LISTEN

by Susan Vespoli

Allex Gomes photo for Unsplash

     “I want to warn you. They shot a woman in Minneapolis and her story will trigger you, remind you of Adam’s murder.” —Christopher

When the world is crying 

and the newscasters are crying

and your email inbox is crying

and Facebook is crying 

and memories of your son 

are crying,    remember 

how he came to you 

as a hummingbird. How he still 

comes to you as light. Open

the patio door and step outside.

Look at the tubs of bright marigolds,

faces up. Pompoms of coral and blood

orange, persimmon petals like lace, 

rippley and delicate and flamboyant. 

Watch in awe as a butterfly lands,

flits from one blossom to another, 

perches on tiny wire feet, its wings 

wallpaper triangles or black dotted 

Velveeta cheese slices slit on the diagonal,

wings that open and close like a fan 

and the monarch lets you approach, lets you snap 

photos and it sees you and reminds you 

of the hummingbird, ethereal messenger 

sent by the sky. Lean in and listen 

till it lifts off, flies so close to your cheek 

as it leaves, it whispers: breathe.

Susan Vespoli’s heart goes out to Renee Good’s loved ones and community. Vespoli believes in the power of poetry to heal.

MAKE TYPEFACE GREAT AGAIN

by Pamela Kenley-Meschino

In Spanish, "colibrí" (with an accent on the 'i') means hummingbird. The term "calibri" (without an accent) is the name of the font. The font's name does not directly derive from the Spanish word for hummingbird, but rather was one of several names suggested by the designer that started with the letter C. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Hispanic American, has ordered a return to the Times New Roman font for official diplomatic documents, reversing a previous directive to use Calibri. He stated that the prior administration's shift to Calibri was part of "misguided diversity, equity and inclusion policies." Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Photo: Ensamble Folclórico Colibrí.

Beware woke typeface—

Calibri, with its easy round 

appeal, its flaunting legibility,

degrading inclusivity,

has no place here.

Welcome back

Times New Roman’s

erect formality 

meant for clearer eyes,

a traditional font 

befitting conventions,

administrative virility

and dignity of office.

 

To curtail distraction

by over-shapely texts,

a topographical mandate

spells a return to type.

 

Pamela Kenley-Meschino is originally from the UK, where she developed a love of nature, poetry, and music, thanks in part to the influence of her Irish mother. Her poetry has appeared in Literal Latté, Bards Annual anthologies, The New Verse News, The Stafford Challenge Anthology, Verse Virtual, and has been featured on WNYC’s 2025 poetry month presentations. She is an educator whose classes explore the connection between writing and healing, as well as the importance of shared stories.

THE BLACK HUMMINGBIRD

by Alejandro Escudé

Why all the gray skies [in Southern California]? It's a reasonable question with a fairly complex answer that we find ourselves asking yearly when they show up and stick around for a few months. Known as May Gray and June Gloom, the period’s a sign of transition from cool winter weather to scorching summer temperatures. —LAist, May 19, 2023. Photo: Ushering in June Gloom near Santa Ynez, California on June 01, 2020. | George Rose/Getty Images via KCET.

The grayness of May isn’t subtle.

It weighs on the birds too, erasing the landmarks.

I notice that my sight changes, eyes have a stalkier bond

To the naked mind—what is that about?

I exit my apartment, crossing the threshold of my door,

And the hallway is blue, chilly, despite the seventy degrees.

I need my poetry heroes to Lazarus from their graves

And deliver me back to my old selves, the dozens of poets

That came before this one who writes only gray verse.

But its always been the black hummingbird that flitted 

Through the glass of my window at the Catholic retreat 

I attended two years after my son was born.

I obeyed the order of silence. At twilight, I made my way

Past the Victorian lamp posts along the garden paths

To the dining hall. And we prayed before and after dinner.

When I returned home, the hummingbird followed.

I ask a coworker: does the gray sky affect your mood?

It is kind of dark, he says, missing the mark.

The grayness lasts so that even the darkness of night is gray.

I shift in my rocky bed, the hours graying into more hours.

You can live this way, you know, many years,

Reading between the testament folds of the colorless clouds,

Seeking something beyond the stormy horizon 

You have come to expect—that gray, prodigious god.

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.

BEFORE I KNEW ADAM HAD DIED

by Susan Vespoli

a hummingbird flittered on the other side of the glass 

patio door    a feathered sprite that stayed   stared

       at me     hovered like an airborne messenger     stayed 

       until I rose to face it      look into its seed-bead eyes

watch its wings thrum      to keep body aloft      its face

breathing in mine      until it released me       lifted off

       toward the pot of geraniums      breathed in billowy

       red petals      sipped nectar      through its dart-sharp beak

darted around the yard    like a small soft helicopter

and then      whoosh     disappeared over the fence. I didn’t know

       my son had already disappeared    from this human life

       or that I’d google to find a hummer is a symbol for freedom

and “may be a sign that a loved one has successfully made it

(like the hummingbird) to the other side   and is doing just fine.”

