CHANTING OVER GRAVES

by Jocelyn Ajami

AI-generated gif by NightCafé for The New Verse News

     “Our Golden Age has just begun.” —Donald Trump

Gold is great

From the rubble they erect gaudy 

temples, trimmed with gold and lust 

Wine cellars lick the soil, imbued 

with the fetid scent of slaughter 

Gold is great

From children’s eyes they steal  

rainbows to light arches and roulettes

from their marrow, mortar to seal the               

sandstone fronts

Their hair thread arabesques 

into the dice that roll and roll

Gold is great 

The root of sorrow, buried beneath 

the shimmering spectacle, seethes…

slowly migrating, breaching sea

and stone

until no false suns remain 

to scorch the truth 

Jocelyn Ajami is a painter, filmmaker and poet. She turned to writing poetry in 2014 as a way of connecting more intimately with issues of social conscience and cultural awareness. She has been published in various anthologies of prize winning poems and has been nominated for Pushcart and Touchstone awards.

SUNSHINE TIMES

by Alethea Kontis

They outlawed history here
And science
Next comes gaslighting the spectrum
Color by color
Until rainbows and unicorns are seen only by us other-minded
They will deny the very stars
Ony by one
Leaving children to wish on bees and blades of grass
Wishing to be somewhere 
over there
I long since gave up on the day my prince will come
Living instead on tea made from the tears of backyard alligators
Brewed by the last star allowed
Served by ibis and egrets
In this wonderless land where most sense
Is divinest madness

New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and adventurer. She has authored over 20 books and 50 short stories. Alethea has received the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant, the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and is a two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. Alethea also narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines and contributes book reviews to NPR. Born in Vermont, she currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie.