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.

THE SPECTRUM

by Peter Neil Carroll

“Spectrum I” painting by Ellsworth Kelly (1953) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and promised gift of Helen and Charles Schwab

War began as predicted, a vision of fire.

I pulled the blanket over my head, safe,

thousands of miles from personal tragedy.

 

Maybe I should send my blanket to the Red

Cross, they could forward it to a child in

Ukraine. Surely that’s the least I could do.

 

Not enough, though. Maybe tomorrow I will

purchase a box of soft diapers for a children’s

hospital in Kyiv or a can of condensed milk.

 

I saw a photo of a woman weeping in the street,

her arms bare, blood on her naked legs, shoeless.

Clothing. That’s what she needs, a little warmth.

 

Yes, I realize, the wounded need bandages, anti-

biotics, plain aspirin in an emergency. It’s okay

to send medical aid. They call it humanitarian.

 

I know there are many Doctors without Borders

already there, and volunteer cooks boiling soups,

and stews to nourish folks who have lost kitchens.

 

Those helpers are so brave, sincere, real menschen.

I should support them, too, but will money arrive

in time to save a country? Can I buy an ambulance?

 

Can I drive an ambulance? That’s a peaceful way

to help strangers trapped in a war. It would be good

for my conscience. But can one person matter?

 

What the soldiers who are fighting really want are

more weapons and ammunition or, better still, tanks

and rockets. They could use airplanes and bombs.

 

But stop there. They must be only old-fashioned bombs

built on TNT. Not atom bombs or hydrogen bombs

because that could kill too many people plus animals.

 

Where does it end? What is it the right thing to send,

to help someone in trouble? Or a whole country? As if

I could draw a red line on a spectrum or cross over it.

 

Peter Neil Carroll is currently Poetry Moderator of Portside.org. His latest collection of poetry is  Talking to Strangers (Turning Point Press). Forthcoming is This Land, These People: 50 States of the Nation, winner of the Prize Americana. Earlier titles include Something is Bound to Break and Fracking Dakota.  He is also the author of the memoir Keeping Time (Georgia). 

RISKY

by Colette Tennant

People walk past a crater from the explosion in Mira Avenue (Avenue of Peace) in Mariupol on March 13. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP via The Washington Post, March 15, 2022)

streets filled with rubble,

a bombed maternity hospital, pregnant women

bloodied, lying on gurneys in a swirl of confusion,

Sasha, a baby goat with broken front legs,

trying to nurse a vet tech’s ear.

Her owner promised she’d return for her

because she loves her.

 

We watch the news from Ukraine –

refugees bundled against late-winter cold,

In between these stories, news channels

run commercials for various cures –

Nucala for severe asthma sounds great,

but it might cause shingles.

Trelegy treats COPD yet increases

the risk of thrush, pneumonia

and osteoporosis.

Farxiga, for chronic  kidney disease,

could lead to dehydration, fainting, weakness,

genital redness and swelling, and hypoglycemia. 

 

It’s a tricky balance,

the cure and its reaction, so

military experts sit with newscasters,

their hands folded on the studio table.

They discuss various scenarios

for how to help Ukraine, each one

peppered with what ifs.

One possible cure – establish a no-fly zone

unless Putin reacts with chemical weapons.

Supply warplanes to the Ukrainians,

order an airstrike on that 40-mile-long convoy,

but any of those moves might start World War III.

It’s a terrible quandary,

this war we watch between commercials –

trying to find a remedy for this devastation,

knowing the reaction may be awful.

 

Colette Tennant is an English professor living in Salem, Oregon. She has two books of poetry: Commotion of Wings, published by Main Street Rag, and Eden and After, published by Tebot Bach. Her most recent book, Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide, was published in September, 2019 to coincide with Atwood’s publication of The Testaments. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in various journals, including Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Ireland Review, and Southern Poetry Review.

CLOSING THE BOOK ON GEORGE FELL

by Jimmy Pappas

Source: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. —Micah 1:8


1.

the page of a book
            can be a leaf
                        can be a butterfly wing

a book in a college dormitory
            on a Saturday night
                        with a young man studying

can be a starting line
            can be a point of departure
                        can be a loaded gun

2.

closing a book
            on a young man studying
                        can be a wormhole

to travel across
            the United States
                         to California

to Vietnam
            to Cambodia
                        to death

3.

I closed the book
on a young man
studying.

A bit of light air
grazed my cheek,
pushed me along.

The weight of air
at sea level is 14.7
pounds per square inch,

but what is
            the weight of air
                         with friendship?

4.

How does a young man studying plead?

Like this: Please, guys, I'm in trouble.
I'm gonna flunk out. I need to study.
Please let me do this.

How does a young man ignore his friend's plea?

Like this: Come on, Man. It's Saturday night.
We're going to party. You can study tomorrow.
There's always time.

5.

How do you close a book on a friend who is studying?
Do what I did: Just take the cover and flip it over.

6.

What makes a breeze?
            The warm air of friendship rises.
            The cold air of ignorance settles.

7.

The breeze moved us through an evening of drinking,
through a day of lounging around until thinking became
exhaustion, became another day of forgetting
until you left us and we forgot about what we did.

8.

pages of a book are many butterfly wings

9.

a chance encounter in a Greyhound bus station

you had the smell
            of fear and death

my friend told you not to go
but you were not one to stir a breeze

10.

On May 23rd, 1970, I saw a giant beetle
lying in a Saigon gutter on its back
struggling with its legs to turn over.

That evening I made love to my girl friend
while you were humping the boonies in Cambodia.

11.

I don't know what the breeze told me that night,
but I did know it would always be there at my back.

It whispered in my ear,

            remember
                        butterfly wings are leaves

            remember
                        leaves of a book are butterfly wings

Something happened. I didn't know what it was.

12.

When I learned about your death,
I could not understand one thing:

How could anyone
            have expected you
                        to kill another human?

13.

I wear my military jacket to get in the mood.
I find your name on the Wall.

I place my
            right knee
            on the ground
I place my
            left arm on
            my left knee

In my right hand I hold a piece of paper
with a handwritten couplet on it:

Over the distance of 10,000 miles I heard your cry
of how very very much you did not want to die.

I set the paper down at the base of the Wall.
I rested my forehead on my arms. I could not pray.
I wanted to cry, but I was unable to.
Instead, I looked up and stared at my reflection.
I placed two fingers against your name on the Wall.

Behind me, elementary school children on field trips
ran through the grass laughing. They have not yet learned
that the world they see today will not be the same world
tomorrow. A breeze will blow and carry them along.
Today they do not understand, tomorrow they will.
They will feel the breeze and understand the butterfly.

One young boy who hangs back,
            frightened
                        by all the noise,
reminds me of George Fell,
            who must have been
            the gentlest soldier
            who ever lived.

Jimmy Pappas served in South Vietnam during the war as an English instructor with South Vietnamese soldiers in helicopter training. At the same time, George Fell, his friend from college, died in the incursion into Cambodia on May 23, 1970. On that day, commanders announced the death of 190 American soldiers, 500 South Vietnamese soldiers, and 8,000 "enemy troops" in what was described as a "success." One day, several years before that, Jimmy and his friends closed a book on George while he was studying one Saturday night. George flunked out of school, and their paths went in different directions. To this day, George's college friends still love him.