WALKING THE DOG IN OCTOBER WITH POLICE SIRENS

by Al Ortolani

AI-generated video by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

See how the past is not finished

here in the present

                             —WS Merwin

 

Dog, it is not a good time to run off leash.

There is an air of crises behind the wind.

 

Masked agents rip a former student from her children.

She disappears into phone calls from Guatemala. 

 

The President dumps imaginary shit from a jet fighter

and calls it humor. Tonight, 

 

there are more questions than answers.

We listen to the sirens beyond the rooftops, 

 

behind the strip malls and blinking stop lights.

The oaks gasp in the change of seasons.

 

Some nights I imagine the leaves wailing

as they lose their grip and fall.

Al Ortolani, a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize, has been featured in the Writer’s Almanac, the American Life in Poetry, and Poetry Town. He’s a contributing editor to the Chiron Review. Recently, his poems have appeared in Rattle, The Midwest Quarterly, One Art, and the Pithead Chapel.

GATHERING FOR OUR CAVE SOON

by Jerrice J Baptiste

"Justice in the Trump Era" by Nick Anderson

Unfettered and Unaccountable: 

How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force —ProPublica, October 18, 2025

Yesterday, the autumn wind almost blew 
me away. If I were thirty pounds lighter 
like I’ve always wanted, I would’ve joined 

leaves in the lake. I savor figs, dried plums,
mango slices we share together in the royal 
blue ceramic bowl, you gifted for my birthday

in April. And much time has passed and we need 
to gather dried berries and nuts like our friends 
the squirrels and rabbits. We will need to eat only 

one of each roasted almond, white cashew, walnut
at a time. Under the crumpled sapphire-colored 
blanket we will hide flat on our backs in the black 

onyx night, in the cave we will build. Silence, Silence 
and the goddess Artemis will protect us vulnerable 
women and children. We will quickly hush, hush
  
like kindergarteners at play with shadow puppets when 
adults enter a room. Whoever is searching won’t find 
us, when their heavy boots enter our cave, their hands 

shining light in each corner. Artemis will make us
invisible. Now the winds of autumn pick up speed. 
It is a brewing noise of citizens, and leaves. 

Can you hear what’s churning?  Do you feel 
the urgency of the people? The collective shouting, 
shouting, shouting, and not just a handful.  Let us 

gather, gather our portions soon and build our caves. 
Noise increases, increases loud firecrackers. Are you 
the poets who are not afraid of the bombs?

Jerrice J Baptiste is a poet, educator and facilitator of poetry for healing and self-expression. Her new book of prose poems is titled Coral in the Diaspora published by Abode Press (August 2024).  Her writing has been published and is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Artemis Journal, Urthona Buddhism and Art Magazine, The Dewdrop, Shambhala Times, The Yale Review, Wax Poetry & Art, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Mantis, Penumbra Literary & Art Journal, The Banyan Review, Kosmos Journal, Silver Birch Press, and many others. Her collaborative songwriting and poetry are featured on the Grammy-nominated album Many Hands Family Music for Haïti. 

GREEN

by John Minczeski

On the news feed this morning,

on my phone’s small screen, two

children shot dead at morning Mass

before school. Others wounded

before the shooter turned the gun

on himself. Pardon me, readers,

this is not a poem, 

I must follow Adorno’s 

dictum. And yet, how refuse 

the poem, however prosaic

and filled with reportage. How,

gentle reader, can I look at the tree

in my front window, the one 

thinking of turning yellow,

that just yesterday made me think

life and beauty fill the same page.

This is not a poem, it is an outrage.

Twenty minutes from here,

maybe twenty five from my toast

and eggs sunny side up, the dead

and wounded children. Like ones

I taught in my career, whose eyes 

brightened with poems. 

A few clouds punctuate the sky. 

My younger brother has arrived

in Wyoming to drive my reclusive

older brother to California.

This is not a poem, it is a window

to my older brother so taken

with the beauty of the Tetons

he tried killing himself. At the end

of King Kong, a guy says it was

beauty that killed the beast. 

Therefore two brothers are in a car

driving west to a new normal,

and children with head wounds

are being treated at Hennepin General.

This is not a poem, this is a treatise

on teaching theodicy to six year olds.

This is me looking out the window

watching wind flip the leaves.

The green, the verde, que te quiero

verde of Lorca. Green leaves,

green children, que te quiero.

 

John Minczeski is the author of five collections as well as several chapbooks. His poems have appeared  previously in NVN as well as The New Yorker, The Harvard Review, and elsewhere. Minczeski worked as a poet in the schools for many years, and has taught at various colleges and universities around the Twin Cities. He served as president of the board for The Loft Literary Center when it was on the second floor of a bookshop in the Dinkytown area of Minneapolis.

