BEN SHAHN VISITS ICE DETENTION CENTERS

by Rikki Santer

ICE Detention Center in North Carolina to Be Among Largest on East Coast: The new complex near the Virginia border signals that even as ICE has retreated from its plan to buy warehouses, the agency remains determined to increase its detention capacity. —The New York Times, July 23, 2026

“Allegory” (1948) by Ben Shahn (Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX)

Tomorrow’s art, if it is to be at all stirring, will no doubt be performed upon today’s forbidden territory.  —The Shape of Content by Ben Shahn  (1898-1969)

 

What will he paint to make the terror stop?  

This red kettle bell ringer whose blotted, stuttered 

lines contoured a lifetime for social justice.

In this circuit of fatelines, it is those whose lines 

of flight crossed an administration’s line

into cruelty. To make detention so bad

they’ll want to deport. So it’s not a formal

visit because they don’t know who he is

and artists are damned liars anyway.

Will his palimpsest of thrashing marks show

what’s behind locked doors and spirals 

of barbed wire? Tiny holding cells

with insects crawling, scant food, water,

medical care or contact with family or lawyers, 

sewage bubbling up from shower drains, cold 

nights that some wear socks on their arms,

other nights some in suicide surrender. With 

currency of pictorial language, will he paint 

another raging, demonic chimera with flaming

mane, refusing to suckle its children, leaving 

their lifelesss bodies beneath its udder 

in a heap of time-tested allegory?

 

 

Rikki Santer’s poetry collection, Resurrection Letter was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books. In 2023, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year and currently serves as Artist-in-Residence at the Fran Ryan Center in Columbus, Ohio and a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council. Her fifteenth poetry collection, Could Be, was published this spring by Sheila-Na-Gig Press.

SLIMY GREEN CESSPOOL REFLECTING CAPITALIST RULE

by Raymond Nat Turner

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

Capitalism says corporations are people… It says,

Money’s speech… Buying, bossing, sock-puppet

politicians on Capitalist Hill; White Supreme Court; and

Offal Office’s corrupt cabinet of Epstein class War House.

Capitalism pulled One Big Beautiful Bank Job, stage whispering, 

DOGE really means Department Of Grifter Enrichment! Then,

boasted about looting fruits of our labor; while its Cruel Reich Cult 

casually kills on our streets and strolls unaccountable into the sunset.

Capitalism’s painting our streets crimson, killing class bothers and sisters 

San Diego to Maine. Turning cobwebbed warehouses into torture, murder,

Mengele Medicine hells. Bombing humble boats full of fish on the high seas.

Reducing apartment buildings, hospitals, schools teeming with dreams to rubble…

Capitalism crowned a chainsaw prancing prince of apartheid

First Techno-Fascist Trillionaire. And celebrated his warped

worldview of spastic stiff salutes and spit-shined jackboots—

Mirroring the stinky, slimy green, cesspool—reflecting capitalist rule.

The stinky, slimy green, cesspool—reflecting capitalist rule

Mirroring testosterone-intoxicated, pomade man, obeying orders 

of Captain Morgan, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. Foolish Fox-box 

foot soldier lusting blood: Blowing up schoolchildren and teachers!

The stinky, slimy green, cesspool—reflecting capitalist rule

Algae attack, metaphor for war. Peeling paint, Pentagon pimps

shredding social safety net with looped, weapons-testing, wars

Horrific, eternal, trade shows of terror… 

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.

OLD AND FAMILIAR

by Dick Altman

A preliminary review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s internal watchdog office found that Alex Pretti was shot by two federal officers after resisting arrest, but did not indicate that he brandished a weapon during the encounter, according to an email sent to Congress and reviewed by The New York Times [January 27, 2026].

We were both

ten years old,

and best friends,

the colonel’s

daughter

across the street

and I,

when he said

I think

you’re old enough

to see these

army newsreels,

from my days 

back

in World War II.

 

Down into 

the basement

we went.

Before he turned

out the lights,

we watched

as he took out

a giant reel

of sixteen millimeter

black and white film,

he fitted

to his old army

projector.

 

The two of us

watched in terror,

as people were

dragged from shops

and apartment

buildings,

thrown

to the ground,

and beaten.

With the same

fright in our voices,

we asked

what they

did wrong.

 

The colonel

stopped the film

and turned

on the lights.

What did they

do wrong,

he repeated.

Hitler—

a name

we knew barely

at a distance—

hated Jews,

he said.

The people

pictured here

were Jews.

In that quiet

fatherly tone,

I knew so well,

he looked at me

and said,

you’re Jewish,

aren’t you.

 

The next images,

forever fixed

in my mind,

showed mounds

of dead bodies 

being bulldozed

into trenches,

at what he called

“the camps”.

A vile end,

I later thought,

for a people

doing nothing 

wrong,

but approaching

their god,

in the Fuhrer’s eyes,

from the wrong

testament.

