A PIVOT

by Imogen Arate

With you I am 

never alone

never in comfort

With me you 

have meaning

find purpose

A reflection of myself

an imprint

a ghost of the past

Your perpetual search

for mommy-

dearest Facts forsake

My forward motion

propelled by reenactment

of recurring cursed roles

you find reassurance

That devil you know

offers no surprises

I flee into the unknown

and you drag in fear

"Let’s go back”

You plead

“Let’s find comfort

in the familiar”

“Remember the good times”

“When I was the slave

and you the master”

Author's Note: I would like to acknowledge the influence Emma Rhodes’ “Johnny Depp Wins, and I Like So Many Others, Think of the Man Who Abused Me” had on my poem.

Imogen Arate is an award-winning Asian-American poet and writer and the Executive Producer and Host of Poets and Muses, a weekly poetry podcast that won second place at National Federation of Press Women's 2020 Communications Contest, where she has served as a national-level poetry judge in 2021 and 2022.  She often reacts to news in verse, which you can read here, on The New Verse News, as well as in other publications. You can find her @PoetsandMuses and @ImogenArate on Twitter and Instagram.

WORK WE'VE FAILED TO DO

by Barry Koplen

In the wings,
trouble greets submission;
guns speak. Murder calls
random numbers.

Mine? Yours?
The guy who commands
Curiosity to find water
on Mars?

He's distracted or
he will be
when the Super Bowl draws

nigh or when Miley
wears little or nothing but
the gunman is not

distracted. Like an actor,
he loves his role so much
we can't keep him
in the wings.


For more than fifty years, Barry Koplen has been writing poetry and prose. Often published by friendly journals too arcane to mention, he received his MFA from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Recently, he completed the second half of a two-volume collection of poems and essays. The first, Whale of Grief, complements Wail of Joy, the second; both are related to impressions of life as a Jew in a non-Jewish world. His No Gold Stars tells his personal story of the integration of the Greenville, SC school system. His latest Why Don’t They Believe Me? Four of Us Saw the Saucer will be available in January. Currently, he is completing two collections of poems while teaching Creative Writing in Virginia at Danville Community College.