GAMBLING MAN

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

Even though the table’s tilted; the dice are loaded;

and the cards are marked; even though light-fingered

double-dealers declare that we “don’t have the cards;”

I’m a gambling man.

Betting on The People

everyday.

I’m a gambling man.

Betting on The People

everyday.

I’m a gambling man.

Betting on Everyday People

everyday.

I’m a gambling man.

Betting on Everyday People

everyday.

Betting on ordinary ones

doing extraordinary, all hands on deck, things.

Doing disbanding circular firing squad things.

I’m a gambling man.

Betting on ordinary ones doing extraordinary things—

magic—magic that made Mrs. Marcos flee the Philippines

leaving behind hundreds of pairs of her pricey shoes.

Magic that lifted The Shah from peacock throne and made 

Mobutu, Batista, Baby Doc, The Samosas and Assad… disappear…

 

 

 

 

 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.

THE INJUSTICE THAT SCREAMS

by Chinedu lhekoronye 

They say we are free—

But chains still rattle in our dreams.

Not of iron, but of law,

Not of shackles, but of schemes.

The gavel strikes, but truth lies slain,

Beneath the cloak of legal pain.

The voices rise, the system scoffs,

While justice sleeps in ivory lofts.

They loot the land, then preach of peace,

While hunger roams and rights decrease.

They jail the bold, reward the sly,

And feed the poor another lie.

Who gave them crowns to crush the weak?

Who taught them power means not to speak?

Who drew the lines where blood must spill—

Then wrote the laws that bless the kill?

But we are fire, born from dust,

Rising now because we must.

Our words are swords, our truth is flame,

And we will set alight your shame.

For every child denied a voice,

For every vote turned into noise,

For every dream beneath your heel—

We stand. We shout. We will not kneel.

So let the tyrants learn at last:

A nation's silence cannot last.

The day will come, the truth will rise—

And justice will unblind her eyes.

Chinedu lhekoronye is a Nigerian, human rights lawyer, and poetic writer. He uses his writings to draw global attention to injustice in different places. He believes that injustice in one place is injustice globally.

PIETA

by Kay White Drew

for Women’s History Month

To the women in the Vietnam memorial:
One of you holds the dying soldier, one hand
to his chest. One hand, not two. You seem to know
he is beyond CPR, past the point where
anything can save him. The new volunteer
who crouches behind you, stricken,
in her fresh fatigues and boonie hat, must
know this too, green as she is. Your hand rests
on his shrapnel-filled chest not to rescue,
but to comfort, to say, “You’re not alone.”
Your sister-in-arms who’s become
the best friend you’ll ever have,
lays her hand along your arm
for mutual comfort and support
as she calls for help out of habit
in her resonant voice. To a compatriot:
“Need a doctor over here!” To the universe:
“Enough! For the love of God, enough!”

In a time when petty tyrants rewrite
history to suit their bigotry, your granite
tableau stands solid in resistance.

Kay White Drew is a retired physician whose poems appear in various anthologies and internet outlets including The 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. She lives in Rockville, MD with her husband. Spending time in nature helps her stay sane in these difficult days.

CAUGHT IN BETWEEN

by Phyllis Frakt

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has blocked a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and is historically inaccurate. The state education department rejected the program in a letter last week to the College Board, which oversees AP classes. Florida education officials did not specify exactly what content the state found objectionable but said, “As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” …In a statement, the College Board said, “Like all new AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multi-year pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers.”—AP, January 20, 2023. PHOTOS: From left to right: Poet and social activist Langston Hughes, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and novelist Toni Morrison. All three are among the Black luminaries taught as part of a new AP African American Studies course that is being piloted in high schools across the U.S. Getty Images via TIME

I thought I was born at the perfect time

when fear yielded to democracy

and morality’s arc bent toward justice.

Hopeful they seemed, the sweet years between.

           

But now a time of conspiring tyrants

whose denials belie repeated crimes.

Facts scrapped for lies online and prime time.

I curse the reversal of sweet years between.

          

Skeptics deem all a delusion, a dream.

Grand claims of progress dismiss history

of morality deferred, justice rebuffed.

Deceived by smokescreen, those years between.

 

Some drag with doubt, some dare to dream,

I’m with still others, caught in between.

Phyllis Frakt, formerly an academic administrator, has moved from writing memos to writing poems. Her poem “Recoveries” (2022) appeared in Worksheets 67. Her poem “Teach to the Test" appeared in The New Verse News, also in 2022. She lives in New Jersey.

KYIV/SAN FRANCISCO

by Susan Gubernat

Tanks roll in again, wheels oiled by the slick substances

of nightmare. Across the street, thousands of miles away,

the flower stall opens this morning, spreads its wares

all the way to the curb. Yellow tulips, blue hydrangea.

The flower seller, Ukrainian, must know her business,

as she knows her politics. Once I thought she was 

Russian. I’ve eaten my mistake again and again, buying

her flowers in all seasons: poinsettia, Easter lilies—

expensive but they survive beyond the supermarket brand.

