SHELLS

by Sam Friedman

AP, October 1, 2026

On this first day of fall,

my 84-year-old body totters

on my afternoon walk.

Acorns litter the street,

and a shattered shell lands

beside me,

straight from a gray squirrel’s mouth.

 

I think of my dear friends

Ania and Pasha

many thousands of miles

east of that sated squirrel,

east of that shattered shell,

 

and I hope and I pray

no shells land beside them

straight from a Russian drone’s mouth.

Sam Friedman is a poet, activist, and public health researcher. He has published two books of poetry and poems in a variety of magazines.

IN THESE FEARFUL TIMES I FIND THE THING WITH FEATHERS AT HOME DEPOT

by Lois Marie Harrod

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News

It’s been dismal—

the mice began invading my cupboarded coconut flakes

because, said my neighbor Ed, who knows about such things,

it’s so hot outside they come into the cool, and my neighbor Cheryl

started calling me The Mouse Slayer,  

because I snapped seven of their hot little necks,

and then a thunderstorm wedged the roof vent flap open,

letting the storm leak onto the toilet where I was sitting,

and a dead squirrel deposited himself in my yard,

and because my dead husband can no longer do it,

I had to shovel the desiccated little rodent into a garbage bag

because the ground is too dry to dig a proper grave,

and then the spin switch on my forty-seven-year-old washing machine

gave up like democracy, and I had to wring out the bath towels,  

hand by arthritic hand, and scoop out gallons of water with a measuring cup.

Next I had to go off to The Home Depot where I spent more than I hoped

on a new ecologically-friendly washing machine, 

and when the bearded salesman gave me the receipt,

he said, And what do you think of what’s going on in this world?

Who are you voting for?

 

And, yes, I was afraid to answer. I knew what was coming . . .

 

but I said Kamala anyway, because what could this 6-foot bearded guy

in an orange apron do to a less than 5-foot customer in The Home Depot?

Shoot me?

But his beard spread into a grin, and he said Good,

and spent another 27 minutes telling me about his grandfather,

a holocaust survivor, and his uncle who saved 19 people at Pearl Harbor,

and how Hitler came into power and just how would-be dictators

are still coming into power—all of which I knew—but he needed me to listen.

 

And, yes, as I left, Emily Dickinson’s Hope,

that little thing with feathers, flitted down the paint aisle—

but Emily, are you listening from your grave?—

you are wrong, that little bird does demand a crumb from us,

many crumbs from us.

We must feed her.

Lois Marie Harrod’s recent publications include her 18^th  poetry collection Spat (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and her chapbook Woman (Blue Lyra, 2020). Dodge poet, life-long educator and writer, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3.

2024 CAN BE A YEAR OF DELIGHT, PROMISES A TIMES COLUMNIST

by Devon Balwit

Quilter Delight Painting by Karla Gerard

The basic premise of a delight practice (which I learned about in the essay collection “The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay) is simple: You make a point to notice things in your everyday life that delight you… Then whenever you notice something that delights you, you lift your arm, raise your index finger in the air and say, out loud and with enthusiasm, “Delight!” (Yes, even if you’re alone.) —Catherine Price, The New York Times, December 31, 2023

I hold up a finger and say Delight!—two shelf mushrooms

in a hollow tree, a squirrel hanging by its feet. I zoom

in on the electric green of moss, a red leaf peeking

from wood chips. Always the teacher’s pet, if seeking

wonder is the task, I’ll find it, if only for the gold

star next to my name on the chart. Behold

the shining face of a baby at the bar, the daffy

hound, a Beethoven riff that makes me laugh! 

 

Expressing simple gratitude does get old—

the litany of health, family, shelter—but marvels

are singular. Even the same street shifts

with the light. I read the essay to the end sold,

ready to dash out and see what’s revealed

as the world sheathes its terrors and bares its gifts.

Devon Balwit walks in all weather and has rediscovered her love of cartooning. Her most recent collection, Spirit Spout [Nixes Mate Books, 2023], storms through Melville’s Moby Dick.

GOOD BOY

by Laura Rodley





You made it, speeding squirrel,
barreling cross black asphalt
as five cars careened
towards you each way,

north and south, no bombs
tied to your body, just
soft grey fur, acorns awaiting.

What know you about bombings
in Paris, 128 killed,
I’m ready for love
what know you

about guns in kindergarten
I’m ready for love
what know you but the rumble
of the road, earthquakes

that pass as the cars swirl by
and you’ve made it to high ground
leaves barely moving
as your tiny feet scramble up.


Author's note: I’m ready for love from Bad Company’s song "Ready for Love."

Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.