BUCK KLEIN AND THE IMMIGRATION JUDGE

by Dana Yost

CNN, September 28, 2026

Where i grew up,
there was an old man
in a long black coat
and a derby hat.
He slumped, slouched
along streets and
hallways. A church warden,
but not a creep,
though, There to make
sure we kids did the right
thing—that we acted
with decency, respect,
that we cared about
the small town where
we lived. A role model,
if dressed a bit weirdly.
Now, i read about a judge
making threats against
little boys—threatening
to ruin their lives,
to split them from families,
to ship them to countries
where they know no one,
where it’s possible
they will be trafficked
or killed. It’s true.
I’ve read the courthouse
transcripts. This time,
creep is the right word.
I think about the class
I took my freshman
year in college: a study
of the Nazi regime,
the guts of it,
how men became
desensitiezed to the plight
of others, how the lives
of others became
as disposable as my
mother’s empty lighter.
Have we slid into
that sort of nation,
letting judges tell 
kids they have the power
to destroy them? 
The old man in the long
coat of my childhood
would gather
children, give them
shovels and hoes,
have them clean
a patch of weedy
sidewalk, scrape bird
shit off the side of the church.
We’d know it was the right
thing to do: to make the place
look better, because
it was our home.
He spoke gently to us,
but he’d take this judge
in Texas by the throat,
push him to his knees
and say, here,
pull the weeds from the cracks
of the sidewalk, leave
the children alone.
Is that true?
or is it what I want
to be true?
Let’s say it’s both,
Let’s say there is still
some adult who cares
about morality,
the moral high ground
in this country of fast money 
and power-grubbers,
and if that sounds
preachy, then I guess
it does. His name
was Buck Klein
it was it was
it was. Maybe I’ll
drive to Texas
and start a spray-painting
campaign on the bridges
and roads and sides
of courthouses:
Buck Klein lives,
he does, he does,
and judges who do not
know this should
lose their jobs,
should be sentenced
to 40 days on a playground,
learning to care
what becomes
of the children.

Dana Yost is a former daily newspaper editor and writer. He has had 10 books published since 2008 and is a three-time Pushcart nominee. He lives in Sioux Falls, S.D., trying to stay blue in a very red state.

THE CLIMATE SCIENTIST

by Ash M. Corvo

AI graphic by Nightcafé for The New Verse News

My morality is not pretty
Not gartered in roses or smelling like honey
It is iron and snapping teeth
Demanding and loud and spitting on money

And I'll be honest: I hate gilded pulpits and podiums
From where I should beseech gods or powers that be, giving tithe
My authority is nameless in the bitter autumn wind
I know spring blossoms follow the scythe

Look at me and judge: my nobility isn't an eagle, soaring
Even the vulture must eat
Head naked and bent over what is rotten
Clear-eyed, swallowing mouthfuls of pungent meat

They all argue, pen or sword? What does it matter?
I have written words for so long, there is a season for each
A time to inscribe law, a time to rend flesh
And a time for discretion to teach

So yes, my morality is hideous
I endeavor for factual hands to mold it
It does not promise flowery hymns, nor to caress the ear
And we have precious little time for bullshit

Ash M. Corvo is a novelist of dark adult fantasy and science fiction. She writes for readers who want stories to break them—and piece them back together. Her novels confront impossible moral dilemmas, conflicting loyalties, and the gruesome aspects of human nature we prefer not to examine too closely. She holds a Ph.D. in biology, and has seen firsthand the effects of humankind on the natural world.

QUESTIONS

by Katy Z. Allen

Cartoon by Clay Jones

President Donald Trump declared Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world. –The New York Times, January 8, 2026

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread out… —Exodus 1:12
 
asking yourself a question / that's where resistance starts // and then asking someone else, the same question —Remco Campert, "Someone Asks the Question"

The money began to disappear

and the people, 

adherence to the law,

whether ours or everyone’s,

environmental protection,

childcare and other services,

a sense of safety and security,

more money,

more people.

The killing and wounding began—

always with an explanation—

adherence to personal morality alone 

prevailed.

