LIKE WHEN THEY TRY TO SLASH MEDICAID, ETC

by Lynne Schilling

          After Al Ortolani

Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri and a member of the Freedom Caucus, said it was “inappropriate” for Republicans to say that they “aren’t going to touch” Medicaid — a phrase that Mr. Trump has used — and then “leave all that fraud in the system.” He suggested that provider taxes, which states use to offset their portion of the cost of Medicaid, were a form of “fraud” that he would want to eliminate. —The New York Times, May 29, 2025. AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Protected by the roof of the porch, a robin has tucked her
nest on top of the artificial spring wreath hung on the front 
door, with easy access to grass and flowers and oak tress—
 
showing she knows something about location, location, location
in picking real estate. But when the door swings open, she flies
flustered from the nest, fussing nearby until the door closes.
 
It’s like finding the foundation underneath the kids’ bedroom 
is cracked. Like attempting to eat cherry ice cream on a steamy 
afternoon in a cone that has a hole in the bottom, or trying 
 
to drink a cup of scalding coffee on a train when it lurches. 
It’s like believing your child is safe because she is American 
born, only to see her swept up by ICE and sent to Honduras. 
 
Mothers need to be flexible, but there are so many openings 
to peril, so many teeth in the mouth of despair. They might tie 
themselves in knots, but even the most agile can’t block it all.

Lynne Schilling has published poems in Quartet, The Alchemy Spoon, Rue Scribe, Braided Way Magazine and others. She won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest for her poem, “Prayers I Wish I’d Uttered When Forced to Pray Aloud in Fifth Grade.”

THE SUPREME ABORTION

by Lavinia Kumar 

Supreme Court says it can’t determine who leaked draft Dobbs opinion. 

—The Washington Post, January 20, 2023

No one

Confessed or squealed

The babe was dripped, not leaked.

Did the French letter have a hole?

Don’t tell.

 

In Court,

No leak of Roe—

No trust in settled law.

Was the IUD aborted?

Don’t tell.

 

The pill’s

Bitter poison

Sure to gag young women.

The law’s cold still-birth not controlled?

Don’t tell.

Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is Spirited American Women: Early Writers, Artists, & Activists—very short prose of near 90 amazing women writers, poets, publishers, painters, artists, abolitionists, early suffragettes, and activists.

WE ARE ALL IN THE GUTTER, BUT SOME OF US ARE LOOKING AT THE STARS OF INFOWARS

by Julie Steiner

Sandy Hook parents' lawyer says Alex Jones' phone leak contains 'intimate messages with Roger Stone' —Business Insider, August 5, 2022

Though “intimate” (you naughty thing)

need not mean "prurient,"

that word makes certain thoughts take wing

along a vulgar bent.

Your conscience frowns and shakes her head.

Although she’s tsked and clucked,

you hope these bad boys’ texts, when read,

show both completely fucked.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.

HIS ABORTION POEM

by Dick Altman

Source: “Abortion” by John Bartlow Martin from the May 20, 1961, issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

he’s the golden boy

of parent/teacher/friend

the boy wanted on everyone’s side

the scholarship boy

the grad school boy

the golden boy

who in that familiar moment

of uncontrolled/youthful rapture

watches his golden prospects

for the future turn to dross

                      *

the Viet Nam draft

breathes down his neck

he still hasn’t found a job

(too educated, he’s told)

he’s not married

(though one day he will

marry the woman

he impregnated)

they are neither ready to marry

nor ready to have/support children

abortion is illegal

Roe vs. Wade is nowhere in sight

                       *

he reaches out to his composer father

who reaches out to friends

in the music business

an address and phone number

in Harlem surfaces

no names/no receipts

the golden boy borrows

from his father enough cash

to pay for a semester of college

the young couple agree

this is their only alternative

they discuss their mutual anxiety

she—they agree—must make

the decision

                         *

they never talk about what exactly

took place on the fourth floor

of the Harlem walk-up

she’s bleeding profusely by bed time—

in the emergency room by next morning

a spontaneous abortion the doctor calls it

knowing it wasn’t

whatever made the embryo abort

likely ended her/their prospects

of ever having children

Roe vs. Wade would not be decided

for another nine years

Politico’s revelation the Supreme Court

may overturn the decision

shatters him to tears

 

Dick Altman writes from New Mexico. His work has been widely published in the United States and beyond.

