SEVEN-POINT-FIVE PERCENT

by Gale Naylor

after Jose Hernandez Diaz

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

Wearing a tie can reduce blood flow to the brain by seven-point-five percent. I’ve heard the percentage is higher if the tie is red. And long—with its triangular tip seeking a fly like the tongue of some metal-infatuated snake, while the tail tightens around a thick neck—carotid compression. Does lack of oxygen fill the brain’s airless void with dreams… of castles lined with gold; of consequences for thee, adoration for me? Seven-point-five percent. This one, simple fact explains so much: Why rich, suit-and-tie men still seek, long after they should be sated. Why heads—of state, of corporations, of patriarchal households—make decisions empty of heart. The simple cause: compression; the cascading effect: low brain blood-pressure, lack of oxygen, loss of compassion, community, empathy——who knew blood was so important! 

Poetry is how Gale Naylor makes sense of the world as a survivor of incest and sexual abuse; they hope their voice helps other survivors feel less alone. Gale's poems have appeared in Exposed Bone, Calliope-on-the-Web, S/He Speaks 4, Jupiter Review, The Ekphrastic Review, and the California Poet Laureate’s “Our California” website. Gale received an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles in 2026.

PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENT FOR MR. B.

by Steven Ratiner

 

“The Post needs to be a profitable enterprise that stands on its own two feet.  Let me tell you why. Because it’s a measure of its relevance.  If people won’t pay for our product, it’s not a good enough product.  It would be like poetry without rhyming, it’s too easy.” ––Jeff Bezos in an interview on CNBC reported by The New York Times, May 20, 2026

 

Too easy without rhyme?  Mr. B., I have news for you:

you’ve no understanding of the time that goes into

educating the tongue, cultivating the heart, so that words

might fly true to their destination, bearing the hard

 

truth of what’s required to be an actual human being in

our rancid/gilded age––where suffering’s a commodity

on the Stock Exchange, and all it takes is a few billion

in reserve to live gloriously without a thimbleful of pity

 

or the tonnage of regret.  News flash: your yacht’s run aground

on Circe’s island, as you quaff down cup after cup of kykeon

laced with nightshade, turning into swine along with your crew.

Ithaka can burn for all you care.  There’s no damned hope for you.

 

For what (another old poem) profit a man who gains the world but

loses his soul?  Such unspeakable waste.  What rhymes with that?

 

Steven Ratiner is the author of Grief's Apostrophe, published by Beltway Editions in 2025. He's also published three poetry chapbooks, a collection of poetry interviews, and appeared in several anthologies. His work has appeared in scores of journals in America and abroad, including Parnassus, Agni, Hanging Loose, Poet Lore, Salamander, Vox Populi, QRLS (Singapore), and Poetry Australia––and been translated into Mandarin, Spanish, Ukrainian, and Hebrew. He's also written poetry criticism for The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other journals.  Giving Their Word—Conversations with Contemporary Poets was reissued in a paperback edition (University of Massachusetts Press).  He is Poet Laureate Emeritus for Arlington, Massachusetts, and was elected in 2024 as President of the New England Poetry Club, one of the oldest literary associations in America. Now, beginning its seventh year, his weekly Red Letter Poems features a diverse range of poets, from up-and-coming talents to some of the most important voices in contemporary poetry.

A WREATH OF HAIKU

by Karan Kapoor

Children’s shoes and toys were placed in front of the former 7 after the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3, were found at the site this past week. Photo credit: Dennis Owen/Reuters via The New York Times, June 7, 2021.

a radar 

penetrates the ground:

215 little corpses

not corpses

remains—

skeletons and screams

unmarked—

all burial sites

are not graves

laughter of children 

at a school,

a concentration camp

an escape plan:

jump

from the highest balcony

riddle: a four-letter word

with six more letters:

indigenous

let's play a game

stick out your tongue—

pins and needles

bless the Lord

you who serve Him,

undoing His will

we are children of god

let us show you the light

six feet underground

Karan Kapoor is the author of a novelette Maya and the co-author of a novel The Dreaming Reality, both independently published. Long-listed for Toto Funds the Arts awards, his poems have appeared in The Indian Quarterly, G5A Imprint, Stride, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. He's currently working on his debut poetry collection. When not reading or writing, he is obsessing over classical music. Currently in his final semester of MA in Literary Art Creative Writing, he wants to continue to live a life devoted to music and literature.

THE WOMAN CARD

by Skaidrite Stelzer

Too hard to say the exact words,
the exacting words.
How a hand can be placed on a shoulder;
the sudden shudder of his breath in my hair.
Because I don’t know him really,
a stranger,
and I don’t like men creeping up behind me.
Because they can’t see my face,
they may feel they are gentlemen,
they may think me too sensitive,
easy to melt,
quietly.
Easy to melt with my mouth closed,
tongue removed,
unless his in my ear.
Such close whispering meant
only to reassure me
and the chorus arising,
overpowering.
What is the risk?
I remember the man
who followed me home one night
from the laundromat
and I did not mind it.
But another night
he came in accidentally.
My accident, not locking the door.
There is often something more
to the story.
If you want to touch me,
at least look me straight
in the face.

