FEMMINICIDIO

by Annie Rachele Lanzillotto

Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old university student was killed by her ex-boyfriend in 2023.
Graphic: Giulia Cecchettin Foundation

Italy Passes a Femicide Law, Seeking to Prevent Violence Against Women: Murders of women killed for misogynistic reasons will now be classified as femicide. Campaigners say a broader cultural shift is still needed. —The New York Times, November 26, 2025

 

Femminicidio

a word not in daily use 

Femicide 

a word that needs to be in use.

 

I am the product of violence. 

That’s a pretty word for it.

It sounds like, I dunno, parfait.

I’ll have the parfait violence per favore.

Soft sibilant whispering sounds

for being quartered and drawn emotionally.

 

Violence might as well as be my name.

The very existence of me is a scenario of violence.

My mother escaped my father several times.

The year before I was born, she lost a pregnancy, 

from getting hit or kicked or punched 

or pushed down the stairs, or maybe she fell out of fear, 

this story has been told different ways over lifetimes.

 

He wooed her, pursued her, wouldn't let her go.

Impregnated her. Whether it was romance between beatings

or violence amidst a beating, I will never know. 

She was subjugated; that’s for sure.

She was a woman enslaved in a Bronx Italian marriage.

None of her family wanted to see her pregnant again.

They wanted her to get out. 

 

Yet. Here I am.

 

Born into a violent hell

My body shakes when I hear glass breaking.

There are reasons for this.  Facts.  Episodes.  

Shattered glass around my crib.

I am sensitive to noises, beeps, neighbors’ fighting.

I wonder how it was that I was not killed.  

That my mother was not killed.

That my father had some kind of emergency brake

That my mother got the hell outta there, finally.

That we survived, I consider miraculous.

 

My father remembered being beaten as a boy 

and as a Marine, he learned to kill and to dismember.

He survived one of the more vicious battles on earth.

The very last major battle of WWII:

the American invasion of Okinawa in 1945,

eighty-two days of ferocious rabid hell 

over 241,000 people were killed

Soldiers and civilians.

 

Femminicidio

the killing of women

 

In 2018, I walked the streets of Roma and Napoli

where exterior walls of buildings

are covered with the photos of women

all who have been killed to violence

most from men they knew

brothers boyfriends husbands acquaintances

 

Femminicidio

the killing of women

 

In Italy, there's a long history of "honor killings"

killing of women—basically sanctioned

the kill

understood

 

One day in New York, I ran into an old friend.

I was feeding the meter

standing on the sidewalk

pushing a quarter into the metal slot

turning the nose of the meter

when I looked over at two women in straw sun hats

walking down the sidewalk, in my direction.

I pushed the quarter into the slot

heard it click and our eyes locked, 

me and the younger woman.

I recognized her instantly from high school.

Her eyes were the same, from years ago.

She was one of the sweetest kids I'd gone to school with.

Now we were in our fifties.

 

In that moment, we hugged and talked 

as if no time had passed at all.

I asked her, "Ya got a quarter?"

And she dug in her pocketbook and filled my meter up.

 

Her mother remembered me from when I was sixteen.

She recalled a moment I spoke with her at the high school gong show.

She said, you came up to me and said, 

“I have to tell you that your daughter 

is the sweetest kid I ever met,

and she stands up for the underdog, 

if a kid is being bullied,

she always sticks up for them.”

 

There was a street fair going on.

All flowing dresses on racks on the sidewalk.

We happened to be standing, 

right outside a new place,

where a portrait of a beautiful girl was in the window.

I read the inscription.  She had been murdered 

by a man she was dating.

The place was called "One Love,"

a non-profit for education to combat femicide.

I remember saying,

“Isn’t this wild, in between these boutiques

probably paying thirty grand a month rent,

is a foundation for domestic violence?”

 

We fell into a conversation about domestic violence

And I was open about the violence I grew up with

And how it affected me.

I’d always feared for my life 

didn't want my blood relatives knowing where I lived.

