A TEAR FALLS FROM THE MOON

by Richard L. Matta

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

Hideous weeds hide

in high grasses. Experts examine

lawns with satellites, surveil 

with drones, send in spies.

Intelligent eyes can’t locate 

the wild pests so tap-tap-tap 

go the buttons and neighborhoods 

are bombed and burned and stripped 

bare and young lingering eyes of flowers 

are cut off at the head.

I could ask a question of the wise 

pale moon in the thick evening heat 

but it’s dusted with debris. 

A speaker echoes…

         indiscriminately

                   inhumanity.

And I ask myself is this not a swarm

of bees in the making, generations 

of hate stewing, a turn of minority 

to majority, a dark legacy.

Richard L. Matta grew up in New York and now lives in San Diego. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop, San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday, Slipstream, and many international haiku journals. 

A CHURCH ON UKRAINE’S EASTERN FRONT

by Suzanne Morris

Fighters from Ukraine’s Karpatska Sich Battalion in a church on Dec. 25 that was destroyed by shelling and reportedly looted by Russian forces during their occupation, in the Lyman district in the Donetsk region. Credit: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

The Church is torn from

limb to limb

daylight flooding through

gaping holes in hallowed walls

Russian spies posing as

monks and priests and nuns 

and at least one Ukrainian abbot 

convicted of espionage.

So I wonder about

the soldier in combat gear

entering through

an arched door

wrested from its hinges,

glass blown out

his heavy boots crunching

on the pulverized pieces

littering a floor

thickly layered with shell dust

below a magisterial portrait of

Jesus praying in the

Garden of Gethsemane,

looking heavenward

as if to beseech God for

an explanation for this

violent schism between two branches

that grew from the same root,

for the shell holes that

pock the background of the

star-speckled sky

above his haloed head

and the rock he kneels against

to pray.

Jewel-toned paraments

embroidered in gold

are strewn about the floor

and flung against

the high upholstered back of a

filigreed chair

while the Virgin Mary

enfolded in deep blue and rose

ponders in her heart

from high above:

For this, my son died on the cross?

Nearby, the wooden altar

with elaborate detail

is deeply scarred, panels missing

its top piece knocked awry

and all around, sections of

towering, frescoed walls blown out,

the portraits adorning them ripped,

iconography broken and dangling.

The soldier’s head is bowed

as though he has escaped

for a few moments of prayer

within this tattered sanctuary.

Or, perhaps he has come to

search for evidence of treason:

lists of people to be killed,

wads of illicit cash,

pamphlets of Russian propaganda

to be traced

so that justice

can be served.

And all the while the

raging war

hurtles into its second year... 

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and a poet. Her poems have appeared in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Pinecone Review, and Emblazoned Soul Review.

TICKLED PINK

Sarah E. Colona lives and teaches in her home state of New Jersey. She is the author of three poetry collections: Hibernaculum (Gold Wake Press, 2013), Thimbles (dancing girl press, 2012) and That Sister (dancing girl press, 2016).

CONSPIRACY THEORETICAL WITCH HUNTS

by Richard Hacken 

Image source: Unload and Unwind

            Hillary, it has been shown, created ISIS.
            Everything we know shows how that terror crisis
            Came from Clinton’s wicked wish to sacrifice us.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            In Libya she only made things worse, because she
            Purposefully waited to send in the posse
            At the embassy when needed in Benghazi.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            Email servers were her tools of choice for treason
            As she lured and let the spies of the Chinese in,
            Laughing as she lied about her sordid reason.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!
         
            Shocking to our sensibilities as humans,
            Hillary dropped bombs less ethical than Truman’s,
            Pimping out her husband to young female students.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

            Hillary remains untouched by House committees
            Searching hard to bring her down by her Achilles,
            While bribes she paid stack up in banks in offshore cities.
                        It’s not a conspiracy theory
                        If it happened (really)!

Richard Hacken enjoys trochaic political satire.  While slightly amused by conspiracy theories and witch hunts, he hates to see them linked to each other.