IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE

by Jim Burns

with echoes of Buffalo Springfield

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

it can’t happen here 

they say

and go on 

with their day, 

but are they sure,

do they remember a time 

way back in their prime 

when they raised voices and sang

that something’s happening here,

it’s not exactly clear,

but we’d better beware

and look what’s goin’ down

what’s that sound, 

it ain’t exactly clear, 

but something for sure 

is happening here, 

the Constitution, institutions, 

are biting the dust, 

like used up metal 

they’ll dissolve into rust 

while we whistle 

in the dark, 

take a walk 

in the park, 

say it’ll be alright

and forget 

that what follows

the dark 

is the night

Jim Burns was born and raised in rural Indiana, received degrees from Indiana State University and Indiana University, and spent most of his working life as a librarian. After retirement he turned to an earlier love of writing and has been fortunate to have seen over 20 of his poems and prose published either online or in print. He lives with his wife and dog in Jacksonville, Florida.

MARCH

by Juditha Dowd

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock

Once again we’ve let ourselves be taken in by spring. 
Words we haven’t spoken for months come tumbling 
from our mouths. Tulip, soil, survival. 
Fools that we are to trust a tease so early in the season, 
we need it like we need the cat to see ourselves 
in a rosier light—young and more attentive—aspiring 
to the better selves we seem to have forgotten. 
We need it like we need the moon to make the universe 
believable. I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to write 
a poem without any mention of spring or moon or hope
so maybe that’s worth a try. But night still comes too early. 
I see you’ve already poured the wine, set a glass 
beside my chair where a cat sits watching the fire. 
If I don’t close these blinds right now, the rising moon 
might keep me here, wandering the galaxies. 
In case it’s true that hope cannot eternally renew itself
or spring last longer than today, let me let me stay with 
what I know tonight, release the cord and step away.
 

Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Kestrel, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, Presence and elsewhere.

KEEP AWAKE

by John Linstrom

Rescuers pull a child out of the rubble of a building in Khan Younis, on October 24, 2023. Photo:  Mahmud Hams / AFP / Getty via The Atlantic

for Gaza

The sun darkened, and the moon,
stars falling from heaven, powers

shaken. A toddler is lifted
from a pocket of air

below a concrete slab barely held
by neighbors: her eyes are hollow planets,

dry, they stare—these are not her parents,
she had just been napping and now

the world has gone all dust and jagged.
It was very loud, then very quiet.

This child is the same age
as my own daughter

who wakes with the sun
in the crib across the hall

each day. This child is your child;
she is one of two million.

O God, that you would come down
but you nor no one ever else would be

this child’s mother, nor the quilt
to pull down from over the couch, 

the rocking chair, the picture
of the rabbit at the end of the hall,

the pitcher of juice, the stuffed dog. This child
will now be fed the bread of tears: you

have given her tears to drink. This night
is too dark, carries no answer, and the only words

that come in the furtive inky air are keep awake. 
When she cries, what father will come in to lift her 

in the night? Keep awake. Was there a sibling
for whom those dry eyes moistened? Keep awake.

O God, that you would come down and shield
these children from the blinding grief that falls

with hate, from the ancient territorial tragedy
as we grasp for the revealing of some balm

this child is stricken to the root
deeper than tears, than her voice

and my God may we keep awake, for all
our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth

until we cry out for this stricken girl
and for her loose our voices and

O God kindle our brushwood souls
and fire our water to boiling—powers shaken,

restore us that we might be saved from this,
that all might be saved in this night

for yes, I see, you have come down
and are there: crushed beneath the stone,

and there, sprinting over, lifting boulders, and
there: neighbors lift you and you stare

out among us as stars fall from heaven
and staring, wordlessly demand,

for every child, for every shining light
threatened in the falling night, to keep awake.

John Linstrom’s first collection of poems To Leave for Our Own Country is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in April of 2024. This poem, “Keep Awake,” was written in his role as Poet in Residence at Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish in Manhattan and was read in worship for the First Sunday in Advent. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Northwest Review, North American Review, and The Christian Century. He is the series editor of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Library for Cornell University Press, making available the works of environmental poet-philosopher L. H. Bailey (1858-1954). John holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University and a PhD in English and American Literature from New York University. He lives with his wife and their young daughter in Queens, NY.

ECLIPSE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2023

by Matt Witt

The sun will appear as a blazing ring of fire in the sky over the Americas on Saturday, Oct.14, as an annular eclipse sweeps over the continent. Photo: Digital composite view of annular solar eclipse on May 20, 2012. Seven separate exposures were made twenty minutes apart and combined into one image. (Image credit: Paul Souders via Getty Images) — Space.com

We hardly notice it at first,
just a normal morning
with people walking their dogs
and checking for messages
 
But then the light gets dimmer,
just a little at a time,
until it feels like night
and we are stumbling around
 
But this is not the end
because if we stay alert
the light comes back
and we can see again
 
 
Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon. His work may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com.

ELECTION DEFLECTIONS

by Mary K O’Melveny

It is Election Day. The sun streams down

through emptied branches. Chilled air hovers

like a collective inhale. The exhale 

waits in the wings like a novice actor 

battling stage fright. Last night, wind pretended 

to be a train. We woke up thinking we 

had traveled far away and were waiting 

for good news to arrive at the station 

with morning’s mail. But we were still here 

facing down demons, stomachs tied to the tracks.

 

Last time we were set up at a polling

place in Florida. We wore our election

protection badges and hats, as we hoped 

for business. We were nervous. Little

did we know. Now, fear oozes through our veins

with every news bulletin and text.

The pandemic has kept us at home. Our

absentee ballots were mailed. Making calls

calls to others is as close as we’ve gotten

to a voting booth. We’ve been begging.

 

I turn to the rhythm of raking leaves.

Piles of them shift, rustle, crinkle, whisper.

I am in charge of the rake and the broom.

Most will follow my directions. How great

that feels. Predictability has all

but vanished outside my small radius of

oak, maple, chestnut, dogwood, beech, ash.

Later, I am moved to bake a cobbler.

Comfort food may get us through this long night.

Maybe many nights to come. And Woody Guthrie.

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

THE ROAD AHEAD, 2020

by Bill Sullivan

How to know if history is slamming

on the brakes, screeching to a blessed stop

just before the ditch and the cliff--taking

a left turn, leaving behind all the outdated

models, the hesitant and reluctant drivers?

No trumpet blares, theatric announcements,

no once-every-five hundred-years comet

streaking across the night sky, no revelations.

And we wonder if history is on automatic

drive and we're just along for the ride?  Or

if we can remap our route, take detours, back

roads to avoid dead ends and fatal collisions?

Still we keep our hands on the steering wheel, 

step on the gas, sing songs to the night sky.

Bill Sulllivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College before retiring in Westerly, Rhode island. His poems have appeared in print and online publications including: Perigee, Connecticut River Review, the Providence Journal, and The New Verse News.  He is also the author of Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose.

THE LONG PAUSE

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Illustration: Craig Stephens, The South China Morning Post, August 16, 2020

The night descended
an oiled slickness
thick black sludge
and it stayed on
not draining itself
into the blue day

we didn't know why
we had to wait
wait, fight, wait
we were all boxed up
and boxed in
alone
together
piled up in stacks

and in the silence
that lasted for years
we all had to shut
ourselves down
breathe through holes
sometimes killing
choking someone
for their air
for their silence
the cruel darkness
like a hard migraine
full of daggering jolts
of lost sunshine
so much existential pain
we stuck to shadows
'til all light was gone
and nothing
beautiful
left
to see

for ourselves
the energy it took
to shepherd ourselves
and everyone else
to come close
to conspire
to fling ourselves
out of the dark nest
the safety boxes
we had been placed in
like blind chicks
we didn't know why
we knew
we had to decamp
breaths held
the countdown:

November 1
November 2
November 3…

and we decanted
a vast gushing
pushing us all out
every single one of us
free flowing
from a fogged dream
of lonely sleepwalkers
unable to see the depth
skating on the surface
like insects, pond skippers
but now we dove deep
into our inventory of loss
the trappings of despotism
saying no, no
no more

and we were cresting
in violent surges
flooding our grief
hammered out
the cheap walls
the stockade of lies
the prison of secrets
the years of self-harm
bursting seams
breaking up
shattering, scattering
into the brightness
the blue sky world
we had always known
as American
life.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self.

KARMA PLUS

by David Radavich





See what pure narcissism
brings forth: a great rot
in the communal apple.

The body politic
spoils top to bottom
and back again.

Every inequity
becomes deadly
as a snake.

We have long since
been thrown out
of the garden.

We roam streets
like zombies
in search of medicine
and care.

How can we be
one family

and not hug
our neighbors
as ourselves?

Pathogens know
our vulnerabilities
and strike
with clear knives.

In the dark night

we become
what we do
for one another.

David Radavich's latest narrative collection is America Abroad: An Epic of Discovery (2019), companion volume to his earlier America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007). Recent lyric collections are Middle-East Mezze (2011) and The Countries We Live In (2014). His plays have been performed across the U.S. and in Europe.

OFF DUTY

by Ann Neuser Lederer

Photo by Carol Dorf 

A man crawls
into his own bedroom
window.

It's already night.
He might be contagious.

Soon, a tone—a lone violin—
seeps through the shut room's door.

A grandma nudges—you
can join in with your dad.

A few bars, back and forth.
An unseen whispered conversation.

In the dark of the morning
he descends.

Instead of the bus he walks.
Invisible birds announce it is day.

All playgrounds are locked, the schools deserted—
the children still safe in their sleep.

Ann Neuser Lederer's poetry and nonfiction are published in journals such as Diagram, Passages North, Brevity, 2 River Review, and UCity Review whose "noteworthy" section presents ten of her poems. Her work is also honored in Best of the Net and Ohio State University's Vandewater Poetry Award; published in anthologies such as A Call to Nursing and The Country Doctor Revisited; and in her chapbooks Approaching Freeze (2003), The Undifferentiated (2003), Weaning the Babies (2007), and Fly Away Home (2019). Ann was born in Ohio and has worked there and surrounding states as a Registered Nurse.