful for this paver’s way. 

Nan Ottenritter is a poet and musician who lives in Richmond, VA.

BOTH CAROLINAS WEEP: HOMAGE TO UNC CHARLOTTE

by Earl J Wilcox

Riley Howell, 21, took three bullets while tackling a gunman last week at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He was one of two killed. In interviews with relatives and friends of Mr. Howell, not one person was surprised that he had acted decisively and with little regard for himself. —The New York Times, May 6, 2019. Above: Photographs of Riley Howell at his viewing ceremony on Saturday in Waynesville, N.C. Credit Swikar Patel for The New York Times.

Up the interstate about forty minutes
from our campus, Charlotte 49ers
weep as do their Eagle friends—
both schools connected by Carolina
geography, by our students taking
classes there, friends come for classes
here, some adjunct faculty teach at both
schools. Carolina cousins, uncles, aunts,
friends, sports competitors, youthful
world citizens making their way.
Today we grieve our mutual losses—
a semester ending too soon for some.


Earl J Wilcox is a retired Emeritus English Professor at Winthrop University (whose mascot is the Eagle), located about 25 miles south of Charlotte, NC.

MUSINGS ON A LINE BY REDD FOXX

two triolets
by Julie Steiner

"Trump finally calls Waffle House hero." —Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2018

"'I'm Not A Hero,' Says James Shaw Jr., Acclaimed As Hero Of Waffle House Attack." —NPR, April 23, 2018

"Trump on Florida shooting: 'I really believe I'd run in there, even if I didn't have a weapon.’" —CNN, February 26, 2018


Heroes ain’t born—they’re cornered.
They say, “I wasn’t brave!
I had no choice,” when honored.
Heroes ain’t born—they’re cornered.
What accolades they’ve garnered,
they claim they don’t deserve.
Heroes ain’t born—they’re cornered.
They say, “I wasn’t brave.”

That puffed-up politician
who claims heroic courage
and lack of hesitation—
that puffed-up politician—
has trademarked truth-distortion.
Disgusted, I disparage
that puffed-up politician.
(Who claims heroic courage?)


Julie Steiner rolls her eyes in San Diego, California.

CHELSEA MANNING, NOT JUST HERSELF

by Devon Balwit

Chelsea Manning tried to commit suicide last month as she was starting a week of solitary confinement at the prison barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., her punishment for a previous attempt to end her life in July. —The New York Times, November 4, 2016. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters/Newscom via The Intercept.

The constraints are multiple:
Chelsea jailed inside Bradley,
Bradley penned inside the military,
a deployed soldier inside a perimeter

The voices are multiple:
of wrongness, of rage, of never
belonging, of DADT, her security
clearance no security.

The postures are multiple:
curled over a desk, curled fetal,
clenching fists, crying, screaming,
flipping tables, flipping the bird.

The labels are multiple:
MOS, 35F, PFC, Specialist,
gay, trans, gender dysphoric
traitor, victim, hero, woman.

The reactions are multiple:
bullying, scorn, vilification,
compassion, incomprehension,
indifference, pity, respect.

The wishes are multiple:
to move on from being traitor
or whistleblower, to die, to live,
to be heard, to define herself.

Devon Balwit is a poet and educator in Portland, OR.  Her work has appeared before in TheNewVerse.News and elsewhere, in places such as Unlikely Stories Mark V, Five 2 One, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Rattle.

ANGEL OF ALEPPO

by Orel Protopopescu

Khaled Omar Harrah, a volunteer rescuer who spent nearly three years rushing to the scenes of airstrikes and barrel bombs to save lives, has been killed in the embattled city of Aleppo. The Syrian Civil Defense Force, also known as the White Helmets, tweeted remembrances of Harrah, calling him a "true hero" who saved "countless lives." A spokesman for the search-and-rescue group told CNN that he was killed during an airstrike, and was "with other members of his team helping people trapped in rubble." —NPR, August 13, 2016

“Only the dead see the end of war.”—Graffiti on a wall of the ruined Darul Aman Palace, Kabul

How long can angels keep dancing
on the head of a tyrant?

Photos of wounded children can’t stop bombs,
though the soft steel of their eyes
penetrates the thickest armor.

Under the halo of his white helmet,
Khaled Omar Harrah dug through
rubble, through five stories,
untellable stories, compressed,
an illegible album that he opened,
after sixteen hours,
to pull from a hole,
from out of the womb of war,
the best story of the day—
a live child, ten days old,
covered in fine, white powder
like a loaf of bread
for the world to digest.

Where helmets are targets,
to link wings with other angels
can bring down rains that burn.
Yet Khaled refused, in New York,
the false Paradise of exile.
Running toward the sounds
of thousands of explosions,
he sought the cracks
where his light could shine.

Death dropped from the sky
on this relentless angel—
husband, father of two daughters,
a painter by trade—
who had no need to seek martyrdom
by exploding the gates of Paradise.
He knew they were light as eyelids
and could be opened with a smile.

