SUREFIRE RECIPE

by Ángel de Saavedra, the 3rd Duke of Rivas (Spain, 1792–1865)

translation by Julie Steiner

Op-Comic: “The dangerous job of running with the former president” by Ward Sutton

Rarely crack a book—or don’t at all—

and keep your grasp of law at newbie level.

Be cocky. Without limit, lie and grovel

and get your callow self to the capital. 

Persuade some rag to host the views you scrawl;

become an ocean of extremist cavil,

and hone your way with words, which few can rival,

in coffeehouse or jingos’ meeting hall.

Get on the city council first, then slide

into the legislature, to finesse

your recognition at a steady rate.

Have no firm faith; just join whichever side

has greatest cause to hope they’ll meet success,

and soon you’ll see yourself the head of state.

RECETA SEGURA

por el Duque de Rivas, Ángel de Saavedra y Ramírez de Baquedano

Estudia poco o nada, y la carrera

acaba de abogado en estudiante,

vete, imberbe, a Madrid, y, petulante,

charla sin dique, estafa sin barrera.


Escribe en un periódico cualquiera;

de opiniones extremas sé el Atlante

y ensaya tu elocuencia relevante

en el café o en junta patriotera.


Primero concejal, y diputado

procura luego ser, que se consigue

tocando con destreza un buen registro;


no tengas fe ninguna, y ponte al lado


que esperanza mejor de éxito abrigue,

y pronto te verás primer ministro.

One of the plays written by poet and dramatist Ángel de Saavedra y Ramírez de Baquedano, the 3rd Duke of Rivas (Spain, 1792 – 1865) was the source of Francesco Maria Piave’s libretto for Verdi’s 1862 opera La forza del destino.

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.

THE FOOLS ON THE HILL

by Steven Kent

"'You have imprisoned our democracy': Inside Republicans' domination of Tennessee"

—The Guardian, April 5, 2024

Despite what y'all were taught in school,

Democracy is not that cool;

We merely use it as a tool

To institute one-party rule.

Folks come to Nashville, see our sights,

While up the hill we're locked in fights*

With Tennesseans claiming rights

They don't deserve now, by our lights.

Theocracy's the goal we've set,

And though we haven't reached it yet

The hour is coming, never fret.

Can't happen here? You wanna bet?

*The state capitol sits four blocks up from Lower Broadway, Nashville's busy tourist district.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer, musician, and resident of Nashville, Tennessee Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Journal of Formal Poetry, Light, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, and Snakeskin. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS

by Ann E. Wallace

The swift punishment brought down on Zooey Zephyr, a transgender lawmaker in Montana, began over words that others in American politics have used without hesitation or consequence: saying opponents have “blood” on their hands. The governor of Texas. A GOP congressman in Florida. A city councilwoman in Denver. Just in the past few years, they are among the elected officials who have chastised colleagues in government with the same pointed rhetoric almost word for word — accusing them of bearing responsibility for deaths — over everything from immigration policy to gun laws. None faced blowback, let alone retribution. But not Zephyr, who on Thursday began legislative exile after Montana Republicans barred her from the state House floor a week after saying those who voted to support a ban on gender-affirming care would have blood on their hands. —AP, April 27, 2023

This was her warning,

the cost of the ban 

on affirming healthcare 

for trans kids.

 

They would have blood

on their hands,

she said.

 

The words, or her body, labeled 

a breach of decorum,

they removed her,

silenced her voice

with a majority, 68 to 32. 

She may watch,

voiceless, may cast

her singular vote 

out of sight and from afar.

 

Hers is a body they do not want 

to see. And they do not want 

to hear about their own hand 

in doing harm, about the toll 

of bloody-handed legislation 

on kids, or on the adults 

like her who once were kids 

in need of votes and affirmation.

 

They removed her from their sight.

They will wash their hands 

with blood.

And her voice, 

it will grow stronger.

Ann E. Wallace is the Poet Laureate of Jersey City, New Jersey. Follow her on Twitter @annwlace409 or on Instagram @annwallace409.

ANTIQUES OR ARTIFACTS

by Carol Parris Krauss

by David Horsey

Some people like to comb the beach for gold coins, silver medals.

There’s an entire group of Civil War buffs who scan the fields
of Suffolk, traipse down to the marsh looking for mini-balls 
and musket pieces. You can purchase the luxury metal detector
for just over a hundred bucks plus shipping online. Artifacts. 

Webster defines the word as an item of cultural or historical interest. 
Pieces of who we were, the battles we chose. I know a man who 
has an entire room walled with knotty-pine shelves 
where he displays his Rebel buttons, Union canteens,
and the occasion dried-up timber rattler. His wife watches 
from the kitchen window as he walks the fallow fields 
with his robot arm shaking. Hours later, he comes inside
and grabs his iced tea. Two lemons. Plops down on the plaid couch
he inherited from Me-maw and begins to watch Live @ Five. 

Breaking news coming from Tennessee. How an entire building
seems to be jam-packed with artifacts. Old white antiques
hidden away in locked rooms. Secrets covered in a layer of dust.

Carol Parris Krauss loves to use vivid imagery. Her work is in One Art, The SC Review, Louisiana Literature, Broadkill Review, Story South, and Susurrus. She was recognized by the UVA press as a Best New Poet and her first book Just a Spit Down the Road was published by Kelsay.