The declining health of my mother exacerbated family interactions.

Emergency room visits and holidays were tense.

Most holidays we ended up in the Emergency Room

my mother getting dangerous blood pressure spikes from tension.

 

Looking back on our reunion,

I wish I read things semiotically, spiritually. 

Paid attention to the signs:

The parking meter

My memento mori

Time expiring

The portrait of the beautiful dead girl in the store front window

 

Femminicidio

 

Not long after that, 

My friend was shot dead by her brother

in front of her mother,

on their front lawn.

They’d been bickering about emptying the dishwasher

 

No one knew he kept the old gun in the basement.

The old gun their father had many decades ago

For his own protection.

Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is an American memoirist, poet, and performance-artist whose stage presence has been called riveting and volcanic.  She was born in the Bronx. Her books include Whaddyacall the Wind? (Bordighera Press); Hard Candy: Caregiving, Mourning, and Stage Light and Pitch Roll Yaw (Guernica World Editions); L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir (SUNY Press; finalist for LAMBDA Literary Award); and  Schistsong (Bordighera Press).  Lanzillotto has been awarded grants from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, Dancing in the Streets, Dixon Place, Franklin Furnace, Puffin Foundation, Creatives Rebuild New York, and Trickle Up NYC.  

WOKE

by Bradley McIlwain

Burial of the dead after the massacre of Wounded Knee. U.S. soldiers putting Indians in common grave; some corpses are frozen in different positions. (Wikipedia)

Native American communities that had long wanted the removal of military honors for the soldiers involved in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre had their hopes dashed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in his effort to root out what he calls a “woke culture” in the armed forces. “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive, ‘don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings’ leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said Tuesday to hundreds of military officials at a ceremony. The defense secretary announced new directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness and painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by “woke” policies. Hegseth had announced last week in a video on social media that Wounded Knee soldiers will keep their Medals of Honor, part of a wider Trump administration move that Indigenous leaders and historians on Tuesday called part of a culture war against racial and ethnic minorities and women’s rights. —AP, October 1, 2025

Warriors whisper in the willows

Odyssey of blood and ochre 

Unheard under cannon fire:

No surrender—

Dancing ghosts raid the dawn;

Eagles still soar at Pine Ridge

Drums of the ancestors

Keep the fires of knowledge

No medals, no song, no glory;

Evergreens slope to the South—

Elders rise in the heart of the sun.

Bradley McIlwain works as a Teacher-Librarian, where he strives to provide meaningful and inclusive spaces for knowledge exchange and advocacy. He believes that poems and poets can be agents for social change. Bradley’s latest book Dear Emily was published by Roasted Poet Press last year.

BITS AND PIECES

by Lynn White

They waited patiently
standing in line
hunger made them quiet
un-childlike
too quiet for children
standing in line.

Who knew what they’d be
when they grew up
those children
tinker, tailor, soldier, spy
on our side or theirs
whoever the us and them are.

Now we know for certain that 
they’ll be none of those things
now they’re scattered 
in bits and pieces
bombed to bits
just in case.

Futures laid to rest
in bits and pieces
just in case.

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.

CITY OF ANGELS

by Raymond Nat Turner

“There is no power greater than a community discovering what it  cares about.”  

—Margaret J. Wheatley, Turning to One Another

City Of Angels where

Camouflaged kidnappers; Fascist wrecking-crews rip

Seamstress, roofer, warehouse worker, dishwasher families

Apart. Apart for private prison-profiteers. Apart for a flash-

Bang-buffoon-king of chaos and cruelty. Whose strongman

Handler has him by the short-hairs— Dancing for dollars

City Of Angels where 

Folks know that masters of misdirection mix fantasy with

Fascism. Sprinkle spectacle in with torture.  And laugh

In teargas and rubber bullets—All the way to the bank—

Stealing SNAP; Medicaid; Social Security; and veterans’

Benefits 

City Of Angels ruled by devils

Reflecting fire and ICE.

