HARRY HINES BLVD, DALLAS, TX, 0647 AM

by Kay White Drew

Taillights stream by like corpuscles thru blood vessels, branches
off the aortic arch (there’s a mnemonic for that I’ve forgotten),
blurred and softened by the translucent window shade.
Traffic lights turn from green to brief yellow to long red,
downtown skyline hulking in predawn distance, the stark ovoid 
tower of the Renaissance Hotel lording it over the rest.

A mile down the road, my brother sleeps in an isolation room,
his embattled bone marrow doing what it can to recover
from the chemical onslaught it’s been subjected to
in the name of healing, even as the drivers of these cars
whizzing by my 3rd floor hotel window go about their business—
driving to work, worrying about their bills and their kids
and their ailing parents, listening to some false prophet
on the radio telling them it’s all the fault of the immigrants
and the trans people rather than the demented tyrant in the White House.

How many miles from here to the nearest of the concentration camps
(and how many are there in this state?) where the people detained
would give anything to be driving to work, worrying
about an overdue mortgage payment or a wayward teenage son.
These hulking urban clusters, the fruit of oil/blood money,
can’t help but draw my contempt, even my hatred…

Yes, I hate you, Dallas, not just because my brother’s dying here,
but because our country is, too.

 

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The Intima, Gargoyle, Second Coming, and New Verse News. She’s also published short stories and several essays, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a memoir, Stress Test, about medical school in the 1970s. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Reading and spending time in nature keep her sane(ish) in these difficult times.

CALLING MY PERSIAN SISTER-IN-LAW THE DAY THE U.S. BOMBS IRAN

by Carol Boutard

 

 

We’re not close, the thicket

between us hard to cross after years

of my snide asides about her aloof Persian polish 

and her opinions about my sloppy American life. 

We chat about the weather in Santa Barbara, 

my brother’s iffy health, her worry for the citrus trees 

she had to leave behind when they moved. 

 

I remember stories about her childhood—

the neighborhood where she lived,

its tree-lined quiet and shaded gardens

far from crowded downtown Tehran,

skyscrapers like gravestones in the smog.

Finally getting her wish to enroll at Berkeley,

alone at 17, with little English and no friends,

Stranded in the states the day of the revolution,

her father was lost without his factory. Her mother, 

who had never held a job, taking in beadwork 

to earn enough for them to live.

 

She isn’t sleeping these days.

Her older brother, still in Iran, joked to her last week 

that traffic is light in Tehran now that so many people have left.

She mentions the trees she had to abandon 

as if they aren’t the only ones 

without protection in a world turned away

from the possibility of grace.

We’re not close. For now, we wait

within our separate lives for whatever comes 

as if nothing has changed,

now that everything has changed overnight.  

                                               

For nearly 30 years, Carol Boutard farmed a small piece of the Tualatin Valley with her husband, Anthony.  A farming partnership and the animal life migrating through their land were the focus of her book, Each Leaf Singing, published by MoonPath Press in 2021. Carol and Anthony now live in Penn Yan near Upstate New York’s Keuka Lake. Tucked into hardwood forest, their land is often occupied by deer, fox, turkeys and magnificent native marmots.

OBITUARY FOR WOMEN WHO STOP TRAFFIC

by Mary K O'Melveny

Cora Weiss, who was active for more than half a century in support of gender equality, international peace, the anti-Vietnam War movement, civil rights and nuclear disarmament, and who helped organize some of the most important mass demonstrations of the 1960s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 91. —The New York Times, December 8, 2025

          For Cora Rubin Weiss (1934-2025)

 

Women Strike For Peace detected

Strontium 90 in newborn’s teeth,

food, air, water. Filled Central Park

with a million activists for 

nuclear disarmament.

Pedestrian gridlock stilled horns,

thrilled peace advocates everywhere.

Atomic tests were later banned.

 

Later, Cora chaired justice protests,

led the New Mobilization 

Committee to end the American 

War in Vietnam. She carried signs:

Not Our Sons. Not Your Sons as she

pursued Pentagon bigwigs, garbed in

pearls, high heels, demanding war’s end. 

Hundreds of thousands followed her there.

 

Traffic came to a stop when she 

lay down on Park Avenue with 

her resistance sisters, each one

bearing names of  Vietnamese 

dead by US guns, bombs, napalm. 

