BLANK PAGE

by Jocelyn Ajami

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

After Francesca Albanese’s U.N. report on
               “Genocide as Colonial Erasure”

a poem’s lines ripple 
like ridges of ancient sands

couplets ring fervent notes
a distant hand intrudes

unfamiliar chimes
the new timbre

incongruent to the tone
it clips the old refrains

although the verse lingers
it is never free 

the fitful hand scrubs lines
slowly mutilating the structure

gobbling vowels and vows
nothing satisfies its lust

the poem still has claws
but no wings

clinging to its soil 

when battered lines shrill 

against white space, the hand races 

to delete remaining words

and proclaim erasure

a blank page all its own

Jocelyn Ajami is an award winning painter, filmmaker and poet. Jocelyn has received several awards for her films, Oasis of Peace, Gypsy Heart and Queen of the Gypsies. She turned to writing poetry in 2014 as a way of connecting more intimately with issues of social conscience and cultural awareness. She has been published in several anthologies of prize winning poems. Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, she speaks five languages and lives in Chicago, Illinois.

ON ART, LINES & EARTH(LINGS)

by Jen Schneider

in honor of James Longenbach (1959-2022)

“Hold the line, please,” the hospital operator says

and all i can think

/ while waiting, wondering, worrying

—mostly wanting

is this must be how poems get made

Longenbach teaches poetry as the sound 

of language (organized in lines)

while physicists teach sound as a type of pressure 

/ a wave & not physical matter 

& that non-physical matter can’t be held  

—but consumed / like a sunburn, a shooting star,

a child’s cry, a first kiss 

/ two people at the end of a dock

/ a gust of wind (of a sea) 

            i inhale / then try

            to hold the line

cup my palm / & imagine

            coiled elastic compressions

            

            pressure creases 

            shadow / then settle

i pull / the line pushes

            all springs (& senses) engaged

Longenbach writes on a poem’s life & death

in concerted arrangements of syllables / patterns 

broken or reinforced

/ line, meter, & rhyme all tools of construction 

/ danglers & run-ons distanced / some say decried

            

            i cry—unexpectedly / 

            poetry is like that / “the sound 

of language organized / in the line”

 

with punctuated breath & cupped palms, 

i consume syllabic beats 

for what feels like forever knowing forever 

is neither a state of physical matter nor finite

/ despite earthling’s desires / all spiral cords 

(& choruses) prone to tangle. all moons cyclical

 

The operator returns & says, “I’m sorry.

We can’t locate the clerk,” at the same time

an overhead speaker buzzes / sound waves press

i hear, “We can’t locate the lyric.”

—& hang up, wishing to continue to hold the line

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.

MAP MAKING

by Robin Wright

Draw lines that represent countries.

Go further, pen buildings

whole and firm, houses

with sunflowers, children’s toys

in the yard, bicycle leaning

against a tree, a bench in front

of a library. Populate with people

eating ice cream, strolling the streets.

 

Hold the map close.

 

Soldiers tear it away,

draw guns, tanks,

bodies on the ground

carpeted with blood,

crushed buildings,

landmines meant to erase.

 

Snatch it back,

ink blue sky, yellow sun

above people, buildings,

a child’s future.

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Bombfire Lit, One Art, Young Ravens Literary Review, Olney Magazine, As it Ought to Be, Rat’s Ass Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Muddy River Poetry Review, Sanctuary, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in October of 2020.

ANOTHER RAPID TEST

by Devon Balwit

The Biden Administration to Begin Distributing At-Home, Rapid COVID-⁠19 Tests to Americans for Free. Americans can order a test online HERE

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

But want to reassure, so swab away—

Another rapid test without a line.

 

The tests are nearly impossible to find.

We call around or treasure hunt all day.

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

 

We hide our coughs from those who’d mind.

But none of us can forego pay.

Another rapid test without a line.

 

The law now makes tests free—how kind—

but where to find them? Hunt and pray.

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

 

We’re three years into this new grind—

Vaccinated, boostered—the whole array.

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

Another rapid test without a line.

 

When not teaching, Devon Balwit chases chickens in Portland, OR. Her most recent collections are Rubbing Shoulders with the Greats [Seven Kitchens Press, 2020] and Dog-Walking in the Shadow of Pyongyang [Nixes Mate Books, 2021]. 

DRAWING THE NEW LINES

by Milton Jordan

The Biden administration sued Texas…to block its new congressional map, accusing the state of gerrymandering to shut out nonwhite people in violation of federal voting rights law. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the enforcement action at Justice Department headquarters, saying the redistricting plans Texas adopted in recent months “deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group.” The Dallas Morning News, December 6, 2021

The relentless repetition of lies

so soured the air that creation’s breathing

and the functions of our equipment falter

while once adequate systems repeat 

failures we had designed them to avoid.

