MIRRORING OUR TIMES

by Lylanne Musselman

Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning poet, playwright, and visual artist. Her poetry has appeared in Pank, The Indianapolis Review, The New Verse News, and Tipton Poetry Journal, among many other literary journals and anthologies. A seven-time Pushcart nominee, she is the author of eight poetry collections and is currently working on another.

LIGHT

by Chris Reed

Flakes of snow glow orange like fireflies

over a winter field of bare and capped heads,

candles held high in the snow swept vigil.

Light gathers itself to the campus lamp,

lone glow behind a policeman’s head, 

his face like ours in shadow.

 

We connect light to morning and sight,

to warmth and touch, to seasons

of planting and harvest,

and in our winters, to what still returns

after the night, the storm, and the losses.

 

But light doesn’t care for our veneration.

Indifferent, it turns the glow back on us.

Red radiates off the side of a face at a window.

reflects the ambulance light in the night,

red hands holding back the drapes.

 

Flashes of gunfire on Bondi Beach

found celebrants honoring a festival

of light, light as healing and possibility,

as the connection and love that endures,

telling the story of an ancient flame.

 

I look up from my screen of news and photos

as light sends the shadow of a bird outside

my window, flying across my pale nubby rug. 

Sunlight paints the many leaves of the jade tree

and stretches along the floor to my feet.

 

Light remembers that in the beginning

it took on the job of radiance and promise,

and we took on the job of repairing

the vessels that we are, 

so that we might hold the light. 

 

In recent news photos, light is reserved,

embarrassed for us, 

embarrassed to have been the gold on snow,

the red glare on the cheek at the window,

the sun setting over a bloody beach,

— and asks — Can’t you do better than this?

Chris Reed has been writing poetry for five years. As a writer and a retired Unitarian minister she values the work of social justice and witnessing that is done through poetry. But admits she has sometimes had a difficult time reading news stories during this last year. And this is not a comment on her eyesight. Her first chapbook Two Years and Two Months was published last month by Finishing Line Press.

HAIKU

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

Lynne Schilling began writing poetry seriously when she turned 75. She has published in Quartet, The Alchemy Spoon, New Verse News, Rue Scribe, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Lucky Jefferson and others. She has poems forthcoming in contemporary haibun online, Quail Eggs, Thimble Literary Magazine and Unbroken.

THE POPPY PANDEMIC

by Lynn White

A display featuring 8,000 individually knitted and crocheted poppies has been unveiled at St John's Church in Worcester. It has been created by the local Knit and Knatter group which has worked with the Royal British Legion (RBL) to bring the project to life. —BBC, October 20, 2025

November approached

and a pandemic loomed

of bleeding red poppies

to honour those killed

all victims un-glorious 

in blood red shrouds

with no thanks owing

for peace then or now.

The wake hardly over

the war virus was live

with the slapping of backs

and the drinking of toasts

and the giving of thanks

to the Masters of War

standing masked or unmasked

in the gold and the gore

with the medals and poppies

spread by war after war.

And now we all wait.

And now we still wait.

Wait 

for a white poppied wasteland 

to grow.

White poppies are worn every year by thousands of people across the UK and beyond. They were first produced in 1933 in the aftermath of the First World War, by members of the Co-operative Women's Guild. Many of these women had lost family and friends in the First World War. They wanted to hold on to the key message of Remembrance Day, 'never again'. —Peace Pledge Union.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

TODAY THE SKY BLED RED

by Kyle Hina

Today the morning sky bled
red with memories that I can
only imagine from a far, all
caught up in the air beneath
the hazy sun. Wisps of a thing 
infinitesimally small in size but
of infinite magnitude, summoned to
one last sail across heaven’s sea.

Somewhere in there, I’m sure,
is the country blue farmhouse 
that grandpa built, with the tan
guitar in the corner that turned 
him into Johnny and grandma 
into June when he played it. 

There are the skinny emerald
pines that dotted the trail of
a friend’s first date.  And the 
silver and rust car that caught
her sobs when she found 
that love isn’t always evergreen.  

There is the ivory wedding gown, 
all bejeweled and moth-balled, 
that hung in the closet, still 
awaiting its turn to renew a
couple's love. And the matching 
aqua tie that the husband was 
too scared to wear, for fear it 
might find that brown tea stain 
to match all of the others.