Around her shop the stores have been looted of jewels,

of toothbrushes and toilet paper, but no one has stolen

her orchids, their cat mouths yawning, or the tiny cacti 

in small clay vessels a child might hold up, beg for,

as if she could carry home a star. I don’t have words

for the shopkeeper. I want to bury my face in her shoulder

and weep or cry out. Instead, we talk about how dried

protea blooms can last. You string the fresh ones upside

down. Like bodies of tyrants, I think, in the marketplace.

Susan Gubernat's most recent book The Zoo at Night won the Prairie Schooner prize and was published by the University of Nebraska Press. She lives in San Francisco.

WHEN FREEDOM'S SAKE IS MUCH THE SAME AS HEAVEN'S

by David L Williams 

after "Sonnet 19: On His Blindness,” by John Milton

“And that one Talent which is death to hide . . .”

Dave Granlund cartoon originally published March 7, 2014!

When I consider how our country’s spent

In darkness by near half its population,

I fear that our once enviable nation,

With lost regard for civil government,

Is now deprived of any common sense

And blindly on the road to self damnation

Unless we find a way to restore reason,

Ceasing to stoke these vain and would-be tyrants,

I have to ask myself if this was meant

By founders who insisted all are equal

And fought a war to prove that this is true,

Defeating enemies who stood against

The principle that all our sovereign people

Are equally entitled to self rule.

David L Williams is recently retired from 34 years teaching high school English in Lincoln, Nebraska, his primary residence since he went to college there in the 80s. His poetry has mostly been written since May of 2021, and he has only recently started trying to publish, with success already in several publications, including The New Verse News. 

MYANMAR MILITARY IN PURSUIT OF POETS

by Phyllis Klein

including two excerpts of incriminating lines

Poetry remains alive in Myanmar, where unconventional weapons are being used to fight a military that has killed more than 800 people since it staged a coup on Feb. 1 and ousted an elected government. For some democracy activists, their politics cannot be separated from their poetry. Sensing the power of carefully chosen words, the generals have imprisoned more than 30 poets since the putsch, according to the National Poets’ Union. At least four have been killed, all from the township of Monywa, which is nestled in the hot plains of central Myanmar and has emerged as a center of fierce resistance to the coup. Photo: Ko Chan Thar Swe, who had left the Buddhist monkhood to write poetry, was killed in March. —The New York Times, May 28, 2021

They shoot down hands filled with artilleries

of verse, beat up feet filing into lines

of protest. They shoot at heads

but they do not know that revolution 

lives in the heart. In darkness, in daylight,

minds and hearts bulleted, to make them 

stop. But no silence. Poetry sharpens its quills, 

aims arrows into its targets. They began to burn 

the poets when the smoke of burned books could

no longer choke the lungs heavy with dissent. 

Now their smoke is everywhere as poets are doused

and matched. And still they write. Scratch words 

into cell walls with rocks, or with metal on plastic— 

bitter-cold vinyl ballads. Or memorized signposts

of the mind, indelible. Troubadours of protest 

in waves of heat. In monsoons on horizons. 

On every street in the world. Pursued by silver-ribboned 

militias climbing up a tyrannical ladder. Nibs filled 

with poison-to-the-wicked-ink. Fingerprints cupping my

face, your face, walls of alarms clanging 

against silence, revolutions of clocks’ hands.

Phyllis Klein’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is a finalist in the Sweet Poetry Contest, 2017, the Carolyn Forche Humanitarian Poetry Contest, 2019, and the Fischer Prize, 2019. She was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2018 and again in 2020. She has a new book, The Full Moon Herald, from Grayson Books that just won honorable mention for poetry from the Eric Hoffer Book Award, 2021. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years, she sees writing as artistic dialogue between author and readers—an intimate relationship-building process that fosters healing on many levels.

MEMORIAL DAY MUSINGS

by George Salamon

This April 1865 photo shows the graves of Union soldiers who died at the Race Course prison camp in Charleston, which would later become Hampton Park. On May 1 of that year, former slaves gave the fallen a daylong funeral. Source: The Library of Congress via The Post and Courier

"Thus, the men and women we honor this Memorial Day are all those who have served this nation from its founding 239 years ago--since the Revolutionary War, we have lost 1,010,485 men and women in combat--as well as all those who defend us now against the threat of global terrorism." --Robert L. Dilenschneider, The Huffington Post, May 19, 2015

Once it was a  day of memory  to celebrate
The valiant art of war for just cause.
Today we march to bad music,
Civilization's enlightenment a puny seed
As the strong wipe out the weak and
The tyrants of the earth annihilate
Human work and sweat.
From desert in Africa to wheat field in Ukraine
The victors are not liberators
But bitter fear, hunger, fire and death.
         
On Memorial Days past did wise men speak to us?
Today we hear small men with big voices.
Men who know not what they are
And will not become what we know.


George Salamon taught German at several East Coast colleges, served as reporter on the St. Louis Business Journal and Sr. Editor for Defense Systems Review. He contributes regularly to the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News.