Well practiced pretenders used just enough

bones and limbs from these dismantled structures

to obscure their exclusionary purpose

and deflect all critical review

of lines of demarcation to limit

participation to their chosen few.

Milton Jordan lives and writes with the musician Anne Elton Jordan in Georgetown, Texas.

LINES

by Diane Vogel Ferri

People lined up in their cars at a food distribution site in San Antonio, Tex., in April 2020.Credit...Credit: William Luther/The San Antonio Express-News, via Associated Press and The New York Times.

My wall calendar helps me to visualize

my life, the plans I hold dear, the people

I must see so they also see me

At first the lines were through the

scribbling on my calendar,  an oddity,

disappointing at most—a temporary month

Sometimes there were two lines,

an X-ing out, a permanent loss

I catalogued the failures in my journal

Then the lines were of standing humans

waiting to vote, car-lines of hungry children

waiting for the food school had denied them

lines circling the parking lots for tests,

lines at the border, lines at the shelters,

lines at the unemployment office,

lines in the streets to confront the wizard 

behind the curtain, asking when we will be normal? 

But he was a fraud, a canceler of science, of truth

Freedom was not taken by a government

freedom was not taken at all, only

innocent lives, their coffins in orderly lines

The lines are now for a miracle,

for we who are left, whose lives have not

been crossed out, who are free to live.

Diane Vogel Ferri is a teacher, poet, and writer living in Solon, Ohio. Her newest novel is No Life But This: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling. Her essays have been published in Scene Magazine, Raven’s Perch, Yellow Arrow Journal, and Good Works Review among others. Her poems can be found in numerous journals such as Wend Poetry, Her Words, Rubbertop Review, and Poet Lore. Her previous publications are Liquid Rubies (poetry), The Volume of Our Incongruity (poetry), The Desire Path (novel).

WHEEL OF FORTUNE

 by Mary K O’Melveny

“Vaccine Wheel of Fortune” by JMbucholtz at Deviant Art.

               In the Circle of Life

                    It's the wheel of fortune

                    It's the leap of faith

                    It's the band of hope

                    Till we find our place…

—“The Circle of Life” (Lyrics by Tim Rice)

No one wants to be the last woman down before the cure.

So everyone is staring at computer screens, leaning into

laptops, cradling cell phones. Legions of faithful vaccine

seekers are as determined as El Camino de Santiago pilgrims.

Or would-be buyers of Hamilton tickets back when Broadway

was still open.  There are waiting lists, rumors, promises.

Appointments made, then cancelled. Lines form, disband.

Recorded messages say don’t call us, we’ll call you.

 

Everyone is at risk. But not enough to be advanced to more

fortunate categories. We reside in data bases far and wide.

We’ve filled out forms as if they were lottery tickets, sent

every scrap of personal data to would-be hackers around

the globe, called doctors we’ve not seen in years, even searched

for fake college IDs that might jump us to new age brackets.

Some neighbors raced to appointments in neighborhoods they

had never seen, forgetting who the odds had already disfavored.

 

As usual, the privileged see serendipity. Everyone else

knows how often the game is rigged. Kismet is a figment.

The carnival barker is gone but his fabrications linger

like smoke from a cheap cigar. Even as chilled vials traverse

the highways like pilgrim caravans, new viral strains mutate,

shapeshift. Before all our waiting arms are raised, half a million

will likely die. So we click and call and cry for our chance

at good fortune. Once again, Lady Luck smiles, then disappoints.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

DEMOCRACY AS AN ACT

by Mary O’Melveny

Ardeth Platte, Dominican Nun and Antinuclear Activist, Dies at 84. Sister Ardeth spent years behind bars for her beliefs and was the inspiration for a character on the Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black. Photo: Sister Ardeth, left, and hr friend Sister Carol at the White House in 2019 protesting plans for a military base in Okinawa, Japan. —The New York Times, October 8, 2020

Who can say what lines cannot

be crossed? What laws must be obeyed?

Most days, it feels as though we

are all complicit in our world’s great ills.

 

Who can say how we will react

when guilt cannot be assuaged

in ways that “they” deem polite?

Safety in numbers does not always save.

 

I have wielded bolt cutters

and climbed cyclone fences to search

for a more peaceful planet.

They had to wash my blood from missile silos.

 

I wore white until orange

was chosen for me by others

who mistook my acts for threats.

Humility can flourish in many colors.

 

Who can say what bravery is?

I was just afraid we would

all expire from carelessness,

that we would disappoint by despairing.

 

I always loved my life here,

even strip searched and shackled.

My convictions were the dues

I paid to earn my right to be a truthteller.