A teal blanket that went home
with the baby and the yellow
cleats he wore when he kicked
his last goal. Violet flowers, 
magenta scrapbooks. A faded 
purple skateboard and greyscale
photo of the family reunion, 1989.

On and on, memories too 

numerous to count rise in a 
prism’s worth of colors, but 
carry too much despair to 
form a rainbow. Instead they 
coalesce into a crimson blanket 
that covers the city like a car 
too old to ever be used again. 

In another world, white men 
in black suits point fingers and
shout names, maneuvering for
attention like children at a funeral.  
But my eyes are on the horizon,
where tonight the sky bleeds red.  

Kyle Hina is a husband, father, software engineer, and musician living in Zanesville, Ohio with his wife, two sons and dog. He has one published short fiction work on 101words.org .

A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE

by Shira Dentz

Source: Jacksonville Today

Red sunset interspersed with Saharan sands 

that wind carried over the Atlantic, 

red like the Creature’s ear grazed, 

up top, against its white sunlit shirt. 

Red like tycoons billowing 

buffoons flying high on greed. 

A storming sky and ocean 

are identical twins so your nostrils stir 

to take in salt spray from a lone sky. 

You want to linger in the horizonless dolphin silver 

away from what’s constructed, like time, 

stationed at this light signaling red. 

Shira Dentz is the author of five books including Sisyphusina (PANK Books), winner of the Nassar Prize 2021, and two chapbooks including Flounders (Essay Press). Her writing appears in many venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Iowa Review, VOLT, New American Writing, Brooklyn Rail, Lana Turner, Gulf Coast, jubilat, Pleiades, Denver Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, Diagram, Colorado Review, Idaho Review, Allium, Court Green, New Orleans Review, Puerto del Sol, NELLE, Nat. Brut, Apartment, Annulet, Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Poetry Society of America, and NPR, and she’s a recipient of awards including an Academy of American Poets Prize and Poetry Society of America's Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Awards.

AFTERIMAGE

by Cathleen Cohen

Portrait of Kaylin Johnson (KJ) painted by Cathleen Cohen for the Johnson family as part of the Soul Shots Project the mission of which is to bring attention to and memorialize the lives lost and tragically altered due to gun violence. KJ was shot and killed in Philadelphia in July 2021.

Painting KJ’s portrait, I peer

at an image of this beautiful boy, shot

in his parked car, waiting

 

to ferry friends to soccer practice.

His mother sends photos that capture

his smile, his jaunty shoulders.

 

I can tell he was quick

with jokes, sparking others.

His mother says he’d jump 

to carry heavy bags 

for older neighbors,

even strangers.

 

The boy who shot him

was a stranger.

Afterimage is illusion.

The brain persists in seeing

what’s removed.

 

Sometimes color memory

is repressed,

sometimes brighter.

 

I cry when I take up the brush.

What about skin tone?

Reference photos lack 

saturation

and I never met him.

Or background?

 

Brick red for urban houses?

Cobalt for sky—something

hopeful?

Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A poet, painter and teacher, she created the We the Poets program for children. Her poems appear in journals such as Apiary, Baltimore Review, East Coast Ink, North of Oxford, One Art Journal, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Poetica, River Heron Review, and Rogue Agent. She authored Camera Obscura (Moonstone Press), Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press) and Sparks and Disperses (Cornerstone Press). Her artwork is on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery.

IMPRESSIVELY LATE

by Harsimran Kaur

Several women’s organisations across [India] have opposed the government’s move to increase the age of marriage of girls from 18 to 21 years, which has been ironically touted as a measure of women’s empowerment. … Similarly, ‘Young Voices: National Working Group’ formed in response to the task force, comprising 96 civil society organisations, in its report published on July 25, 2020, had also opposed this move. The report brought out after surveying about 2,500 adolescents across 15 states stated, “…Increasing the age of marriage will either harm or have no impact by itself unless the root causes of women’s disempowerment are addressed.” —Flavia Agnes, “Increasing Marriage Age for Girls May Only Strengthen Patriarchy,” The Times of India, December 19, 2021

my friend got married at seventeen

in a gurudwara

singing the hymns her mother sang some

twenty-five years ago

on a cold day in January

her henna – impolite

her body wrapped in Red

her tiny legs blurting out of her salwar:

“maybe it’s too soon.” i don’t know

her forehead smeared in red

eyes black, cajoled

driven out of existence.

all i know is that she is my friend

who loves Jell-O, baked cookies & comfy blankets

i don’t know who taught her marriage

i didn’t know a red bindi on her forehead before

& seven pairs of bangles made from glass

hanging loose from her wrists

two for one.

brought from the corner shop with no name

i didn’t know red grew in a land that

burns, buys, believes, blue

& meanders our lives 

like the Ganges

Harsimran Kaur is a seventeen-year-old author of three books. Her work has been recognised by The Royal Commonwealth Society, Oxford University Press, and the International Human Rights Art Festival. She is currently a senior in high school in India.

