INDIVISIBLE, WE STAND

by Darrell Petska

Have you noticed how crowded
America’s thin air has become?

Now it’s homeless humans
joining immigrant humans,
LGBTQIA humans,
Black humans—assorted humans
of every persuasion, more
and more each day, into thin air.

Or so would hearts shriveled by hate
and power lusts have us believe:
think Hitler and Pol Pot, Pinochet
in Chile, Netanyahu in Gaza, and
America’s Trump disappearing souls
who don’t fit white, regressive ideals.

But the disappeared, the disparaged,
do not go away, whether the living
to whom we owe their dignity as they
pursue universally human needs
and aspirations, or the dead
to whom we owe life’s memory.

To our own selves, as well, we owe
the essential humaneness we ask
of all other humans. There can be
no invisibility, only indivisibility.
We are one body. That which divides
we must call out: inhuman!

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin with his wife of more than 50 years.

ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BANK JOB

by Raymond Nat Turner

Humor Outcasts Cartoon, May 25, 2025, Written by: Paul Lander; Artist: Dan McConnell

Masked. Armed to the teeth. Synchronized
Rolexes. They left Lamborghini and Maserati
Motors purring… softly in the shadows on 
Capitalist Hill

And then—suddenly—in sonic boom unison they
Shouted at The People:
UP AGAINST THE WALL—MUTHAFUKKKAS!
GET ‘EM UP!         THIS IS A FUCKIN STICKUP!

Yo, fatso! Yeah, you. Waddle your way over to Senator
Sadist. You, on the crutches; swing over to Congressman
Cruel. Move it! Don’t make me bust a cap in your poor
Ol’ tired cripple ass! Did it in Afghanistan. Did it in Iraq.

Outta that wheelchair and on the floor, Pops! 
And, while you’re at it, gimme me those teeth.
Move it! Quick, fork over the hospice money.
Chop-chop, drop life expectancies in Golden Dome!

Hey, Bag Lady, drop those damn vouchers in the 
Billionaire bag over there! Yo, Sambo! Down on the
Ground! Keep your fuckin mouth shut and no one will get
Hurt … Well, at least until …  after we make our get away

Hey, Granny, gimme those meds! 
Hand over the Medicaid, ol’ maid.
Listen up, kids! Drop those school lunches in the
Billionaire bag. Yo, Teach, handover Head Start!

OK—simple-minded sukkkas—quick, up on your feet!
We’re breaking you for the billionaires; and Boss Tweet—
Robbing and plundering you, for the Murderous 1% Mob
Pulling off—yet another—One Big Beautiful Bank Job!

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

THE LOST ONES

by Jean Varda

Candido Portinari: Dead Child (Criança morta), 1944, oil on canvas.

This is for the lost ones
hiding and shuddering in
broken down cars and tents
without heat, sleeping 
under tarps next to 
shopping carts in the rain,
walking all night down
city streets to stay warm
then searching through 
dumpsters for breakfast.
This is for the refugees in
back rooms erasing them
selves, quitting their jobs
so they don’t get caught.
This is for the hungry
the cold the sick, the
victims of war, for the 
broken families at the
borders begging to get
in, to cross over.

Jean Varda is a poet and artist residing in Chico California. Where she lives in government housing next to the city bike path. She started out as a street poet in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the days before computers and cell phones.

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID

by Phyllis Frakt 

 

Millions out of work, bellies empty.

Penniless war veterans in rags.

Men out on streets sell apples

or wait in line for bread

as the president’s limo sweeps by.

The ins go out, the outs come in.

It’s always the economy.

 

Always, ever, and now

 

Prices ease down, growth up,

while demagogues drone

down is up, up way down.

Voters wait in line to decide.

It’s still the economy.

But which one do they buy—

the real one or the lie?

Phyllis Frakt writes poetry in New Jersey. She has published three poems in Worksheets. Her previous poems in The New Verse News are "Teach to the Test," "Caught in Between," "Not in Our Star...," "Believing is Seeing," and "The Original Truman Show."

