DROP THE MIC

by Steven Kent

 

 

 

"U.S. defense spending would rise $445B under Trump budget plan, with steep cuts elsewhere." —The Guardian, April 3, 2026

A budget written by a nutter
Favors guns instead of butter.
Starve the people, stoke the power?
No, said Mr. Eisenhower.

 

 

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books. 

JANUARY BOUQUET

by Katherine Smith

The only antidote for America 

is to go outside in the freezing cold winter

and dream of the most beautiful city on earth

or even this universe (there may not be any other). 

This city is Granada.  Inside my house 

I think only of Minneapolis, of winter.

Outside my house I dream of Grenada and spring

on the slope leading towards the white limestone caves

where the pink dusk hovers over the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada.

By day I once walked through the summer palace of the kings of Spain.

By night I listened to flamenco and the percussive shoes of dancers.

By day the stained glass of the cathedral blossomed

like the roses in the summer palace. Beauty softened the blow

of the inquisition six hundred years before

just as a memory of joy softens the blow of the shootings,

and the military on the streets of Minneapolis. Nothing 

is more consoling than the dream of a beautiful ruin,

for the ugliness happening to America. I lay memory

like a wreath on the roadside 

where Alex Pretti and Renee Good died.

Katherine Smith’s poetry publications include appearances in Southern Review, Boulevard, North American Review, Ploughshares, Mezzo Cammin, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, and many other journals. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. Her third book, Secret City, appeared with Madville Press in 2022. She works at Montgomery College in Maryland.

AND SO IT BEGINS

by Imogen Arate

Art by Ann Telnaes

I.
The video stunned
The spin followed

An award-winning poet
has been silenced
by the shrill bullets from a
21st-century fast-drawing
cowboy on the man-made
frontiers of the new wild West

Yet we’re subjected 
to the lies of a rapist

Another man trying 
to justify violence
against women

A bad remake
of another family 
forced into mourning

another community
thrown into chaos

II.
Yet we still think in terms
of elephants and donkeys

while neither will draw down
on the military budget

sunset high-tech toys
hardware for the police and

other testosterone-charged 

angst-driven angry boys

tear down boundaries
that gate-check
investments in decency
beyond the borders
of “me and my”

Repulsive successive local waves 
reinforce the national and the 
global of political expedience 
and small and large lies stack 
upon one another to enrage
as the bodies of the sacrificed
emit the noxious gas
of corruption to explode
in a tsunami of grief and fury

III.
He who became
a millionaire at eight
nursed on government subsidies
bailouts and tax breaks
feeds us the fast-food diet of rancor 
while he grabs a pussy a plane 
a tanker a president oil fields 
Greenland and lusts after resort money
built on a still-hemorrhaging mass grave

But he’s just another opportunist
a symptom mushrooming on the 
advantages of Eugenicist 
elitism ripened by everyday
brand ambassadors gladiating
for a piece of the imaginary pie

IV.
Our pens may ink mighty words
but their impressions are paper thin 
against the hurried tunneling
of semi-automatic street artillery
bump-stocked by the political will
of fuel-guzzling AI overtaking human 
value as they peel away with the 
breeze blasé over endless shootings
grown accustomed to washing away 
anguish with yet more agony while 
prayers whistling show tunes 
to soundtrack the cha-ching
of firearms outstripping humans

V.
But she was a white citizen
Why should that be the red line
when we don’t let spilt blood
rust before sacrificing more lives
to our inane judgement of worth 

This social engineering
was never meant to end well
when chaos has no red line
maelstrom cannot be reined in

The hunger of greed 
self-perpetuates
in unchecked growth
to unleash the pandemonium
of a self-fulfilling prophecy

Imogen Arate is an Asian-American poet in search of hope: that humanity will overcome our self-destructive tendencies to work together against the onslaught of the climate crisis. She's also the Executive Director of Poets and Muses, an award-winning multimedia artist platform that has featured diverse contemporary poetic voices from around the globe. She believes that we will only be able to value lives equally when we lend our ears and hearts to the life stories of those we don't readily recognize as our kin and stop requiring the presence of certain socioeconomic trappings to recognize people's right to a dignified existence.

INTO THE DARKNESS

by Karen Marker

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

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is.

I didn’t always wake up feeling this weary, 

feeling the pain of the wound in my chest

like I held a dead child. Like someone 

had stolen my sword and the light

of the grail was gone. I used to sleep 

through the night, trusted the widening gyre 

was leading me out of the dark.

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is 

after he flat out said he’s sending the military 

into our cities because he’s sick of the mentally ill, 

addicted, disabled, veterans, the hungry, unhoused, 

that he’s sick of those who come in needing shelter, 

jobs, a better life, that he’s sick of protestors.

 

I didn’t always wake up this worried

that if the Department of War blows up ships 

in the Caribbean they say are carrying drugs,  

ignoring all laws, it won’t be long before 

they’re waging war on us to make the world safer 

for the billionaires, sending off the unwanted

to concentration camps in the desert.

