INSOMNIA CHRONICLES LIX

by Erin Murphy

The night is full of insomniacs googling insomnia. When I hear contempt, I think contretemps. Instead of raging hatred, I see mild embarrassment, two girls showing up at prom in the same dress. Better yet, contra dance: two lines of partnerless dancers, a caller announcing moves to the beat of fiddles and mandolins. Years ago, a contra dancing club met Mondays in a local barn. Members brought potluck meals they kept warm under tea towels. Or so I imagine. I never went but was intrigued by the small ads in the weekly paper. All welcome, bring a dish. How did we find out about anything back then? No internet, no cell phones. If I were dropped in the middle of 1990, could I find my way home? The past is a foreign country, someone once said. Lately, so is this moment. During the pandemic, one house on our block had a Trust Dr. Fauci banner on the front porch. Across the street, neighbors planted a Fauci is a Liar lawn sign. My friend Joan says it’s everyone’s first time being a person. Most of us are personing the best we can. We try, try, stumble, try. Contra dancers weave in and out of other bodies, wipe brows with damp bandanas, grant grace for missed cues. Look each other in the eye.

Erin Murphy is the author or editor of sixteen books, most recently Swoon: New and Selected Poems (Grayson Books, 2026).

USED BOOKS FOR SALE

by Brydon Caldwell

As developers race to build more powerful AI models, and lawsuits over copyright mount, a cottage industry has sprung up to supply them with millions of physical books that are stripped apart, scanned into training datasets, and discarded. —Yahoo! Finance, July 29, 2026. AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Soft, almost like felt,

worn down by so

many different thumbs.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

A warm smell with

just a hint of must,

memories of comfort.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Words carefully arranged,

adjusted, revised just so,

telling a narrative.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Knowledge, hard won,

meant to be shared,

illustrated clearly.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Cultural threads woven

together to patch  

gaps in society.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Lone voices calling

from the past, trying

to share themselves.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

What cost will we pay

when the future devours

the past?

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. He was recently named the winner of the 2026 Icelandic Festival of Manitoba Short Story Contest.  His writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, The Fib Review, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies.

THIS TOO WILL BE OUR HISTORY

by Kristin Kowalski Ferragut

Let’s crawl out from between cracks

in Mrs. Malloy’s Social Studies class

look America square in the…  

Trail of Tears, Chinese Exclusion, Compromise

of 1877, red carpet for the KKK in troops

 withdrawal, 911, Homeland Security, ICE.

Military facing off with us — terror.

We love this country — swampy and lush; dry

and sharp; wide, wild, waking.

Echoes of past, Liberty or Death,

beg the question, Is the acrid smoke gulped 

after hollers of Freedom now

easier than silence? 

Don’t you want to fix her pockets, tuck

them in; pull her 

Fortnite shirt down over

her exposed sand-colored belly; embrace 

her and, while reaching behind, 

let loose the cuffs, like you might untie

a ribbon to free your girl’s hair?

Kristin Kowalski Ferragut is author of the poetry collection Escape Velocity (Kelsay Books, 2021) and children's book Becoming the Enchantress (Loving Healing Press, 2021). Her poetry has appeared in Beltway Quarterly, Bourgeon, Fledgling Rag, Little Patuxent Review, and Gargoyle Magazine, among others.

NEANDERTHALS IN THE TILE

by Sally Zakariya

This floor tile imported from Turkey and installed during a home renovation contains what is believed to be a cross section of an ancient human jawbone. (Courtesy of Reddit user Kidipadeli75 via The Washington Post)

Check the counters and floors

check all the travertine tiles

Look for signs of the old ones

reaching up through time

   slivers of bone

      shards of teeth

Imagine the beginning: a natural

hot spring somewhere in Turkey

Layer after layer of plants and animals

trapped in the mud and fossilized

Mammoths, rhinos, giraffes,

deer, reptiles—even humans—

embedded in the travertine

Look down and count the years—

a million or more

Each step we take on earth, we walk

on the past

Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 100 publications and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her publications include All Alive Together, Something Like a Life, Muslim Wife, The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, and When You Escape. She edited and designed a poetry anthology Joys of the Table and blogs at www.butdoesitrhyme.com.