SUPREME CALLOUSNESS: A THEME SONG FOR THE RIGHT WING

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

Cartoon by Terry Torgerson

In a 6-3 decision, which broke along ideological lines, the court’s conservative majority said that regulations penalizing people for sleeping in public spaces such as parks and streets do not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment, even when a community lacks indoor shelter and its unhoused residents have nowhere else to go. —The Washington Post, June 28, 2024

Don't let the homeless sleep outdoors.
We really need to quell them.
When they deface our public space,
We might as well expel them.

Just keep them out of sight and then
Ignore their angry voices.
It's time for them to learn the truth:
They're not the ones with choices.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, The Galway Review, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Options (Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ magazine), The Providence Journal, Scientific American, Sparks of Calliope, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had six previous poems in The New Verse News.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

by Lisa Seidenberg

Woman found living in Family Fare sign in Midland, Michigan for almost a year.

It had a roof and a door

space for a laptop and clothes

electric kettle, plant and more

in her improvised home

above the big box store.

warmed on chill Michigan nights

wrapped in rays of a red neon sign 

while unseeing shoppers passed below 

What thoughts crossed her mind

as she lay perched behind the sign;

Is it a crime to be homeless in America?

settlers came to this land 

with only their hands

and some tools and their wits

making up the rules of wrong

and right as survival

is the primal law

not simply a need for shelter

led her to this penthouse nest. 

living for a year like a stealthy mountaineer

scaling the crest of Family Fare. 

a temporary home.

a summit of her own.

Lisa Seidenberg is a writer and filmmaker who makes documentaries and poetry films. She enjoys reading poems on the Rattlecast and other poetry performance venues. 

WALKING THE PATH

by Laura Rodley

Retired, nurse Jean nurses the homeless along
Chico’s bicycle path near the intersection
of Rio Lindo without washing their backs
or dispensing medicines: she gathers their trash,
clothes, and wet-wipes with a three-foot-grabber
bequeathed by a friend. Fellow walkers along
the path say thank you while she fills plastic
bags, wears cheap plastic gloves, monitoring
her own heart with her pace-maker. Only walls
away divide her from being homeless herself,
though she worked full time since her teens.
She gives back to her country walking
amongst her brethren fallen on hard times,
some still homeless after the Paradise Camp fire.
It’s her home, her country;
in the handkerchief-sized plot outside
her apartment her tomatoes reach
the size of baseballs. You know people
kill rattlesnakes, she says, all you have
to do is walk around them. They live
here too. The Hopi consider them
to be sacred, as is the ground she walks on,
lifting another clump of trash into her bag,
just the way my father gathered litter
as he walked from the train station
on his way home, a veteran longtime gone,
planting tomatoes when he could no longer
see, counting them as round shadows
that hung in the air, sixty-seven last count.

Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner, is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Latest books: Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and As You Write It Lucky 7, a collection of 11 writers' work.

DREAMING SUMMER DOWN

by David Chorlton

Yesterday’s news sent the city to bed
with domestic terror for a nightcap, home grown
it said, easy to fund, you can’t
keep bad men down. And fall begins today
even if summer still has
a scorpion’s tail. A night of interrupted sleep
 
with a dream of far away;
how well those friends of years ago
appeared. Good health among the living
and even better with
the dead. Who would have expected such
 
a fine reunion, or found
the references to erotica made in Vienna?
Outside, it’s Arizona warm
with coyotes wandering the starlit streets
and bus shelters doubling
as bedrooms for the poor. The midnight traffic
on the interstate is singing
 
in a sparkling monotone
and the moon hangs
like half a cup of fire between two
leaning palms. Let the past
 
be the past, say Goodnight
and ride a beam of dreamlight home.
Fumble for the key.
Ignore the splinters in the door where someone
must have brought a crowbar.
Imagine! The cracking wood, the aching
hinge, the next door neighbor’s
 
reassuring words: don’t worry,
it could never happen here.