 

Who can say how we best serve

as stewards of our earthly time?

I never judged others’ paths

but I knew my own footsteps were not enough.

 

In the end, we are all fellow

travelers trying to bend

the moral arc toward justice.

Who can say for sure that we will not succeed? 

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

GUMLINES, AMONG OTHERS

by Barbara Simmons

Build-up, they call it, the slow accretion colorless
at first. Later I guess you’d think my teeth had bathed
in egg yolk if I’d let it go that far. Especially if I were smiling today.
But today, I’m not thinking recession as in my gums, but as in
our economy, how the graphs display the V’s that look like troughs
not mountains. Feels too much like my slackline has no anchors,
that I’ll be eternally between, above, not able to begin or end. Reminds
me of those hemlines we called handkerchief, the 70’s loved them, I
loved them, made me feel that I was whirling standing still. More standing
still on stars or footprints or just blue tape lined up outside Target
or the post office, I’m wondering if last night’s dreams are still available,
shelved someplace, line forming here, I’d even pay for their retrieval. Lost
moments, lines breaking up. I’m back inside my mouth, imagining what they’ll
find after I’m beyond words. Not anything as artful as the lapus lazuli
the 1000-year old teeth held, medieval teeth, medieval scribe, medieval woman
breathing in the bright blue pigment, licking her brush while blue began
its residence in her mouth. What would my mouth hold—a piece of jasmine rice,
the inhalation of surprise and joy, the drupelets of a final raspberry, the
exhalation of all the lines I’d thought about and haven’t had a chance to write.

Barbara Simmons grew up in Boston, now resides in San Jose, California—the two coasts inform her poetry. A graduate of Wellesley College, she received an MA in The Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins. As a secondary school English teacher, she loved working with students who inspired her to think about the many ways we communicate. Retired, she savors smaller parts of life and language, exploring words as ways to remember, envision, celebrate, mourn, and, always, to try to understand more about being and living and expressing her identity and human-ity. Publications have included, among others, The Quince, Santa Clara Review, Hartskill Review, Boston Accent,  TheNewVerse.News, Soul-Lit, 300 Days of Sun, Capsule Stories: Isolation Edition and Perspectives on KQED, the NPR local affiliate. 

SHOPPING AT THE SUPERMARKET

by Gil Hoy

Shoppers appear to be lined up six feet apart outside a Market Basket in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on April 2, 2020, as the grocery store chain implements new social distancing guidelines. —nbc Boston

You don't want to be there, but your family has to eat.
Which is just the two of us now. I'm waiting and walking
in lines made from rope. Like the roped-off lines
we used to see on a busy day at Disney World
with the kids. Today's anticipation is different.
Just hungering for the food you need to survive.

It's my son's birthday today. He's studying to become a doctor.
Sitting in his room in a suddenly faraway State. He's learning
human anatomy on a computer. The half-dissected cadaver
in his school laboratory will simply have to wait. I worry about
him sitting there all alone.

A police officer is cautioning customers to stay at least
six feet apart. I clean my hands with one of those sanitizer
things before going in. I'm proud I've not bought
any toilet paper yet. Can it really be caught
through the air like a plague?

I've never spent so much time alone with my wife.
Is she worried I'm getting bored with her?
I wonder if she's getting bored with me. No one
can be entertaining for this long. Such expectations
are unrealistic. I sense her panic as she watches
the news.  She's still able to connect with other
real estate brokers from her office for an hour a day
on her computer. They talk about the best ways
to sell homes at a distance.

Most everyone inside the supermarket is wearing
a blue or white mask. They look like shabby doctors
and nurses. I pick out some chicken and put it
in my cart with a box of strawberries. A lady
standing too close to me has a distant stare. As if
she's half-dead. I suspect she has no family or friends.

Just a few weeks ago, my street-smart son was serving
us oysters, fish and wine for dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Like he did every Sunday. They won't let him work now
so he and his girlfriend are barely getting by on one-half
of their pay from the government. We ordered dinner
delivered to them the other night and they seemed
appreciative. And happy for a while. My daughter
and her husband are holed up in Palo Alto
doing computer and engineering work. They're
still getting paid and still drive their new Tesla.
She likes to read my poetry these days.

I see there are still live lobsters for sale
in the seafood section. Their number is depleted
from what they once were. They're subdued and sullen.
They're not moving in their tank. I wonder
how long they have to live.

My father won't stop texting me on my cell phone
and messaging me on Facebook. We haven't spoken
in 20 years. Old high school friends want to travel
down memory lane, over and over again. Texting
and messaging me until my eyes are ready
to bug out of my head. Everyone is trying to settle
old scores and pay off their debts. I'm sorry to see
there's no beer left in the cooler for purchase
as I head towards the cashier to pay.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. He previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. His poetry has appeared, or will be appearing, most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, MisfitMagazine, Mobius: Journal of Social Change, Ariel Chart and The Penmen Review.