City Of Angels where everyday 

Angelenos strap on resistance

Wings— And fly in solidarity

Formations through fog

City Of Angels where

Everyday Angelenos strap on mutual aid

Wings— And fly warp speed

Through blitzkrieg. Through hurricanes 

Of big lies. 

Through whirlwinds of racist rubbish

City Of Angels where

“To protect and serve” translates into sonic boom slogans

Bouncing off buildings! Ricocheting as linked arms.

Morphing shoulder-to-shoulder. Out from unlikely alliances.

Into united fronts ten toes down! Into militant movements

Organizing and building. Mastering pressure, mastering choke-points

City Of Angels where 

Everyday Angelenos know it’s no video game

On colorful screens. Know it’s soldiers on their streets

And Marines. Know “less lethal” is Pig Latin for Palestine—

On the down-low—Cookin’ slow … Know Gaza is Raza—

Writ large …

City Of Angels where 

The streets are universities of class struggle

Attended by allies, accomplices, comrades.

The streets are universities of class struggle paved with smoking tear-

Gas canisters; bloody, rubber-coated, steel bullets. And goose-steppers

Coming for Mexicans in the morning— And back for Blacks by noon 

City Of Angels where

Everyday Angelenos hate The Orange Age—

Its latest outrage of tilted table. Loaded dice.

Marked cards. Everyday Angelenos hate the

Capitalist decay—that must be swept Away

With 8.5-hour days of resistance!

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

BLOOD SIMPLE

by Julia Kantic

Hunger Strike by Glen Le Lievre

Annihilation?

The sum’s not difficult to do.

How many hostages 

Does it take to make a genocide?

How many hospitals,

houses, hearths?

Don’t tell me about 

the algebra of killing

as though it were a zero sum game.

A life is not a life

as settlers solve problems

along with soldiers

and no one asks to see

their working out—

or are shown figures by gaslight.

And if I say this?

I am villainous, nefarious, wicked,

—monstrous—for calling out

—Murder —

Terrorist is a term that has changed

to mean babies, 

and their mothers, 

and their sisters, 

and their brothers, and their fathers, and their doctors, and their nurses, and their teachers, and their others, and their shop keepers, and their road sweepers, and their anyone with a determination to exist

—Alive in Gaza —

or thinks this slaughter wrong.

Julia Kantic is a writer and editor who reads, writes and delights in words and the spaces in between. Follow her wayward ways https://linktr.ee/peculiarjulia

NOW THERE IS NOTHING NEW

by Eric Nicholson

Keir Starmer has announced that Britain will “fight for peace in Europe” with a generational increase in defence spending paid for by slashing the foreign aid budget. The move, just two days before the prime minister is due to meet Donald Trump, raised immediate concerns that he was pandering to the US president, and fury from aid groups that say it could cost lives in countries that rely on UK support. —The Guardian, February 25, 2025

Now there is nothing new,

The Minister of Fear has spoken,

We are vulnerable, we must meet force with force

And station Destroyers on the Thames.

Now there is nothing new,

We stand naked on the beaches, in the fields, in the hills

As icy gusts of fear whip across the seas.

Now there is nothing new.

Footsoldiers and tanks must protect our shores,

Drones and jets must command our air space,

Battle ships defend our coastline.

Now there is nothing new.  

Factories must go into overdrive,

Re-armament is good for Growth,

Our conveyor belts must convey security,

Fear must be assembled night and day.

Now there is nothing new.

Office windows must be blacked out,

Street lights switched off,

The London Underground prepared.

Now there is nothing new.

Rule Britannia.

Let the younger generation 

Fight the good fight,

MAD is might is right:

Now there is nothing new.

Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher residing in the UK. He remembers protesting as a member of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in his younger years. He does not often write political poetry but in today's climate finds it difficult not to.

A FABLE

by Howie Good

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

Someone is shouting, “Freedom!” 
or maybe “Free them!” The shouts
 
echo through gray, empty streets 
and die. I don’t follow the news. 
 