Editor's Note: Susan Vespoli’s son Adam, shot and killed by police last week, appeared in many of her poems, including "Chicken" and "Alex's Teeth" (Alex = code name for Adam) in The New Verse News.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, Arizona where the opioid epidemic is still alive and well. 

NOT MERELY A GENTLE PROD

by Sharon Olson

“Ecstasy of St. Teresa” by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

As Bernini would have it, Teresa entered a quasi-orgasmic

state, calling out to her would-be husband Jesus! and explaining

later how the prick of the arrow exulted and burned at the same

time

and I think of my Mr. Moderna, the jolt he gives me, the fever,

the chills, the battle royale he is willing to undergo on my behalf, 

even though he is not entirely faithful, as I hear others claiming 

him

think of the lily and its deep chamber penetrated by the sharp

bill of its hummingbird swordsman, we do not hear her cry out 

or think he has forsaken her by darting into the orifices

of all the neighbor lilies

and yet in this year of multiple piercings, the throngs of the would-

be vaccinated circling in the vestibules, the ante-chambers

of their chosen clinics, the buzzing and murmuring will be

echoed even

by the hosanna of the seventeen-year emerging cicada swarm,

Brood X they are called, like the crucifix but here only a reference

to the number 10, the power of their song jacked up to the nth

degree, what has got into them, what probe, what stick?

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian who has recently moved to Annapolis, Maryland. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019. She will be getting her second dose of Moderna today.

MOCK ORANGE

by Laura Rodley

Space weather events that have been building over the last week continued to affect Earth early this morning (Aug. 28), increasing the possibility of amped up auroras around the planet's polar regions. A string of space weather occurrences this week has led to some beautiful aurora displays, such as the one seen in the picture above. But showers of powerful particles from the sun can also cause problems for power grids, satellites and astronauts, so government agencies are keeping a close eye on the activity. —Space.com, August 28, 2015. Photo: An image of the Aurora Borealis, taken by night sky photographer Dora Miller (also known as Aurora Dora) on Aug. 22, 2015, in Talkeetna, Alaska. 

A friend warns of solar flares
and the end of electricity as we know it.
I repair to the window,
refuse to cut the leafless shringa
because here the hummingbird
likes to sit, huddled inside her wings
her only respite from flying
once out of the nest.
What have I to offer,
what bedtime story
to keep the world whole?
The hummingbird tarries,
though her heart beats rapidly,
she listens only to the stillness
attending to the wake-up
call of thirst.


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

AT THE BRIDGE

by Marybeth Rua-Larsen

Phoebe Jonchuck died Thursday when she was tossed from the Dick Misener Bridge in St. Petersburg. At her memorial service Wednesday in Tampa, those who knew her spoke of a girl with an infectious smile who learned to love going to school and told friends she wanted to be a dancer when she grew up. There was scant mention of John Jonchuck, 25, her father, who remains jailed, accused of dropping the little girl to her death. --Dan Sullivan, Tampa Bay Times, January 14, 2015                                                                                                                            

Long hair and the voice of a hummingbird
Long hair and the voice of a hummingbird
I want a ticket to anywhere
I want a ticket to anywhere
Hummingbirds want a stronger voice, and I
long for anywhere, my ticket in my hair

Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
This is just a fairytale happening in a supermarket
This is just a fairytale happening in a supermarket
Dear daddy: you’re a number in a supermarket
just as this is happening. Oh, one fairytale stills.

Because he’s all I ever knew of love
Because he’s all I ever knew of love
He only loves those things because he loves to see them break
He only loves those things because he loves to see them break
I break because he’s all he ever knew of love, because
those things he sees love, love only him too.

Oh daddy, I love you because you were
my ticket to anywhere, because all you ever knew of love
was long hair, stillness, and numbers in a supermarket. You said:
These things just happen, dear
I want the voice of a hummingbird, a fairytale one,
who only loves to see me unbroken.


Author's note: Lyrics borrowed from the following artists and songs, in order: “Can You Hear Me?” by Missy Elliott featuring TLC; “Fast Car,” by Tracey Chapman; “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper; “Fairytale in a Supermarket” by The Raincoats; “Criminal” by Fiona Apple; “Doll Parts” by Hole.

Marybeth Rua-Larsen is a lover of form in poetry. Just about any form. Her chapbook Nothing In-Between was released from Barefoot Muse Press last year.