THE GIRL

by tom bauer

Screenshot from Xwitter.

born from the earth and covered in dust
she opens her eyes, hearing shouts
of people seeing her pulled out
calling with astonishment and joy,
under an iron sky of ash
smudged across the ongoing night

tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.

LET ME CALL THEM DOGS

by Tricia Knoll

A golden retriever named Kilian is part of a Swedish rescue team in Morocco after the earthquake. He's a veteran of past disaster rescue missions and his handlers say he helped find 18 people alive under the rubble in Turkey earlier this year. —Carol Guzy for NPR

Those furry creatures I live with,
the ones on a mission to sniff hunt,
find the dead, subdue, lead the blind, 
alert to illnesses. Detect mines.
Walk side by side with people 
who need them.
 
K-9 simplifies the patches 
on uniform sleeves, dispatched
cars, rescue units, disaster teams.
A term coined during World War II.
 
Let me know them as dogs,
the faithful we call to live with us,
who serve in whatever way they can
and look for a hand, a voice, a toy
to tell them job well done. 

Tricia Knoll lives in gratitude with two non-pedigree dogs in Vermont. She has known search and rescue handlers. Her poetry appears widely in journals, anthologies and seven collections—the most recent being One Bent Twig (FutureCycle Press, 2023) which highlights trees Knoll has planted, loved, and worries about due to climate chaos.

HELPLESS

by Anne Harding Woodworth

Support the rescue efforts of the White Helmets.

     a prayer of sorts, Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 4:30 a.m.

In the quiet of this early morning, he’s left our bed

and walked into the hall, then to the kitchen

 

probably to get a “swig of klim,” as he calls it.

I move my foot over to his side just to feel the warmth

he’s left behind. At that moment, I know how survivors

in Turkey and Syria are shivering, reaching for warmth

where there is none, no lingering vestige of a spouse,

parent, child, no body next to them that said, “I’ll be right back.”

Buildings have fallen, din deafened, and then silent,

as snow passes into illicit spaces, upside down rooms,

and chairs drop into cold chasms of confusion,

terror, and pain with no one there to explain

what has happened. This is nightmare, a woman thinks,

held down in darkness between two concrete blocks

with one leg bent the wrong way. I tell her I am coming

with a blanket and lamp, but that too is dream

and will never happen. When he comes back to bed,

sweet-smelling of milk, I move closer to him

for his warmth, seeking comfort and more air

for those still breathing, buried deep in the rubble.

Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of eight books of poetry and four chapbooks. Her recent collection is GENDER: Two Novellas in Verse, which was a Literary Titan Silver Award Winner. Her chapbook The Last Gun won the COG Poetry Award and was subsequently animated (at https://vimeo.com/193842252). Anne is a member of the Board of Governors at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA, which is opening soon after two years of restoration.

A GRIM FAIRY TALE

by Lynn White

Dozens of asylum-seeking children have been kidnapped by gangs from a Brighton [UK] hotel run by the Home Office in a pattern apparently being repeated across the south coast, an Observer investigation can reveal. A whistleblower, who works for Home Office contractor Mitie, and child protection sources describe children being abducted off the street outside the hotel and bundled into cars. “Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers,” said the source. —The Observer, January 21, 2023 PHOTO: Hove, where unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been abducted, according to a contractor working for the Home Office. Credit: Andy Hall/The Observer

When I was a child 

my mother told me 

that Never Never Land

Is where the lost children go,

those who can’t find their way home.

My mother told me that

they stay children for ever

and can play all day long.

It sounds like a fairy tale

and perhaps 

that’s where these children have gone,

stepped into a fairy tale

or perhaps

they’ve been taken into one

by a monster

straight out of Grimm.

And now they wait.

And there’ll be others

waiting.

Waiting,

for someone to find them.

Perhaps they’ll put up a sign

hoping someone will see.

And they’ll sit by the sign

waiting for rescue,

waiting for the fairy tale ending

that can never come.

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. 

ON BUOYANCY

by Julie Steiner

Look for the helpers, Mister Rogers said.

Whenever you feel sad or scared about

the news, look for the people helping out.

Keep those within your sight. Your heart. Your head.

It’s good advice. On days when all I’ve read

puts basic human decency in doubt,

and all I’ve heard’s what hurtful people shout,

I focus on the helpful folks instead.

Or try to. Sometimes all that’s in the frame

is evidence that helpers never came.

Two long, light-gray balloons, like downturned lips,

say several states withheld their rescue ships.

No helpers in the picture. Not this time.

But you can help bear witness to this crime.

A shipwreck off the Libyan coast has reportedly claimed the lives of 130 people, despite SOS calls for help, the UN migration agency IOM said on Friday [April 23]. The tragedy was confirmed late on Thursday by the volunteer rescue vessel Ocean Viking, which found dozens of bodies floating in the water northeast of Tripoli. It had been in distress since Wednesday morning, the NGO said in a statement. IOM spokesperson, Safa Msehli, told journalists in Geneva that the victims had been on board a rubber dinghy for two days before it sank in the central Mediterranean. “For two days, the NGO alarm phone, which is responsible for sending distress calls to the relevant maritime rescue centres in the region, has been calling on States to uphold their responsibilities towards these people and send rescue vessels. Unfortunately, that has not happened.” More than 500 people have drowned on the so-called Central Mediterranean sea route this year according to IOM—almost three times as many the same period last year. —UN News, April 23, 2021

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which her poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and the Asses of Parnassus.

