MY HOUSE, YOUR HOUSE, AND THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE

by William Palmer

AI-generated graphic created by Nightcafé for The New Verse News.

Evil can be “defined most simply as the use of political power to destroy others for the purpose of defending or preserving the integrity of one’s sick self.”

M. Scott Peck, The People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil  

 

 

At home I hear a muffled buzz

then press my ear to a wall—

it feels soft

enough to push

my finger through. 

 

I cut out a square

and find a mass

of larvae squirming

in the light, eating

the backing—

 

a replica of the Constitution.

 

I hire an exterminator.

 

Sorry, but you have an infestation.

See the sawdust—they’re gnawing 2-by-4s.

 

They’re even going after steel beams.

Look at the tiny shavings.

 

There is no guarantee we can eradicate

what’s happening.

 

Please do what you can, I say.

 

Each day I listen for the lies.

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared in Ecotone, JAMA, On the Seawall, One Art, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

THE TERRORIST

by George Salamon

Rahul Gandhi delivered a lecture at Cambridge University [February 28, 2023] on “Learning to Listen in the 21st Century.” Recounting how the yatra [the march he recently led through India] changed him, Gandhi said the interactions with the people who held his hand during the yatra trusting him as a brother and confided in him changed him as a politician, his perspective. As the yatra entered Kashmir, Gandhi said, "As I was walking, a guy came up and showed me a few men standing nearby. He told me they are militants. I thought I was in trouble because in that situation militants would kill me. But they did not do anything because this is the power of listening.” —Hindustan Times, March 3, 2023

Can anyone ever reach you?

Would we have to dissolve

into the white hot fire inside

of you to see you?

Would you talk with us then,

touching the rivers of fire

cooling in our own blood 

so we too become weightless

like you, no longer capable of

joy or grief, and rise for the

journey that unbinds us and

knows of no return?

Most of us remain weighed 

down, unable or unwilling to

submit to the exuberance of

terror that nothing can appease.

Terrorism is not merely an act

of terror, but also one of

nihilism

Its fire burns all—motivation,

victim and terrorist.

George Salamon recalls reading Hermann Rauschning's 1939 book TheRevolution of Nihilism meant as a warning by depicting Hitler's National Socialism as, at least in part, a "revolution of nihilism," a pact between leader and people for destruction and self-destruction. 

YEAR IN REVIEW

by Barbara Simmons

“In the weightlessness of space.” Oil on canvas painting by Anastasia Balabina (Ukraine).

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. —Joan Didion

 

What were the stories that seemed mental U-turns,

that needed returning to, never ending?  At year’s

end, 2021’s review heralded tales most told,

the big look back compactly written,

the headlines sculpting what had happened

into what we should remember.

I’ve skimmed the stories alphabetically, but find the letter C

for COVID is my alpha, tireless virus with infinite variations. I 

flip quickly to the Fed, to China, climate, revivals

on Broadway, deaths we expected someday, but maybe

not this year, like Didion’s, Sondheim’s, Tutu’s.

The story I return to most takes me on SpaceX travels,

finding weightlessness a way to reconstruct my sight,

no longer lineated up and down,

but now a new fluidity, a chance to stream myself beyond

the time and space of just one journey,

just one life, to understand how we are multitudes,

how we are singular, how we are both chorus, soloist, conductor

in a musical rendition of this year reviewed

and what we need most is to listen to stories we’ve composed,

and play

and play

and play

until we fully hear.

 

Barbara Simmons grew up in Boston, graduated from Wellesley, and now lives in San Jose. As a secondary school English teacher, she loved her students who inspired her to think about the many ways we communicate. Retired, she savors exploring words as ways to remember, envision, celebrate, mourn, always trying to understand human-ity. Publications have included Hartskill Review, Boston Accent, The New Verse News, Soul-Lit, 300 Days of Sun, Writing it Real, Capsule Stories: Isolation Edition, and OASIS. Her book of poetry Offertories: Exclamations and Disequilibriums will be published in Spring 2022.

NEW YEAR'S OWLS

by Buff Whitman-Bradley




In the first hours of the new year
After the midnight explosions have ceased
And no more revelers
In clutches of three and four
Go stumbling by the house
Happily jabbering away
I lie in bed with the window open
To the freezing night air
Listening to two owls
Speaking to each other
From nearby treetops.
Hu-hoo, hu-hoo says one
In a deep and quiet voice
Hoo-hu-hoo, hoo-hu-hoo
Responds the other
In a higher pitch.
I picture the baritone as an elder
Complimenting the young alto
On not panicking
During the booms and bangs and kapows
They had just endured,
On staying put in its tree
Until the onslaught of flash and bam had subsided.
It’s safe to go out now
The old one says
But be mindful of the humans,
They are loud and messy
And really have no idea
What they are doing.
And of course the old hoot is right.
We are a cacophonous, lurching,
Bumbling, bungling bunch
Making a fine shambles of things
And we’d be a whole lot better off
If we resolved in the coming year
To cultivate a little quiescence
And pay closer attention to owls.

Buff Whitman-Bradley's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent books are To Get Our Bearings in this Wheeling World and Cancer Cantata. With his wife Cynthia, he produced the award-winning documentary film Outside In and, with the MIRC film collective, made the film Por Que Venimos. His interviews with soldiers refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were made into the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. He lives in northern California. He podcasts at: thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

PEACE BROKERS

by Angie Trudell Vasquez

Peace Brokers dance
even when there’s no chance
of winning, they move to
their own beat path
plan for the best and worst
and recant all previous positions
if necessary – they are not
too proud to say they were wrong
or misguided; and listen to the hand
extended in warmth, gripping
close with their own heart
all that they hold dear; and
perchance a day of reckoning comes near
and the dead rise from their graves
find their tongue and debate
with heat about the success
of so many years spent lying beneath the grass;
the peace brokers listen, take tea,
nod when they agree,
hold up a pen
when they do not
indicating they’d like time
at the podium of truth
when the others are done speaking;
peace brokers take notes, ask questions,
and resolve not to leave the table
until all has been said, heard and agreed
until an action plan is set for the next meet
and they do not give up ever or admit defeat
because what is to gain is so sweet.


Angie Trudell Vasquez is a poet and writer currently living in Milwaukee, WI. She's been published by Verse Wisconsin, Burdock, Raven Chronicles, Real Change and was the featured poet for the Latina Monologues from 2009 to 2011. In 2003 she was a featured poet at Bumbershoot, Seattle's Music and Art Festival. Her first book The Force Your Face Carries has been published under her own label, Art Night Books.