She ferried letters from Hanoi

POWs to home and back.

Carried hopes, parried criticism.

 

Mentored by Eleanor Roosevelt

as a girl. In college, she met,

married Peter, a civil rights 

lawyer activist. Together, 

they fought against bigotry – from

McCarthy to Trump. Cora knew

the key role that women play in

teaching about love, unity.

 

Throughout her life, she stopped traffic-

king of hate. Fought for global peace

education. Fought for humanity.

She never gave up. Never walked 

away from a righteous cause. Never

stayed silent when protest was called

for. Never got up from a roadway

if something remained to fight for.

Editor's note: Peter Weiss died in November 2025 at the age of 99.

Mary K O’Melveny, a happily retired attorney, is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent, If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird, is an album of poems, art and music. Mary’s award-winning poems have appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on international blog sites, including The New Verse News. Mary’s collection Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her book Merging Star Hypotheses (2020) was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been three-times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

TRAFFIC JAM TRYING TO REACH THE “FIGHT OLIGARCHY TOUR”

by Susan Vespoli

Photo by Kanishka Chinnaraj, The Daily Wildcat,  March 24, 2025

“Don’t become a monster fighting monsters.”  —paraphrased Nietzsche quote

Stuck on the Mill Avenue Bridge in Tempe

a mile (Siri says an hour) from the stadium 

Bernie and AOC fill to capacity with voters

in tee-shirts that say “Resist,” “Tax the Rich,” 

“Hope Persists,” and 1000s more line up outside,

circle the arena, live stream speeches on their phones;

us trapped in the car, the woman behind us melting 

down, honking, gesturing through her windshield

for us to MOVE and my date is the kind of driver

who smiles, waves other motorists into the flow,

but she is blasting her horn, mouthing epithets,

as his jaw clenches, middle finger twitching to flip,

and I get it, but we’re gridlocked here.

My granddaughter once said, if we had a flying car, 

this wouldn’t happen, but we don’t,

so I unbuckle my seatbelt, turn around and rise

so she can see me and I give her the peace sign 

and the namaste hands, and then shrug, what can we do?

And her face looks like it might explode off her neck—

until eventually the logjam loosens and she zooms 

into the next lane, passes us, her back bumper 

stickered with peace signs.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots. She is the author of four poetry books.

AMERICAN RUSH HOUR

by Peg Quinn

AI-generated at Night Café

Traffic so heavy I sit, idle, on a freeway overpass 

watching four lanes stalled below me.

I listen to the radio.

Then notice someone, bent over, 

head pressed against a fence.

Maybe a hood, or corner of a blanket

covering their face, draping down their back

leg’s sunbaked, bare feet.

I wait for them to shift their weight

rise up, blink into the day.

They stay locked in place.

I worry. 

No one bends, frozen, immobile 

at a freeway exit unless in serious trouble

—or lost in prayer—

I shouldn’t make assumptions,

so grab my phone as my lane rolls forward.

The Sheriffs Department will send someone over,

though I’m haunted by this random gathering,

thoughts intent on work, 

appointments, deadlines, lovers,

merely glancing as we pass one of us,

a fellow traveler, struggling in silence. 

Bent.

Head pressed against a fence.

Peg Quinn’s poetry and non-fiction have been published in numerous journals and anthologies and four times nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut poetry collection Mother Lode was published by Gunpowder Press in 2021.

LET THEM DRINK WATER!

by Amy Wolf

Last Thursday [December 14], on the eighth night of Hanukkah, JVP members shut down eight bridges and highways in eight cities across the U.S. to demand an end to the genocide of Palestinians. Thousands of Jews and allies protested in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and San Diego — eight cities symbolizing the eight candles lit on the final night of Hanukkah, plus the shamash, or “helper” candle. JVP members blocked traffic for hours, singing, chanting, carrying giant menorahs, and holding signs reading “Jews says ceasefire now” and “Let Gaza live.” Hundreds were arrested. —Jewish Voice For Peace

Let them drink water!

As you protest, and shut down bridges

As you congratulate each other on your solidarity 

And stop traffic

They are dying of thirst, and of dysentery,

And a dozen water-borne diseases.

The bombs are killing far fewer

Than thirst, hunger, bacteria.

Don’t look away.

