DELETE AFTER READING

by Celeste DeSario 

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

My friends say,
Don’t text your political poems.
You know we can’t have those on our phones.

Those Monsters Under the Bed do exist 
and have crawled off the white spaces.
And now they lurk.
Waiting. Watching. 
Listening to our conversations.
Recording.
Keep those words hidden.
Under cover 

But I can’t. 
I’m afraid.
I’m not the MAGA Dream Girl, you know.
I’m just an ordinary citizen— 
ten fingers, no illusions about me…

I haven’t been to D.C. for a long time,
so, no that wasn’t me trailing my hand 
through the algae-green water of the Reflecting Pool.
If I were there, I wouldn’t be able to see my reflection anyway—
the water clouded with bacteria,
and green scum rising to the top…
obscuring my view. 
I’m too afraid to look…

Yesterday I pulled $70 out of my wallet 
just to fill the tank, 
even though I can’t really go anywhere anymore.

Who wants to face the airport check-in desk
and wind up on the floor, guns pointing at you,
for the chance to sit on a boat and watch 
the icebergs calve and collapse into a warming Disenchantment Bay?

Cracking, thundering, echoing across the water
as they melt, sending waves skyward
while the tourists clap and cheer—
even though the earth is screaming at us
to bring down the heat.

Everything will be okay, because a deal with Iran
Is “imminent”, “close”, “finalized”.
Promised and promised…
At least forty times so far.
I’m not feeling it.
So, go back to being afraid.
Does that work for you?

Did it work in East Germany under Stasi?
Where an unfamiliar car parked nearby,
made you pull 1984 off your shelves.
Where neighbors would dig through your trash
searching for forensic evidence—
contraband chocolate wrappers from the West,
discarded letters or carbon paper
snatched up and pasted back together.
Evidence of thinking.
Where even a child’s birthday card 
was ripped open before reaching its destination

No. It didn’t work.

And Leni’s footage?
The kids, clad in uniforms, 
stiff with creases,
climbing flagpoles just to glimpse The Fuhrer.
Cheering, whistling as though he were a rock star.
Children reporting their parents’ dinner conversations—
Complaints of bread and potatoes again. 
The long lines, the lack of butter. 
The radio dial tuned in, low, listening to the BBC,
listening for the real truth of the world
through forbidden airwaves.

Those kids were patriots.

Where was I?
Oh. I’m still here. Stuck.
Staring at a screen where I delete my own words.
Do I dare to press send?
Will those agents be knocking on my door?
Scrolling through my phone?
Scrutinizing my computer files?
I’m almost at the end of my poem,
but I can’t send it to my friends.
I don’t want the border guards to deny anyone entry,
Or to detain people just trying to see their aging parents.

I guess I will send the poem out into the world.
To a writer.  A poet.
Someone who knows the power of words.
Someone who provides a platform 
for those of us who need it. 

Especially need it.
Today.
Now.

More than ever.

Celeste DeSario enjoys breaking down big political illusions while also writing about personal grit and artistic passion. Her recent work appears in The New Verse News, The Dissident Voice, The Changing Times, The SportScribe, and The Ekphrastic Review. This portfolio includes sharp political satires like “There are Monsters Under My Bed”, "I’m the MAGA Dream Girl”, "The Peeling of American Flag Blue," and “I Ran,” alongside reflective pieces like "Bridging and Grappling," "A Leap of Affirmation,” and “Gaudi's Unbending Vision".

HOW MUCH CAN WE TAKE?

by Lynne Kemen

after viewing “Continuous Form” by Nishimura Yuko (Japan) 2020—washi paper

The paper is impossibly twisted, pleated

like skirts used to be. How is it possible

that this is paper? Nishimura Yuko's washi

folding into itself, holding a shape

it shouldn't hold.

 

On the wall behind, faces

also impossibly shaped, bearing witness,

watching.

 

Tensile strength. The word makes me think

of tension, how it translates to my own body

squirming to get comfortable, no longer able

to hold erect posture. Two total knee replacements.

Back pain. Neck pain. I'm so tired.

