EXPECT GOOD NEWS

by Karen Warinsky

 

Bees are in trouble, this we know

but in Oregon no bees died

of pesticide in five years

and somewhere a teen rescued an elder

wandering in 103-degree heat,

a firefighter saved three kids from drowning 

on the Fourth of July

an African coral reef has returned to life,

the same life a tiny girl wants to give

to her big sister

by donating her bone marrow,

while a doctor repaired a man’s hands

through brain surgery,

as scientists discovered a frog bacteria

that can wipe out cancer tumors

and that magic mushrooms

sometimes bring back memories from dementia,

and all the while people pay their bills

donate to the homeless, to food banks,

to hurting people in war zones

and they return money, jewelry and wallets

found in cabs, on the beach,

take out ads and post it till someone calls

take no reward,

Paul and Ringo call each other

every week

and sugar has been found in the Milky Way.

 

Remember there is good news

and never give up, never quit

feed your mind,

look for sugar in the stars.

Best of the Net nominee and award-winning poet Karen Warinsky is the author of four collections including Dining with War  (Alien Buddha Press), and Beauty & Ashes (Kelsay Books).  A former finalist of the Montreal International Poetry Contest, Warinsky has published widely in lit mags and anthologies including Blue Heron,  Consilience, Silkworm, Wordpeace, Circumference, The Naugatuck River Review, and The New Verse News.

TRUMP INAUGURAL

by Paul Hostovsky

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

The day Trump takes office

I’m quitting sugar

to protest the irreplaceable

place of sweetness in the dark

world. I mean look

around. The ice is melting into everything and the levels

of pain are rising worldwide with alarming

silence seeping into everything 

and there’s nothing

I can do about it. I need

to do something about it. I’m quitting

sugar as an act of solidarity, 

a way to keep the sweetness 

holy. Kind of like the sabbath, only

secular. Kind of like a hunger strike, only

healthier. Of course the symbolism

will be lost on Trump, whose own

blood sugar levels are a state 

secret—if it weren’t

lost on Trump he probably wouldn't

have won. Hell, he wouldn’t have 

run in the first place if he understood 

the irreplaceable, unimpeachable,

inexpressible place of sweetness 

in the dark world, which is growing 

darker and more bitter apace, 

and is just as irreplaceable as it ever was.

Paul Hostovsky’s poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and Best of the Net. He has been published in Poetry, Passages North, Carolina Quarterly, Shenandoah, New Delta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Atlanta Review, Poetry East, The Sun, and many other journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart Prize, the Comstock Review's Muriel Craft Bailey Award, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and chapbook contests from Grayson Books, Riverstone Press, Frank Cat Press, Split Oak Press, and Sport Literate. Paul has thirteen full-length collections of poetry, the most recent being Pitching for the Apostates (2023). He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. He lives with his wife Marlene in Medfield, Massachusetts.

AFTER LISTENING TO THE JANUARY 6TH HEARINGS

by Moira Magneson

After William Blake

 

Each day

I am thunder-

struck by the

howling storm

of lies, the fly-

swarm pox.

O beloved rose,

I am through

pretending

I could ever know

anything.

No wits about me.

What is left

is simply local

noticing—sugar

dissolving in

a cup of tea.

The sharp stink

of skunk on

the country road.

The mourning

dove's tender

three-note woe.

 

Moira Magneson calls the Sierra foothills home and has taught English for many years at Sacramento City College. Prior to teaching, she worked as a river guide throughout the West. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Persimmon Tree, Plainsongs, Canary, and California Fire and Water—a Climate Crisis Anthology. She looks forward to the day when our nation will no longer be in thrall to the 45th president.

SAP'S RUNNING

by Laura Rodley

http://www.earthhour.org

The hearts of trees are sleeping,
But the sun’s warmth wakes them up
A fever from root to bud
A raging that froths the ground
Boiling bubbles, time to start
Tapping, collect their tears
Drink them as boiled sugar
Syrup for hot pancakes, sausage links.


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” has won a Pushcart Prize and 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.

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.