HOW TO HANDLE A LEAK

by Ann E. Wallace

My daughters and I live in a leaky 

old house. The three of us have 

learned how to handle a plumbing 

emergency, to spring into action, 

sop up the mess, cut the water lines,

track the source, mend the seams.

 

This is what women do.

We live in bodies that bleed,

are vulnerable, that give life 

but also betray, and we have 

passed down the fortitude 

to handle leaks and other messes. 

There is wisdom in our living, 

and we know how to act 

when a leak is sprung, exposing 

the ill intentions of those 

who do not live in our bodies, 

those who spout 

outrage at the egregious 

betrayal—as if they know 

what betrayal is—of being 

caught with the pipe cutters 

in their bloody hands.

 

As they sputter and point fingers, 

we—the women—are gathering 

our tools, our rage, and our ballots, 

like we have so many times before, 

ready to fight for our freedom.

Ann E. Wallace is a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey. Follow her on Twitter @annwlace409 or on Instagram @annwallacephd.com.

IN STATES OF SUSPENSION (& HOPE) :: OF LEAKS, TWEAKS, & BREACH

by Jen Schneider

amidst stunned

states & stunning

breaches

 

alongside

whispers 

turned quakes

 

& leaks 

turned looks

 

that suggest pens

both feared 

and feathered

 

have chosen a line

on which to claim 

their fight

 

            stains 

                        stomps           

squashes 

states 

   rights

 

one can pray (in spaces

of religious neutrality)

 

that the ink 

blot will be contained

           

stains 

                        stomps 

squashes 

            states 

   rights

& that the breaking

news is merely 

a sign of the times

 

turbulence

amidst days 

heavy of bait

 

            stains 

                        stomps 

squashes 

            states 

   rights

 

rather than

an alert  

of the (dark) ages

& finalized pages

 

            so that fifty years

 

of reproductive rights

remains on & of books 

produced

with no breaks

 

stitched tight

not of patchwork

but of federal right

 

& of plights

with no turns

 

& of nights

with no detours

 

& ideologies

remain unstamped

 

in sacred (politically

neutral) spaces

of individual (personally

critical) places

 

            of individual

rights

 

before

the ink dries

 

hope resists

            & remains      

resolute

 

that quakes  

settle 

& reproductive 

freedom

 

persists

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

THE FIELD, SOMETHING BORES INTO IT

by Alejandro Escudé

Cover of the 2007 Washington Life feature on the Russian diplomatic compound in Maryland.

The columns are grandiose on the Maryland estate.
Green, greener, and inside, a more Russian Russia,
clean as Vodka, cleaner, and by right, legal. So,
in dark suits, dense cologne, diplomats walk over
‘welcome home’ mats to leave, ousted. The intelligence
apparatus hides in a piece of cake, a delicious cake too.
Something stalks the field, something bores into it,
a veiled screw, a bullet hole in the back but no blood,
a bloodless hole, that is the internet, a leak-less leak.

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.

ARS POETICA

by Megan Collins

Trivia Weatherspoon takes a photo of the mural depicting Alton Sterling following a July 7 prayer service and vigil at Triple S Food Mart where Sterling was shot and killed by Baton Rouge Police in the early hours of July 5. —The New Orleans Advocate, July 6, 2016. Advocate staff photo by HILARY SCHEINUK.

I don’t have a poem in me
for Alton Sterling.
I don’t want to write
how they laid out his body
like one in a coffin
before they even shot him.

I’m sick of stanzas
and what it takes
to build them.
The Italian for room,
yet they cannot house
the living or the dead,
can’t keep people safe
when the locks on their doors
are only words.