Rather than chanting prayers 

With our street-borne menorahs,

Rather than snarling the evening commute,

Should we not be commandeering boats,

And airplanes 

And jeeps

And our cousins and relatives in the Knesset, 

In the State Department,

To bring water to the Gazans?

To give a cup of life to those who thirst,

The babies, the children, the adults alike?

And now food.

Do you know that over a million are starving?

That none know where their next meal is coming from?

In these circumstances, it is little more than a week 

Before that next bomb will not matter.

I am tired of marching.

I do not believe the merchants of Pike Place Market 

Control the foreign policy here

Let alone the War Cabinet of Eretz Yisrael.

Principled Jews the world over have prayed and demonstrated,

Occupied, chanted and sung.

Not a morsel of food have we been able to bring over that border,

Not a cup of water.

"Nation shall not lift sword against nation;

Neither shall they study war anymore" 

Gave me such hope, in the beginning, as my relatives sang it

In Grand Central Station, in Capitol Buildings, in the street, in Hebrew.

It's an important prayer, straight out of liturgy, out of Torah.

I grew up singing it.

Surely this would work!
Surely when the President and the Congress saw

That Jews ourselves condemned this indiscriminate massacre,

They would prevail on Israel to stop.

Catch the murderers, catch the rapists, execute them,

But leave the population alone.

Their answer, an unqualified, inelegant, "We can't."

Mixed in with a mind-bending, gas-lighting, "We are!"

Pretending to be cautious of non-combatant deaths

While leveling whole city blocks on top of the heads of babes,

In full view of the whole world.

Those blinded by the narrative say, "But the images coming out of Gaza

Are only what Hamas wants you to see. I don't believe them."

True, to the extent that the images don't show us weapons amassed in tunnels,

Soldiers in uniform plotting their next strike, or hoarding supplies,

Untrue in that those buildings are truly flattened, those babies dead,

Filmed by iPhone and uploaded by stunned and defeated citizens. 

I am tired of marching.

Where are the convoys of boats full of Americans,

Heading to the Gaza coast with water and food?

Where are the airdrops of sustenance from private planes,

Where are the means by which we might feed the starving?

In Sudan as well, in Syria, in other lesser-known conflicts,

I look at us out in the street, closing bridges and highways,

And see a feel-good exercise.

Show me one person who has changed their mind on the urgency

Or right of an issue, because they were stuck in traffic one extra hour,

While their little ones and spouse waited at home.

I'll show you two who were run over while protesting,

One dead in her twenties, the other badly hurt.

Sign me up for the convoy, the jeeps, boats, and planes

Flying an American flag, daring the Israeli army to stop us

From bringing food and water.

Oh wait. Rachel Corrie.

This experiment has been run before.

They would not hesitate to fire on us either.

They rolled a bulldozer over her young body

As she stood between it and a Palestinian house

They were intent on demolishing.

24 years old, from Olympia, Washington.

Dead in 2003.

This is why we close bridges and march against our own merchants.

Israel is too deadly a place to demonstrate.

Amy Wolf is an LMT and energy worker who resides in Seattle, WA, and is studying writing.

DREAMING SUMMER DOWN

by David Chorlton

Yesterday’s news sent the city to bed
with domestic terror for a nightcap, home grown
it said, easy to fund, you can’t
keep bad men down. And fall begins today
even if summer still has
a scorpion’s tail. A night of interrupted sleep
 
with a dream of far away;
how well those friends of years ago
appeared. Good health among the living
and even better with
the dead. Who would have expected such
 
a fine reunion, or found
the references to erotica made in Vienna?
Outside, it’s Arizona warm
with coyotes wandering the starlit streets
and bus shelters doubling
as bedrooms for the poor. The midnight traffic
on the interstate is singing
 
in a sparkling monotone
and the moon hangs
like half a cup of fire between two
leaning palms. Let the past
 
be the past, say Goodnight
and ride a beam of dreamlight home.
Fumble for the key.
Ignore the splinters in the door where someone
must have brought a crowbar.
Imagine! The cracking wood, the aching
hinge, the next door neighbor’s
 
reassuring words: don’t worry,
it could never happen here.

David Chorlton has considered Phoenix home for several decades. He used to live in Vienna but rarely dreams about it. Much of his poetry comes from life in Arizona, where he has found strains of unrest and social disquiet that he can't ignore.

