THINGS YOU CAN DO IN 85 SECONDS

by J.R. Solonche

The Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its history. —Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 27, 2026. Photo: Jamie Christian

Boil a cup of water in a modern microwave.

Tie both shoes with a deliberate, double-knot of human certainty.

 

Empty a small kitchen trash bin and replace the liner before the infinite notices.

Hand-grind enough coffee beans for a single sardonic cup.

 

Take twelve deep breaths, measuring the air as if it were borrowed property.

Wash your hands thoroughly, scrubbing the January salt from your knuckles.

 

Read three short poems by J.R. Solonche.

Write a brief postcard to a neighbor you haven't spoken to in years.

 

Check the mail, auditing the envelopes for clerical errors.

Wind a manual wristwatch, tightening the spring against the global midnight.

Nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, twice for the National Book Award and three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 50 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND BRAIN ROT

by Bonnie Proudfoot

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

Don’t tell me you spent all your allowance 

on comic books, or you used to stay up until 

daybreak, your knees shaping a tent under 

the covers, a weak flashlight, Superman, 

Supergirl, Batman, Spidey and the mutants, 

the whole gang rotting your brain, your eyes too. 

Did you stash your valor between the mattress 

and box spring, your rotting brain leaping tall buildings 

at a single bound, ready to keep evil at bay, fighting 

for, oh, truth, justice, and the American way.

 

Did you heft yourself out of bed on time 

for first period, or did your rotten brain let you 

snooze, then snooze some more? Did it make you 

listen to rock ‘n roll, sing "Sympathy for the Devil" 

as you walked to school? Did it know what 

"Satisfaction" really meant? And so what if 

your brain did rot? Blotchy, dark, and spongy, 

a not-so-fresh potato, or cottage cheese 

in the back of the fridge with curds of green mold 

lacing through? Would it rot all at once? Or 

one day no rot, one day riddled, one day a lot? 

 

So here you are, it’s minutes before midnight, 

kryptonite closing in, fascists tunnelling 

into Fort Knox, your knees a tent under 

the saggy covers, nothing left to lose. You’re 

scrolling through headlines at a single bound, 

seeking truth and seeking justice, index finger 

on your phone tapping with the dexterity 

of the Incredible Hulk threading a needle, 

the fate of the free world to defend,

secretly shouting Shazam, pushing send.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road (OU Swallow Press) was the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Household Gods a poetry chapbook, was published in 2022 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). A full-length poetry collection, Incomer, is forthcoming on Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK

by Hallie Dolin

Last Tuesday the pointer moved one second closer 

to destruction. It's eighty-nine seconds to midnight.

Around the world, our weapons wait for our command:

all vigilant, sitting patiently through midnight. 

We hear reports of ever-growing plagues passed on,

although information blackout's our new midnight. 

No one draws wheat from chaff, facts from alternative,

or musters effort like we used to do. Midnight 

and its stifling, sleepless depths—no rest for us—

is a bruise seeping blood, this black and blue midnight.

We snipe over who deserves to rain their revenge 

on whom, whose forfeit lives should dim out to midnight,

but we've missed the point. Your fate is mine, my blood is

your bloodstain. It's eighty-nine seconds to midnight. 

Hallie Dolin is a pathology resident in Cleveland, Ohio and has been writing for fun for nearly three decades. Her work has previously been published in The Case Reserve Review and the now-defunct Flashes in the Dark. When she isn't trying to discover novel cures for frightening microbes, she spends her time working on an actual novel. She also enjoys knitting, playing the guitar, and spending time with her cat. 

TOTALITY

by Mary Turzillo

The Sun and the Moon

did a courtship dance

did a contrary dance

nearer come nearer

far dance away

till the Sun mocked his luna love

japing “cold, changeable she” 

and “you love the earth more than me”

and it’s true: she grew fat, she grew thin,

he was hot, she was cold

Apollo, Diana:

stag and the doe

till she danced right in front of him

close to him, over him

taking delicious gold bites of him

throwing her skirts quite over him

till she blotted him out

til the night crickets sang

the the birds went to sleep

a black handkerchief over the land.