Look how these walls
tremble. See how the lines
never line up,
how they cannot be stacked
like men
and women
in the seasick belly
of a ship.

Look how the waves
keep surging,
how the water still gets in.
It doesn’t matter
how tightly
I craft my language
or if my metaphor
is mixed—
there’s no proper seal
in a sentence; there’s no one
these rooms can save.

Even now, at the close
of what I’ve written,
see how much I’ve already failed him—
how the end of this poem
is only a period
when it should be an infinite scream.

Megan Collins holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. She teaches creative writing at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Central Connecticut State University. She is also Senior Poetry Editor of 3Elements Review. Her work has appeared in many journals, including Linebreak, Off the Coast, Rattle, Spillway, and Tinderbox.

SALLY SELLS WHAT SHE SELLS OFFSHORE

by Paul Smith






Sally sold seashells by the seashore
Now Sally sells tax shelters offshore
To shills
From Iceland to Russia to Singapore
To anyone who wants to get their foot
Out the door
Of wherever they are
Into an Octopus’s Garden
As snug and quiet as the ocean floor
Sally’s Pa’s from Panama
Sally’s Ma’s from Panama
Sally’s Pa and Ma from Panama
Showed Sally how she could
Dodge the law
And make an easy dollar
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Maritime bunco
Where the trade winds blow
But one unhappy sailor
Who was sore at Sally’s sharpies
Blew the whistle on her
I swear it’s true
Your Honor!
Now
Sally’s seeking shelter
She’s swimming helter-skelter
From the law of every country
With a seashore and a lawyer

Paul Smith lives near Chicago.  He writes fiction & poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

THE PERSONA POEM HOLDS AN EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE REGARDING ITS LEAKED NUDES

by J. Bradley

Male Nude by Roz McQuillan

You’re jealous of the way I make
an empty bottle of merlot a bearskin rug,
how the crook of my tongue incites stampedes.

You’re designed for, fueled by pollution.
You require the excuse of a god to shed sin,
then wag your fingers like thrown stones.

Please, pick up your jaws.
You’ll catch open jean flies that way.


J. Bradley is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominated writer whose work has appeared in numerous literary journals including decomP, Hobart, and Prairie Schooner. He was the Interviews Editor of PANK, the Flash Fiction Editor of NAP, and the Web Editor of Monkeybicycle. He is the author of the poetry collection Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books, 2009), the novella Bodies Made of Smoke (HOUSEFIRE, 2012), and the graphic poetry collection The Bones of Us (YesYes Books, 2014), illustrated by Adam Scott Mazer. He is the curator of the Central Florida reading series There Will Be Words.

A SNOWDEN SIGHTING

by Rick Gray

I don't know who I'm betraying, my TV doesn't work, 
but I must confess I saw Ed Snowden yesterday
on Chicken Street in Kabul.

It was only a glimpse
from the cracked, glaring window of a coughing taxi
near a dangling, pine-scented Quranic quote

but I'm certain it was him.
He was clutching a naked chicken over a laptop
and had the hunted look of a refugee

sort of like everyone in town
sort of like me
maybe that's why I couldn't help waving

and maybe that's why he nodded back
in the secretive, American way of those
gone to ground

and searching for a cheap hotel room
to spend the rest of your life
not going crazy in.

You've been a bad boy, Ed.
Me too, though in a less Boozy way.
So when all this toxic dust settles

which you will soon learn the UN calls "fecal matter"
let's get together at an undisclosed location and
shoot the shit.

I encourage you to let the postmodern goatee grow primitive,
and ditch those glasses. They are as deadly here as a square Humvee.
I'll teach you everything like a big brother

though you probably don't like Big Brother
call me whatever you want
I'm just another one who fell

between the new, prismatic cracks
and am searching for the old rainbow of
friendship untapped.


Rick Gray served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. He was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie, and has an essay that will be appearing in the forthcoming book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. When not in Kabul, he lives with his wife Ghizlane and twin daughters Rania and Maria in Florida.