***

I can’t pick up a paper,

or see a newscast,

that doesn’t remind me—

as ICE grabs individuals

off the street,

or wades into crowds

with smoke bombs,

to break up protests—

of those images

the colonel

shared with us,

that day long ago.

 

We were still

too young

to understand

when he told,

how Hitler came

to control the truth

proclaimed 

by print

and radio.

As truth today

seems to reincarnate

with each sunrise,

the colonel’s films

begin to feel

eerily familiar.

Have America’s

once welcome

immigrants,

incarcerated now

at every turn,

I ask myself,

become

yesterday’s

vilified Jews,

our government

more Hitlerian

by the hour?

And more

terrifying?

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 290 poems, published on four continents.

EVERY LITTLE BIT: A HAIBUN

by Miriam Weinstein

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

My assignment—oranges and limes—As much or as little as you’re able to bring—the emailed instructions specified. Food and supplies collected for people afraid to leave their homes during the ICE invasion of Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge. Thousands of uniformed, masked agents carrying weapons—now a common sight on the streets of my city. Agents of fear acting erratically. Lying in face of facts. Spreading terror and chaos across my State—land of ten thousand lakes, surging rivers, roaring waterfalls. In the church parking lot, volunteers load carts—boxes of diapers, canned goods, packaged products and produce. A middle-aged man wheels a cart to the side of my car. I pull out two large reusable bags, empty contents. Five, six pound bags of oranges, five, three pound bags of limes. Small offering considering—68, 400 people, rounded and roughed up, interrogated, arrested. In the name of searching for illegal, criminal aliens, citizens and legal residents—seized—two Americans murdered by ICE agents. Their real agenda—to breed uncertainly, fear, and chaos. Every little bit counts my friend tells me. I’m desperate today to believe in something. Has the produce I dropped off  reached its destinations? During this unfathomable crisis, is someone, somewhere being nourished?

Dusk display—turkey vulture 

soars, swoops down. Curved beak 

grasps carcass, carries rat skyward.

Miriam Weinstein completed a two year apprenticeship program at the Loft Literary Center in 2013. She has two chapbooks published by Finishing Line Press: Twenty Ways of Looking and How to Thread a Needle. Her poems are in several anthologies and journals including A 21st Century Plague, Rocked by the Waters, Poems of Hope and Reassurance, The Heart of All That Is, Survivor Lit, The New Verse News, Plum Tree Tavern, Vita Brevis Press, St. Paul Almanac, and American Jewish World. Her manuscript Here. Between. Beyond. was a finalist for the Concrete Wolf Press Louis Award. Miriam Weinstein is an avid birdwatcher and environmentalist. She lives in Minneapolis, MN.

POINTING FINGER

by Ellen D.B. Riggle

Pointing finger
jabbing at the air
knees pumping
agitated body 
up and down
jerking, frenzied
feet stomping
commanding
follow 
the line of the arm
a furious digit
directing
to the target.

Growling
desperate
to deflect attention
from the real locus
of terror,
anger 
rooted in fear. 

Weak eyes follow
the trajectory of missiles,
while courageous eyes 
remain fixed
on the one
intent on causing pain
and mass casualty. 

What fearless soul
will step into the path
holding a mirror
returning the pointing finger
to its rightful owner?

Ellen D.B. Riggle is an award- and prize-winning author and educator.  Their essays and poems appear in numerous publications; their essay about their gay great-grandfather was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Does it Have Pockets.  They are also author of over 100 academic articles and five non-fiction and fiction books, and executive producer of the short documentary “Becoming Myself: Positive Trans & Nonbinary Identities.”

THE INEQUITY OF JUSTICE

A Sestina

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

Dreams die in the blood of children,                                          

embryos born from the seeds of sorrow,

the milk of starvation, the torture

of chains and broken bones, the searching

of scorched earth; of survival as the “other.”

Mother and child, deported, disappear.

A cancer-ridden toddler and his mother disappear.
The video follows the mother, struggling to free her child
from the chains that bind them to “others,”
to the brutal and inhumane soldiers, deaf to sorrow,
prodding them toward a military plane, after searching
naked bodies with naked hatred as prodding guns torture
 
the nameless, bent and broken, then pack them in tortured
positions, until the engines roar, the plane lifts, and America disappears.
Activists march in the streets, carrying signs of protest, searching,
their eyes and ears alert to the danger of their neighbors. Children
and strangers in their midst, yet unaware of pain and sorrow, 
might be kidnapped, handcuffed, and thrown into cars with “others.”  
 
As if on cue, masked men swoop down upon “others,”
targets of skin and color, a mother and three daughters, tortured 
by HSI in their own home, left with smashed lives of fear and sorrow,
shivering in their underwear, in the rain, until the men with guns disappear,
leaving terror, and trauma cut with razor blades, on the backs of children
 looking for meaning in sleep, and awaken to desperate searching. 
 
