IN THESE FEARFUL TIMES I FIND THE THING WITH FEATHERS AT HOME DEPOT

by Lois Marie Harrod

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News

It’s been dismal—

the mice began invading my cupboarded coconut flakes

because, said my neighbor Ed, who knows about such things,

it’s so hot outside they come into the cool, and my neighbor Cheryl

started calling me The Mouse Slayer,  

because I snapped seven of their hot little necks,

and then a thunderstorm wedged the roof vent flap open,

letting the storm leak onto the toilet where I was sitting,

and a dead squirrel deposited himself in my yard,

and because my dead husband can no longer do it,

I had to shovel the desiccated little rodent into a garbage bag

because the ground is too dry to dig a proper grave,

and then the spin switch on my forty-seven-year-old washing machine

gave up like democracy, and I had to wring out the bath towels,  

hand by arthritic hand, and scoop out gallons of water with a measuring cup.

Next I had to go off to The Home Depot where I spent more than I hoped

on a new ecologically-friendly washing machine, 

and when the bearded salesman gave me the receipt,

he said, And what do you think of what’s going on in this world?

Who are you voting for?

 

And, yes, I was afraid to answer. I knew what was coming . . .

 

but I said Kamala anyway, because what could this 6-foot bearded guy

in an orange apron do to a less than 5-foot customer in The Home Depot?

Shoot me?

But his beard spread into a grin, and he said Good,

and spent another 27 minutes telling me about his grandfather,

a holocaust survivor, and his uncle who saved 19 people at Pearl Harbor,

and how Hitler came into power and just how would-be dictators

are still coming into power—all of which I knew—but he needed me to listen.

 

And, yes, as I left, Emily Dickinson’s Hope,

that little thing with feathers, flitted down the paint aisle—

but Emily, are you listening from your grave?—

you are wrong, that little bird does demand a crumb from us,

many crumbs from us.

We must feed her.

Lois Marie Harrod’s recent publications include her 18^th  poetry collection Spat (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and her chapbook Woman (Blue Lyra, 2020). Dodge poet, life-long educator and writer, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3.

APRIL 5TH

by Terry Trowbridge

shirt available from amazon

Humidity casts a cold spell

over the Great Lakes.

When the spell is broken,

humidity continues to flicker

through the grasses and leaves.

The dampness of breath

and matted fur

attracts housecats

to the leaf piles

where mouse-casting Spring elementals

summoned little rodents into being.

 

At night, the mist turns heavy

and sinks to the ground,

exposing the orchards to starlight.

At day, water evaporates

into a quick-sky of quicklime grey.

The obscurantist Sun,

having chased away Enlightenment

comforts—too soon for lawn chairs—

into the barn workbench beer routine,

 

will remain invisible.

An eclipse is due in three days.

The cats might react confusedly.

The mice might emerge in daylight

And look up at the shadow of the Moon

darkening circle through the cloud cover.

Shadow weather defines a season of transitions.

Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in many journals including, previously, The New Verse News. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant, and their support of so many other writers during the polycrisis.

SPACE AVAILABLE

by Sharon Olson

They call it the landscape of fear,
the sense that humans are near,
ears pricked to catch the menace
of car engines, commerce unabated.

So the deer were always nearby,
watching for safe spaces, as if
they might be able to read
the stickers on library doors.

The map has now been redrawn,
if the foxes can come out of hiding,
say the deer, then so can we,
nobody seems to be stopping us.

We are now hosting a family of deer,
our yard a new venue for outdoor dining,
our menu of specials features straight-up
hostas, day lilies, rosehips for dessert.

In dark of night, though, a new creature
has joined the neighborhood menagerie,
squirrels and mice beware, the fisher cat
pierces the silence with its strangling call.

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian who lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. 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.

POST WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY BLUES

by Howie Good

Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his forthcoming collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A BLIZZARD

by Michael Carosone

Exeter, NH, February 16, 2015. Photo by Emmaline Kim.

 
It takes a blizzard to stop time

to stop the hamsters from turning the wheels
            to stop the mice from running in the mazes
                        to stop the rat race

to make people slow down

and breathe
             and appreciate
                        and think

to make people realize

that they are not hamsters
            not mice
                        not rats


Michael Carosone is a writer, educator, activist, and native New Yorker from Kings Bay/Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. With his partner, Joseph LoGiudice, he wrote and edited the book, Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men (Bordighera Press, May 2013), a collection of 15 personal essays on the lives of Gay Italian American men. His poems and essays have been published in a variety of books and journals. He writes on personal, political, and social topics and issues, including marginalized peoples and literatures, especially Italian Americans and people of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) community. He is pursuing his Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree in English Education at Teachers College of Columbia University, and his dissertation will focus on incorporating marginalized literatures and writers—Queer and Italian American—into the English classroom, in grades K-12 and at the college level. He lives in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, with his partner, Joseph LoGiudice.

WHITHER WEATHER #3: BARRED OWL DOWNTOWN IN GRASS VALLEY

by Laura Rodley

Big Brown Eyes / Barred Owl by Gary Fairhead

I am here.
I am not afraid of anything;
you cannot see me.
My voice echoes;
you do not know
from which direction.
I swoop down for the mice
you do not value,
scan your dumpster
since the drought has carried
me so close to your closed windows,
the mice in the desert
and the forest long gone,
drenching rains much too late
for them; they cannot fly.
I am here now,
taking what you do not want.
Look up, those of you
who wish to chase away your fear,
look up into my eyes
and I will teach you. 


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.