THE WEST IS BURNING

by Steve Deutsch

On the rise above 

Route 80, by a trickle

that was once 

a river

 

I watch a line

of traffic

a thousand miles long 

going nowhere.

 

The road has 

buckled and a semi

sits on its side

steam still boiling.

 

One by one

the cars and trucks

run out of gas—

dream irony

 

I suppose,

and people stand

beside their behemoths—

afraid at last.

 

The pine

and hemlock forest 

that lined the road

has turned

 

a sickly brown

and trees light up

like candlesticks

one by one.

 

Children fight

the fire

with blankets

and spit.

 

And the dust

and smoke 

and ash

make breathing

 

an occupation.

The west is burning

and few if any

will make it out.

 

I wake with a gasp—

heart escaping.

Smoke colors the moon

the west is burning.

Steve Deutsch has been widely published both on line and in print. Steve is a three time Pushcart Prize nominee. He is poetry editor for Centered Magazine. His poetry books: Perhaps You Can (2019), Persistence of Memory (2020),  and Going, Going, Gone (2021) were all published by Kelsay Press.

AFRAID

by stella graham-landau

we did not learn 

at the police academy

how to handle traffic leaving costco

while navigating people running in the street carrying pet cats

when the world is burning before our eyes

nor was there a module in crime prevention on 

how to tell the difference between a masked customer

or a masked bandit

and how to stay healthy in either case

in crime scene management

we were only taught a prayer

to deal with multiple mass shooters in a mall

“you better pray that it’s just one shooter and that their gun jams”

on a regular december day in boulder 

with no snow on the ground

an ordinary man

on an ordinary task to buy soup for his sick wife 

knew how bad things were

not from the dense smoke blocking the sky

nor the galloping customers racing to their cars

not even the screams of children being dragged to safety

but the face of the police officer

directing traffic

with fear in his eyes

stella graham-landau is an artist and writer living in richmond, va. she is vaccinated, boosted, masked, and insistently optimistic that we will emerge as better, kinder citizens of the global village.

SECOND SHOT

by Tracey Gratch

Crocuses through morning frost feign hope

that even in this time of gloom, as Cambridge

bars are shuttered tight and on Mass Ave.

foot traffic’s light, and yet, and yet it’s barely

spring, despite the losses reigning in—

The moment for a second shot; resilience

grit, on second thought.

Tracey Gratch lives south of Boston with her husband and their four children. Her poems have appeared in publications including Post Road, Mezzo Cammin, The Literary Bohemian, Annals of Internal Medicine, Boston Literary Magazine, TheNewVerse.News, and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. Her poem "Strong Woman" is included in On Being A Doctor, Volume 4, from the American College of Physicians.

SPRING AND FALL

by Fran Schumer

An empty FDR Drive in New York City was photographed on March 25, 2020. Credit: Phil Penman via The U.S. Sun

It was a beautiful fall, and we all remembered that it was because it was
such a terrible time. From the reservation near my house, you could see
where the towers stood. For days afterward, someone posted a sign:
Dear Jesus, Please bring Mr. Spinelli home.

This spring is beautiful, too; piles of pink on the streets of my deserted
suburb, the magnolia trees past their prime. I walk every day with my
husband, our new routine, and notice what I might have missed before, like
the hawks flying overhead, above the skyline where the buildings burned.

I see hyacinths and daffodils and creeping phlox, pale and soothing like the
blue the doctors wear or the coverlets on patients in the ventilators. We’ll
remember those patients, and how good it was not be one of them, to eat a
banana after weeks of canned pears, not to be the only person living in fear.

It’s not so bad when everyone is afraid of the same thing, though some
days you’re afraid of those other things too. On those days, especially,
it’s good to be distracted by the work it takes just to eat, to go out, and,
heaven forbid, risk it at the bike shop because one of your tires is flat
and you need to ride to see all this beauty, the expressway beneath you, so eerie
and empty of cars. In more normal times, the traffic could kill you.

Fran Schumer is the author of Powerplay (Simon and Schuster; NYT bestseller) and Most Likely to Succeed (Random House). Her work has appeared in various sections of The New York Times including Op Ed, Book Review and Sunday Magazine; also, Vogue, The Nation, The North American Review, and other publications. She is the winner of a Goodman Loan Grant Award for Fiction from the City University of New York. She lives and teaches in New Jersey.