AMERICAN DREAM ‘22

by Scott C. Kaestner

The American Dream Art Print by cindy nguyen

We have to unlearn everything 

we’ve come to know.

Forget the past so as not to

forsake the future.

Be the change coming.

Believe it’s possible.

The Milky Way understands.

Asteroids do slam into planets.

And dinosaurs will disappear.

Scott C. Kaestner is a Los Angeles poet, writer, dad, husband, and deadbeat dreamer extraordinaire. Google ‘scott kaestner poetry’ to peruse his musings and doings.

LAUGH

by Ken Purscell

I heard his laugh before I heard the news,

But recognized who made that laugh and why:

He'd overcome their power to refuse

His ballot. Now his laugh could finally fly

Unhindered. Yes, there still was all the pain

Of truth to face. And reconciliation?

Never easy. Yet gentle as the rain,

He worked to foster healing to a nation.

But that one moment, joy sprang out in laughter

Because he’d laughed a thousand times before–

Despite the past behind, what might come after–

Holding tight the faith that was his core:

Christ’s mercy conquers every evil thing,

So even before the news arrives, we sing!

Ken Purscell is a retired retail cashier, adjunct professor, and preacher. He and his wife Koni live in the suburbs of Chicago. He still claims his greatest accomplishment is that he once made Victor Borge laugh.

LOOKING FOR AMERICA

by George Salamon 

I looked for the American character,

and I saw the contours fading, the

words to sing of it sour or drab, I

seek refuge in old photo albums, 

capturing dignity and pride, coming

together in many kinds of work and

fulfillment, revealing what we had or

what we thought we had, now that

we're seeking the causes of our loss

as if our minds had shut down and our

hands and feet were bound, yet no

cause is so deep it cannot be found.

George Salamon live in the heartland of America, St. Louis, MO, and contributes to The Asses of Parnassus, One Sentence Poems, and The New Verse News.

THE SKYSCRAPER MUSEUM

by Kate Bernadette Benedict

Even after the crisis eases, companies may let workers stay home. That would affect an entire ecosystem, from transit to restaurants to shops. —The New York Times, May 12, 2020

Indeed. This lobby is marble-graced.
Heels would echo as workers raced
for pinging elevators, though some stopped
at newsstands first, where they’d opt
for breath mints and a morning paper.
Here’s a New York Times, with vintage
headline. Centennial of Brooklyn Bridge.

Let’s go up, let’s press floor 43.
Bad art, glass walls, a ficus tree.
Outside : virtual sky and steeple.
Inside: holograms of busy people
dressed like Peggy and Joan and Draper.
Here’s a typewriter. Hear it clacking?
Pages on the side for stacking.

What a time it was! It ended.
Congregating got suspended.
The energy of streaming streets.
Uptown, Mad Men; downtown, Beats.
Coffee smells and carbon paper.
Towers went up and towers fell,
a simple virus fouled the well.

So let us praise Manhattan
as it used to be
and marvel that we worked that way
in harmony
in soaring buildings
that caught the sun
and let in moonlight too.
Eras end. History gives them due.

Kate Bernadette Benedict, of New York City, is the author of Earthly Use: New and Selected Poems.

BRITAIN AND I

by Nina Parmenter

Image source: Meijburg & Co

Back, back we go,
Britain and I,
back to those heady days
when we sat in our studies
gruff and moustachioed
and barked at the children.

Out, out we go,
Britain and I,
out to our verandas
in rakish hat-and-slacks combos
to take pot shots at Johnny Foreigner.
Ruff-ruff-huzzah!

Off, off we go
Britain and I,
to shake hands with petty despots
and trade their spice and silks
for gold, favours
and averted eyes.

