THE MAINE EVENT

by Steven Kent

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

"Platner Suspends Senate Bid in Maine After Rape Accusation" —The New York Times, July 8, 2026

A Dem is out, and rightly so.

How very, very different, though,

The whole affair would surely be

If he were in the GOP—

He'd say she lied re: the event

And then he'd run for President.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books. 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RELEASES AMERICA’S 250TH BIRTHDAY SONG

by Chad Parenteau 

Cartoon by Gary Huck

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From good [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]

From [REDACTED]

[REDACTED] good [REDACTED]

[REDACTED] happiness [REDACTED]

 

Happy [REDACTED]

Squashed [REDACTED]

[REDACTED] in the gutter

Happy [REDACTED]

 

Happy [REDACTED]

You live [REDACTED]

You look [REDACTED]

[REDACTED] you smell [REDACTED]

 

How [REDACTED]

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Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Crossroads, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Rye Whiskey Review, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Reviewand The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston. 

…BUT ‘TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY

by Philip Kitcher

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

"Our excursion delivered a world-changing win!"—

will it also uncover the limits of spin,

as the faithful besotted are forced to conclude

they've been conned for too long, and their emperor's nude?

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

HE ARRIVED JUST IN THE NICOTINE

by Steven Kent

Source: Artlyst

"David Hockney's lifelong love of smoking—and the 2,000 cigarettes he kept 'for emergencies'" —The Guardian, June 13, 2026

The docs predicted early death each time they made their rounds,

But he outlived 'em one by one—the irony abounds.

How did it take so long for David Hockney to expire?

No matter: Still his spirit lives, for where there's smoke there's fire.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books. 

AI SAID

by Rochelle Owens

 

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

 

Damon Runyon had a bunion   
AI said eat half an onion the other half
is for the bunion

Edgar Allen Poe herpes blister
on the toe AI said Mister Poe you did
the nasty with a hoe herpes blister
on the toe

Percy Bysshe Shelley bite marks
on the belly AI said to be or not be
smelly Shelley bite marks
on the belly

John Keats tits or teats
thinner or fatter what does it matter
AI said poetry is alive John Keats
is dead at twenty-five

 

 

Rochelle Owens was part of the 1950s Beat scene in Greenwich Village as well as the early ethnopoetics movement,and eventually became involved with the start of the St. Marks Poetry Project and Deux Megot reading series. Known as one of the pioneers of experimental off-off-Broadway theater, Owens has written several plays that have been cited for their imagination, innovative language, and controversial themes. In 1969, her first play Futz was made into a film, and her plays have been presented worldwide. A recipient of five Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle, Owens has published over a dozen books of poetry and received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio Center), among others.   

COMMON-TATER COMMENTATOR

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

A book-keeper whose boss repeatedly shouted the word "potato" at her "in a strong Irish accent" has been awarded more than £23,000 by an employment tribunal after it found she had been racially harassed. —BBC, March 11,2026

Potato is

The racial slur

An Irish Ms

Got hurled at her

Repeatedly:

Her spud-brained boss

Turned out to be

An albatross.

But Bernadette,

Though sore abashed,

Refused to let

Her worth get mashed

And went to court.

Now judgment's sealed.

Long story short:

His spud got peeled!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly, and several other journals. In 2025 he won the Children's Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud.

TONIGHT WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1939

by Steven Kent

UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration's demand for “lists of Jews” —The Guardian, January 13, 2026

At U of Penn, who's in the Tribe?

The whole thing has a 30s vibe:

Demand a list, some names get crossed—

Say, how much does a Holocaust?