ALTERNATIVE FACTS:ESCHER MEETS KAFKA

by Kenneth Arthur

"Relativity" by M.C. Escher

Hooded walkers circle
the courtyard stairwell
intent on mysterious missions,
ascending, descending, never arriving.

Hoods up. Get in Line.
Eyes straight ahead.
Ascending patriots on the left,
Descending on the right.

Others watch amazed, amused.
Some sit pensively in despair.

Begin—
foot up foot down
foot up foot down
foot up foot down
march march march
Eyes straight ahead.
go go go
Do not notice that man you passed.
You will be at your destination soon.
That is not the same man you passed before.
Soon we will be great again.
How can you possibly pass the same person?
Do not believe your eyes.
You are on your way to greatness.
Hoods up. Get in Line.
Eyes straight ahead.

Atop the grand building
where columns and archways
impose facade upon
impenetrable interior,
no one disrupts the procession.

Kenneth Arthur is a former professional computer nerd and currently a minister in the United Church of Christ. Besides dabbling in poetry, he is the author of a book of theology scheduled for publication in 2017. He currently lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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.

ADULT COLORING BOOKS

by Joan Colby

“Indiana University Press will release the first five titles in a series of adult coloring books, titled Color Your Campus this summer. The five campuses featured are Indiana University, Harvard University, Louisiana State University, Stanford University, and the University of Notre Dame. In a surprising move for a university press, Indiana University Press joins the adult coloring trend to the early delight of college students, parents, fans, and alumni alike. Hobbyists will take pleasure in transforming artists’ black and white masterpieces into colorful flagship campuses while indulging in the comfort of a childhood stress reliever.” —Indiana University Press blog, March 4, 2016. Image source: Global News.

This is what we’ve come to in our dread.
Thumbs fed up with texting.
Vibration in the pocket
Like an IED. Someone’s head
Cut off on TV with a sword.
Red hands of history. So many dead
Of casual bullets. We are consumed
With terror, Sharia law in the hymnals,
Shoe bombs under the bed
And the demand for specialized knowledge,
Who to vote for,
What to buy next.
The world is dishonest. The wiring
In the house not up to code.
Floods on the coast and the caldera
Of Yellowstone that might explode.
We pick up the crayons
Carefully staying within the lines.
Making sure the colors are right.
Blue skies. Green grass.
The sun a peculiar yellow . . .


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.

THE PRESS SECRETARY FORGETS HIS LINES

by Judith Terzi

President Obama said Friday that White House press secretary Jay Carney will be stepping down from his job and be replaced by deputy Josh Earnest. ‘It's been an amazing experience,’ Carney said after Obama's announcement. ‘Just so fulfilling’.”  --USA Today, May 30, 2014

Yes, Michelle and B went out for pizza. Yes,
macaroni. They're in Baltimore. That's

where my mother was born. Well, really,
she was born in Annapolis; her father

worried sick she'd marry a sailor. We're
fundamentally all from Baltimore,

aren't we? We are all on the same page. Even
Vlad. He flew in last night. Staying

in the spare closet. I mean closest bedroom
to the rest of the O's. Yes, he can.

He can recite couplets from the Rubaiyat. He's
a real gadabout from Siberia to the gulf

stream waters, from D.C. to Donetsk. Yes,
I believe he believes that this land

is his land, folks. Yes, two-thirds of Americans
fundamentally believe in didactic melting.

Yes, I believe that at the end of the day, we're all
on the same page at the end of the day.

No, man, I don't believe we've ever met
a Talisman close up in Baltimore. No,

no, I don't believe in direct talk with anyone.
I've lost my water bottle. Does anyone

happen to have a jug of bread, a loaf of wine?
A bow-wow? My water bottle walked off

with Joe. Slipped down the neck of a crane.
My keychain has disappeared, too. If you

see one with rhinestones and an owl and a million
keys, bend down and pick it up. No, no,

no, no pussy cat. Yes, I believe there's a recent
recall on carbon emissions. Yes, over

a million first-time visitors to the website over
the weekend. Now that's a real rhinestone.


Judith Terzi is a poet living in Pasadena, California. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Centrifugal Eye, Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo), Pacific Coast Poetry Series' Los Angeles Poetry Anthology (Beyond Baroque), TheRaintown Review, and elsewhere. Her latest chapbook from Finishing Line is Ghazal for a Chambermaid. A former high school French teacher, she also taught English at California State University, Los Angeles, as well as in Algiers, Algeria.