SADLY, NO ONE HAS NOTICED

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

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

during this past terrible season of pain

with its headlines and news stories

of voice gun metal cacophony

the screams

becoming louder and longer

            

the plague of words

feeding on each other

a frenzy of fear…

sadly, no one has noticed

hope’s sacred pity

as she kneels weeping

amid the carnage

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024). She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” first performed at 92Y in New York City.

LINES WRITTEN IN A SUBWAY CAR

by W. Luther Jett

“Pity” (1795) by William Blake - Tate Britain, Public Domain

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air.
- Macbeth (1.7.21–23)

To the world:

If you can watch this
and have nothing to say
at least have pity.

If you can watch this 
and have no pity,
or have pity for one
and not for the other—

It is you I must pity.

And if you will not watch—
for you I have nothing,
nothing to say.

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of five poetry chapbooks: Not Quite: Poems Written in Search of My Father  (Finishing Line Press, 2015), Our Situation (Prolific Press, 2018), Everyone Disappears (Finishing Line Press, 2020), Little Wars (Kelsay Books, 2021), and Watchman, What of the Night? (CW Books, 2022). A full-length collection Flying to America is scheduled for release in the spring of 2024, from Broadstone Press. 

PITY THE NATION

by Kent Reichert

after Kahlil Gibran

after Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Pity the nation whose people look and speak and act alike,
embracing white as the color without hue.
Whose citizens chant in auditoriums,
as if the act of uttering the words
will make it so.
Whose minds, in the light of day,
shutter themselves from its rays,
preferring darkness as their dwelling.
Whose sacred books,
transformed into photographs,
are impotent.
Who fabricate fanciful explanations
atop a single grain of sand,
and cloak their ignorance in veneers of “rights” and “freedoms.”
Pity the nation whose lawmakers
bury their discerning eyes in graves of party
genuflecting to the loudest, vulgar voice
in fawning adoration at the words,
“…for I alone can save you!”
Pity the nation whose leader paints only forgeries
and whose citizens cry, “Masterpiece!”
Who fondle each new lie in bed at night,
seduced by its base allure.
Pity the nation to whom the glory of the myth
is the only truth.


Kent Reichert is retired from schools but not from words. His poems have appeared in The Dead Mule.  He is the author of two chapbooks, Soon Ah will be done… and Chronology of Spirits.