SO, GHISLAINE: A CANARY OR A HAWK?

by Catherine Harnett

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

are you melodious: a yellow-feathered thing, aloof
and loyal only to its keeper; from sunny Gran Canaria,
where nudists stroll along the bright blue seashore
and helicopters land and lift like damselflies
 
or a taloned bird of prey, a hunter of small mammals,
carnivorous and stealthy, sharp-eyed; with a spectacular loud
courtship: the female bares her claws, tempts a mate
attracted to her savagery, they stick together all their lives.
 
You play both roles with aplomb, content to charm,
perched in an unlocked cage; and hungry, swooping in
for the kill; but it comes down to this: both
are dangerous, a beak and claws, the chance you’ll
sing.

Catherine Harnett is a poet and fiction author from the DC area, the epicenter of corruption. She has published three books of poems and has completed another manuscript.

JULY 8

by Lynda Gene Rymond

Last night under my window

I heard a coyote clack its teeth.

Today’s skies grow dark, darker.

Clouds purr at first

but then it’s full-throated growls

breaking to thunderclaps

to shake the house

 

while in the city of angels

men on horseback stalk

like corrupted knights

to intimidate children.

Tactical vehicles prowl.

A small black woman,

Madam Mayor, confronts,

her fury rising like heatwaves.

 

Be furious. Be thunder.

Shake their houses.

Steal their horses, count coup,

paint their dishonor.

Find a mightier pen to wield.

Tell tales that crack walls.

Sing, sing all the way to morning.

Lynda Gene Rymond lives and works on Goblin Farm in Applebachsville, Pa. She is a winner of the Pennwriters Short Story Prize and a multi-year finalist for Bucks County Poet Laureate. Her latest publication, Spellbook, has just been published by Moonstone Arts.

ELECTION SEASON

by David Chorlton

Photo of Cooper’s hawk by Jason Finley at Birds of Westwood.

Midsummer heat as October begins
and a shivering cry
from out of sight signals
the coyotes’ prayer to the sun
when they give back the world
to human rule. The quiet neighbors
 
have begun setting out
yard signs to reveal
their innermost beliefs. 
One side sings, the other
screams. Some just want
a shake-up to discover
what outlaw spirit brings
while still as thought
 
the Cooper’s hawk
on a street lamp against
the orange clouds has winter
in one eye and summer
in the other. Another day the heat lasts
 
into darkness, later
than the evening news, long after
Happy Hour is over
and midnight’s face glows bright
high above mendacity,
 
doubt and the choices
to be made between line dancing
at Cactus Jack’s
or voting for the silent stars.

David Chorlton moved to Phoenix from Europe back when Phoenix still had a little provincial quaintness to it. Growth applies to the good and bad qualities alike, and it isn't always easy to adjust. Leonard Cohen's famous lines help: There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

WHAT GROWS

by D. Dina Friedman

“Rising Cairn” by Celeste Roberge

from grief, the prickled ball in my heart

The tank imprinting the sands in Gaza.

The baby on the kibbutz, snatched from its mother’s arms.

Grief as breath and breath as grief

pictures of the dead, the missing

slapped on our bland screens. We might know

this child, his laugh. This teen. She worked for peace.

Grief for the plume of smoke outside the window

of the hospital, for the doctor, searching her pockets

as if she might have stashed a pill she’d forgotten,

that could save the life of a patient, writhing, dying. 

Grief, the crevice in the land split by the river

where you think you might walk down and disappear. 

Grief, a drained lake, a parched throat, a bombed city, 

a soldier singing O Sole Mio in the desert at night

because, sometimes, there’s nothing else to do 

but raise your head to the moon 

and sing as if your life depended on it.

D. Dina Friedman has published in over a hundred literary journals and anthologies (including Rattle, The Sun, Calyx, Lilith, Negative Capability, Chautauqua Literary Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, and Rhino) and received four Pushcart Prize nominations. She is the author of two young adult novels: Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster) and Playing Dad’s Song (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), a short-story collection: Immigrants(Creators Press), and two  chapbooks: Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press) and Here in Sanctuary—Whirling (Querencia Press). 

SONGS OF SURVIVAL

by Cristina M. R. Norcross

Pregnant women and children were caught in the bombing of the hospital in Mariupol. —The Mirror (UK), March 10, 2022

“Congress of Peoples for Peace" by Frida Kahlo (1952)

Debris, like ticker tape confetti,

still floats in the air, 

as the camera lens captures

a young mother’s silhouette,

protective hand holding her half-moon curve.

I spot the side of her cheek and eyebrow

dotted with streaks of blood,

where shards of glass or wood must have 

swept past her, mercifully missing 

her vulnerable nest within.

 

A Frida Kahlo painting appears on my screen,

while breaking news continues to drone.

Both moon and sun spheres glow on the canvas.

A tree of life, bursting with oranges,

grows before my eyes.

A mother hen sits impossibly on top,

as if keeping eggs warm on the highest branch.

 

The little girl’s song in the shelter 

lingers from last night, 

stays with me, as I walk through the house.

I hear her honeyed, hopeful voice 

even as I fall asleep. 

