I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL

by Anne Herrick

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

 

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information of minerals and anything profitable
I know the constitution, and I quote our rights historical
From Iran to Venezeula, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with my good navy piratical,
I understand blockades, both the simple and impractical,
About strategies I teem with ever changing views and news,
And with many cheerful facts about every missile use.

I'm very good at destruction and anything that’s tactical;
I know all leader’s names no matter they’re fantastical—
like those in space—the squirrels and hypotheticals—
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 

In fact, I know what is meant by "bitter end" and "ravelin",
And I can tell at sight a Beretta from a javelin,
With affairs like bombings and boasting I'm very good at,
I also know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
Yes, I know what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
And I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—
In short, I've more than a smattering of elemental strategy—
No other Major-General has ever had this capacity.

With my military knowledge, I'm plucky and adventury,
There’s no-one as good as me since beginning of all centuries
Yes it’s true—I know of minerals and anything that’s profitable
I am the greatest model of a modern Major-General.

 

 

Anne Herrick has published a few poems and prose in the US and UK.

THE POET PROVOKED

by Roberta Batorsky

These verses searchlight wrongs,
thrust into the light
all injustice lurking in the shadows.

Stanzas pry loose prison bars,
insights scorch wrong-doers,
violators of decency

No place for you to hide as
my couplets cauterize you.
These devices are unsparing
instruments of revenge.

Haikus hunt you
Elegies eviscerate
Ballads batter 
And meter mauls you.

My lyrics bear the sting 
of sincerity,
passing merciless
judgment in rhyme.

 

This poet for hire.

Roberta Batorsky, a New Jersey poet, has published this month her first book of poetry, Perihelion.

CRYSTAL BALL

by Laura Rodley

In the knuckle of the nightmare what does he see?

He swivels the joint around, sees faces

of children, no longer innocent, their faces blank,

then blown up. It is not that he had to bury any;

that was not his job. Instead, he was flown

above the rice paddies where the women worked,

their wide hats resembling shiitake mushrooms

when seen from the sky, their tiny hoes

hoeing the fields, gathering the grain,

letting the water out, sprayed with napalm

and agent orange; they all ate it, its perfume

a pollen of poison. He was up in a helicopter,

delivering paychecks, manna from

the government. What is easy to ignore

when survival demands it comes back to stare

you in the face. The children’s faces below,

his fellow soldiers, a flip of propeller blade

and they are gone, but not now, not fifty-five

years later, a whole other lifetime. He still carries

butterscotch lifesavers in his pockets

that he handed out to the children that came begging;

they saw him as Santa Claus, one of his many

camouflaged elves. He can’t turn time back

but his nightmares do it for him, every night

he reenters the war zone he left behind,

taught as a man from birth not to have feelings,

then returning from duty, not to have feelings,

with no one buying him a drink at the bar

or asking him to speak at the high school,

as the World War II vets were so honored. It’s a long

way back, to the fields of yellow pollen that was not

the dust of Ailanthus trees, a long way back to the drugs

that were offered to make you forget, to the beers, to women offered,

to the honor you held tight to your chest.

He knew all the lyrics to The Doors, the Beatles,

Dion and the Belmonts; where does that

get him now? He’s held tight in the fist

of his commanding officer suck it up, be a man.

He’s held tight in the fist of his own heart, squeezing the life out

of him and into him, regulating his every action,

his every breath. But the rhythm of the heart

is not the territory of nightmares, the nightmares

leave notches, catch his breath; he wanted a gentle life,

honor held tight in the fist that is his heart,

caught off balance, flailing, ceaselessly trying

to get into the groove, pay attention.

His life depends on it.

Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner, is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Latest books: Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and As You Write It Lucky Lucky 7, a collection of 11 writers' work.

BLY AND SONDHEIM: ELEGAIC DUET

by Earl J Wilcox

Making music that puts to shame a few

classic muses, you two gave us power

in poetry, in song—day after day

night after night, anytime we felt down-

hearted, no blues for you just strong

& virile and passionately human songs

for the soul. For words, we lift high

Robert, for lyrics we can never go

wrong with Stephen: harmonics

Not hysteria. Never mute, ever live.

 

Earl Wilcox, a Broadway buff and a deeply rooted poet for activism, grieves the loss of these two iconic word warriors.

ODE TO MY SHOPPER

by Sharon Olson

I was seventy-one and still counting
when I counted the grocery bags arriving
at my front door, each one labelled
I guess for the shopper’s convenience,
some mnemonic only he had derived,
Poems 1 of 8, Poems 2 of 8, and so forth,
and they were like poems, each item
of slightly different size and voice,
tuna can haikus next to sonnets of milk.