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.p

THE WOMEN

by Eileen Ivey Sirota

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

David Marcus of Fox News warned that “organized gangs of wine moms” are using “Antifa tactics to harass and impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.”  —Fox News, January 11, 2026

roving gangs of wine women

terrorize my neighborhood

brandishing corkscrews

and Prosecco

weirdly disrespectful

they have book club paperbacks

under their arms

multi syllabic words 

on their glossy lips

with their illegal varietals 

and their unlicensed vaginas

they imagine they could

turn back regiments

make the world safe

for children

Eileen Ivey Sirota is a psychotherapist, poet, and potter.  Her poems have appeared in Calyx, District Lines, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Voices: Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists, NewVerseNews, Ekphrastic Review, Lighten Up Online and elsewhere.  Her first chapbook, Out of Order, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.   Having been raised in a family of political junkies and activists in the Washington DC area, political and cultural issues infuse her poetry.  She lives in Bethesda, Maryland where she alternates between sputtering outrage and gob smacked wonder. Her latest book Watching from the Bleachers (Finishing Line Press, 2024) unites these two tendencies.

A NOTE FROM US

by Marshall Begel

Art by Ann Telnaes

We hope Venezuelans will value the respite
that comes from abducting your self-serving despot.
We, too, love our country and venture to save her—
so, won't you consider returning the favor?

Marshall Begel became a serious poetry hobbyist when he found that bad jokes are better received when presented in meter and rhyme. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin and has had many pieces in the journals Light and Lighten Up Online.

LOST HIGHWAY

by Steven Kent

It will not be an easy process [to rename streets called after Prince Andrew]. Details on residents’ bank accounts, credit cards, driving licenses, utility bills, property deeds, even pet microchips, will have to change, as will business letterheads and cards. —The Guardian, November 29, 2025

The cost is high to change a roadway's name,

But those which honor Andy (some now claim)

Should be rechristened, each and every mile,

To spare us walking single-pedophile.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.

LOGIC DOWN THE DRAIN

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Burcu Yesilyurt said enforcement officers told her it was illegal to dispose of the remnants of her coffee in a road gully. —BBC, October 22, 2025

The morning joe

That you don't drink,

At home, will flow

Down through your sink

To later meet

The coffee poured

Straight down a street-

Drain when you board

Your bus. Their slime

Pollutes the same,

But one's a crime,

One gets no blame...

The law's designs

Are out of bounds—

For coffee fines,

There are no grounds!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly, and other journals.

DOGE ORDER—LAST ONE OUT

by John Stickney

Will the last immigrant out
please sweep their cage
and turn out the lights
(another 1 Billion in savings!)
on their way to 
their rendition flight

Please think 
of the children 
expecting 
a clean 
and
empty cage

John Stickney is a poet and writer, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, who currently resides in Denver, NC.

COFFEE ROBUSTA

by Marshall Begel

"[researchers] found that drinking three cups of coffee each day could extend one's healthspan—or time spent without serious illness or disabilities of aging—by approximately 1.84 years." —Men’s Journal, December 25, 2024

No longer vegetarian, no longer gluten-free,
My menu has expanded to cuisine from A to Z.
Because of this elixir made from caffeinated beans,
No longer am I mandated to bitter salad greens.

I've given up the treadmill, no more sit-ups on the floor.
The gym's athletic trainer doesn't own me anymore.
The benefits of exercise are matched by substitution
With remedies contained within this silky brown solution.

So whether it's espresso, or a Mr. Coffee drip,
You'll feel your health improving after each delicious sip,
And you can count the life extending benefits you'll reap
While staring at the ceiling when your spouse is fast asleep.

Marshall Begel lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He has several pieces in Light and Lighten Up Online.

TRASH OF THE TITANS

by Steven Kent

Elon gladly goes where he goes—

Wait until these mammoth egos

Clash, two bigmouth bros turned bitter,

Trading shots on Truth and Twitter.

Point of fact: They're both a bore, so

One we loathe, the other more so.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

THE COMEBACK KID

by Marshall Begel

Figure skater Alysa Liu, seen here at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, is to come out of retirement and return to competition.

The years since my retirement

Have left me unfulfilled—

Not meeting the requirement

For one uniquely skilled.

My body's manifested change

Since I was in my prime.

Returning to a decent range

Would be an uphill climb.

But I will muster up support—

Ambition? I have plenty.

But time to shine is running short,

For soon, I'm turning twenty!

Marshall Begel lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He has several pieces in Light and Lighten Up Online.