Yet questions were spoken,

whispered and shouted, 

in the open and behind closed doors, 

among friends and in public, 

on airwaves and in cyberspace,

by children and by grandparents, 

by the energized and by the exhausted,

in solitude or to another

question were repeated, 

multiplied 

and spread out,

until 

they were on the lips of every caring woman 

and child 

and man,

every caring human being.

And that was the moment that led,

in the end,

to the beginning.

Katy Z. Allen is a lover of the more-than-human world, poet, retired rabbi of an outdoor congregation, former healthcare chaplain, co-founder of a Jewish climate organization, and eco-chaplain. She has been writing in one context or another all her life. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in print and online in such places as Amethyst Review, The New Verse News, The Bluebird Word, Cosmic Daffodil, and Art on the Trails: Number 9. Her book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text was published by Strong Voices Publishing.

CAUGHT IN BETWEEN

by Phyllis Frakt

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has blocked a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and is historically inaccurate. The state education department rejected the program in a letter last week to the College Board, which oversees AP classes. Florida education officials did not specify exactly what content the state found objectionable but said, “As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” …In a statement, the College Board said, “Like all new AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multi-year pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers.”—AP, January 20, 2023. PHOTOS: From left to right: Poet and social activist Langston Hughes, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and novelist Toni Morrison. All three are among the Black luminaries taught as part of a new AP African American Studies course that is being piloted in high schools across the U.S. Getty Images via TIME

I thought I was born at the perfect time

when fear yielded to democracy

and morality’s arc bent toward justice.

Hopeful they seemed, the sweet years between.

           

But now a time of conspiring tyrants

whose denials belie repeated crimes.

Facts scrapped for lies online and prime time.

I curse the reversal of sweet years between.

          

Skeptics deem all a delusion, a dream.

Grand claims of progress dismiss history

of morality deferred, justice rebuffed.

Deceived by smokescreen, those years between.

 

Some drag with doubt, some dare to dream,

I’m with still others, caught in between.

Phyllis Frakt, formerly an academic administrator, has moved from writing memos to writing poems. Her poem “Recoveries” (2022) appeared in Worksheets 67. Her poem “Teach to the Test" appeared in The New Verse News, also in 2022. She lives in New Jersey.

THE BODY POLITIC

by John J. Brugaletta


How all dissensions strip the body politic

and cast each virtue into festered stench.

Is this a stammer of our history
or the corroded end of moral life?


Our garden is unweeded, and the gorge

gives rise to venomed cates and fetid lies.

Where stand the heroes, heroines to salve
our running sores with clean and dauntless truths?


They speak despite the tide of predators

who seek their heads to dangle at our gates.

But still carnations kiss the air with scent,
birds build, the friendly sun still shines.


And still we counter blows unflinchingly.



John J. Brugaletta is professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at California State University, Fullerton, where he edited South Coast Poetry Journal for ten years. He has published over 370 poems in 75 venues and has six collections of his poetry in print, the latest of which is Peripheral Visions (Negative Capability Press, 2017). A seventh volume, Selected Poems, is in press with Future Cycle Press. X.J. Kennedy has called his selected poems "a vital contribution to American poetry."

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY

by Mark Zimmermann

                           
I’m an ordinary millionaire.
I don’t need a media elite
to remind me I made money.
Morality demanded I earn it
and I did. I made a dream my own.

In my world, one will earn a dollar
or one will want an entitlement.
Indeed, I’d tell any needy, amoral
idler: Don’t lean on a millionaire. Learn
to toil—or win ten million in a lottery!

We need a new national order—now—
or we’ll all drown in a money drain!
A Ryan-Rand leader, I didn’t let
any tweedy elite meddler order me
to reward an addled, idle dream

in Detroit. No—I rallied any and all:
don’t wait on an entitlement! I rallied
any and all: earn a real and moral dollar!
I did it and I’m an ordinary man.
I married my dear, dear Ann. We earned
one dream and made it into two.


Author’s Note: The poem above is a lipogram that uses only letters appearing in Romney’s full name: a-e-i-o  d-l-m-n-r-t-w-y.

Mark Zimmermann lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he teaches humanities and writing classes at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Recently, work of his has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, the 2013 Wisconsin Poets Calendar, and a variety of other venues.