I chalked it up to coincidence, until
the next week new bags came, this time
marked Lyric 1 of 7, Lyric 2 of 7, so
we knew we were in some sort of
telepathic, telegrammatic finger-
tapping sync-apathy, as if he knew
I must write poems and would eat
to write them, not eating words
but snippets of lyric, edible syllables.

The market has stipulated one week
between orders, and I am as I said
earlier seventy-one and still counting.
And so I find myself wondering
what the next code will bring, what
subliminal message my messenger
will write to signal our connection.
He must be a poet, too, composing
behind the front lines and so essential.

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian, 71 and still counting. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019. She lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where along with everyone else she waits it out. Her grocery bags truly did arrive marked as mentioned in the poem.

FIDDLER WITH THE PROOF

by Edmund Conti

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting chief scientist said in an email to colleagues Sunday that he is investigating whether the agency’s response to President Trump’s Hurricane Dorian tweets constituted a violation of NOAA policies and ethics. Also on Monday, the director of the National Weather Service broke with NOAA leadership over its handling of Trump’s Dorian tweets and statements. —The Washington Post, September 9, 2019

to the tune of "Matchmaker" from Fiddler on the Roof

Mapmaker, Mapmaker
Make me some maps
And put in some storms there
A Cat 5 perhaps.
Then you will have to
Send me relief.
Just a few billions
Will allay my grief.
Mapmaker, Mapmaker
Take out your Sharpie
Use all your witchcraft
Be your best Harpy.
Matchmaker, Matchmaker
Add a small line
And soon we’ll see FEMA
And life here in Alabama (or Georgia or Mississippi) will be fine.


Edmund Conti will alter your poem for a small fee and make it his.

LYRICS FOR TREASON DAY, JULY 16, 2018

by Michael Brockley

“Send in the Clowns” trumpet solo performed by the US Air Force Brass in Blue.

What if the king wasn’t caught in a trap, and we were no longer stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues? What if we had never stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona? Or lost our driving wheel? What if we weren’t running on empty and were still too proud to beg? What if we quit holding out for a hero? What if the king couldn’t find a new place to dwell while midnight no longer fell on the oasis? What if we know who stopped the rain? What if she wasn’t a black-haired beauty, and there were no diamonds on the soles of her shoes? What if she hadn’t had Bette Davis eyes, and the king hadn’t seen her first? What if she hadn’t been Jessie’s girl? What if a peaceful man hadn’t pulled into Nazareth, and the knight hadn’t been on the run? What if there hadn’t been a wino in the road? What if we’re no longer living in a Cheerio world and God hadn’t kissed this guy? What if we miss our water? What if there isn’t a piece of our heart left to take? What if there are no more clowns to send in?

Michael Brockley is a 68-year old semi-retired school psychologist. He has been publishing poems for approximately four years now and recent poems have appeared in The Blue Nib Magazine, Zingara Poetry Picks and TheNewVerse.News.

CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL POET

by Israel Wasserstein

“...artists who use their media of choice to advocate specific political agendas should always warrant our suspicion...” --Sam Lasman

I will confess I have little patience

for pastorals, for experiments, for post-

modern explorations, for poetry written

in circles to subvert patriarchy,

for lyrics that earnestly explore

how communication is impossible.

I confess such things seem a luxury,

and so I embrace unpoeticism,

and admit that I sometimes think

about those bankers who destroyed

millions’ pensions, profiting

on the misery of the soon-to-be

homeless, fantasize about lining up those bastards

and putting two bullets in their heads. I am not

a violent man, and I would rather write

about occult patterns the rain

creates, mixing with oil and garbage

on city streets. How can I write

of the squirrels in my backyard

who antagonize my dog

while Colorado burns, crops wither,

ice caps melt? These are ugly sentiments

for a poet. I can’t write small poems

about autumn with Trayvon Martin dead,

about subverting the paradigm of I

while the people of Syria are murdered,

while politicians label anyone killed by drones

enemy combatants, while polio and T.B.

return, while women die in back-alley

abortions and churches preach stay

with your abuser. While football coaches,

Archbishops, politicians cover for rapists,

while the children of the powerful

become the powerful, while wealth

piles in the hands of the rich

and the poor go without jobs, without

healthcare, without hope. I confess

if I knew how, I would rather be a poet

of revolution, to bend my words

against injustice. I confess

I am not that poet--too middle-

class, too white, too straight,

too soft-spoken. In my defense,

I can say only this: I

reject the sin of silence.

Israel Wasserstein, a Lecturer in English at Washburn University, was born and raised on the Great Plains. His first poetry collection, This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, is a 2013 Kansas Notable Book. His poetry and prose have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blue Mesa Review, Flint Hills Review, and elsewhere.