David Chorlton has considered Phoenix home for several decades. He used to live in Vienna but rarely dreams about it. Much of his poetry comes from life in Arizona, where he has found strains of unrest and social disquiet that he can't ignore.

DRY JULY

by David Chorlton

Today the inside knows what the outside’s like,
cats asleep and windows closed
with nobody walking on the street
and birds in the yard waiting for a shadow
to perch on.

                     It’s a hundred-
and-Hell degrees this afternoon, the devil’s
breath for a breeze
and climate change denial melts
when the temperature dances
on the asphalt in the road.

                                                The midnight low
is too high for living outdoors. Another
record falls. The homeless camp
was swept away and a public nuisance
turned into a death threat.

                                                     A dove
has made a dust bath in a bare patch
on the lawn, a man with no address
lies down with his belongings
at a bus stop where there’s shade.

A lizard on the back wall
flashes his lightning scales as he climbs
a few more degrees
                                     of dry heat
and doesn’t stop until he’s safely reached
the air conditioned sky.

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. He still produces occasional watercolors and is attentive to the local wildlife.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

by George Salamon

Nette Reed checks on Desi Hurd, 62, near the Human Services Campus in Phoenix, where there are several major shelters, a medical center and respite centers. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

"The lie has become the order of the world.” Josef K. in Franz Kafka's novel The Trial

"More people in the country's biggest cities were becoming homeless, more were living outside instead of in shelters, and a record number of people from LosAngeles to Denver to  New York were dying in premature and preventable ways on the street." —The New York Times, May 13, 2023

“Nearly a quarter of a million people 55 or older are estimated by the government to have been homeless in the United States during at least part of 2019, the most recent reliable federal count available.” —The Washington Post, May 22, 2023

Josef K. uttered the lesson he learned

as he was about to die, the lesson our

homeless have not yet fully grasped:

they, like Josef K., have no right to live

because they are abandoned and weak.

George Salamon thinks most of our politicians are not eager to deal with homelessness (or poverty) because their sponsors would tell them they're wasting their money, while it's OK to throw money to the Military-Industrial Complex because it does its money-wasting for a Strong America.

WHAT THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK SAID

by Howie Good

As of January 24, the Doomsday Clock sits at 90 seconds to midnight. Jamie Christiani /   Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

The chemistry set I got for my 10th birthday came with glass test tubes and small bottles of dry chemicals in jewellike colors, plus a booklet with precise instructions on how to rubberize a hardboiled egg. It was the era of the Space Race. The scientist in the white lab coat held the Cold War rank of cultural spokesperson for progress. We were taught in school to worship science, as thousands of years ago a many-eyed beast with a body like a leopard’s and feet like a bear’s was worshipped. The clock declares it’s now nine seconds to midnight. Down in the street, an addled homeless man waves his arms around while remonstrating with a vicious-looking companion only he can see. 

Howie Good's latest poetry book is Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems from Redhawk Publications. He co-edits the journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

THE AMERICAN DREAM

by Peter R. Selover

Has a new address

it is any

gas station

that is open

24 hours a day

that has a kind-hearted

manager who at 3 in the morning

is happy to let the children

of homeless families

who sleep

in their cars

every night

use the bathrooms

Editor's Note: San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness organizes homeless people and front line service providers to create permanent solutions to homelessness, while working to protect the human rights of those forced to remain on the streets.

Peter R. Selover is a percussionist and writer, from Cleveland, Ohio. He has been involved in progressive politics since 1972, when as an 11-year-old he spent most of the year stuffing envelopes for Senator McGovern's presidential campaign. 

THE SHOW-ME STATE GOES ROGUE

by George Salamon

"In Missouri, a new state law that took effect on 1 January makes it a crime for any person to sleep on state property. For unhoused people, sleeping in public parks or under city highways could mean up to $750 in fines or 15 days in prison for multiple offenses." —The Guardian, January 5, 2023. Photo: An unhoused person in Los Angeles. Photograph: David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian.