So goodbye, Gerhardt,
farewell, François,
and so long, bland, borderless tomorrow.
Hand me my hunting stick, Britain,
and let us stride on
to glory.

Nina Parmenter is a mother to two busy boys. In her spare time, she is a marketing manager. Her poetry has appeared in Light and Lighten up Online, and on her blog, itallrhymes.com. She lives in Wiltshire, UK, and is currently working on her first children’s novel.

THE LAWN

by Katherine Smith

Harry W. Porter Pumpkin Ash, The Lawn,
Pavilion IX, University of Virginia

On this grass in 1984
I met my true love
in front of the bookstore

where men in camouflage
brandish torches and a few women too
in fluttering skirts, march

not far from the Rotunda.
They chant of the past
but these men aren’t the past.

The past was 1984 when
we lay under the ginkgo
the man who loved

the Ivory Coast and I,
and music from Mali
played on the lawn now lit

by confused torches.
In the future
where the black-shirted men

leave their shadows
behind them in the grass,
lovers will hesitate

to lie under the ash tree.


Katherine Smith’s publications include appearances in Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review and many other journals.  Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press), appeared in 2014. She teaches at Montgomery College in Maryland.

METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING

by Howie Good



via GIPHY

Pushing again and again
as though intending to lift
the cumulative weight of heartache,
just the very, very tips emerge,
the first shoots of spring,
medieval pilgrims in weird green headgear
leaning out of the dark past.

Howie Good is the author of The Loser's Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from ThoughtCrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry.

HOW TO EAT THE MOON

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

With salt, of course,

though there’s the matter of how

to get the salt to stick

without the assist of gravity.

And paired with a slightly chilled sauvignon blanc,

preferably from Marlborough, of course,

with its hints of green pepper and grass.

It doesn’t taste like cheese after all,

but then the experts never seem to be right.

It tastes more like, well, hard to say.

Try another bite.

You never thought you’d be here, did you,

sampling these bits of reflected light.

Almost as unexpected as the apology

earlier tonight from the man in the suit

so blue it looked black.

Maybe not a white. A red.

A cab. Dark fruit. Full body.

One that’s needed time to evolve.

Its complex woody tones will compliment

the moon’s impressive density.

What was it he said? “While

we obviously cannot change

the past, it is clear that we

must change the future.”

Toast to the future

and raise your glass

and take another nibble of moon.

Notice how dark it is, really,

about the color of asphalt, worn down.

It’s only because space itself is so dark

that the moon seems light.

All along you thought it was white.

Where else have you been wrong?

Perhaps between sips

and forkfuls you’ll find an apology

ripening there on your own startled tongue.

Perhaps you’ll dare to speak it.

The night makes its usual rounds.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poetry has appeared in O Magazine, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion and on river rocks. She was recently appointed Poet Laureate of Colorado’s Western Slope used the position to launch “Heard of Poets,” an interactive poetry map of Western Colorado poets. She directed the Telluride Writers Guild for 10 years and now co-directs the Talking Gourds Poetry Club. Since 2005, she’s written a poem a day. Favorite one-word mantra: Adjust.

REFLECTING THE WORLD

by Richard Schnap

When he learned that
To lose was to
Be spit upon
He wore a Superman outfit

And when he discovered that
Hate was becoming
More fashionable than love
He wore a swastika armband

And when he found that
The future was looking
More like the past
He wore a watch that ran backwards

And when he saw that
To be different was
The worst of all
He wore a mask made of mirrors

Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter, and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

REAWAKENED

by Richard Schnap




I hear the sound
Of drums approaching
Beating a rhythm
From the distant past

Down a ghostly road
That’s been reopened
To slither beneath
A bloodstained dawn

And in the wind
Come a thousand voices
Cheering the arrival
Of a man I’ve met before

Speaking a language
Of fashionable hatred
Designed to enshrine him
In the temple he’s rebuilt


Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally, and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.