Her letting go of sound, word, voice, outcome

is the bravest note I have ever heard.

 

We sing ourselves into a new day,

an insistent melody

where sound itself holds the promise

of survival,

proof that beyond the bombs and tanks overhead,

rooted in the cellar of Ukraine’s earth,

is a chorus of people who believe. 

 

Cristina M. R. Norcross lives in Wisconsin and is the editor of Blue Heron Review. Author of 9 poetry collections, a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and an Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee, her most recent collection is The Sound of a Collective Pulse (Kelsay Books, 2021). Cristina’s work appears in: Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Poetry Hall, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others. Her work also appears in numerous print anthologies. Cristina has helped organize community art/poetry projects, has led writing workshops, and has hosted many open mic readings.  She is the co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry & Art Day.

GLOBAL STRIKE!

by Katherine West

Geneva (AFP) – A man ended a 39-day-long hunger strike outside the Swiss parliament on Thursday, declaring "Victory!" after the MPs agreed to be briefed by scientists on the latest climate change research. Guillermo Fernandez, who says he has lost 20 kilos since launching his hunger strike on November 1 to push for Swiss MPs to take climate change seriously, ended his fast by gingerly eating a banana outside the parliament building. "Victory!!!!" he announced on Twitter… "Finally the parliament will be confronted with the truth!" His announcement came after the president of the lower house of parliament Irene Kalin, of the Green Party, announced that scientists had been invited to brief MPs on May 2, 2022 about the latest research from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). —France 24, December 9, 2021

I had a dream the millions woke from their dream.  

There was no violence, just numbers.  

Quietly, the millions put down their tools and shut down their computers.  

Quietly, the millions said, "No."  

Quietly, they said, "We want to live."  

Quietly, they marched.  

Quietly, they sang as they marched.  

Quietly, they stood.  

Quietly, they sat. 

Before the capitals of state and country.  

Quietly, they stayed.  

Singing love of forest and river. 

Of life for children and grandchildren.  

Until power returned to the ones who work.  

Until Earth was put first. 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She hs written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. She is also an artist. 

LAUGH

by Ken Purscell

I heard his laugh before I heard the news,

But recognized who made that laugh and why:

He'd overcome their power to refuse

His ballot. Now his laugh could finally fly

Unhindered. Yes, there still was all the pain

Of truth to face. And reconciliation?

Never easy. Yet gentle as the rain,

He worked to foster healing to a nation.

But that one moment, joy sprang out in laughter

Because he’d laughed a thousand times before–

Despite the past behind, what might come after–

Holding tight the faith that was his core:

Christ’s mercy conquers every evil thing,

So even before the news arrives, we sing!

Ken Purscell is a retired retail cashier, adjunct professor, and preacher. He and his wife Koni live in the suburbs of Chicago. He still claims his greatest accomplishment is that he once made Victor Borge laugh.

THE ROAD AHEAD, 2020

by Bill Sullivan

How to know if history is slamming

on the brakes, screeching to a blessed stop

just before the ditch and the cliff--taking

a left turn, leaving behind all the outdated

models, the hesitant and reluctant drivers?

No trumpet blares, theatric announcements,

no once-every-five hundred-years comet

streaking across the night sky, no revelations.

And we wonder if history is on automatic

drive and we're just along for the ride?  Or

if we can remap our route, take detours, back

roads to avoid dead ends and fatal collisions?

Still we keep our hands on the steering wheel, 

step on the gas, sing songs to the night sky.

Bill Sulllivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College before retiring in Westerly, Rhode island. His poems have appeared in print and online publications including: Perigee, Connecticut River Review, the Providence Journal, and The New Verse News.  He is also the author of Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose.

FEBRUARY

by Penelope Scambly Schott

Image source: Save the Children

The early robin plumps on a fence post
well ahead of the meadow larks –
I count one vote for spring.

My lonely neighbor left her lights on all night
and rose in frost to sweep her patio
clean of sunflower husks.

In a camp just beyond the Syrian border
most of the 75,000 shivering refugees
are under the age of four.

I remember completely being three years old –
how near my hands were to my elbows
and my fingers to my mouth.

Today, on this fragrant slice of warm toast
veined with cinnamon sugar,
the spread butter melts.

We all have our mouths wide open
and some of us sing.


Penelope Scambly Schott’s forthcoming book Lillie Was a Goddess, Lillie Was a Whore is a series of poems about prostitution.

ODE TO THE EMOTIVE RODENTS

by Agrimmeer


                                           Singing Mice Learn New Tunes--National Geographic


  Hear Mice Sing by cdellamore


Mice white as icing can’t recall their lines.
Nor can they handle Shakespearean rhymes,
the cage their stage without admission fees,
in ad-lib scenes, they let loose as they please.
Needle teeth chatter, as they self-flatter,
“I sing, therefore I am,” and similar blather,
without thinking, they keen, upon their wee knees,
a hymn or a croon for that moon of cheese.


Agrimmeer grew to adulthood in the New Haven area but through the winds of time has put down roots in Texas, where he works in energy and real estate law, and where he sometimes gets in hot water for writing poetry about those areas, but keeps doing it anyway.