Is there no end to a life whose desperate searching
leaves scars and barriers to block all “others,”
grieving as ICE hunts men, women, and children.?
The loss of deported loved ones enduring torture
affects human beings who mourn their disappearance,
and pursue justice in community and legal searches.?
 
Today, a Vermont man was not deported. Released from sorrow,
returning to his community which made, rehearsed, and researched 
plans to release him, they acted to assure his reappearance.
Hope returns with him, to all of us in helping “others”
escape the lawlessness of criminals in their acts of torturing
“Illegal aliens”, the name given to adults and innocent children.
 
            How much longer can children endure grief, sorrow, and torture?
Who will name these children? Why are they the “others”?  Has justice disappeared?

Lucille Gang Shulklapper is the published author of five chapbooks of poetry,  short stories, and picture books. Her work appears in journals, magazines, and online. She has taught reading from K-college, made recordings for the blind, and led workshops for The Florida Center for the Book, and others. Though she wrote from the age of six, she was never published until  the age of 60. Three decades later, she has started an Open Mic Poetry Program for her residential, and assisted living fellow retirees.   She lives in Boca Raton, Florida. 

WHAT IS LEFT?

by Peter F. Crowley

Waiting for rations from an outdoor kitchen in Khan Younis this month. Hunger is now most acute in the southern Gaza Strip.

Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via The New York Times, May 24, 2024Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images via The NewYork Times, May 24, 2024

     The language you speak has soured, become melancholy, chokes eyelids. Its tendrils lay flaying in dusty streets near occupation crossings in the gated night. Your eyes have grown sallow, as your children's stomachs distended, swollen, as you swat flies from their brow. The streets are your anguish, running, forever running from apartment home to tent back to bombed out abode. Hope was sapped with the last morsel of cat food, finished for yesterday’s only meal, while the powerful stick their blindfolded, deaf eyes deep into the sand, purchasing bulldozers to roll over you.
     You now avoid aid trucks, should they ever appear out of shackled nothingness, to avoid getting gunned down by those fighting terror. 

As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry and academic essays. His writing can be found in 34^th Parallel, Pif Magazine, Galway Review, Digging the Fat, Adelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both) and The Opiate. He is the author of the poetry books Those Who Hold Up the Earth and Empire’s End, and the short fiction collection That Night and Other Stories.

LEAFLET

by William Aarnes

Imagine yourself old enough

to have survived Operations

Cast Lead and Protective Edge.

 

Imagine a fellow refugee

            videoing flyers drifting

down from a blue sky,

 

then focusing on you

            as you pick up a leaflet

                        at once a plea for news

 

about pictured hostages

            and an implicit warning

                        that soon your current shelter

 

will be demolished by bombs.

Imagine knowing the world

can see what’s happening.

 

Imagine knowing the world

keeps failing to react.

Imagine your dulled terror,  

 

your bewildered loyalty,

your desperate rage.

Imagine your aimless trek.

 

Imagine your imagining

there’s somewhere to go

where the flyers

 

won’t drift down again

to tell you to keep moving.

Imagine the leaflet

 

as one of the keepsakes

            that will give purpose

to your children’s lives.   

William Aarnes lives in Manhattan.  For perspective he recommends Norman C. Finkelstein's Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.

OH, ISRAEL

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Next Year in Jerusalem is said at the end of the Passover Seder. It is an ancient tradition that was first recorded by Isaac Tyrnau in the 15th century. Above art by Caren Garfen.

Oh, Israel, if my love is a suitcase, when I get to your house

I won't unpack, even though my mother and her mother,

my uncles and cousins are buried in pine boxes beneath

a star of David and our Rabbi wept for victims of the Holocaust,

 

cried for a homeland for the children of Zion. Yes, I used to feel

my chest swell open when I heard Hatikvah, yes, you've suffered,

people taken in sleep, in song, as they walked out of their homes.

I know you are perched on a precipice of strife. I too have felt

 

like a stranger in a strange land, my family holding our faith close

to shield us from hate or harm. Here, in the safety of my small

life, I see signs on the highway, a deer rearing up, a warning one

may careen across the road, but that isn't how it happens, not

 

right beside a road sign. When terror charged, you weren't

ready. I see stolen homes, stolen land. I see that hate calls out 

in darkness for more hate. Gazan families starve, pick through 

ashes to find bodies to bury while you shatter hospitals, shelters. 

 

I mean blood will stick to you, Israel. You shatter us too, we 

who were raised with a dream, who held you in the light each

Friday night. Two peoples, breath of one breath, voices raised to 

the same God. The more faith you steal, the less you'll keep.

Bonnie Proudfoot was raised in Queens, NY, and currently resides in Athens, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared previously in The New Verse News and many other fine journals and anthologies. Bonnie's first book of poems Household Gods was published by Sheila-Na-Gig editions, and her first novel Goshen Road was published by Swallow Press. It was named the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/Hemingway Award.