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is 

after the government shut down goes on and on

while the thugs on the streets get paid

to carry out “the Lords’ work.”

 

If this isn’t the end, I don’t know what is

except a comet coming straight at the Earth 

and all of it exploding.

Karen Marker is an Oakland, CA. poet activist who has committed to  writing a poem a day of protest and hope in response  to current events. Her first poetry book Beneath the Blue Umbrella came out recently with Finishing Line Press and explores family mental illness, stigma and healing. 

JULY 8

by Lynda Gene Rymond

Last night under my window

I heard a coyote clack its teeth.

Today’s skies grow dark, darker.

Clouds purr at first

but then it’s full-throated growls

breaking to thunderclaps

to shake the house

 

while in the city of angels

men on horseback stalk

like corrupted knights

to intimidate children.

Tactical vehicles prowl.

A small black woman,

Madam Mayor, confronts,

her fury rising like heatwaves.

 

Be furious. Be thunder.

Shake their houses.

Steal their horses, count coup,

paint their dishonor.

Find a mightier pen to wield.

Tell tales that crack walls.

Sing, sing all the way to morning.

Lynda Gene Rymond lives and works on Goblin Farm in Applebachsville, Pa. She is a winner of the Pennwriters Short Story Prize and a multi-year finalist for Bucks County Poet Laureate. Her latest publication, Spellbook, has just been published by Moonstone Arts.

WE WANT YOU TO KNOW

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

While tanks roll through our streets
We want you to know
We are vulnerable and resilient like you
 
This police state wannabe is not us
We are the fish jumping in the Potomac
The magnolia filling the air
 
We are fireflies testing the night
The bullfrog and the cathedral bell
The convergence of rivers
 
As this martial maelstrom
Storms land and sky
Our osprey nestlings hope only to fledge

 
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a Washington, DC naturalist and author of Wild Walking, A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island and City of Trees. Her poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and Plenty Magazine.

ROTATED

by Richard Garcia

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

You will be rotated. You will be rotated in ways you did not foresee. You will be walking casually away in one direction and then find yourself walking casually away in the opposite direction. Do not be alarmed this will only be a test. If this were the real rotation you would not be able to read this because your eyes would be rotated. Do not attempt to curry favor by accepting your rotation—your acceptance will be rotated. You will find yourself in a line of concentric circles that spiral along the border. You will be rotated toward checkpoints where tall, broad-shouldered men wearing military caps and mirrored aviator sunglasses, with belts cinched below their bellies and pistols strapped to their hips are waiting to inspect your papers. You will be rotated into newly constructed barriers where bullhorns will declare, Y'all git along now, you folks gonna be rotated and all your people gonna be rotated, your children gonna be rotated and that's how it's gonna be now and forever. 

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey (Dream Horse Press, 2014), The Chair (BOA 2015), and Porridge (Press 53, 2016). He has received a Pushcart Prize and been in Best American Poetry.

MISSIVE FROM THE SISTERS FOR THE RECENTLY TRANSITIONED

by Morrow Dowdle

The Advocate, August 1, 2024

And we’ll be so happy to welcome you, dudes—

that is, ladies. See, we’ll all have something to get used to.  

It won’t be easy. That’s why we’ll be here waiting 

with warm towels, massages, restorative yoga. We get it—

I mean, we’ve been women forever.  

 

Try not to get right on Tinder. You’ve just lost a penis,

and that’s a big adjustment. But can you believe it—

you could have a baby—and it would be your choice only.

Legislation’s gonna change by a landslide

any minute, so strap on your helmets.

 

The right industries will boom—Planned Parenthood, 

subsidized childcare, gun restriction.  More lesbian bars 

will thrive across the nation. Policewomen will run 

at least half the stations, military will get right-sized 

by command of female generals. 

 

Lean on us, your human instruction manual. Some of you 

will arrive on your period. We’ve got goody bags full 

of organic, eco-friendly maxi pads. Cramps?  

Our medicine cabinet’s full of Motrin. Hot flashes?  

We’ve got a closet of portable fans. We won’t mind

 

if you obsess over your new breasts for a hot minute, 

but maybe do it in private. Don’t stare at the women

breastfeeding all over public. Who knows, maybe 

next summer, we can all go topless. Imagine 

all the softball leagues we’re going to create, 

 

the roller derby teams spinning in rented arenas. 

Consciousness-raising circles will ripple out, endless.

You’ll find a goddess beneath each revival tent. 

Oh, the tenderness you’re going to inherit, 

the spaces you’re going to inhabit.  

 

Don’t cry if the men leftover question you.  

Or cry, if you need to. You have no obligation 

to respond, but if you do, tell them 

that you did it for The People.  

Tell them you took one for the team.