SIRENS IN THE DISTANCE

by Nancy Byrne Iannucci

Drought has parched the Northeast U.S. for weeks, draining reservoirs, priming the landscape for damaging wildfires and pushing politicians to implement water-saving measures. More than 58% of the Northeast is in moderate drought or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. —NBC News, November 15, 2024. Photo: The Jennings Creek Wildfire burning behind homes in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., on Nov. 10. Credit: Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

In the name of the Bee —
And of the Butterfly —
And of the Breeze — Amen!  

—Emily Dickinson, "The gentian weaves her fringes"

                                                       

The rustling leaves 
sound more like abandonment
to me now than the innocence of autumn.
 
Tumbleweed has traveled from the West,
kicking up dust in foreign streets,
making me squint like Clint
 
in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
this time, I’m convinced,
it’s the Devil breathing,
 
tempting Grandma Moses’s
rolling fields of matchsticks
to give him just one spark.
 
I think the phrase, hell on Earth,
has been said too many times,
our words have become
 
a self-fulfilling prophecy.
the bees have warned us. 
the rains in Spain have explained
 
why Whitman’s grass is dead
and Kimmerer’s sweetgrass
 won’t braid, and now,  
 
the Earth is responding
in sirens, sirens blaring,
blaring in the distance
 
getting closer
and even closer,
are we listening now?

 
Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a librarian and poet who lives with her two cats: Nash and Emily Dickinson.  THRUSH Poetry Journal, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Eunoia, Maudlin House, San Pedro River Review, 34 Orchard, Bending Genres, and Typehouse, are some places you will find her. She is the author of four chapbooks, Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021), Primitive Prayer (Plan B Press, fall 2022), and Hummingbirds and Cigarettes ( Bottlecap Press, 2024). Instagram: @nancybyrneiannucci

CRISIS AT THE HEDGES

by Lisa Seidenberg

In my town they dislike the falling leaves.

Taking up real estate reserved

for pristine green lawns

And tenderly tended flowerbeds.

Crossing borders in disheveled groups,

no respect for property lines,

or the privileged space of fenced-off estates.

Who are they—these usurpers?

Where did they come from?

Spending the day lounging in the sun

as if they had nowhere to go.

Can’t they apply for residency

like proper foliage?

I watch with satisfaction as armies 

of landscapers chase them 

with their high-powered blowers

Into waiting trucks and vans

to be hauled away and out of sight.

Thankfully, the workers, 

most of whom are immigrants,

are there to take care of the problem.

Lisa Seidenberg is a writer and filmmaker residing in coastal Connecticut where there has been a noticeable influx of leaves falling this Autumn, due to the lack of rain. Her recent writing has appeared in Gyroscope Review, Atticus Review, Asymptote Journal, The NewVerseNews, One Art: A Journal of Poetry. She is currently a peer poetry reviewer for Whale Road Review.

ELECTION DAY

by Mervyn Taylor

The park outside my window
hasn't changed,  except for
the trees losing their leaves

so now I can see clear down
to the lake, the number on
a green jersey running by.

It's election day, early lines
headed to the polls. No one
knows as yet that the villain 

will win, that in spite of all
the ugliness, the terrible 
promises they intend to keep,

he and his cronies will sweep
their way back to Pennsylvania 
Avenue, will make good their

threats. But it hasn't happened
yet. It's still morning, and men
in the park are busy keeping

the leaves from spreading,
the trees having shed so 
fast, I can see someone 

curled up and crying 
alone on a bench
all the way from here.

Mervyn Taylor is the author of nine full-length collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Getting Through: New & Selected (2024) from Beltway Editions. Trinidadian by birth, and a longtime Brooklyn resident, his poems link both places, like a steel band in Prospect Park, the location of this poem. Retired from teaching, Taylor also works in assemblage, and Carnival arts. 

FAYE’S INAUGURATION

by Anayo Dioha

Just over two weeks ago, Bassirou Diomaye Faye was a little-known opposition leader languishing in jail, detained without trial on charges including inciting insurrection, who had never held elected office. One week ago, he defeated the governing party's candidate, Amadou Ba, in the country's presidential election, winning 54% in the first round. On Tuesday, the 44-year-old has been sworn in as the fifth president of Senegal, becoming Africa's youngest elected head of state. In a region where a large majority of the population are under 30, his victory offers hope to those young people frustrated by a lack of economic opportunities, with old elites seemingly clinging to power. —BBC, April 2, 2024

Rotten roots from decades past

Sinking deeper. Branches

Decaying, falling apart

Into their rancorous unrest

From this foisted tree of shrouded

Democracy.