Now those splintered gates
scream on rusty hinges.

Orel Protopopescu, children’s author, translator and poet, has been published by major houses (Simon&Schuster, FSG, Scholastic) and her book of translations, A Thousand Peaks, Poems from China (with Siyu Liu) was honored by the New York Public Library. Orel won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010. What Remains, a chapbook (2011) followed. Thelonious Mouse, her fourth picture book, won a Crystal Kite, 2012, from SCBWI.  A Word’s a Bird, her animated, bilingual (English/French) poetry book for iPad, was on SLJ’s list of ten best children’s apps, 2013. Her poetry has appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, and other reviews and anthologies.

THE COACH

by Howard Winn

Dennis Hastert. AP photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais via ThinkProgress.

A hero in his small town
as is often the case where
there is a wish for local heroes
and some must be found
to satisfy the need to brag
therefore he and his students
fulfilled the boosters need
for his young disciples won
their matches in the
wresting ring to the glory
of the school and these
adolescent athletes who
spread the fame of their
coach who seemed to love
his young charges learning
the holds and the tricks
of the wresting trade
and much more hidden
from public and pubic
view concealed outside
the showers or the gym.
Taking his deceitfulness
to the shadiness of politics
he smiled as he corrupted
the democratic process
of government while reaping
the financial benefits of that guile
to fatten banks accounts
 both his own and that of
certain colleagues who
shared his lack of ethics
until caught manipulating
bank accounts with an
illegal wrestling of his
fortune to silence a now
grown lover boy who
demanded hulking payment
for his silence so caught
and sentenced as ironic
reward to the prison he
bought with his conduct.


Howard Winn's work has been published in Dalhousie Review, The Long Story, Galway Review, Descant.  Antigonish Review, Southern Humanities Review, Chaffin Review, Main Street Rag, Evansville Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, 3288 Review, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Blueline. He has a novel coming out soon from Propertius Press. His B.A. is from Vassar College. his M.A. from the Stanford University Creative Writing Program. His doctoral work was done at NYU. He is Professor of English at SUNY-Duchess.

OF ALL TIMES, OUR HERO'S AWAY DANCING

by Lois Rosen

Alek Skarlatos, the Army National Guard Specialist who helped stop a terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train in August, has rushed back to his hometown in Oregon after the mass shooting there on Thursday. Skarlotos, who is currently starring on ABC's Dancing With The Stars, was enrolled last year at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. He had been registered for classes on this week on campus, but postponed his education to appear on TV. —People.com, October 2, 2015

Believe it when you see it--the National Guard 

hero from Oregon with no dance experience, or 

so they say, waltzes like a young, but broader,

crew cut Fred Astaire. That lithe. 

And why not prance, score 8 and 9 from judges

praising his maturity the week Obama decorates 

him and his two companions for tackling

and disarming the Paris train terrorist. 

He comes from Roseburg, studied at Umpqua 

Community College. How will he manage 

to learn a complicated rhumba or memorize 

a foxtrot, any dance 

when no one in that classroom tackled 

the gunman, and how does all this rah-

rah-you’re-a-hero attention after his quick 

reaction affect him? 

Lindsay, his pro partner, encouraged 

him not to be afraid to talk on camera

to a dancer, ask for a date. She won’t 

refuse you now.

Lois Rosen taught English as a Second Language at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. Tebot Bach published her second poetry book, Nice and Loud (2015).

MY FATHER WAS A WAR HERO IN HIS OWN WAY

by M.F. Nagel

Image source: http://www.angelfire.com/va2/worldwar2family/eddie2.html

My Father was a War Hero
In his own way;

He came home.
Never spoke of War;
But, I could see it in his face
In the way he smoked a cigarette
And stared across the Pacific;
On stormy days.

I heard they dragged him drafted from the docks
Where he welded blasted battleships
In antiquated scuba gear because he never feared the sea.

My Father was a War Hero
In his own way.

He returned
Dropped on Main Street.
Ordered to guard
Mr. and Mrs. Hiroshima; spies
Shopkeepers.
The old Nippon couple
My father knew as a child.
Starving
All the bad fishing seasons
Giving credit
To broken fisherman.
Never took a penny
He stood
At attention next to the door of Mr. and Mrs. Hiroshima
Until
They were gone.
Then he turned and knocked
Shoved his rifle thru the door
--Here,
Guard yourselves--
He said and walked away;
My Uncle Eddy told me
He saw
His brother
Rip the jacket from his chest and throw it in the bay.

My father was a War Hero
In his own way.

M.F. Nagel was born in anchorage Alaska. Her Athabaskan and Eyak heritage gave her a love of poetry. M.F. now lives and writes near the banks of the Matanuska river in the Palmer Butte, Alaska, where the moose, wild dog-roses and salmonberries provide unending joy and inspiration. 

