WE CAN CHANGE THE STORY

by Elizabeth P. Glixman 

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News

First there was a war

than another war
There is always a war somewhere

even if it is in your mind
against he she they them we us

who
Once there were concentration camps
mass migration from Europe
to Europe the Middle East
Once there were bombs
and ships
once a blast Hiroshima
then there were parades and applause
then there were boomers
and Vietnam
conscientious objectors
people hanging out in the country there

was Jane Fonda
and Easy Rider 
Than there was ICE
It is like a movie where
one thing happens and another

They may all seem to be out of sequence
it is hard to keep
track of of dates and time and decades and epochs

It is hard to keep track of hate
Now there is the Donald  
the world keeps shaking 
he wants to interior decorate the world
We are in a snow globe of his making
everything moving
Obliterate demolish
like you've never seen before

The globe is shaking vigorously

Some world leaders shake the globe
every day every hour
they take a nap or golf 
or write posts
on social media
They shake shake shake the globe

shake it again
Stop shaking people plead
We need kindness and Gaza needs food
The world crumbles like a stale cupcake
and there is nothing left to shake
crumbs fleeing into space

Vote November 3rd to stop the shaking

Elizabeth P. Glixman is a poet, writer and artist who like many is hoping for peace on earth.

MIDTERMS

by Adin Thayer

The heft
of the planet’s
turbulence
the severing
nation
burst
into wails
 
there were
leaves 
falling 
everywhere
raining 
free gold  and 
          apricot
littering the path
with the bright
carved shapes
of renewal
 
and why   why
can not 
this world 
itself
lead
us errant 
citizens
down this 
path  where
mingled
leaves of maple 
oak and ash 
together 
anonymously
mix the trees’
spring supply
of delicious 
dirt
 
this path
not
the other

  
Adin Thayer has worked in a variety of roles, as a psychotherapist, a teacher at the Smith College School for Social Work, and a peacebuilding facilitator in several African countries. In addition to what she draws from these sources, her work engages her childhood growing up in Virginia when it was a legally segregated state. Her poems address how the lawfulness and beauty of the natural world provides sustenance in the face of human struggle. One of five sisters and the mother of two daughters, she lives in Massachusetts. She published a volume of poetry, The Close World, in 2020.

MULCHING LEAVES

by John Minczeski 

It’s an asterisk in the middle of the day; 

it’s the dust filtering through the mower’s bag, 
the shimmer I wade through that collects 
on my jeans, in my lungs; it’s me piling 
the partially digested leaves on raised beds, 
next July’s harvest a universe away.  
I want to say grass storm and 
rain delay over red maple leaves 
like a priest giving benedictions.  
Every day it’s the coming elections.  
Ads warn of the worst. I’ve come to  
expect the worst. It’s the mower  
spitting leaves into the bag, 
leaving a widening strip of green.  
Such a solemn inhalation, this dust.  
Incense, and a threat of silence.  

John Minczeski is the author of "A Letter to Serafin" and other collections. Poems have appeared in The New Verse News, One Art, Tampa Review, Harvard Review, and The Saint Paul Almanac. Minczeski, who lives in St. Paul, has taught in poets in the schools, at The Loft Literary Center, and at various colleges around the Twin Cities.