FALL IS BEAUTIFUL

by Katherine West

Holly turning red
all along the winding trail,
little flames of fall
amongst the wildflowers—
silver hair of the forest

She is dying, dry
before rain, dry after rain
her children all dead
before they are born, before
the holly can burn, it burns

Eighty years to die—
eighty years for the river
eighty years for me
amongst the wildflowers—
silver hair of the river

She is dying, dry
before rain, dry after rain
her children all dead
before they are born, before
the trout can spawn, they are gone

Fall is beautiful
leaves now turning red as blood
all my long, long life
I was a leaf on your tree
but now we fall together

Katherine West is the author of three poetry collections—The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle–and has had poetry published in such journals as Bombay Gin, Lalitamba, TheNewVerse.News, La Petite Zine among others.  She lives and teaches poetry workshops about wilderness writing near Silver City, New Mexico.  

BIPARTISAN TO BIPENNATE

by John Beaton

Eagle with One Wing by Christopher Hall.

I saw a bird with just one wing.
The poor thing could not fly;
it fluttered in a clockwise ring.
Another squawked nearby,

similarly handicapped,
but anticlockwise in
the one-winged way it feebly flapped.
They filled me with chagrin

and then a bright idea brewed—
what if I was to tie
the two together? Then they could
Siamesely fly.

And so they did, the left wing and
the right, united, flew.
It happened in cloud cuckoo land—
one wing was red, one blue.



John Beaton, a retired actuary who was born in Scotland, is a widely published poet and spoken word performer from Vancouver Island, Canada.

DOG WHISTLE POLITICS

by Jacqueline Jules

Embed from Getty Images

A pitch prepared for ears
sensitive to a certain frequency.

Meaning my neighbor
doesn’t hear the same message
in the sign he posted in his front yard.

Words that scream for me
like teenagers in a slasher movie
don’t make him blink. No more disturbing
than a housecat meowing for supper.

He waves at me from his white porch
wearing his red sweater, unaware
of the sirens he’s set off in my head.

Though I suspect he steams, just as I do,
at the prospect of sharing a sidewalk
with someone who steps on his vote.

I wipe my eyes on the sleeve
of my blue sweater. Breathe deep.
Remind myself
we are both howling
at the same cruel moon
for different reasons.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of the poetry chapbooks Field Trip to the Museum and Stronger Than Cleopatra. Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including TheNewVerse.News, Potomac Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Little Patuxent Review, and Gargoyle. She is also the author of 35 books for young readers.

RINSE AND REPEAT

by Ben Rasnic

Image source: Viewoftheworld

Tossed my whites
into the washing machine,
a few t-shirts and cotton socks,
then mixed in our K-mart bed sheets

for good measure;
hot water setting and a dash of vinegar
with a few splashes of bleach.

Cycling forward to the rinse,
the spin segment kicked in,
rocking with a violent crash of waves
banging incessantly against the porcelain tub.

Lifting the lid
I discovered the water had turned
red as the blood from a thousand wars.

I reached inside, pulling
& tugging at the knotted mass
until the crimson waves
whirl pooled into a downward spiral

& there, tucked between the sheets
I found a Donald Trump cap
my friend had given me as a joke.


Ben Rasnic has authored four volumes of poetry: Artifacts and Legends, Puppet, Synchronicity, and The Eleventh Month. He currently resides in Bowie, MD.

AFTER READING THE HEADLINES

by Howie Good

Image source: Julia's Journical

I went
along the road.
Gravediggers
followed.
They followed
everywhere,

eavesdropping
on painful
memories

being
described
in hushed
tones.

Suddenly
the sun set.
The red
came off
on my hands.

Nobody said,
How sad.

Night was
a dark room.
The stars
were the holes
in the ceiling.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.