HOW TO MAKE THE RICH EVEN RICHER

an American Senryu

by William Aarnes

The companies making billions from the Iran war. —BBC, May 8, 2026

Declare war (well, don’t).  

Declare doubtful cease-fire deals.  

Declare losses wins.

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL

by Anne Herrick

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

 

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information of minerals and anything profitable
I know the constitution, and I quote our rights historical
From Iran to Venezeula, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with my good navy piratical,
I understand blockades, both the simple and impractical,
About strategies I teem with ever changing views and news,
And with many cheerful facts about every missile use.

I'm very good at destruction and anything that’s tactical;
I know all leader’s names no matter they’re fantastical—
like those in space—the squirrels and hypotheticals—
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 

In fact, I know what is meant by "bitter end" and "ravelin",
And I can tell at sight a Beretta from a javelin,
With affairs like bombings and boasting I'm very good at,
I also know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
Yes, I know what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
And I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—
In short, I've more than a smattering of elemental strategy—
No other Major-General has ever had this capacity.

With my military knowledge, I'm plucky and adventury,
There’s no-one as good as me since beginning of all centuries
Yes it’s true—I know of minerals and anything that’s profitable
I am the greatest model of a modern Major-General.

 

 

Anne Herrick has published a few poems and prose in the US and UK.

AI SHANTY

by Joel Glover

LA Wildfires and AI’s Data Center Water Drain: The explosion of data center demand for AI use is draining water resources. Even with efforts to mitigate cooling demands, municipalities and companies struggle to find a balance. —Information Week, January 17, 2025. 

[Refrain]

Oh, the sea was wide, the sun is high

The land is parched, the soil is dry

And clouds swirl over cooling stacks

And soothing rain is what we lack

[Verse 1]

There’s vapour in the atmosphere

And bubbles form, that much is clear

Pyramids and Ponzi schemes

Built on algorithmic dreams

[Refrain]

Oh, the sea was wide, the sun is high

The land is parched, the soil is dry

And clouds swirl over cooling stacks

And the cooling rain is what we lack

[Verse 2]

Profits for some, for us the loss

Ice caps melted, no more frost

Towns in rolling blackout pall

No showers, storms, or thunder squall

[Refrain]

Oh, the sea was wide, the sun is high

The land is parched, the soil is dry

And clouds swirl over cooling stacks

And the cooling rain is what we lack

Former waiter in a Love Boat themed restaurant, reformed mandarin, and extroverted accountant, Joel Glover lives in the woods of Hertfordshire with two boys, one wife, and not nearly enough coffee. His poetry has appeared in oddball magazine, Little Old Lady Comedy, Radon Journal, 5-7-5 Journal, Epistemic Literary, Pulp Lit Mag, and As It Ought To Be. He published a chapbook Untimely Poetry, taking a cockeyed view at the news of 2024.

KRONOS EATS HIS CHILDREN

by Susan McLean

Kronos rules a golden age.
A.I. fulfills his every whim.
He fracks to fuel his leverage.
He won't let regulations trim
his profits or his privilege.

Kronos drives an SUV:
it's comfortable; he needs his room.
When there's a place he wants to be,
his private jet can save him time,
and time is money, naturally.

You can't eat money, though, so when
the ice caps melt, the oceans warm,
droughts, floods, and hurricanes pile on,
and all the crops dry up or drown,

his kids will find he's eaten them.

Susan McLean, a retired English professor from Southwest Minnesota State University, taught a course in Greek myth and literature for thirty years, and finds that those myths continue to resonate with what's happening now.

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DESTROYER

by Steven Kent

"'Hamas has created additional demand': Wall Street eyes big profits from war" —The Guardian, October 30, 2023

As blood soaks the land of old prophets, 

   New profits are here to be had. 

Both sides in this battle need weapons, 

   And we've got the guns for each lad, 

Hamas or Israeli. We're neutral—

   Don't care if one's good or one's bad.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer, musician, and Oxford comma enthusiast Kent Burnside. His work appears in Light, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, and OEDILF, among others.