TO THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS OF ARKANSAS

by Pepper Trail

Trying to appeal to your humanity after the actions you have taken, the words you have said, seems as futile an exercise as can be imagined, but still I would like to gather you in a room, let us say the sanctuary of a church, as I am sure you all consider yourselves Good Christians, and introduce you to my son and make you listen as he tells you how going through transition as a teenager saved his life, and have me tell you, no, it was not easy as a parent to understand and to know how best to help and how many talks we had and the tears that we shed and the love that was always in the room and the help and compassion that the doctors gave and what a delicate delicate thing is the soul of a young person going through such an experience and to say

How Dare You

impose your complete ignorance, your unknowing fear, your pathetic insecurity, your contemptible political calculations on these young people, the most vulnerable among us, and to tell you so that you cannot pretend not to know, that your law which makes compassion illegal, which outlaws informed medical care, will without doubt condemn transgender kids to death, will without doubt inflame hate and abuse of these gentle souls who harm no one, who are only seeking to heal themselves, to become whole, which is something that you, as long as you are disfigured by fear, ignorance, and merciless cruelty, can never be.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

WHY THEY DID WHAT THEY DID

by Lisa Vihos

It was a little over week ago today,
that legislators in Wisconsin gaveled in,
gaveled out. 17 seconds in which
they would not consider
the governor’s request.

During a deadly pandemic,
under a stay-at-home order,
how can we ask the citizens
of our fair state, to risk
their lives to vote?

Not only can we ask,
the legislators said,
we will demand, and gain
the support of our brethren
on the highest court in the land.

April 7, 2020, mark the record,
SCOTUS kicked Wisconsin
in the balls, under the bus,
out the window along with
12,000 absentee ballots

that could not be returned in time,
because they had not been received
in time, even though so many
had been requested by good
law-abiding folks way back in March.

No matter, we are closing down
this right, they said, knowing that
with only five of one hundred eighty
polling places open in Milwaukee,
they could effectively

suppress the vote. Because,
as the chief thief and narcissist
among them had pointed out—if ever
we should expand early voting
or voting by mail—“you’d never have
a Republican elected in this country
again.”  


Editor's note: screenshot of an April 14 tweet—

Lisa Vihos is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in numerous journals both print and online. Author of four chapbooks and editor of two anthologies, she is poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and an organizer for the world-wide movement, 100 Thousand Poets for Change. She lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

THE POWER OF WHITE MEN

by Ashley Green

Hours after the Alabama Senate voted late Tuesday to ban abortions in almost all circumstances — including in cases of rape and incest — women’s rights activists and abortion advocates said the decision to approve the nation’s strictest abortion measure has energized them. Knowing that the bill was designed to challenge Roe v. Wade, they are gearing up for the fight. The Senate’s approval of the legislation in a party-line 25-to-6 vote Tuesday sent it to Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk. . . . Ivey signed the law Wednesday.” —The Washington Post, May 15, 2019. Photo by Chris Aluka Berry/Reuters via Aljazeera, May 15, 2019.

Twenty-five fingers slide between
Alabama’s legs as the white, male
gaze of the white, male monster
searches Her face for panic.
Women can’t be trusted
drips from its twenty-five mouths
and its fifty corners upturn as its
red tape tongues wraps themselves
around Her body.
They pull Her toward the stench
of the past that blossoms
at the back of its throats.
Her sisters' cries
echo from the darkness
of the monster’s shared gut.
She can hear the dying
of Georgia, Kentucky and Ohio,
of Mississippi and Arkansas,
as each plummets backward
in time behind the teeth of
the white, male mouths
sitting on the white, male faces
of the white, male monsters
destroying the country.


Ashley Green is a Southern California writer, poet, and feminist.

YELP REVIEW: NORTH CAROLINA STATEHOUSE

by Jesse Bradley

Here, the sorest losers are a swarm
of wasps; they treat democracy
like a neck trickling with sweat.

With enough stings, your throat swells
until the protest dies
before it can leave your tongue.


J. Bradley is the winner of Five [Quarterly]'s 2015 e-chapbook contest for fiction.

TEXAS TAMPON MASSACRE

by Laura Bernstein

 

Someone let the women out again.
They’re wearing bras as masks,
cut peepholes in padded cups. Spanx
suctioned to their heads. They shoot
super plus tampons out of applicators,
a whole sky of tampons lands
like thick icing on the layered Texas
Capitol building floors. Congressmen
hide behind suitcases, knees locked.
Can’t we work this out? they stutter.
But the women are ruthless,
keep shooting up, aim for the ceiling’s 
gold star. How the mighty men have fallen,
they’re all falling, tripping on strings
gasping for air as tampon shrapnel
blasts through men’s throats. Troops
of Cub Scout tourists shrivel behind
their den leader. This is why we don’t
let women lead, he urges the boys,
the boys nod, journal notes.
But there’s hope. A brave senator,
spackled in a fancy suit-loafer-tie combo
goes unnoticed behind a column. Drops
his trousers and starts loading up.
He prepares to defeat sperm-shaped cotton
with sperm-shaped sperm, will shoot
and shoot until all women are defeated.
He preps for battle. As he waits to dominate
and finish them off, his foot steps
on a bright pink wrapper—gives away
his location. He clenches his cock as the women
take note of his presence. They lunge
toward him, chant high-pitched screams,
thrust tampon boxes to his head. Drop
the gun, or we’ll bleed.

Laura Bernstein is an MFA candidate at Rutgers University, Camden. She lives in Bucks County, PA with her husband and daughter.