FROM THE CORE OF OUR WORLD

by Angelica Whitehorne

The sad leaked like ripe fruit from the core of our world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl 

I don’t think the politicians, protected in suits, will save us

I don’t think these issues are something they’d care to discuss

 

We woke up to close the blinds against a wildfire world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl 

I don’t believe life ends at Black or starts at conception

I don’t believe in law enforcement’s redemption 

 

We live in the same country but different worlds

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl

cops / defenders / bastards they’ll come for you too,

hit you hard in the streets if you step on their shoes

 

I sent a letter to the P.O. box of our homeless world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl 

We’ve been taught rights are something we can negotiate  

We’ve seen first hand our systems were contrived in hate

 

We stand outside and wave goodbye to a disappearing world

The men in blue pepper sprayed a nine year old girl

I wonder if there is a point where we’re past being saved 

If this marks a civilization too utterly depraved

 

I want so bad to rescue this reckless, refuge world

I want so bad to cover the eyes of the nine year old girl 

Open your own eyes and see where the real danger compiles

in our actions, in our violence, not in the fearful, backtalk of a child. 

 

What if we gather and release this knotted up, wounded world

and teach the next generation to protect all nine year old girls?

Am I too hopeful or can we confront it, our long past of disparity?

Am I too hopeful or can we grow them, our seeds of peaceful solidarity?

Angelica Whitehorne is a New York artist who writes poems, pieces of fiction, and stanza-formatted rants about the world we’re living in. She’s not creative enough to write about some other world, so this one is all she’s got. She has published or forthcoming work in The Laurel Review, The Cardiff Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Mantis, Ruminate, and Hooligan Magazine among others.

D&D IN 2020

by Patricia Davis

On the one hand we’ve got Phandalin

a fantasy mining town besieged by dragons.

We are trying to learn the rules at the dining room table—

attributes, quests, etc. Then we move on

to real life, sitting in front of the fire,

exploring the properties of air on sparks.

Then Anna goes to bed

and I check Twitter for #MartialLaw

just like every night for the past two

months.  Half of America

(or a tenth of America and an industrious

factory of Russian bots) clamor for their rights

to be doused.  Choose your adventure.

They implore the president to JUST DO IT

Do Martial Law.  Save the Republic.

The only real thing is the fire

crackling on dry logs,

my daughter stretched out

with our remaining cat,

telling me the plot of her story—

how can four teenagers escape after creating

a distraction? One a light wielder, one a wielder

of shadows, one a wielder of time, one of frost

and a mindreader and telekinetic.

I tell her how powerful they are.

Of course they can rescue the captured one.

Of course they can escape.   

Patricia Davis’ poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, The New Verse News, Smartish Pace, Third Coast, The Atlanta Review, Salt Hill, Crab Creek Review, and other journals and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has an MFA from American University, where she was a Lannan Fellow. She is currently translations editor for Poet Lore.  

THE LADDER

by Howie Good

There are days when I look up from some small task,
answering a text or fixing coffee or leashing the dog,
and see miles more of the skyline burning and crowds
chanting encouragement to the flames, and on those days,
I feel broken and hollow and lost, too old and slow to be
able to make any sort of difference, but then I remember
I don’t have to be one of the ones who climb a rescue ladder;

I can stand on the ground and help hold the ladder steady.


Howie Good is the author most recently of Stick Figure Opera: 99 100-word Prose Poems from Cajun Mutt Press. He co-edits the online journals Unbroken and UnLost.

RESCUE EFFORT

by Catherine D’Andrea 

“Rescue Effort Still Underway to Save Boys Trapped in America” by Pia Guerra TheNib, July 9, 2018

A cave in the earth holds
rushes of water
foreign hearts
trapped in a hidden chamber.

Rushes of
familiar blood
move
with atrial
ventricular
compulsion.

The dark
pump and pound
whooshes
inside and around us.
We dive
into waiting
the drain
the exchange
knowing each other’s need
to breathe.



Catherine D’Andrea lives in Connecticut with a fat, orange tabby, a crazy calico, and a funny husband. She is a mother, teacher, and student, who believes life is a mystery, not to solve, but to explore. Poetry helps her do that.

SIX-YEAR-OLD SYRIAN BOY RESCUED FROM DEBRIS AFTER A BOMBING IN ALEPPO

by Ryan McNamara





My body beneath the weight of rock and rubble,
taken by what surrounds me, wanting to return
my feet upon the sturdy earth, but still,
rescue men search through rock and wreck
toward me. My words have fled the border lines
I hear them shouting, say something, please.
Photographers surround my lonely emergence
As I'm lifted like burdened stone, toward war.

As I'm lifted like burdened stone, toward war,
photographers surround my lonely emergence
I hear them shouting, say something please
toward me. My words have fled the border lines.
Rescue men search through rock and wreck.
My feet upon the sturdy earth, but still
taken by what surrounds me—wanting to return
My body beneath the weight of rock and rubble.

Ryan McNamara is a student at Central Connecticut State University majoring in Biomolecular Science. He lives in Meriden, CT. This is his first publication.

Editor's Note: When the bombs rain down, the Syrian Civil Defence rushes in. In a place where public services no longer functions, these unarmed volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need—regardless of religion or politics. Known as the White Helmets, these volunteer rescue workers operate in the most dangerous place on earth. You can help: Support the White Helmets.