CAR PARTS

by Matt Witt

U.A.W. Halts Work at 3 Plants in Contract Fight With Automakers 
Ford, General Motors and Stellantis have all raised their pay raise proposals since their opening bids—but to no more than 20%, just half of the union's 40% ask, Fain said. The companies have also rejected the union's pension and retiree healthcare proposals, according to [UAW President Shawn] Fain. Other economic issues, including cost of living adjustments and profit sharing, remain points of contention. "We do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifice and contributions our members have made to these companies," Fain told union members. "To win, we'll likely have to take action." —NPR, September 13, 2023. "The Big Three CEOs saw their pay increase by 40% over the last four years, while our pay only went up by 6%," UAW President Shawn Fain said at a news conference last week. —NPR, September 14, 2023

I did a simple internet search

for “the major parts of a car”

 

And Google said the answer is

Chassis,

Engine,

Transmission system,

Car body,

Steering system, and

Braking system.

 

It left out each worker’s

Hands,

Arms

Back

Knees

Ears

Nerves, and

Lungs.

 

Another search found that

auto workers suffer

injuries and illnesses

at more than twice the rate

of other private industry.

 

Maybe next I will search:

What is the true cost of a car?

Who pays the price?

And who gets the profits?

 

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Talent, Oregon. His work may be found at MattWittPhotography.com.

REGIME CHANGE

by Bonnie Naradzay

Remember when Muntadhar al-Zaidi, 
an Iraqi journalist, hurled his shoes 
at Mission Accomplished Bush, 
the man incapable of introspection? 
Bush ducked.  Mission Accomplished.
Bush painted himself relaxed
in the bathtub, pink toes showing.
“This is a gift from the Iraqis; 
this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” 
Zaidi shouted in Arabic.  
“You feel bitterness as you see people's pain 
24 hours a day,” Zaidi said.
Bush ducked.  Mission Accomplished.
Corporations made a lot of money off the unprovoked war.
Bush painted himself relaxed
in the bathtub, pink toes showing.
You could hear cries of pain, 
muffled from behind a door, 
during the news conference. 
During the Q&A’s, 
blood spatters on the carpet.
 “You feel bitterness as you see people's pain 
24 hours a day,” Zaidi said.  
Bush ducked.  Mission Accomplished.
Corporations made a lot of money off the unprovoked war.
Bush painted himself relaxed
in the bathtub, pink toes showing.

Left: self-portrait by George W. Bush; Right: take-off by Laura Finck.

Bonnie Naradzay's poems have appeared in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart Nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review online, Tampa Review, Florida Review online, EPOCH, Crab Creek Review, Cider Press Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Poetry Miscellany, and other places. She leads poetry salons at day shelters for the homeless and also at a retirement center, all in Washington, DC. 

SPEAKING OF LEGACIES

by Devon Balwit

King Charles III built his own empire long before he inherited his mother’s. Charles, who formally acceded to the British throne on Saturday, spent half a century turning his royal estate into a billion-dollar portfolio and one of the most lucrative moneymakers in the royal family business. —The New York Times, September 13, 2022

Your average Brit pays to inherit. Not he.

King Charles gets his tax free,

 

the pelf of the Commonwealth studiously invested.

You’d think working folk would grow disgusted

 

at the granting of titles to Saudis for cash, the off-

shore holdings, the real-estate profits,

 

that they’d line up with fists raised rather than phones.

Why should HRH earn 28 million

 

last year alone when inflation’s at 10%?

Are we really so suckered by pageantry?

 

Imagine the Crown Estate and the Duchy of Cornwall

liquidated, the money put towards ending global

 

warming. Now that would be a worthy legacy—

one to send cheering crowds into the streets.

Devon Balwit walks in all weather. Her most recent collections are Rubbing Shoulders with the Greats [Seven Kitchens Press 2020] and Dog-Walking in the Shadow of Pyongyang [Nixes Mate Books, 2021].

Haiku

Photo: A seagull rests as workers clean the contaminated beach Wednesday after an oil spill in Newport Beach, Calif. Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press, October 10, 2021.