Morrow Dowdle has poetry published in or forthcoming from New York Quarterly, Pedestal Magazine, Fatal Flaw, and Poetry South, among others. They have been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net. They edit poetry for Sunspot Literary Journal and host “Weave & Spin,” a performance series featuring marginalized voices. They live in Durham, NC.

HAZE

by Ron Riekki

            “a slight obscuration of the lower atmosphere, typically caused by fine suspended particles” 

—Oxford Languages 

 

“Shortly after the police report was released to KTSM, NMSU chancellor Dan Arvizu announced the men’s basketball program had been shut down for the remainder of the 2022-23 season.” 

—KTSM, February 12, 2023

 

 

My ex- went to NMSU. I visited it and, 

there, she started singing a song by 

 

Everything But the Girl, but changing 

the lyrics, so that instead it was, her 

 

voice beautifully off-key: NMSU, 

like the deserts miss the rain! So that 

 

‘And I miss you’ became the initials 

for her university, and she loved it there, 

 

she said. And I asked why and she said 

Because it was affordable. And I asked 

 

if there was anything else and she said, 

My friends were there. And I felt safe. 

 

And things change. Time flies. And in 

my mind, I go back in time so often. Some- 

 

times I think that’s what trauma is, this 

constant forcing of the mind back in time. 

 

When they hazed me in baseball—no, 

when Scott hazed me, when I just wanted 

 

to play baseball, came up behind me, 

pinned me to the ground, pressed into me, 

 

this future homecoming court member, 

the summer sun burning its light in my 

 

eyes, my arms Christed at my sides, 

and he’d spit, over and over, in my face, 

 

sucking it back into his mouth, no purpose 

except control, and his father was best friends 

 

with my father, the sickness of childhood, 

the dirt anxious below us, the tree branches 

 

trembling in the lack of wind, and when 

they hazed me in basketball—no, when 

 

Bud hazed me when I just wanted to play 

basketball, in a way similar to NMSU, 

 

in a way similar to Florida A&M, similar 

to Binghamton, the forced public nudity, 

 

then throwing me into a pool, and when 

I joined the military, it was like some 

 

infestation, how you don’t fear the quote- 

unquote enemy as much as you fear those 

 

around you, in your barracks, the blanket 

party done on a kid ten bunks down from 

 

mine, how they came in the night and I 

woke to the sound of fists in the darkness 

 

and it wasn’t me, but it would be, later, 

the “Crucifixions” they did at my duty 

 

stations, tying you to a fence, reminding 

me of Matthew Shepard, and they’d take 

 

rotten food they’d left in the jungle heat 

for days, pour it over your head, insects, 

 

the clock, your wrists, the vomit, and 

the repetition, so often, and so many 

 

who didn’t even fight, how they came for 

me, in the night, because I did not want to 

 

reenact hell, how they’d come up behind 

you, duct tape your mouth shut, your 

 

arms, to the chair, wheel you down 

the hall, clatter you outside, transfer 

 

you to fence, your body a map, time 

a skull, hate a latrine, and they killed 

 

one of us, during training, murdered, 

Lee, his name, Lee, Midwestern, like 

 

me, and the “violent physical hazing” 

at the University of Michigan is VCU’s 

 

death is University of Missouri’s student 

who’s blind now, can’t walk, can’t talk 

 

now, and the list of incidents, the copious 

amounts of alcohol, the unconscious-and- 

 

flown, the hit-his-head, and asphyxiation, 

the collapsed-lung, the polytrauma, and 

 

this is normative? and I see them, see 

their photos, of those killed, yearbook 

 

photos, where they glow, dressed in black, 

new glasses, smiles of hope, hair trimmed 

 

yesterdays, majors of Aviation, Engineering, 

Ecology, Middle East Studies, Social Work, 

 

and I’m teary looking at their photos, this 

sudden caesura,  the blank page,  knowing 

 

at least one university hazing death per 

year, from 1969 to now, with hundreds 

 

of deaths since 1838, with the most deaths 

at Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University 

 

of Alabama. And this isn’t a poem. It’s 

a warning. And this isn’t a poem. It’s 

 

a war. And this isn’t a poem. It’s non- 

fiction. And this isn’t a poem. It’s hell. 

 

And I go to the college to complain about 

this and someone warns me, telling me 

 

not to do it, that I’m just wasting my time, 

and I do it anyway, and I’m in his office, 

 

and I explain to him how I’ve been 

harassed on this campus, and how I know 

 

others are being too, that it’s happening 

here, now, and he listens—no, he doesn’t 

 

listen, he hears me, sort of, and says, 

Look, I’m drowning with complaints. 

 

What do you want me to do about it? 

And I tell him that I want it to stop, 

 

that we need it to stop, and he looks 

at me and says, OK.  How? And I 

 

tell him that that’s his job and he sighs 

and says, OK, thanks for stopping in 

 

and I ask him what he’s going to do 

and he starts escorting me to the door 

 

and I repeat it again and he says, 

You want me to be honest? And I say 

 

that I do. And he says, Nothing. 

And the door closes behind me. 

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.