EMPTY HORIZONS

by James Schwartz 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." —Ephesians 2:8-9

Prayers heard 

Or unheard,

Spiritual delusion 

Per authorities, 

Summer's end

She could not, 

Walk on water

As the voices, 

Had commanded 

She had failed,

He had failed 

A test of faith,

As the voices 

Grew louder,

After the lake 

Recieved them,

Highly emotional 

Surfacing diver,

As the voices 

Grew louder. 

Submerged prayers for

A salvation.

Cast into

Empty horizons.

Authors Note: The Amish communities can have a lack of access to professional mental health care and resources. Two mental health crisis resources are 988 and www.nami.org. My condolences to all affected by this tragedy. 

James Schwartz is a poet and author of various poetry collections including The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (Kindle, 2011) and most recently Big Island Beatnik (Alien Buddha Press, 2025). @queeraspoetry. 

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT BEING KIND

by Robin Wright

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News

For Mariann Edgar Budde

 

Rip off the band aid

of sarcasm, hurt, madness,

drop it in the trash,

bend down on your knees,

push that trash down deep.

Don’t use one hand,

drop both in and push,

push hard. Stand up

close your eyes, take a breath.

Now you’re ready

for those who haven’t

completed the steps, those

who will test you and flunk you.

Their grade book closed,

locked with their own

unkindness.

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in One Art, As it Ought to Be, Subliminal Surgery, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Loch Raven Review, Panoply, Rat’s Ass Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, Spank the Carp, The New Verse News, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best New Poets 2024 nominee. Her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

ROTATED

by Richard Garcia

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

You will be rotated. You will be rotated in ways you did not foresee. You will be walking casually away in one direction and then find yourself walking casually away in the opposite direction. Do not be alarmed this will only be a test. If this were the real rotation you would not be able to read this because your eyes would be rotated. Do not attempt to curry favor by accepting your rotation—your acceptance will be rotated. You will find yourself in a line of concentric circles that spiral along the border. You will be rotated toward checkpoints where tall, broad-shouldered men wearing military caps and mirrored aviator sunglasses, with belts cinched below their bellies and pistols strapped to their hips are waiting to inspect your papers. You will be rotated into newly constructed barriers where bullhorns will declare, Y'all git along now, you folks gonna be rotated and all your people gonna be rotated, your children gonna be rotated and that's how it's gonna be now and forever. 

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey (Dream Horse Press, 2014), The Chair (BOA 2015), and Porridge (Press 53, 2016). He has received a Pushcart Prize and been in Best American Poetry.

TEACH TO THE TEST

by Phyllis Frakt

What is “rule of law”?

What stops one branch of government

from becoming too powerful?

What is the supreme law of the land?

What does the judicial branch do?

 

I slip through a distorted looking glass

to prepare the class for US citizenship,

to speak, read, write simple English,

and recite answers to 100 questions

about American history and government.

 

On their side of the looking glass,

I simplify revered founding principles

that most of their American neighbors

learned in school, then forgot.

But the class must learn and remember.

 

So, we thrash through a verbal thicket –

pursuit of happiness, colony, revolution,

Civil War, civil rights, Constitution,

democracy, Confederacy, emancipation,

declaration, representation, discrimination.

 

They grasp at historic words and principles

as keys to permanent homes in America

with steady income, education for their children,

safety from vicious gangs or husbands,

freedom from fierce dictatorships.

 

Feliz once was a high school teacher.

She escaped violence, and cleans houses now.

Selim and his family fled their country,

running from false government accusations.

No job back home for Abeo, a stutterer.

 

On my side, I cringe at lessons about

civic ideals now sullied or out of reach:

no one above the law? checks and balances?

The class waits patiently for me to explain,

and I slip back through the looking glass.

 

Phyllis Frakt's poem "Recoveries" will appear in the upcoming edition of Worksheets 67. She lives in New Jersey, where she has volunteered as a citizenship teacher for ten years.

ANOTHER RAPID TEST

by Devon Balwit

The Biden Administration to Begin Distributing At-Home, Rapid COVID-⁠19 Tests to Americans for Free. Americans can order a test online HERE

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

But want to reassure, so swab away—

Another rapid test without a line.

 

The tests are nearly impossible to find.

We call around or treasure hunt all day.

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

 

We hide our coughs from those who’d mind.

But none of us can forego pay.

Another rapid test without a line.

 

The law now makes tests free—how kind—

but where to find them? Hunt and pray.

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

 

We’re three years into this new grind—

Vaccinated, boostered—the whole array.

It’s just a cold, we say. We’re feeling fine.

Another rapid test without a line.

 

When not teaching, Devon Balwit chases chickens in Portland, OR. Her most recent collections are Rubbing Shoulders with the Greats [Seven Kitchens Press, 2020] and Dog-Walking in the Shadow of Pyongyang [Nixes Mate Books, 2021]. 

IN A TIME OF VIOLENCE

by Iris Jamahl Dunkle

The swab goes deep enough to eliminate

doubt—We stay bubbled in our vehicles, 

press our IDs to the car window's glass—

The doctor's scrubs and PPE are the color of Easter eggs—

The sky blue as a calm sea. When I look up 

and open my mouth to let them insert 

the swab to touch the back of my throat, it burns

with my own fear. Hours before 

a helicopter hovered just feet above my home and I

didn’t know what it was looking for: 

downed power lines to prevent future wildfires or 

another hidden violence I've yet to know.

Iris Jamahl Dunkle was the 2017-2018 Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, CA. Her newest poetry collection West : Fire : Archive will be published by Mountain/ West Poetry Series in 2021.  Her other poetry collections include Interrupted Geographies (Trio House Press, 2017) Gold Passage (Trio House Press, 2013), and There's a Ghost in this Machine of Air (Word Tech, 2015).  Her biography Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer is forthcoming from the University of Oklahoma Press. Her poem “Listening to the Caryatids on the Palace of Fine Arts” poem will be featured on 100 buses as part of the San Francisco Beautiful and Poetry Society of America Muni Art 2020 campaign. Her works have been published in Tin House, San Francisco Examiner, Fence, Los Angeles Review of Books, Split Rock Review, Taos Poetry Journal, Pleiades, Calyx, Catamaran, Poet's Market, Women's Studies, and Chicago Quarterly Review. Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College and is the Poetry Director of the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. 

VETTING THE REFUGEES

by Amit Majmudar

Image source: CBC Radio

Under the vest, something was ticking.
It ticked, ticked, ticked. A heart?
The faces all were human faces,
Salt-stained from the trail of tears
And the sea spray of their middle passage.
Their God was not our God,
But their children were our children
Discovered face down on the strand.
Treasures, buried in the sand.
In their passports we saw the faces
We recognized, or thought we did,
From last night’s news. The same? A match?
Anger, anguish, both unshaven
And praying in the same direction
To God, their God, the same, a match.
And there were babies, yes, and widows,
And gray professors speaking English—
No tests for mercy. No, the test
Was the twenty-year-old man whose face
We recognized, or thought we did;
Whose passport might encode an omen
Like scripture, entrails, curling smoke.
And so, interrogating those
Who came to us for mercy, we
Interrogated mercy in a chair:
Can hatred hide in suffering?
Can wisdom hide in fear?—
And so the line became a lineup
Eyed through a two-way mirror.


Amit Majmudar is a widely published poet, novelist, and essayist. His next book of poetry, Dothead, is forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf in March 2016.