Deborah P Kolodji is the California Regional Coordinator for the Haiku Society of America and has published over 1100 haiku worldwide.  Her first full-length book highway of sleeping towns won a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award from the Haiku Foundation.

WHAT THE PANDEMIC TAUGHT AMERICA

by George Salamon

"In the Great Recession more than a decade ago, big tech companies hit rough patches just like everyone else. Now they have become unquestioned winners of the pandemic economy," in "A perfect positive storm: Bonkers dollars for Big Tech," The New York Times, April 29, 2021

Every plague has 

its silver lining:

the people suffer,

high tech profits,

those who have

much, receive more,

next time around

I'll come back as

a Silicon Valley CEO

and avoid the rabble's

usual woe.

George Salamon, who lives and writes in St. Louis, MO, thinks "nice guys finish last in high tech" is what the great Yogi Berra might have said about this.

THE HUNGER

by Donna Katzin

Smithfield Foods, a US unit of China’s biggest pork company, has reopened its [Sioux Falls, South Dakota] processing plant after President Donald Trump ordered the US meatpacking industry to stay open despite an earlier coronavirus outbreak in such facilities across America. … Sioux Falls was thrust into the spotlight after becoming the largest coronavirus hotspot in the US, with 761 employees testing positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to local newspaper Argus Leader. … Some workers are refusing to return, with union leaders saying new measures put into place by companies, such as temperature checks and face masks, aren’t enough to guarantee individuals’ safety. —South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), May 7, 2020

First they kill the pigs
hanging upside down, squealing,
pleading for their lives.

Owners crave profits,
a president praise, power—
the consumers pork.

The assembly line
opens its maw—people packed    
elbow to elbow.

Workers in the web—                
trapped.  The spider virus spins,
waits for fresh meat.


Donna Katzin is the founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa. A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing. Published in journals and sites including TheNewVerse.News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself.

TIC TAC TOE

by Matt Witt

The Oregon Senate’s Housing Committee advanced a bill that would enact a statewide rent control policy and restrict evictions, sending it to the full Senate for a vote. Lawmakers heard nearly four hours of testimony from renters and landlords as Senate Bill 608 had its first hearing in the Senate’s Housing Committee. It’s poised to cruise through the Legislature, with support from leaders of the Democratic majority in both the House and Senate. Renters and tenants’ rights activists largely argued the bill would help protect against eye-popping rent increases that have frequently grabbed headlines across the state. —The Oregonian, February 5, 2019. Among those presenting testimony was the group of tenants pictured above who met at the Rogue Action Center in Jackson County in late November to discuss how to get local and state officials to take action on housing affordability. Nearly half of households there are renters, and one in three of those pay more than half their monthly income for rent. Credit: Matt Witt Photography

As a child
I played tic tac toe.
Should I go here,
or should I go there?

Then I learned:
you never win
if the other person goes first
with an X in
the middle square.

Olivia tells the city council
she and her son
had to move three times
after rent increases
left nothing to spare.

She works at Walmart
but after the rent
the paycheck covers only
food and bus fare.

Frank, who builds expensive homes
and has fifty rental units,
tells the council he would love to
help people like her,
he really would,
but prices are
whatever the market will bear.

Profit first.

The X in the middle square.

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer who lives in Talent, Oregon. He was recently selected a Writer in Residence at Mesa Refuge in California and has been selected an Artist in Residence at Crater Lake National Park, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and PLAYA in Summer Lake, Oregon. His writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, the literary journal Cirque, and many other publications. His photography may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com.