 

Pretti is our conscience. One of the helpers

who always shows up, who cares about others,

who refuses to look away. His phone

documenting what shouldn't be happening,

what we need to see.

 

I used to protest the Vietnam war. Kent State

terrified me—that girl kneeling, her mouth open,

screaming over the body. Some photographs

are that raw, that perfectly horrific.

Once I see them, they're in my DNA somehow,

in my body.

 

I can't stand for long periods now.

And I know I cannot look away.

So many do. They don't think it affects them—

until it does.

 

The sculpture before us, still whole.

Those circular faces, still watching.

We know fabric tears.

We just don't know when.

Lynne Kemen is the author of Shoes for Lucy (SCE Press, 2023) and More Than a Handful (Woodland Arts Editions, 2020). Her work has appeared in One Art, The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. She received a 2024 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as Editor/Interviewer for The Blue Mountain Review. She is currently working on two full-length poetry volumes. Lynne lives in rural Delaware County, New York.

ATTENTION SPANS

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Ten years ago, a shocking headline captured the world’s attention: “Human beings now have an attention span shorter than that of a goldfish!” This claim, though horrifying, was totally bogus. The stat in question—that our attention spans had shrunk to a meagre eight seconds—was founded on two spurious and unverified sources and widely spread by a Microsoft Ads “study” published in 2015… Even if we haven’t quite hit goldfish levels, is there some truth to the assertion that human attention spans are dwindling? The short answer is a resounding “yes”, according to research. —Independent (UK), December 14, 2025

Attention spans in humans have declined

Tremendously since tech bros honed their apps

To deluge us with clickbait that's designed

Expressly to cause frequent mental lapse,

Necessitating countermeasures that

Try earnestly to put the genie back

Inside the bottle, but a TikTok chat

Or YouTube video resists attack,

No matter how you try to disengage—

Safari, Chrome and Edge don't miss a trick:

Psychology will keep you on their page,

And amplify your brain rot as you click...

No antidote for dumbing down is known—

Save ditching both your laptop and your phone!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly, and other journals.

CHECK YOUR PHONE!

by Roderick Deacey

Check your phone—

it’s full of messages,
all are saying
check your phone.
Check your creek—
it keeps on rising,
so do temperatures,
the tundra’s melting,
ice floes are melting,
ice caps are melting.
It appears that ice
is getting scarcer.
Check your freezer—
it’s full of polar bears!
That’s not funny,
they are homeless,
so are penguins.
Check your oceans—
coral’s dying,
sea-weed’s dying,
whales are dying,
fish are dying,
even octopi
are saying bye-bye.
Sea’s full of plastic—
that can’t feed us.
What’s going on here?

Check your phone—
it’s full of fascism,
it’s caught a virus,
it’s caught fanaticism,
anti-Constitutional
Christian nationalism.
The leading candidate
has set a camping date
to rehouse us vermin
soon as he is back in,
billionaires back him,
better believe him!
Hey, great-grandad,
those Nazis you fought—
they’re back again.

Check your phone—
it’s bleeding bargains,
don’t buy bargains,
but buy a bunch
of solar chargers.
And download books—
many, many books—
for long, dark evenings.
Are they coming?
What do Boy Scouts say?
Be prepared! But first,
download this handy volume:
"Edible Plants for Eating;
How to Find Them."
It’ll help you forage
in field and forest—
the hunter-gatherer diet,
you may have to try it!

Check your phone!
Computer projections
predict who’s winning—
no one’s winning!
We’re all sad losers,
no cause for mirth
on screwed-up Earth.
The Washington Post
confirms we’re toast,
The New York Times asks
“It’s really that time?”
CNN says start again,
while Fox whines Biden
should have known.
I wrote The Guardian—
they just groaned.
As for M-S-N-B-C,
they say truth will set us free—
that’s not proven to be true…
so now, what should you do?
You know, don’t you?
Check your phone!


Roderick Deacey recently discovered his bio had been replaced by instructions on how to turn himself in. He remembers regularly performing beat poetry with bass-player and drummer. He also remembers sending poems to literary magazines and occasionally having some published. He has decided not to turn himself in but to turn in a few spare poems instead.

