THE ONCE AND PRESENT KING

by Ralph La Rosa

Source: Laughter

Viva Joe Biden
Whose power is thriven
A SCOTUS thing
May make him king!

Ralph La Rosa has published prose on major American writers, including Emerson and Thoreau, and has placed short fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film scripts. These days, he mostly writes poetry, appearing on the Internet, in print journals and anthologies. His books include the chapbook Sonnet Stanzas and full-length Ghost Trees and My Miscellaneous Muse. He Loves The New Verse News!

MARSH GAS

by Martha Deed

“The court will set a new schedule if and when the mandate is returned.”

—Hon. Tanya Chutkan, Groundhog Day 2024

Usually the worse it is

the longer I take

to say anything about it

but today

is not one of those days

Today is not a shock

Today rests upon absence of surprise

after decades of seeking fruit from the tree of justice

and finding only sick worms and fungi

feeding upon the softened spoiled

core of a tree failing to thrive

in a rotting swamp

that exploded long ago

as anyone knows

who was wronged in a lower court

say—family court

where a child’s future

was dangled over

the bubbling glop

so that even when

a rotten judge was later removed

it was too late for the child

and for at least one parent

or from a class

(yes, “class” in the United States)

whose voice is smothered in the court

while the other is entitled

(yes, “entitled” in the United States)

to call the shots in wars designed

to defeat the weaker class

through unequal monetary weaponry

and finding oneself trapped at the bottom of a bog

while the wealthier ones walk away

Justice like rich organic matter

sinks to the bottom

then deprived of oxygen

rises to the top

forms a hard crust

that leaves justice

trapped below

for the bottom feeders

Anoxic gases bubble to the surface

and singe the air

A thick crust of contaminate

preserves deep destruction

as marsh gas in the court grows and stinks

So it is that spoiled judges

rise through the judicial system

and prevail

We who have seen the lower courts

stood close enough to smell the smell

we knew this would happen

that it would lead to a decision that

rots to form a crust that prevents

oxygen from reaching

the organic material trapped below*

i.e. unthinkable

not merely spoiled

Poisoned

*Marsh gas.

Martha Deed’s third poetry collection Haunted By Martha was released by FootHills Publishing, July 2023. She has published ten books (poetry, mixed media, non-fiction) and ten chapbooks along with inclusion in more than 20 poetry anthologies. Individual poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Earth’s Daughters, First Literary Review—East, Shampoo, Gypsy, and many others.

BACKCOURT VIOLATION

by Paul Brassard

The original Unsplash photograph of the Supreme Court building by Tim Mossholder was adapted by the poet using the GIMP image manipulation software for use in this haiga.

Paul Brassard is a retired teacher of high school students with behavioral challenges. He has been writing poetry and fiction since he wrote his first short story Honolulu Calling at the age of twelve. Paul has been writing a personal haiku, senyru or haiga every day for the past several years as a method of self-reflection or in response to current events. He writes his short stories and poetry at his home in South Portland, Maine, which he shares with Patti, his wife of 50 years. "Backcourt Violation" is his first published work.

ANOTHER YEAR

by George Held

Another year ends and a new year starts
and I have fewer—it’s just math—
to count on, but I’m glad to have
been born too young for WW 2
and too old for Korea and Nam

and too ancient for the all-volunteer
Army dispatched, like Caesar’s legions,
to any hot spot in the Empire,
though Afghanistan’s a region
a bit too far out for our ambition.

Another year, the President’s third
in office, on the horizon for him
to continue our retreats
from remote and alien climes
(poetic word for “region” and for rhymes)

or to launch new strikes, like missiles
out of the blue: it’s all up to him,
our grand commander-in-chief,
our modern chief executive officer
and main deal-maker and pussy-grabber.

Will this be another year of immunity
for executive privilege, the one man
above the law, for him who has slouched
from the bestial floor in Bethlehem
to rename the world like a neo-Adam,

whose jutting chin recalls Mussolini
and racist rants echo Hitler’s
and whose repeated lies outdo Goebbels’
but who knows how to talk the talk
that enthralls his adamantine Base.

Another year, or could it be our last
before the earth floods or a nuclear blast
solves our overpopulation problem?
The bourgeoisie now draw near the edge
over which many poor have lately plunged,

and the widespread wish of “Happy New Year”
seems frivolous if not a beard for fear.

A longtime contributor to the TheNewVerse.News, George Held writes from New York. His forthcoming book is Second Sight (Poets Wear Prada, 2019).

MEASLES

by Joan Colby

Anti-Vaxxer Kristin Cavallari

A darkened room. Venetian blinds
Slatted like a stern mouth.
No reading. No coloring books
Or paper dolls. I shut my eyes
Reddened like the polka dots
Of my fevered body.
The doctor with his satchel
Of uselessness. Two weeks
Or longer. It’s the hard
Measles.

Two infant boys born before my father
Died of it. They were both named
For their own father, an unlucky
Name as it turned out—he too would die
Young in a gunfight. They called my father
A different name. So names must
Matter. My own means Gift of God
According to my mother who never wanted
Such a daughter, one spotted
With original sin, who must be
Worried over, hot and sulky in the dark
Demanding one more chapter.
My father’s weary voice as Jim
Hides in the apple barrel
Listening for the thump of a peg leg.

Once a third of the tribes crawled
To the cooling waters where they expired.
I get better. A neighbor child
Loses smartness, burnt away in a conflagration
The way conifers on the mountain
Turned into ashy witches.

There’s such a thing as herd
Immunity. The few protected
By the many. How penguins huddle
Against weather, changing places constantly
For the good of all.

Age of enlightenment.
Lords of miracle: Lister, Pasteur,
Jenner, Finlay, Reed, Salk.

Yet in the forest where the children stray
The house of the witch still beckons,
People believe in angels, in green men from mars,
That evolution is a lie, that the moon is a hologram,
That science is a devil’s plot
Against the faith of conjecture.


Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.