She punched a hole in the sky

where her lover had been

left a necklace of fire, a sparkle of beads

a diamond ring

for a minute or two:

the lovers' bright band

the dusk bridal veil

dark covered light, cold kissed the gold

the ring hung a promise 

a wedding of midnight and fire.

Mary Turzillo's Nebula-winner "Mars Is no Place for Children" and her Analog novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl were recommended reading on the International Space Station. She has been a finalist on the British SFA, Pushcart, Stoker, Dwarf Stars, and Rhysling ballots. Her poetry collection Lovers & Killers won the 2013 Elgin Award for Best Collection. Her fourth collaboration with Marge Simon, Victims, also won an Elgin. Her latest two books are Cast from Darkness, also with Simon, and Cosmic Cats and Fantastic Furballs. Mary lives in Berea, Ohio, with her scientist-writer husband, Geoffrey Landis. Today’s eclipse is her third such experience.

REPEAT PERFORMANCE

by Indran Amirthanayagam

The captain of Afghanistan’s women's wheelchair basketball team Nilofar Bayat and her husband Ramish disembark from the second Spanish evacuation airplane, carrying Afghan collaborators and their families, that landed at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base, 30 kilometers away from Madrid, on August 20, 2021. (Mariscal / POOL / AFP via Getty Images) via The Nation.

We are Americans even after 9/11, or Afghanistan, Vietnam for

its generation, which makes me think that we tempt history too

much, are poor students, never learn. So here we go again,

in helicopters and planes with just a handbag, a couple of

documents, and lives of those we can evacuate before the deadline,

and the country shutters up, and we return to insidious inside

operations because we will never learn, war being diplomacy

by other means, revenge always percolating on the stove, politicians

gnashing teeth to spit out America will be great again, under

their blinkered tutelage, investing in heavy tanks, precision bombers

and strategic plans only to realize that none of these can defeat the rebel

with a cause, who knows the land's dips and rises, who can melt into

the crowd, before springing back in the finest and most colorful robes,

to say bye bye American pie, get back by midnight to your promised land.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. He has 19 poetry books, including Blue Window/ Ventana Azul translated by Jennifer Rathbun (Lavender Ink/Diálogos Books, 2021), The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020), and Sur l'île nostalgique (L'Harmattan, 2020). In music, Indran recorded Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, is a columnist for Haiti en Marche, won the Paterson Prize, and is a 2020 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts fellow.

MIDNIGHT'S MORNING: AN ODE TO EPIPHANY 2021

by Jill Crainshaw

Epiphany Painting by catherine forsayeth

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Wherever the star takes us.”

“What star?”

“The fierce one—”

“I never liked the graveyard shift.

How will we stay awake?

When will we sleep? I need sleep.”

“Sure, why not? I think the star

is whimsical, by the way.”

They turn their eyes skyward. At night.

Eager. 

Reluctant.

Nonchalant.

“Wisdom wizards follow foolish flight of fancy—”

a cosmic planetary alignment

    a sixth spirit-sense

    a thousand lifetimes of longings

“Stop looking back.”

“I left—things—lost—things—back there.”

“What’s lost waits up ahead.”

“What’s lost nips at our heels.”

They emerge from a forlorn forest.

First light nudges Mama Wren from nighttime 

nesting in a smooth-barked dogwood.

The whimsy-fierce star hesitates—

They do too. 

Midnight morning trees breathe

an infant lullaby,

music brighter than light.

“Come with me.”

Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

BASEBALL AT MIDNIGHT

by Earl J. Wilcox

Image source: O Canada.com

Some say an old man is loony--up past midnight,
his only companions two owls outside his window
cheering each other the way an old man roots
for his team. After all, it is October—shorter days
longer nights--that time in the baseball year
when the game finally fills its fans like a cup running over
with playoffs. Dodger Blue and Cardinal Red tonight,
colorful enough almost to compete with yellow maple
leaves or white birches falling near Boston or Detroit.
The fields in the old man’s dreams are not filled with
regret for unrequited love, nor hope of immortality
in a land of milk and honey. The sheer joy and love
of baseball: enough to rest for the long winter ahead.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to TheNew Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.