I’m not into politics. I walk down 
a street lined with soldiers and tanks. 
 
I turn up a street named for a tyrant.


Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry book The Dark is available from Sacred Parasite, a Berlin-based publisher.

CANADIAN DEATHS IN THE BOER WAR

Written after reading about the North Koreans who have been killed, wounded, or captured fighting in Ukraine for Russia

by Steve Hellyard Swartz

In Quebec City there's a monument to Canadian soldiers killed in action during the Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1902

Whenever I saw that little memorial I thought about what it must have been like to be a young French Canadian man conscripted into service,

You're on a boat with others trying to be brave

And it's not that hard, still on the boat, there are card games and smokes and the food is bad but you're young and it's an adventure

You don't love that most of your fellow soldiers aren't from Quebec and speak English but they seem okay and there are enough French-speakers so you pretty much know what's going on

And then you get there

Which is where exactly?

Where are we?

No one is exactly sure what they call the place where  you are

You get off the boat and the sign isn't what you recognize as French or English.

Someone tells you it's Dutch, or what the white people in this place speak, which comes from Dutch

You want to know how the hell the Dutch got involved in all this but no one has time to tell you

Red-faced men are barking in English for everybody to do something

You look around and do what everybody else is doing

The red-faced man and other red-faced men are pointing and screaming for you to March!

You march

Some of you are smiling and when you ask why you're told it's better than being on that fucking boat, at least this is something, at least we're doing what we're here to do

Which is what? And where are we? 

Nobody knows for sure but at least it's not nothing

You get on a train and it's warm

Windows are opened

Cigarettes are passed around, someone has a bottle but it's empty before you can get it

The train rolls on forever

You look out the window and it looks like a lot of nothing

Is this what they're fighting over? And who is this "they" anyway?

It's the fucking British, it's not the French, that much you know.

So who is it then - the British against the Dutch? Or what passes for Dutch out here? What passes for British?

You wonder if you pass for British? You think about how your parents and grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your sister and brother, would not be happy with you passing for British

So why are you here? You look at the other soldiers laughing, smoking, passing around another bottle.

You know that the bottle will be empty before it reaches you

This is bullshit you think

Why the fuck am I here?

Somebody offers you a cigarette and you take it

An English-speaker offers you the bottle with one swig left,

You take it, you smile, he lights your smoke.

You think about that as you lie on the field later that day

You think about his nice smile and how he flicked the match against his thumb

You'd die for a smoke right now, you'd die for a swig

You close your eyes and feel the African sun hot on your face,

You hear someone yelling but you don't know these words

You don't want to die like this, this is no way to die

So you open your eyes to see the one thing you understand

You open your eyes and stare at the sun.

Steve Hellyard Swartz's movie Never Leave Nevada opened at the Sundance Film Festival thirty-five years ago this week. He is an award-winning poet, filmmaker, movie critic, and the author of a new memoir The Last Jewish Mother Joke.

THE INNER LIFE OF A HENCHMAN

by Michael Brockley

Photo by Amy Volovski at Birds&Blooms.

The cardinals nesting in the barberry bush beneath my bedroom window work together as if they have fledged many chicks during their brief lives. The mother, dusty brown and patient, approaches her chicks through aerial feints. And by hopping from lower branches to the upper fork where the hatchlings await the spiders and crickets she delivers. The scarlet male darts and barrel rolls toward its forage with what I pretend is pride. 

Soldiers were once children in such a hurry to fly. I was such a boy aiming toy bazookas and sniper rifles at Lincoln Log forts under siege. Now I celebrate the appetites of five hungry gullets, hoping the chicks survive the neighbor cat’s overnight prowls. If I can’t protect the spring’s latest brood, how can I save the children of Jerusalem and Rafah.

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Parliament Literary Journal, Stormwash: Environmental Poems, and Barstow and Grand. Poems are forthcoming in Of Rust and Glass, Ryder Magazine, Otherwise Elsewhere Literature and Arts Journal, and The Prose Poem.