AD ASTRA

by Bradley McIlwain

“A new meteor shower sparked some celestial fireworks late Friday and early Saturday (May 23-24), amazing stargazers across North America even though it did not reach the spectacular "meteor storm" levels that some had hoped for.” Photo: A small Camelopardalid meteor streaks through the northern lights as the Milky Way shines overhead in this stunning photo by stargazer Gail Lamm from Balmoral, Manitoba in Canada on May 24, 2014. Credit: Gail Lamm   --Space.com, May 24, 2014

A wolf sings
out my back gate
where does he go
at four a.m.?

The undergrowth
is cool, calming.
Tonight, we are
both prey

to the sky gods,
hungry meteors
dripping from the
womb

a golden apple
waiting for the
sleeping hero
to awaken


Bradley McIlwain's poems have appeared in The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly, The Open Mouse, Platform Magazine (Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia) and in anthologies such as Love Notes: A Collection of Romantic Poetry from Vagabondage Press (2012) and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly Vol. 2 (2013). His poems have previously appeared in The New Verse News.

A MASH NOTE TO HILLARY

by David Spicer

You’re an American pioneer.
A world warrior.
You scare the hell out of everybody.
Except your believers.

Why do you want this job?
Don’t give me patriotic bunk
You recite on Hardball.
You want what you want.

Is your ego the size of Texas and Ohio?
Are you Machiavelli’s spiritual great granddaughter?

Your lemon meringue pantsuit fails the fashion test.
That laugh could chop wood.
If I hear On Day One again,
I’ll yank out my bazooka and shoot the Milky Way.

You thought the job a divine right.
You owned the nomination.

Then along came Barack Obama,
Grinning like a llama.
A meteor that seduced a nation:
The Blessed Orator.
The Golden-Tongued Angel.
Smooth as peanut butter on fresh bread.
You'd  met your match.
You hated it.
Live with it.
               
You fight in the era of the last bastion
Of white males.
They resist, a phalanx poised
To confront and destroy you.
Don’t concede.

You’ve been reviled.
Caricatured. Pilloried.
You don’t care. You persevere.

You’re not our mother, our sister, our daughter,
Our girlfriend, our waitress, our opera escort,
But our leader.

And a cat with twenty lives.
Not in double digits yet.

Hillary, you’re my hero.
Tougher than the meanest missile in the world.

Answer this note.
Please.

What about Bill? you might ask.
Forget him, though you love the guy.
Divorce him on Day One.
(Remember, hell hath no fury . . .
He doesn’t want you President anyway.)
Throw him out on the steps with his humidor.

We’ll elope to the Ukraine.
The world our oyster.


David Spicer is  seeking a publisher crazy enough to print his manuscript American Maniac. He has had poems in The New Verse News, The Naugatuck River Review, Spudgun, Yellow Mama, and elsewhere.

A HERO OF THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

by Howie Good

Source for image and the poem: “Nicholas Oresko, 96, a Hero of the Battle of the Bulge, Dies,” New York Times, October 3, 2013

He crawled back through the snow.
He saw red, blue and purple flame.
And then his helmet hit a booby trap wire.

He lay bleeding, unseen by the Germans.
He tossed a grenade into one bunker.

“I think about that incident every day.
 It never leaves you. When you kill somebody,
you remember it, or it remembers you.”

Bayonne named a school for him.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.

IN PRAISE OF GEORGE READER

by Lex Runciman

George Reader, the dockmaster at Watchet marina in Somerset, who dived into freezing cold waters to rescue the baby boy after his buggy was blown in by strong winds. Photograph: Ryan Hooper/PA via The Guardian, Monday 28 January 2013

Wind blows a baby stroller right off the edge
and three feet down to water.  It sinks
as a woman shouts, as you jump in.
You do not stop to empty your pockets
or remove your shoes, only your coat.
You do not notice the water's temperature,
only that you cannot move as surely
or quickly as you wish.  The stroller
floats with a current, does not entirely
disappear.  At last you grab a handle,
kick and scull, pulling it, stroller and child,
to where someone else has let down
a rope, which you knot with fingers that
have thickened.  The stroller passes you
as they haul it up, and the child buckled in
looks slumped asleep, soaked.
You are cold now.  You have climbed out
and put on your coat
as a woman you have never seen
kneels, hair in her face as she works
and works, pumping that small chest,
until she stops, leans back a little,
the child moving an arm, the child crying,
water running down your face,
the mother who has had to watch this
sobbing, covering her mouth, and even now
a helicopter angles in against the wind,
with the wind, and the mother and the child
are taken inside and lifted away.
It is the purest thing you can remember doing,
and anyone would have – this bright gift
a privilege you'd wish on no one.


Lex Runciman’s most recent book, Starting from Anywhere, was published by Salmon Poetry (Ireland) in 2009.  A new book is forthcoming in 2014.   Runciman teaches at Linfield College.