NEW YORK CITY, 7 AM, SUNDAY, 2026

by Naomi Pliskow

Fat pigeons peck hopefully

at Saturday night’s scat–

tickets, receipts, ketchup-stained napkins–

dotting grey cement as though they were 

the leaves of autumn.

 

The Saturday night squawks and judders, 

the clangs and gulps and sighs,

are replaced by an echoing quiet,

as though covered by a layer of soft cotton

intruded on only by pigeon murmurs and 

the petulant honk 

of a single metal beast on rubber legs

piloted by some human who didn’t   

make it home last night.

 

The smell of sweat and alcohol

from a hooded passerby  

interrupts the aroma   

of bread baked at four this morning

when the baker’s dark hands grasped soft white dough 

trying to hold on to these islands 

for just a little while longer

before being forced to return  

to his ravaged own,

where people peck for leavings

like hopeful morning pigeons

and bake bitterness into 

every scarce loaf.

Naomi Pliskow published her first poetry collection in a three-ring binder at age eight. She recently returned to writing poetry after a long hiatus. Her poems have been published in One Art, Adanna, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Canary, and several anthologies. Her satirical song lyrics were published in The New York Times in 2024. Her chapbook Entering the Water will be released in September of 2026. She is editor of the Philadelphia Mad Poets Society newsletter.

HOPE FOR THE NEW YEAR

by Barbara Schweitzer

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

There is no rodeo feat to lift history.

History is the slain bull bloodied for sport 

with his blood scoured into the concrete.

 

It is obscene to pick up a pen

on the day disaster flies in

but if not, the next day and the next 

days will keep us dumb to our ways.

 

We have physics and light: we know 

dark cannot exist when filled with light,

that speaking corrals our common plights

and even pigeons know how to take flight

and we are not night. We will not be night.

Barbara Schweitzer writes poems and plays and sundry fiction from upstate RI. She is the author of 33 1/3: Soap Opera Sonnets. She is the creator of Cyjoe Barker, detective extraordinaire of stage and flash fiction. Feeling Plankton, a 10-minute play can still be viewed in its entirety here.

HEAT WAVE

by Richard Schiffman

Heat Wave painting by Ralph White

If sweat were gold, I’ve lost millions. 

If hell were cold, I’d be in heaven.

If heat were meat, I’d feed the world.

If hot were smart, this day’s a bloody genius.

Robin redbreasts with lolling tongues 

are begging for the spare change of rain. 

Today even the fire ants are panting like puppies. 

The dog days of summer, they whimper, they drool.

Pigeons in heat spontaneously combusting,

bridges diving like ducks into rivers, 

green leaves boiling and bubbling from trees, 

trees hawking their shade to the highest bidder.

Still, there is something in me that loves a flame. 

That burns baby burns complacency’s ghetto.

Whose body is grease for its very own pyre.

Whose soul is on fire like a summer in Georgia.

Some seasons are mild, some seasons are fiery

If June kissed the moon, the moon would go loony.

If July were a stud, every mare would come screaming.

When mid-August simmers, the whole world is soup. 

Today only mad dogs and Englishmen are strolling.

And possibly some poets and wandering monks.

Fervid souls, assorted fools. We know who we are.

We know what we’re up to.

Richard Schiffman, based in New York City, is an environmental reporter, poet, and author of two biographies. His poems have appeared on the BBC and on NPR as well as in the Alaska Quarterly, the New Ohio Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, Writer’s Almanac, This American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and other publications. His first poetry collection What the Dust Doesn't Know was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry.