WELBY

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, on Tuesday announced his resignation, days after a report concluded that he had failed to ensure a proper investigation into claims that more than 100 boys and young men were abused decades ago at Christian summer camps. —The New York Times, November 12, 2024

Welby may have seen faith as the key 

English Church teaching: faith means to be-

Lieve what cannot be seen—

But does not also mean

You can then not believe what you see!

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, The Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.

AFTERMATH — A FOUND SONNET

by Susan Vespoli

—all words in the poem from a KJZZ Interview with Tom Maxedon

Susan Vespoli and her book One of Them Was Mine

What happened? Officer Lindo shot my son

in the back of his head. Blew everything

apart. In the face of powerlessness,

we should say his name: Adam Vespoli.

 

Phoenix Police Department Disciplin-

ary Review Board: cop was found out 

of policy. Immediately resigned. Freedom 

of Information Act. Aftermath. Coping

 

with grief. A molten slosh of pain. Healing

thoughts and hearts. My son, a big believer. 

My mission, words in mouth, to be his voice. 

Lawsuit resolved. Financial settlement. 

 

The    policeman    is    no     longer 

a policeman. He’s driving a truck in Texas.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of poetry to create change.

THE WAY WE WERE

by Steven Kent

Martin Rowson’s cartoon on the differing fortunes of Donald Trump and Rishi Sunak —The Guardian, July 3, 2024

"Rishi Sunak resigns as Tory leader as well as PM after election defeat" —The Guardian, 5 July 2024

A leader says, "The vote was clear;
It's time for me to disappear.
To my successor, luck and cheer."
Remember when we had that here?

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, and Snakeskin. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

GATHERING (CLOUDS)

by Indran Amirthanayagam

We are gathering in Kansas City,

poets and publishers, writers

and editors: our people, friends,

colleagues, rivals. But I am

skipping the encounters. I don't

want to rub anything or anyone

except for the keyboard where

I compose this letter of resig-

nation, aware of the moving

staircase, the precipice, rocks

falling from the sky, aware

of train. bus and car wrecks

to come, bombs dropped

on friends' homes and cultures,

fireballs rolling through Chile's

Viña del Mar, vine now of fire

and mourning, through hills

near Valparaiso where

I fear cobblers and tailors

and hardware stores with

their giant signs have 

become ash, in memory, 

thy kingdom come, thy will…

how can we explain our 

suicidal impulse, this expelling 

of hot gas, assaulting 

of children and women 

in Gaza, famine threatening

that strip, and Ethiopia 

again in 2024. Are you 

ready for Live Aid 

once more, the concert 

for Bangladesh? How 

can we reply when the prompt 

calls for murder, 

by climate, by dictator?

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press has just published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun. (Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

UNDER INVESTIGATION BY THE DOJ, PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT REVISES USE OF FORCE POLICY

by Susan Vespoli

             “I think god has another plan for my life.” —Adam Vespoli, weeks before he was shot

City of Phoenix

solicits public input

on “Use of Force” policy.

        Officer Donnell Lindo, the cop who shot

               my son is gone.     

Core Principles: Goal 

of every encounter is

to resolve without force.

       Turned in his gun,

               his holster, badge.  

Employees shall make 

every effort to preserve 

sanctity of human life.

      was found by Critical

                Incident Review Board to be in the wrong.   

                Referred for discipline.

Employees shall respect, 

uphold value, rights, liberty,

dignity of all

      Resigned before he was fired.

                (Didn’t resign before he fired the gun.)  

persons at all times.

Always use de-escalation

tactics. Shall be held

      The cop who shot   my son 

                is gone.

accountable for

violating policy. 

Discharge of firearm. 

      Where’d he run?

“He no longer works for the department.” 

    —Clerk at Phoenix Police Public Records

Turned in his badge,

his bullets, gun.

Shooting person close 

range   in the head    is Deadly 

Force       always last resort.

My son is gone.

Author’s note: Words in italics are “found poem” from mail conversation with Police Records and "Use of Force" Proposal.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, Arizona where she continues to write toward finding some sort of justice for her son, Adam Vespoli, who was shot and killed by police on March 12, 2022.

Editor's Note: The New Verse News previously published five of long-time contributor Susan Vespoli's poems about the killing of her son by police:  "Before I Knew Adam Had Died" and "My Ex-Husband Calls To Tell Me Our Son Has Been Shot By Police," "Police Violence in Reverse," "Dear 2022," and “I Am Finally Handed the Critical Incident Review Board Report.”

NO CONFIDENCE

by William Doreski

Boris Johnson returns inside 10 Downing Street after making his resignation speech on July 7. Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Because I found the ticket

for the cold-storage locker

on the outskirts of Frankfort,

I must reclaim the rumpled corpse

of the long-debauched hero

and somehow arrange to return it

to the nation he led until

his wingspan shrank and he fell.

 

The attendant speaks only German

and I speak only the crudest slang.

He unlocks the locker to allow

inspection of the earthly goods.

The familiar upturned face,

sallow professional smile,

arched gothic eyebrows grinning

and bruise-blue eyes unwinking,

opens its wired jaws to speak.

 

Everyone warned me that even

fifty years after death he’d claim

airtime to unleash his grievance,

a fiction he wrought in Parliament

as the members shook and groaned.

The chill in the locker numbs me.

I drop the lid before he mouths

a syllable of pious cant.

 

His blond shock and beer-stained suit

signaled a feckless charisma

that faded long before death.

No one wants him to recur

half a century after his prime.

The attendant sneers and offers

a snort of schnapps to calm me.

I accept despite the agony

of all those clashing “S” sounds.

 

Let the British consul handle

transport to Westminster Abbey

where a few curious old folks

may wish to fondle the corpse.

I step outside into Europe’s

painterly light and soak it in,

bracing political virginity

against history and brazen lies.

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Dogs Don’t Care (2022).  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

DAYS I REMEMBER

by Tricia Knoll

Donald Trump with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the UN on Wednesday. Democrats said the transcript of the pair’s call represented a ‘devastating’ betrayal of America. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian, Sept. 25, 2019

for the times they portend,
the times we were called to hold in memory.

My old-maid French teacher weeping silently
when the high school intercom announced
     President Kennedy is dead. The horse
     without a rider and the little boy’s salute.

During a beer strike in British Columbia, the radio
     told us Nixon resigned.

A hush in the Yale Law School dining room
    when TV announced we were bombing Cambodia.

Assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King,
Robert Kennedy, the slaughter of so many innocents
   in so many places with weapons meant for war

The piece of the Berlin wall in my desk drawer.

Oh, our parents told stories of Pearl Harbor,
D-Day. Yes, a man landed on the moon.
Yes, we elected a President with a darker
skin color than mine.

Others do not come to mind right now.
Add your own.

Whatever happens next, skullduggery and lies
or the light of truth pushing aside the shadows,

the day impeachment opens into T***p’s world
of bigotry, aggrandizement, and hate

I’ll know this as the day I worked out back
yanking invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle

how hard I had to scrub to remove
the dirt from under my fingernails.

Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet who fears the coming disasters of climate crisis as much as she deplores the political nightmare of the Trump era. Her work appears widely in journals and anthologies. Her most recent collection How I Learned To Be White received the 2018 Indie Book Award for motivational poetry.

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

by Jerome Betts

Theresa May has announced that she will resign on June 7, 2019.

The Brexit poisoned chalice
Releases bile and malice
While people, pub to Palace,
   Ask what on earth it means.

But now, to add confusion,
With her plan proved mere illusion
May's reign has reached conclusion
   So they plot behind the scenes.

Her power in transition
Sees the country facing fission
And has triggered mad ambition
   In buffoons and drama queens.

Referendum or election
To stop Britain's vivisection
And its chronic misdirection
   As it plays out on our screens?


Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and edits the verse quarterly Lighten Up Online. His work has appeared in a wide variety of British magazines and anthologies as well as UK, European, and North American web venues such as Amsterdam Quarterly, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily,  Light, The Asses of Parnassus,  TheNewVerse.News, Better Than Starbucks, Parody, Per Contra, and Snakeskin.

A BISHOP RESIGNS

by Jack Belck

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” by Michael D’Antuono

Priests’ upward gazes to God
go also downward to where
wild male animals loiter,
battling to escape,
to do what God orders.

But those battles seen or unseen,
become mere memories for those,
confessed to but not confessing,
elevated to the bishopric.

Their own wild animals’ flights
are proven when bishops
replace pants with gowns.
So too cardinals and popes,
secure, satisfied neuters
ignoring young priests
battling anew
and children sacrificed
on celibacy’s stained altar.


Jack Belck is a retired university publications editor.

PRUITT’S PSYCHO FANCY

an erasure poem by James Penha
derived from Scott Pruitt’s resignation letter

It has been an honor to serve you
Truly
your confidence in me has blessed me personally
beyond what anyone anticipated
at an unprecedented pace
and I thank you for the opportunity
to achieve those ends
it is extremely difficult for me
to cease serving you
because I count it a blessing to be serving you
in service to you
to bless you serving
as President today because of God’s providence
that same providence brought me into your service
as I have served you
I have blessed you
and enabled you
Thank you again Mr. President
for the honor of serving you
in all that you put your hand to.


James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News .

THE LONG REACH OF KARMA

by Richard Hacken

Kenneth W. Starr announced Wednesday that he would resign as chancellor of Baylor University, effective immediately, saying it was a “matter of conscience.” Mr. Starr’s decision came less than a week after he was stripped of the more operationally powerful position of president of the university in the wake of a scandal in which Baylor acknowledged that it had mishandled accusations of sexual assault against several football players. . . . Mr. Starr was an independent counsel whose report to Congress led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. —NY Times, June 1, 2016. Photo: Kenneth Starr speaks to the media after arguing a case on student free-speech rights before the Supreme Court in Washington on March 19, 2007. (REUTERS/Molly Riley via RawStory)

Could some current Norman Mailer
write about the mess at Baylor,
which is so in need of journalistic prose?
Is the football program’s failure
to send rapists to the jailer
going to send it into existential throes?

Football culture says to nail her,
take a woman and impale her
when protected so that any onslaught goes.
Players hope the coach will tailor
strong defense so words will fail her,
and no prosecutor credits what she knows.

In the court: assault and flail her
and with wholesale slurs assail her,
so with craftiness your guilt you can transpose
till she seems a drunken sailor,
and you easily curtail her
own ability to witness and disclose.

With the Baptist creed at Baylor,
there’s no way truth will avail her,
since suspicion on her own sins will repose.

Now the President and Savior
of the football games at Baylor
was Ken Starr, a man to gridiron wins devoted.
Yes, Ken Starr, the Clinton slayer,
the Lewinsky-scandal hailer
(who as Special Counsel over sex tales gloated)
has mishandled accusations
of forced sexual relations,
and for this from president has been demoted.

Oh, they say that fresh raw karma
is a targeted sweet charmer
that is stronger far than energetic speech
and that irony’s sly reach
can shape attitudes and teach
with capacities designed to, well, impeach.

Richard Hacken is a poet and librarian who has published in TheNewVerse.News before. He once introduced X.J. Kennedy to the plenary session of a literary symposium via rhyming couplets, which may or may not have been gauche.