A SYSTEM

by Gary Beck

“In the United States of America there are companies that profit if you go to jail. These corporations spent over $45 million in lobbying to make sure when you get sent to jail, you go to their jails. They are so good at this that there was a 40% increase of private prison detainees between 2002-2012. They are currently outpacing state and federally funded prisons. Yet there is no evidence that there are any savings in the use of private prisons. . . . Stewart Detention Center (SDC) in Lumpkin, Georgia, is one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the United States with the capacity to jail 1,752 people. Although the facility is owned by Stewart County and is contracted as an IGSA (Intergovernmental Service Agreements), the facility is actually operated by CCA. SDC houses immigration violation detainees who are mainly Hispanic, from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina and had the highest count of inmates partly because of its capacity. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents detain men, women and children suspected of violating civil immigration laws at these facilities. Most of those held at the 250 sites nationwide are illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, but some green card holders, asylum seekers and others are also there. A recent report on conditions in immigrant detention centers such as Stewart finds a systematic and ongoing failure by the government to adequately inspect facilities run by public and private contractors. The report entitled 'Lives in Peril: How Ineffective Inspections Make ICE Complicit in Immigration Detention Abuse,' alleges a pattern of basic human rights violations leading to deaths, suicides, violence and sexual assaults in facilities that were given a clean bill of health by federal inspectors.” —Father Jeremiah J. McCarthy, Southern Cross, March 16, 2016

While Chris Matthews grilled Trump during the most recent townhall, the GOP candidate uttered one of many outrageous statements regarding the country’s prison system that went unchallenged and largely unnoticed. “I do think we can do a lot of privatizations, and private prisons it seems to work a lot better,” said Trump when asked how he planned to reform the country’s prison system.Matthews didn’t ask Trump to elaborate or explain why he believes giving prisons a profit motive to lock people up is a good idea. But the fact of the matter is that the private prison boom in America has been so disastrous that even members of the Republican party have began speaking out against them. —Raw Story, April 3, 2016 

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group avoided a combined $113 million in federal income taxes in 2015 alone, according to an analysis of federal financial filings by the racial and economic justice group Enlace. The prison business is booming despite efforts to reduce the nation's prison population, which has exploded in recent decades and forced the government to contract with private prison companies to meet demand. Last year, CCA reported $222 million in net profits, and GEO Group reported $139 million. CCA and GEO Group have enjoyed increased profits per prisoner housed in their facilities since 2012, when both companies began converting themselves into special real estate trusts that are exempt from the federal corporate income tax, at least in the eyes of the IRS. —Truthout, April 8, 2016.

Crime, more violent,
more sophisticated
innovates new ways
to injure the helpless,
defraud the innocent.
Protection is haphazard,
except for the privileged
and punishment is futile
without rehabilitation,
meaningful alternatives.
So the penal industry thrives
as other businesses go broke,
leaving citizens abandoned
on vulnerable streets.

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director. He has published chapbooks of poetry (Days of Destruction, Expectations, Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Conditioned Response, and Resonance) and fiction (A Glimpse of Youth). Fault Lines, Perceptions, Tremors and Perturbations will be published by Winter Goose Publishing;  A Glimpse of Youth by Sweatshoppe Publications. His novels include Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press), Acts of Defiance (Artema Press), and Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). Call to Valor will be published by Gnome on Pigs Productions; Now I Accuse and Other Stories by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. He currently lives in New York City.

IFFY FUTURE FORECAST

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote 

Topsy-turvy third planet from Sun
Upside-down silk lining turned inside-out
Biofuel technological solutions replacing geological
Asteroid mining commercial solar power

Oceans cannot absorb greenhouse emissions
Cataclysmic climate effects current adrift
Digital radar storm tracking surveillance
Arctic shrinkage meltdown icebergs overturned

Handle With Care survival issues
Over-consumption splurge space tourism colonies
Funny business as usual until
Endangered resource depletion runs out

Nanotech manipulating nothing’s the matter
On quantum atomic molecular scale
Biosphere demands exceeding global biocapacity
Supply chain profit margins unlinked

Systematic holistic challenges about-face turnabout
Equitable sustainable cosmos needs different
Set of values bankrupting nature
Contaminated eco-environment next generation’s legacy

Regenerative telemedicine cloning dinosaur egg
Autonomous robots emotionless artificial intelligence
Discovering fast-forward ways toward happier
More contented resilient co-existence habitation

 No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .