THE ICE STORM

by Susan Cossette

Leave this city, black ice.

These roads are unusually treacherous.

 

Snow, thaw, then refreeze--

a polar vortex roars in from Manitoba.

 

This four-wheel drive offers

little protection from icy roads.

 

One bad tap of the brakes

will send me crashing into 

a graffiti-adorned delivery truck

which states simply,

ICE out.

 

Or worse, 

into the protestors on the corner 

of Penn Avenue and 17^th Street 

in north Minneapolis

on this foggy subzero morning.

 

Whistles shriek in feverish shrill 

in crazy unison with car horns,

and phone cameras rolling, 

recording truth suppressed.

 

Ten black SUVs skulk 

on each side of the pitted street,

curbs piled high with sooty snow.

 

Polished obsidian flanks of fear--

ICE has rolled in.

 

Unmarked men stalk door to door

in a Latino neighborhood near,

faces shrouded, shadowy brute army.

 

The salt has not made the roads safe.

The protests change nothing.

The passport I keep 

on my front seat means nothing.

 

We do not leave our homes

because we are too cold, 

too afraid, or both.

 

We are cyphers, faces pressed 

against cold glass, 

hands zipped tied, hog tied—

frozen blood stains dirty ice.

 

I pray for the brother and sister

I almost wish were my children

after two years of seeing them holding hands

each morning at the bus stop on 17th,

backpacks with smiling stuffed toys 

clipped to the straps.

 

For their mother watching 

her babies climb into the yellow vessel,

and the door close tightly behind.

She scurries up frozen sidewalks 

to the food pantry.

 

Jesus, get me to the next corner,

keep my small clenched hands visible 

on this cold steering wheel.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New Verse News, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.

TO THE ERASER

by Tricia Knoll

after Elon Musk’s posting on Xwitter the video of Milton Friedman’s use of a pencil to explain world trade.

Erasing seems obsolete. We delete,
Seldom switch away rubbery debris.
(Some poets cross-hatch
the words they want to keep
but know should go,
gimmick-choice.)
 
To mistakes with no reminders.
Paper without blemishes. 
 
School bus yellow
and shades of graphite
smog on a very hard day 
 
but the pencil has come of age—
icon of interdependence, 
cedar and rubber, metal tourniquet
 
around tariffs in supply chains
that bind rebounding erasures 
of migrants, protestors, equity, 
inclusion, earned retirement security,
health care and the welfare
of children. 

The pencil writes Chinese

as well as English. 

Tricia Knoll grimaces at the Trumpian erasures of truth, of people, of traditions, and promises. She writes dozens of postcards to elected officials using pens so as not to be completely erased.

IT IS DIFFERENT IT IS NOT DIFFERENT

by Sarah Sarai

32 mug shots of
Freedom Riders

arrested 24 May
1961 and jailed

Jackson
Mississippi.

John Lewis is
third from right

top row.
CT Vivian second

row
second from left.

In
Louisville KY

435 mug shots
of

as many protestors
jailed

saying her
name

(Breonna
Taylor)

are not yet
released.

Add 400
more

Freedom Riders.
I can’t

find them
all,

those
solid of will.

Sarah Sarai’s poems are in DMQ Review, The Southampton Review, E-Ratio, and others. Her second full-length collection is That Strapless Bra in Heaven (Kelsay Books). She lives in New York.

NOTES FROM THE WEEKLY MEETING OF THE 75-YEAR-OLD ANTIFA PROVOCATEURS

by John Hodgen

Welcome back, Martin. How’s the noggin?
(Laughter.) (Applause.)
You really used your head this time, big fella. Careful when you log in.
Taking one for the team, Martin. Way to go. One for the cause.
And great job with the Fake Blood Pellet in the Ear trick.
And the old Backwards Trip and Fall Stutter Step. Worked like a charm.
All that practice paid off. A perfect 10 from the Russian judge. Terrific.
Wall to wall on OANN. And you got the CNN and MSNBC crowd alarmed.
You’re a meme now. More people have seen you fall than watched the Towers.
Score one for ANTIFA. Talk about defunding the police. Fight the power.
And you even got all the police scanner info with your secret decoder ring.
Proud of you, big guy. Let’s get started now for your next gig.
Mar-a-Lago. The old swan dive under the golf cart. Do your thing.
This is going to be big.

Editor's Note: The 75-year-old man hospitalized after he was pushed by a police officer during a peaceful protest last week in Buffalo, New York, suffered a brain injury as a result of the incident, his lawyer revealed Thursday. Kelly Zarcone said her client, activist Martin Gugino, "is starting physical therapy," which Zarcone called "a step in the right direction. As heartbreaking as it is, his brain is injured and he is well aware of that now," Zarcone said in a statement. "He feels encouraged and uplifted by the outpouring of support which he has received from so many people all over the globe. It helps. He is looking forward to healing and determining what his ‘new normal’ might look like." The New Verse News offers this poem to cheer him and those who have come to know and love Martin for his work and sacrifice. We wish him all the best.

John Hodgen is the Writer-in-Residence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA.  Hodgen won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry for Grace (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005).  His fifth book The Lord of Everywhere is out from Lynx House/University of Washington Press.

LAST WORDS

by Joan Mazza

Without TV, I turn to the Internet to see
videos of crowds rushed by the police
with shields and full riot gear as they push
back protestors. Tear gas and smoke,
shouting, chanting one man’s name,
his last words an echo of another’s—

I can’t breathe.

So many people pushed together, crowds
breathing each other’s breaths, droplets
of anger and outrage pooling to form
a stream, a river, an ocean of grief,
hundreds of years of slave masters
and tyrants, bullies and dictators.

I can’t breathe.

Gowned and masked, medical workers
adjust tubing and drips, hear last gasps
of the those dying alone. No visitors
allowed. We’re socially distant, isolated,
afraid of friends and family who have
marched to say no to brutality.

I can’t breathe.

George Floyd, your name enters
the litany with Philando Castile, Sandra
Bland, Michael Brown, Eric Garner.
White, armed protestors who threaten
the Wisconsin governor’s life are met
with hard stares, not tear gas.

I can’t breathe.

I’m coughing. My throat is sore. My eyes
hurt, joints ache. Ticks and pollen
are thick this year. The news is muddy.
Our president is no leader, no comfort.
He threatens more beatings, promises
shooting will reign supreme.

I can’t breathe.


Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, and The Nation.

NEEDS

by William Aarnes

At protests, mostly white crowds show how pandemic has widened racial and political divisions. —Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2020

“The seeming needs of my fool-driven land”

—W. B. Yeats, “All Things Can Tempt Me”

. . . the need to flock
to beaches, to swarm

into parks, the need
to hear a preacher

in person, to crush
together in bars . . .

the need to fear
the foreigner, to toy

with the facts, the need
to exploit the poor,

to be free of caring
about the dying . . .

the need to brandish
a weapon, to rally

in support of a fool . . .


William Aarnes lives in South Carolina.

CONFIRM HUMANITY

Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.

FERGUSON 2014

by Alan Catlin

CHARLIE RIEDEL/AP via People.com

Beneath Seasons Greetings banner/
sign spanning Ferguson Missouri
street, armored cars, police behind
plastic shields, slow marching into
unruly crowds doused by tear gas
blasts, bean bag volleys, protestors
carrying Stop the Killing signs, street
fires burning, small arms fire,
no indictment tonight.


Alan Catlin has published numerous chapbooks and full-length books of poetry and prose, the latest of which, from March Street Press, is Alien Nation.