Homelessness is a crime

in the state of Missouri,

where sleeping on the 

street is not punishment 

enough for so capital a sin 

by those who belong in a

loony bin for the criminally

cruel and heartless, claiming

the voices in their heads

are those of God or Jesus,

without even being facetious.

George Salamon thinks he sees where this is going. As Richard T. Evans pointed out in The German Underworld. Deviants and Outcasts in German History (1988): "The Nazis planned their first big round-up of the homeless as soon as they came to power."

PRIME REAL ESTATE

by Emmie Christie

Sphecius speciosus, often simply referred to as the cicada killer or the cicada hawk, is a large digger wasp species. —iNaturalist

The cicada killers drone in the park

Small rockets,

A display of gold in the sky.

I glare. I stare them down,

But billionaire buoyancy keeps them

Flying. A confidence fueled by concepts,

On stinger stock options,

Keeping me inside my cardboard home

But even that’s Prime real estate,

This box someone threw out.

And I shouldn’t be sleeping here, no,

Because that nearby bush has a plaque.

Where can I go to sleep?

I guess it’s a crime to have bad luck,

To lose my savings to a fire truck.

Where can I go

When the wealthy claim even the sky,

And I am not allowed to dream?

The cicada killers drone in the park.

Emmie Christie’s work tends to hover around the topics of feminism, mental health, cats, and the speculative such as unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in Flash Fiction Online and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, and she graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. She also enjoys narrating audiobooks for Audible. You can find her on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

by Rémy Dambron

Traffic has ground to a halt at the busiest border crossing in North America, as Canadian truckers and others angry with vaccine mandates spread their protest beyond Ottawa. Trucks started blocking the Ambassador Bridge linking the cities of Detroit and Windsor late on Monday, closing down traffic in both directions. On Tuesday, entry to Canada remained blocked while US-bound traffic slowed to a crawl. Each day, 8,000 trucks normally cross the bridge, which handles about 27% of trade between Canada and the US. Protesters also targeted another major border crossing in Coutts, Alberta. Canada’s capital city remained blockaded by hundreds of vehicles from the “freedom convoy” while protest organizers called for a meeting with all federal political leaders – except the prime minister, Justin Trudeau – to find a “peaceful resolution” to the crisis. —The Guardian, February 9, 2022. 5G and QAnon: how conspiracy theorists steered Canada’s anti-vaccine trucker protest. Ottawa’s occupation was a result of unrivaled coordination between anti-vax and anti-government organizations: Thousands of demonstrators have successfully occupied Canada’s frigid capital for days, and say they plan on staying as long as it takes to thwart the country’s vaccine requirements. The brazen occupation of Ottawa came as a result of unprecedented coordination between various anti-vaccine and anti-government organizations and activists, and has been seized on by similar groups around the world. It may herald the revenge of the anti-vaxxers. —The Guardian, February 8, 2022

the clan of anti-vaxxers grows deep

its organizers harvesting the internet in search of troops to spawn 

crowd sourcing sites swarming

bloated with donations 

luring proponents from the fringe 

to strengthen their tribe

in protest of medicine  

masks 

safety 

measures

rules 

…science?

in bad faith 

foreign influencers 

direct funds to float false claims

their target audience erecting camps 

to stake their domain 

demanding more than to be heard 

demanding more

or less

stockpiling fuel for warmth 

as they willfully inhabit 

the bitter cold streets in the name of

freedom

the same streets they insisted

could never be 

home for the homeless

last week they harassed 

soup kitchens 

ordering volunteers to fuel them 

with meals intended to feed

the reluctantly unsheltered 

and vulnerable

this week they taunt police 

issuing threats they once denounced 

instigating confrontations they once decried 

intimidating countrymen they once sought to protect

relieving themselves on local lawns defacing public squares  

promoting disdain 

division 

and next week what then?

confederate flags will continue

soaring high above their lorries 

fiercely flaunting symbols of hatred  

not symbolic of true democracies

not emblematic of our liberties

not representative of we the people

but exhibitive of the perilous tears 

shredding our social fabric 

Author’s Note: We must never lose our ability to distinguish between peaceful protest and civil disturbance. Where the former is an indispensable component of a successful government, the latter is all too often one of its greatest threats. 

