IN THE TIME OF THE MAD KING

by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

We waited. For someone to save us—
A lawyer who emerged from an onslaught
of documents to find that smoking diamond
of indisputable scandal, the hot and hard
evidence fresh from the seismic forces
that will eventually implicate everyone
and pull the red edifice permanently
beneath the surface. We waited on 
a clutch of senators as if they were
blackbirds, screaming with thirst, as
the temperature rose and the dough 
hardened around their bellies and necks, 
their vision fit to burst. Perhaps there was
a philanthropist, a banker or some titan 
of industry who had yet to offend us, who 
could provide a sweeping indictment of
the king’s fiscal wardrobe and its hidden 
curses. We waited for anyone outfitted like
the Statue of Liberty of Kafka’s imagination, 
wielding not light toward our welcoming shore 
but a scimitar pointed toward the heavens. 
We waited for literature; for comedians, 
professionals and amateurs in puffy animal
get-ups; for a plague of insects and amphibians 
to get the job done before all other species were 
sent to their doom, along with millions of humans. 
We waited for science, geometric proofs, facts 
of all genres; for sources and methods, common
sense or history to catch up with the velocity of 
the carnage. Our children injected Botox 
to preserve their tight and inchoate faces 
because we had foreclosed on their youth 
and they were keeping their options open 
for a second childhood to be carried out free 
of the king’s aegis. We waited for creams 
and lotions, hair dye and bronzers, for their 
chemical processes to reach their malignant 
apexes. We waited for the madness to lift 
as if a curtain made of the lead
we had allowed to adulterate our paint and seep 
into our rivers; for bread and angels to nourish
the poor huddled among us, until the miracle
rebirth of women whom we had previously 
torched for failing to dispense with the king
without our assistance, as if their ashes 
and embers had always contained the directions 
but we couldn’t be bothered to read the labels. 
So we waited, and kept waiting, like mourners 
afraid to share their allegiances, until we could
blame only ourselves, instead of the victims.

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of a memoir, two novels, five full-length collections of poetry, and four chapbooks of poetry. Her poem "Overheard at the Sphere in Las Vegas During Dead and Co.'s Spring Run 2025" appeared in the The New Verse News on May 23, 2025.  

ABSORBED

by Theodore Eisenberg

Cy Twombly, Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus, 1962. Cy Twombly Foundation via Two Coats of Paint.

When so many massacred in one 

episode, words also assailants. 

If you squint at the mourners—

feet, hands and heads break away, 

dissipate into the sanctuary’s hazy 

walls—and you begin to understand 

how families dissolve into scapes. 

 

But if you hearken with care, you 

hear cries from the wooden panels, 

whispers from the crevices. These 

the unsaid, now spoken, silences of 

once. But if you attend with a foolish 

heart, and hear song and laughter 

teem from wood and brick, you dream.

Theodore Eisenberg retired from the practice of labor law in 2014 to write. When words seem too restrictive, he paints. His poems have appeared in The Aurorean, Thema, Rattle, Slipstream Press, Crosswinds Press, Lighthouse Literary Journal, Main Street Rag, concis, Philadelphia Stories, Aji Magazine, Every Writer, Blue Mountain Review, Valley Voices, Hamilton Stone Review, Rust & Moth, The Ekphrastic Review, and many other journals. His chapbook This was published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. 

QUEUED

by Annie Cowell

The queue for Queen Elizabeth II's lying-in-state is visible from space in this photo taken Sept. 16, 2022. (Image credit: Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies @Maxar via Space.com.)

We feel

it is a very

British thing,

the queue.

That we 

invented it,

monopolise it,

transformed it

into art. 

We queue,

best foot

forward, wearing

stiff upper lips,

displaying 

plumes of

peacock pride.

For centuries 

we have practised; 

in war time 

ration lines, 

supermarkets, 

airports, 

Wimbledon. 

It agitates 

our sense

of fairness;

we are ready

to be tested, 

to fight 

for our 

rightful

place. 

Now, 

we have

the mother

of all 

queues.

A record 

breaker,

meandering

for miles,

flowing 

like the

Thames through 

the heart 

of London.

A pulsing

tail of 

humanity,

from Britain 

and abroad

eager to 

embrace

a marathon

of waiting

and be a part 

of history.

No agitation

here, instead

a camaraderie

of shared

experience,

of sorrow.

At last,

there is

the end.

A pause,

in which

to bow 

our heads.

Pay respects.

Duty

bound, 

it seems,

to say

farewell. 

Annie Cowell  grew up in Northern England. She is a former teacher who lives by the sea in Cyprus with her husband and rescue dogs. She is widely published in Popshot Quarterly, The Milk House, Paddler Press, and more. Her debut chapbook Birth Mote(s) is now available.

A MODEST PROPOSAL

by Michael Eddie Anderson

There had been warnings, but no one imagined this could happen. For weeks, two rival factions battled it out on Chicago's South Side. One shooting left the mother of a gang member wounded and her 25-year-old son dead. A few days later, a young woman sitting in a car was fatally shot. With tensions high, outreach workers for CeaseFire traded bits of information and huddled with gang members to try to untangle the conflicts. But the execution of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee in an alley by 80th Street and Damen Avenue in early November was nothing anyone — not the most seasoned cops, not former longtime gang members — would have ever predicted. In Chicago's long, troubled history of gang violence, children have far too often been the victims of stray bullets meant for others, but authorities allege Tyshawn was lured from a park and fatally shot because of his father's alleged gang ties. —Chicago Tribune, Dec. 1, 2015

for Tyshawn Lee

In a good world
the nine-year-old boy would get a haircut,
would get a double-breasted white tuxedo,
matching white cotton gloves,
a red bow tie,
a red boutonnière at the lapel—
also a bright red fedora
crowning the little casket, fire-engine red,
which is wiped with Lysol
and polished clean
as the mourners queue up
on the sidewalk
in a long line
because in a good world
such a line would be long.


Michael Eddie Anderson has worked as an editor at Rhino: the Poetry Journal and now serves on their advisory board. His poetry has appeared in Rhino, Pen Woman Magazine, and the recent Poet and Artist Chapbook of the Northwest Cultural Council. Anderson lives in Evanston, Illinois.