SHHHH

by stella graham-landau

in memory of Andrea Gibson 
13 August 1975 — 14 July 2025

quiet settles on the sheets
eyelids closed
one final rest

their smile remains
last memory last touch
last blessing inhaled exhaled

their passion lifts 
into the air around us
ignites our faith

their lines of poetry 
vine around our hearts 
their legacy already in bloom

be inspired
let yourselves lean into joy
dig deeper into all aspects of life

every step 
every breath
carry hope forward

shhhh
now smile
all is well

stella lives in richmond, va and has been published in The 

New Verse News several times as well as in regional publications. she's grateful for the wonderful poetry communities that exist, encouraging all of us to find our voices and share our truths and wonderings.

GOODBYE, KYIV

by Donald Sellitti

Goodbye, Kyiv and thank you
for the chance to stand in solidarity
with you at safe remove to
write of you with passion and with
anger in my slanted rhymes.

I cared a lot, I really did, and bared
my heart in lines I broke in
unexpected places, taking 
risks you wouldn’t 
understand.

You’re not a poet.
I was just as brave as you.

The moving zeitgeist though
has moved and left you 
far behind as winds of war
have blown again and lauded us with
new and fresher outrage for the
dead and dying. My anger needs
new tinder, not the charcoal
of your cities, for its burning.

I’m back inside my garden now
where themes of death and
inhumanity present themselves
in quaint and small tableaux.

A newly fallen tree; a spider that
I’d stepped on carelessly
with one leg tapping. Death is 
all around me as it is with you.

I might write of you again, Kyiv,
if something fresh emerges from
the blandness of unending war, 
a bomb as blinding as the sun 
perhaps, awash in metaphor.

But for now, goodbye Kyiv. 
Best wishes for the future,
really. 


Donald Sellitti honed his writing skills as a scientist/educator at a Federal medical school in Bethesda, MD before turning to poetry following his retirement. Numerous publications in journals with titles such as Cancer Research and Oncology Letters have been followed by publications in journals with titles like The Alchemy Spoon, Better than Starbucks, and Rat’s Ass Review, which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize in 2022.

DEMO

by Michel Steven Krug

Jeff Koterba / Cagle Cartoons

In the House

there’s treachery afoot.

 

A leader sandwiched by volleys

of red sensation

and

what formerly was known

as consensus.

 

And the price to be paid:

parliamentary

demo-

li-tion. 

 

I move that the Country

Avert economic infanticide

By installing cold showers

That spray the margins where

Passion plays like theatre 

To astound the outer rings.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and he litigates. His poems have appeared in Sierra Nevada Review, Jerry Jazz, Whistling Shade, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag and Brooklyn Review. His collection Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is scheduled for publication by Broadstone Books, in the spring, 2024.

THE ANTIDOTE

by Judy Kronenfeld

John R. Lewis, 1940-2020

Given poverty, he created dignity.
Given indifference, he returned passion for justice.
Given intolerance, he expanded the meaning of tolerance.
Given violence, he gave his bashed-in skull.

He made himself the instrument of that oh-so-slowly bending arc—
so slow, it is easy to lose courage, but he didn’t.
Given venomous hatred, he returned love
because hate destroys the hater, and he knew it.

Parents, sit your children on your knees,
and explain to them—not marble
nor the gilded monuments,
nor lofty towers emblazoned—
explain to them what greatness is.

Judy Kronenfeld’s most recent collections of poetry are Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, 2nd edition (Antrim House, 2012)—winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Ghost Town, New Ohio Review, One (Jacar Press), Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and other journals, and in more than two dozen  anthologies. She is Lecturer Emerita, Department of Creative Writing, UC Riverside, and an Associate Editor of Poemeleon.

ON MAGRITTE'S LOVERS IN 2020

by Jack Kristiansen

"The Lovers II" (1928) by Rene Magritte

For years we were sure
there could be little joy

in their passion,
not much of a promise

in their commitment.
But what did we know?

Now that we see
why the veils

the kissing lovers wear
make some sense,

we still worry
about the risk.


Jack Kristiansen exists in the composition books and computer files of William Aarnes who lives in South Carolina.

WORTHY

by Devon Balwit 

Isidro Baldenegro (d. 2017), a subsistence farmer and community leader of Mexico’s indigenous Tarahumara people in the country’s Sierra Madre mountain region was jailed for 15 months for organizing protests against illegal logging and his work to defend the forests, lands and rights of indigenous people.

Goldman prize winner Isidro Baldenegro López, who was known for his activism against illegal logging, was shot dead months after Berta Cáceres was murdered 

—The Guardian, January 18, 2017

Congratulations, you have won a prize!
Even now, we are preparing your bullet;
someone is digging your grave.

We thank you for raising your head above
the parapet, helping our assassins, for walking
ahead of the crowd, for speaking out.

Even as you topple, we are felling your trees,
damming your ancestral waters, wringing
profit from all that is profitable.

And do not worry; we have our eyes on your sons
and daughters, already seeking the next winner,
attentive, proactive, ready to reward passion.

Devon Balwit is a writer and teacher from Portland, OR. She has two chapbooks forthcoming—how the blessed travel from Maverick Duck Press and Forms Most Marvelous from dancing girl press. Her recent work has found many homes, both on-line and in print.

QUEER MUSIC

by Tom Lennox

In the ice dancing competition in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Russia’s bronze medalists Nikita Katsalapov and Elena Ilinykh “brought down the house with their performance to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.”

They chose the queer for their music
to dance upon the ice
queer ice
deep and Russian
dense with dreams
with the thrill of passion’s thaw
a triumphant heart
beating beneath the ice
Russian heart
queer heart
within the swan
black swan beset by
the magician
black heart
his veins too
Russian passion
queer passion
that slices
through the ice
lifting the heart like a waltz
queer waltz


Tom Lennox’s poems have appeared in Miriam’s Well and The New Verse News. He has published two chapbooks, Aerial Acts and Once Twice. He lives by a creek in a wildlife region in southwest Florida.