ANSWERING THE PHONE WHEN DEATH CALLS

by Jerrice J. Baptiste 

Angry demonstrators have roared through the streets of Haiti’s capital, blocking roads and shooting guns into the air to protest a slew of killings of police officers by Haitian gangs over the last week. Haitian news outlet Le Nouvelliste reported that angry scenes erupted in several neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince on Thursday, and barricades of burning tyres were erected in the centre of the city.  —Aljazeera, January 26, 2023. Photo: A man gestures by a barricade of flaming tires during a police demonstration in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 26, 2023. Officers were protesting after a gang attack the day before on a police station in Liancourt left several officers dead. —VOA, January 26, 2023

Dedicated to all of my family in Haiti

"I'm going to lose my life," he screams.
Gunshots in rounds, mind on
a roller coaster ride, vibrating bees
disturbed on a hot day in june
except it's january 26, 2023. Bullets

wake up, shake up my eardrum.
Like a conductor gives the cue,
his quaking voice in my ear rises,

his instrument, a steady shriek,
final end to a symphony.
"Everyone's shot around me" he yells.

Feet in flight, heart dodges left right left 
No boulders in city of Port-au-Prince.
"This might be my last day." His voice quakes.

Low hum follows the phone's sudden click. 

Heart drops with conductor's hands.
No hole to hide in the bear's den.

Silence.

Silence.

Author’s note: My uncle Roodly was almost killed yesterday. I wrote this poem about the events that happened in Haiti yesterday.

  

Editor’s note: Roodly Laurore’s poem “Ayiti,” translated from Haitian Kreyòl by Jerrrice J. Baptiste, appeared in The New Verse News, October 13, 2022.

Jerrice J. Baptiste is an author of eight books and a poet in residence at the Prattsville Art Center & Residency in NY.  She is extensively published in journals and magazines. She has been nominated as  Best of The Net by Blue Stem for  2022.

WE ARE ALL IN THE GUTTER, BUT SOME OF US ARE LOOKING AT THE STARS OF INFOWARS

by Julie Steiner

Sandy Hook parents' lawyer says Alex Jones' phone leak contains 'intimate messages with Roger Stone' —Business Insider, August 5, 2022

Though “intimate” (you naughty thing)

need not mean "prurient,"

that word makes certain thoughts take wing

along a vulgar bent.

Your conscience frowns and shakes her head.

Although she’s tsked and clucked,

you hope these bad boys’ texts, when read,

show both completely fucked.

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.

BREATHLESS

by Ann E. Wallace

I have spent these slow motion
weeks watching the world scramble
and panic through the 8 square inch surface
of my phone, cupped in the palm of my hand.

I hold these 8 square inches in the palm
of my hand, attached to my body
confined to the fifteen square feet
of my couch, or my queen size bed

Up a flight of stairs I cannot walk
without gasping for the air flowing
through my 1800 square foot home,
in my city filled with 270,000 other souls

All gasping for air, and all I need
is enough to pump through my 5’2”
body, not too much, but I can see
on my screen that I am not alone

In my need, and I can see why, though
it all makes no sense, my small body
panting and blacking out on my red couch
inside my red house cannot get enough.

Ann E. Wallace is writing poetry and teaching her college classes from home in Jersey City, NJ while she and her daughter recover from COVID-19. Her poetry collection Counting by Sevens (2019) is available from Main Street Rag, and her published work can be found online at AnnWallacePhD.com. She is on Twitter @annwlace409.

A VOICE FROM THE BLUE

by George Held

Her sharp metallic voice says,
“Your record of on-time payments
Qualifies you for zero interest
On your new credit card. Please
Press 1 for our authentication department.”

God knows what questions will be
Asked, what fees charged if I press 1
But her sharp metallic voice
Warns me to beware. It’s like
The brisk, urgent frat-boy voice

That offers me forgiveness
Of my car loan or the sanctimonious
Voice of the pitch-man soliciting
My donation to some starving
Reservation in remote Montana.