Evergreen leaves pruned, trampled

Black, mutilated barks

Of overburdened trunk and branches

Bearing colonial scars and fresh bruises.

The rape, the loot; plagues and

Persecutions–the tale of many

Dark cities.

But look! A spark ignites in Dakar!

An ecdysis seems in progress.

This bloom just may smile

At the sky; it could be left to bask

In the sun.

But how will it fare around the pack

Of predators gathered at the lounge—

The inauguration lounge?

 

Anayo Dioha is a Nigerian and has been previously published in The New Verse News.

THE IN-BETWEEN

by Kathy Conway

For a month, we’ve noticed 

tender green sprouts—

too early not to freeze or

be trampled, often poking

out of dried-brown leaves 

of last fall. Do you hear

their crinkle in

the breeze? 

On our walks, we’ve created 

a game—are they crocus, 

jonquils, tips of hosta? We’ve 

savored forsythia and lilac buds, 

the red tint of oaks, the pale 

green of maples. 

I have always loved early 

Spring’s pops of color, signs

of growth and new life to come;

births and passings of loved 

ones, of this year’s departed 

and a yet-to-be-born

grand-nephew.

This spring, we also have the brown 

water of floods and mudslides, 

the yellow and red flames of fire, 

leaving grey-black ash and debris

in war zones—Ukraine, Gaza, 

Haiti. And the orange man—I’ll 

not use his name—threatening 

a bloodbath.

Kathy Conway lives and writes in New England and is increasingly frustrated with the state of the world.

WINTER RUBBLE

by Susan Kay Anderson

New leaves strive

to take the place

of blossoms

even if they 

don't bear fruit

there are

so many flowers

hanging above

the cold ground down down

winter's tomb

tomorrow's rooftop.  

 

The foreign countrymen spray

into the pushing crowd

marking where the land       breaks       faces

cheeks        eyes        mouths

 

weeds needing killing.  Pulling.  Before sunset.

Rolling    razor wire  

someday we’ll be sitting

at a table remembering  how

saying why.

Susan Kay Anderson lives in southwestern Oregon’s Umpqua River Basin. Her long poem "Man’s West Once” was selected for Barrow Street Journal’s “4 X 2 Project” and is included in Mezzanine (2019). Anderson also published Virginia Brautigan Aste’s memoir Please Plant This Book Coast To Coast (2021).

ODE TO THE HONEY LOCUST

by Therese Gleason

With a line from “All Hallows” by Louise Glück (1943-2023)

I want to write a poem about autumn 
that doesn’t decay 
and stink on impact.
I want to write a poem about the beauty
of small children (whose shoelaces flap
and sneakers slap 
asphalt) that doesn’t reek 
of sweetness. 
All I can offer is a dispatch
from a mid-October recess in central Mass., 
the sky scrubbed squeaky
by an overnight rainstorm,
where kindergarteners skip and whoop
as the wind picks up, pointing to heaven
as the tall honey locust drops
its shower of gold: spiraling eddies 
that drift slowly, softly onto cracked concrete.
The bulky apartment complex next door peeps 
between ragged bushes and chain link
as I holler at a child to come down the hill, away 
from the edge of the dark wood
where scattered syringes linger 
in the barrenness of harvest or pestilence:
our playground tree a site of life
and death, both honey and locust, feast 
and famine. We found a dead mouse 
beneath its fraying canopy
last week. I stood astride the carcass 
swatting curious fingers seeking to probe
its torn side buzzing with flies, its tiny 
bared teeth—and in an instant 
I remember the sickening bump 
under my back left tire, a raccoon
on a dark road, how I honked and swerved,
too late… I can’t forget its wobbly tromp, 
its eyes blinded by my headlights 
before I rendered it dead meat—
I feel a tug like grief, like a small hand
at my sweater’s hem, and look down
into cupped palms brimming 
with tattered gold leaves.

Therese Gleason is author of three chapbooks: Hemicrania (forthcoming, Chestnut Review, 2024); Matrilineal (Honorable Mention, 2022 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize, New England Poetry Club); and Libation (co-winner, 2006 South Carolina Poetry Initiative Competition, selected by Kwame Dawes). Her poems appear in 32 Poems, Indiana Review, New Ohio Review, Notre Dame Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. Originally from Louisville, KY, she is an adjunct creative writing instructor at Clark University and an ESL teacher in the Worcester Public Schools.