Skaidrite Stelzer lives and writes in Toledo, Ohio.  Growing up as a post-war refugee and displaced person, she feels connected to the world and other stray planets.  Her poetry has been published in Fourth River, Eclipse, Glass, Baltimore Review, and many other literary journals as well as TheNewVerse.News.

THE RACE

by Laura Lee Washburn

11 - 17 March 2016 issue

I catch foul balls on my tongue:
words like “Get ‘im out of here” USA
“Go back to China” USA, “Make America—”
USA I wash my hair
in the shower with soap that smells like berries.
On the corner, a pan handler
asks for food, “Every Little Bit
Helps. Peace.”  As-salamu alaykum.
I drive by, the food bank six blocks north,
the county shelter closed, funds moved
west where Kansans vote Republican
harder than we do—GodBlessAmericaJakesFireworks.
I can no longer tolerate words USA USA
balloon launches, USA  the simple wish
peace be with you, and prayers (Jake’s Fireworks),
that choke fledglings, twist
in the guts of opossums.
     You can make a hen tell the truth
no one hears.  You can’t fake an egg.
They come honest from the hens,
a kind of fragile truth.  Eat spaghetti
by the ax full, carry water
in a berry basket, eat bullets, breathe
turbine—Make America great.

A screwdriver helps a Carpenter Joe twist
screws into holes.  If I could,
I’d go back to sleep, great again.
Don’t cut off your tail USA USA; drape it over your
arm, USA wear a top hat USA before it’s too late
make America catch the foulest balls
on their tongues and swallow.


Laura Lee Washburn is the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize).  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as TheNewVerse.News, Cavalier Literary Couture, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Red Rock Review, and Valparaiso Review.  Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri.  She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women.

ARIANA LEAVES A BAD TASTE IN OUR MOUTHS

by Michael Mark






That empty calorie confection
can lick my 12 hour factory job.
She can take the tip of her tongue
and taste the lonely dark of 3AM
alarms to get to the donut shop,
to mix the batter, to bake the donuts,
spread the icing that she licked and
did not buy. So another customer
tasted her spit. She can suck my middle-
class mortgage. And laugh because I’m
the sucker who has to work two jobs
to pay for it. I can’t walk away. She
can show up at a donut shop and bitch
about America’s obesity issues with all
the sincerity of imitation whipped cream.
She can eat her disgusting words on camera
in front of fat America. She can slip
her tongue in her dessert dancer of a boyfriend
then slide it over the sugary icing and leave
it tasting of arrogance, of pure meanness. That
customer who brought those donuts home
had to wonder why they stunk of revulsion. “I
asked for Boston Cream and got Rude Insolent
Post Teen.” She can flip that tongue so that simple,
happy, rainbow sprinkles smack of stupidity and
selfishness. That tongue can sell out stadiums.
And she can lie with that tongue that she really,
truly, honestly loves what the camera caught her
saying she hates. She can climb to #1 with that tongue.
And the rest of us, we can take a bite of what she leaves
us and pray for a little taste of forgiveness.


Michael Mark is a hospice volunteer and long distance walker. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine, Lost Coast Review, Rattle, Ray’s Road Review, Spillway, Tar River Poetry, Sugar House Review, and other nice places. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. 

PEACE BROKERS

by Angie Trudell Vasquez

Peace Brokers dance
even when there’s no chance
of winning, they move to
their own beat path
plan for the best and worst
and recant all previous positions
if necessary – they are not
too proud to say they were wrong
or misguided; and listen to the hand
extended in warmth, gripping
close with their own heart
all that they hold dear; and
perchance a day of reckoning comes near
and the dead rise from their graves
find their tongue and debate
with heat about the success
of so many years spent lying beneath the grass;
the peace brokers listen, take tea,
nod when they agree,
hold up a pen
when they do not
indicating they’d like time
at the podium of truth
when the others are done speaking;
peace brokers take notes, ask questions,
and resolve not to leave the table
until all has been said, heard and agreed
until an action plan is set for the next meet
and they do not give up ever or admit defeat
because what is to gain is so sweet.


Angie Trudell Vasquez is a poet and writer currently living in Milwaukee, WI. She's been published by Verse Wisconsin, Burdock, Raven Chronicles, Real Change and was the featured poet for the Latina Monologues from 2009 to 2011. In 2003 she was a featured poet at Bumbershoot, Seattle's Music and Art Festival. Her first book The Force Your Face Carries has been published under her own label, Art Night Books.