INTERRUPTION TO AN AFTERNOON OF OUR DISCONTENT

by Mary K O’Melveny

Today we visited good friends for lunch.

As we discussed the world’s sorry state,

a yellow and black Goldfinch landed on 

a tall sunflower on the back wooden deck.

 

Rain clouds had begun to shroud the Catskill

peaks. Circles of grey, shadows of charcoal

emphasized the sunflower bed’s aureate glow. 

The butter-hued bird was star of the show.

 

Would cops be at the polls? Would there be

a martial law declaration? A breeze caught

the flower, rustled it to the right. The finch

hustled with it as it veered back to center.

 

Would it ever be safe to eat lettuce again?

Would climate change leave our skies colored like

metal? The finch bent down past petals,

pulled out a seed as the reed thin stem moved

 

against wind. He swayed as if dancing in

a conga line. Swish  swish  swish  hop.  Swish  

swish  swish  hop. He dropped onto another

flower, stayed for seconds, popped right back.

 

Will young people go out to vote? How can

we retain hope? How can we cope as daily 

outrage becomes rote? The bird dared us to

watch him at play in early afternoon light.

 

Our (he was “ours” now) Goldfinch was unwilling 

to wallow in woe. He leapt upward, stopped –

wings aflutter—then turned, returned to his

floret launch pad where he glanced our way: 

 

There are seeds to snatch. Breezes to catch. 

As if prearranged, sunflowers shifted, shivered. 

Petals quivered—amber arcs arrayed against 

a grieving sky. Glistening like a firefly’s spark,

 

he stayed put—as if listening, as if he thought 

our exchange mattered. We loved our brilliant bird then.

He was an augur of resilience, of possibilities. Soon,

he lifted, drifted high, veered toward the mountain range.

Mary K O’Melveny, has authored five poetry collections and a chapbook, including If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird (Jerry Jazz Musician 2024);  Flight Patterns (Kelsay 2023) (nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award); Merging Star Hypotheses (Finishing Line 2020), semi-finalist, The Washington Prize/The Word Works). What Remains? (Broadstone Books) will debut in fall 2026. A three-time Pushcart nominee, Mary’s award-winning poems are widely published. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

THE WAR WITHIN

by Donna Katzin

                        

Art by Ann Telnaes

Standing at attention, a silent sea

of the nation’s glittering medal-chested top brass

face the self-named “Secretary of War,”

who demands they trim their waistlines and words

as their ranks are filled by monochrome commanders

and uni-gender generals

required to speak in the single voice

of their Commander in Chief.

No longer facing foreign wars,

they will now be ordered to enforce martial law

on the families that raised them,

children like their own, neighbors

who shared their burdens and blessings,

compatriots with sons and daughters,

ancestors like theirs seeking shelter

and a future in a new land.

The statue in the harbor hangs her head.

“We the People” have become

“the enemy within.”

The future trembles in our hands.

Donna Katzin has worked for more than three decades with South Africa in its struggle to defeat apartheid and advance the new nation's  democratic development.  She also continues to partner with vulnerable Nicaraguan communities and mothers struggling to feed their children.  She is the author of With These Hands, a book of poetry and photos of South Africans struggling to give birth to a new nation, and a published poet honored to have been included in New Verse News.

EXTREMIS

by Carol Alexander

Your voice in Saint-Germain-de-Prés is pastis
in a glass of fog, held by an invisible hand.
How phrase this in a nomenclature vivid
as a lipstick smeared at the bar?

In the hotel lobby, Arab girls and boys
praise a wine never to be served
and potted palms are sleeping, curled and dry.

That great beast, the wind, noses pavements
soaked in blood that dries before the world's eyes.
Raised on every bridge are unwavering lights
where once smoked oil lamps strung on narrow streets.

My camera pinches off lanterns and loaves,
a pink dress hung in the galleries
while your meeting, not to be postponed,
is soup and cigarettes under martial law.

Dogs off-leash bare teeth and wheel
at the unfamiliar smells of men.
Muted leaves that missed their moment
when September made an oven of the streets
mostly now have fallen into loam.

I've a little forgotten disaster in these months;
it could be the sound of wind through husks
or a tremulous breath breaking in mid-song.


Carol Alexander's poems have appeared in such journals as Bluestem, Caesura, Canary, The Common, Chiron Review, Illya's Honey, Mad Hatter's Review, Mobius, TheNewVerse.News, Poetry Quarterly, Poetrybay, Red River Review, The San Pedro River Review, Sugar Mule, THEMA and Zymbol, as well as in various anthologies including Through a Distant Lens (WriteWing Publishing) for which she received the award for best poem, and Proud to Be, for which she was a poetry finalist. Alexander's chapbook, Bridal Veil Falls, was published by Flutter Press (2013).  Recent work appears in Split Rock Review and Clementine Poetry Journal.