The voices might as well welcome
Me to the age of vulnerability,
Of forgetfulness, of frailty,
Of being a mark for any con
Preying on the inept and the lonely,

On those who might be careless
Or dying to squander their shekels in reply
To a disembodied voice from the blue
And its promise of only connecting
For one last desperate minute.

A longtime contributor to the TheNewVerse.News, George Held writes from New York. His forthcoming book is Second Sight (Poets Wear Prada, 2019).

ADAM SCROLLS THROUGH HIS APPLE

by Katherine Smith

“‘How do I feel about Trump? I’ll tell you’ he said. He punched up an app and held his phone to display the digits 26, 447.” —"As Suburban Women Turn to Democrats, Many Suburban Men Stand With Trump," The New York Times October 13, 2018

He notes a murder in another zone,
unwraps his turkey sandwich, smiles
at the Dow rising on his phone.

He eats his lunch in his car alone,
this ancestor of SUVs and wiles.
His thumbs flick: murder, bone

saws, Kavenaugh, He grins.
He won that round. Meanwhile
the Dow is rising on his phone

like pride’s origin. Damn right he’s done
well by his kids and wife. The dead guy’s
only some hack for the Washington Post.

The words that Moses wrote on stone,
are numbers he no longer dials,
replaced by the Dow Jones.

Before the apple, there was testosterone
and oil. The price of crude is undefiled
by fingers severed at the knuckle bone,
and the Dow is rising on his phone.

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.

THE UNIFORMED FIGURE

by Alejandro Escudé






On a YouTube video a cop
gets out of his vehicle, unholsters
his gun, just to ask the man recording him
a question. The man filming the cop
says, “Put your gun down, really?”
as the cop continues to walk toward him
and through him and through me,
as the policeman, gun in hand,
traverses the Milky Way,
the void a uniformed figure
consuming the stars.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

WALLS WE CAST

by Steven Alvarez

Image source: Mexington, Kentucky

favors busy fifty-two distraction
doing everything i have to get--
they don’t have to figure out what it feels like--
stands for—but don’t want--
needs--
fits that their face prison expansions--
let their dreams . . .
partly  . . . bc
analogy for
a march to downtown mexington is going to be forty miles on saturday . . .
over & see
how we can be in getting media--
tonight—say yes on its own supporters--
symbol that it takes to get the treatment that
hand unwilling to respect—i
united it--
carports please or abt this
set--
last two days but we don’t know
in the coming days--
incident did
just as much support as we’ve seen so far . . .
arms up--
to what it takes--
responses voted for that matter--
going to be a response—is that
the thing that’s been going on--
word for word deportations over
the king & finding the . . . here . . .
happy here at the back--
it’s so much easier to go on phone . . .
out . . . these . . . deportables . . .  in mind


Steven Alvarez is an Assistant Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of the novels in verse The Pocho Codex and The Xicano Genome, both published by Editorial Paroxismo. His chapbook Six Poems from the Codex Mojaodicus won the 2013 Rane Arroyo Prize sponsored by Seven Kitchens Press. 

CHURCH CALL

by Antony Johae

Image source: City-Data

It was Orthodox Easter and the church was full.
The chanting of prayers stretched into the night.
The celebrants sat, then rose to sing
Crossing themselves in three-fold Love.
They awaited the glorious hour of twelve
When Christ would rise in saving Grace
And all would cry that He was risen.

Next to me a man with a phone
placed between us on the pew
he looking down at it constantly
and when his hand stretched out to it
it lit as though at his command,
then out when he withdrew his hand
as though its charge had gone – and slept.

He turned to me when the mass was done,
shook my hand with a friendly grip.
“Emad’s my name, I’m Syrian born.
And you, I think, from London – right?”
I told him I came from Colchester town
but he’d heard only of the Manchester team.
We chatted for a while about this and that
the church emptying as we sat.
Then he made to go. “Your phone,”
I said, it lying silent still.
Aghast at his forgetting
he picked it up and it at once
lit up, he whispering keenly,
“I’m waiting for a call from God.”


Antony Johae is a freelance writer and divides his time between Lebanon and England.