Rémy Dambron is a former English teacher now Portland-based poet whose writing focuses on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social/environmental justice. With the help of his chief editor and loving wife, his works have appeared in What Rough Beast, Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, Society of Classical Poets, Robot Butt, and The New Verse News. 

CHRISTMAS COMES

by Peter Neil Carroll

For most of the 19th century, the celebration of Christmas with Christmas trees and gift-giving remained a marginal phenomenon in American society. Most Americans remained skeptical about this new custom. Some felt that they had to choose between older English customs such as hanging stockings for presents on the fireplace and the Christmas tree as proper space for the placing of gifts. It was also hard to find the necessary ingredients for this German custom. Christmas tree farms had first to be created. And ornaments needed to be produced. The most significant steps toward integrating Christmas into popular American culture came in the context of the American Civil War. In January 1863 Harper’s Weekly published on its front page the image of Santa Claus visiting the Union Army in 1862. This image, which was produced by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast, represents the very first image of Santa Claus. —Thomas Adam, “How Christmas Became an American Holiday Tradition, with a Santa Claus, Gifts and a Tree,” The Conversation, December 6, 2021

Today isn’t my holiday;

neither did the Puritans celebrate Christmas—

only after huddled masses, tempest tost

slipped through Ms Liberty’s golden door

did Santa tumble down the chimney.

 

So what? says the bored look

in my child’s eye. All day we shall suffer

her shame, born to pagan parents,

she will see us through the eyes

of little friends who believe.  

 

Yes, Virginia, today we will dash to church.

Not to pray, mind you, but to see the unseen

wretched refuse lining on cold sidewalks  

and to serve those we will have

with us always, strung out

like light bulbs at St. Anthony’s.

 

At noon, we dollop beans and rice,

turkey, spuds, chopped carrots and greens.

Everyone polite, clean, stiff-backed,

without voice or tune

or jingled bell, only the scrape of chairs,

spoons tinkling in tepid cups.

 

Peter Neil Carroll’s newest collections of poems are Talking to Strangers: Poetry of Everyday Life  (Turning Point, 2022) and This Land, These People: The 50 States (Press Americana) that just won the 2022 Prize Americana. He is currently Poetry Moderator of Portside.org and lives in northern California.

THREE DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

by Laura Rodley

She panhandles at the long traffic lights

on corners of Federal and Main,

easier to have people drop money

into her hands.

She used to sell odd homemade clay jewelry

while sitting on the sidewalk,

leaning against the Martial Arts studio.

No one’s buying now.

Today, she’s dyed her hair dark brown,

holds her cardboard sign: Homeless, anything helps,

sits to the left of the entrance of Green Field’s Market.

They rarely ask her to move.

I have no change, not even for the meter,

and walk towards the market door.

“Hey, hey,” she calls, “They’ll give you a ticket.”

“I don’t have any change,” I say.

“Here, I do,” she says, unzipping her tracksuit pocket.

“No, no, I can’t take any money from you.”

Inside the store, I shop, use my debit card,

extract money for her, return.

“Here, thanks for protecting my car.”

“I do it for everybody,” she says. “It’s not good

to get a ticket, it goes against your license.”

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Wendy,” she answers.

Wendy, all grown up, no longer led into Neverland,

protecting my car, sitting

on the cold hard sidewalk,

teeth chattering.

Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner, is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Latest books: Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and As You Write It Lucky Lucky 7, a collection of 11 writers' work.