WE WON

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

“Dwindling Munitions” by Nick Anderson

 a cento of public quotes from President Donald Trump in roughly chronological order

 

"The United States military, together with the wonderful Israeli partners, 

continues to totally demolish the enemy far ahead of schedule 

and at levels that people have never seen before. 

Well, I think we've accomplished more in one week 

than anyone thought possible. We're winning the war by a lot. 

We've decimated their whole evil empire.

 

It'll continue, I'm sure, for a little while.  

Let me tell you, we've won. 

You know, you never like to say too early you won. 

We won. We won the bet. In the first hour, it was over. 

It's an excursion that will keep us out of war.

 

The war is very complete, pretty much. 

If you look, they have nothing left. 

There's nothing left in a military sense.

 

We've essentially defeated Iran. 

Uh, I guess they can have a little bit of fight back, but not much. 

Not much.  

We'll be leaving in pretty much the very near future. 

Iran is close to demolished. The only thing is the strait.

 

We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down. 

We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. 

And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. 

Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.

 

Iran is begging to work out a deal. 

I don't know if we'll be able to do that. 

I don't know if we're willing to do that. 

I think we'll make a deal with them. 

Pretty sure. But it's possible we won't.

 

We are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. 

We're going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. 

We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.

 

MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. 

Time is running out—48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. 

Glory be to GOD! 

Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell. 

JUST WATCH! 

Praise be to Allah. 

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. 

I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.

 

We're going to hit them very hard tonight. 

We're going to hit them hard tomorrow. 

We're going to hit them really hard the night after. 

Next week gets really bad for them 

because next week comes the power plants, 

next week comes the bridges. 

We're going to knock out all their power plants. 

We're going to knock out all their bridges 

unless they get to the table and negotiate.

 

The war in Iran is going along swimmingly. 

We can do whatever we want. 

And it should be, it should be ending pretty soon. 

It was perfect. I mean it's perfect. 

The Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage. 

We are winning big in Iran, 

and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly."

 

 

I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars.

                                                      Donald Trump, 2023

 

I will not send you to fight and die in a foolish, never-ending war.

                                                      Donald Trump, 2024

 

                                    I didn't guarantee no war.

                                                                                          Donald Trump, 2026

Ed Gold has three chapbooks including Sundown (2023) and Loveship (2025) from Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in The New Verse News, Think, In These Times, Passager, Kakalak, and others. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with my wife Amy and  dog Edie, and he coordinates the Skylark poetry contest for SC high school students. Ed is lucky to be working with Richard Garcia and the Long Table Poets.

A ROTTEN TIME

by Marge Piercy

After violent months of war

no one can win, men with

assault rifles doing what they

were built to do, kill many,

 

world burning, people dying

of heat, hurricanes stronger

more often, tornadoes

fiercer, drought scorching

 

land to desert, Animals,

trees dying off and gone,
let’s not just hope, pray

but work to leave an earth

 

we’re not guilty of spoiling.

Despair is just laziness.

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

Marge Piercy is the author of twenty one poetry collections and seventeen novels, including Woman at the Edge of Time, and SEX WARS. A lifelong feminist, socialist, and anti-war activist, her writing has been exploring labor, environmental justice, and the struggle for a more equitable world over the last five decades.

$100 A BARREL

by Hassan Ismail Adekunle 

The market celebrates first.

Screens bloom green
while somewhere
another mother counts
the hours between explosions.

A barrel crosses
an invisible number
and suddenly
every analyst has a sentence,
every politician
a target,
every headline
a price.

No ticker records
the cost of a fisherman
who does not sail,
a child who learns
the grammar of sirens
before multiplication,
or the cashier
watching gasoline
rewrite this week’s grocery list.

They tell us
energy is security.

Yet the lamps
burn brightest
in boardrooms
far from the sea
where ships move
like nervous prayers
through narrowed water.

History has learned
to invoice grief.

It sends the bill
to those who never voted
for missiles,
never traded futures,
never owned
a single share
of tomorrow.

The market closes.

The sea
does not.

Hassan Ismail Adekunle is a Nigerian poet whose work explores contemporary life, politics, memory, and identity. His poems have appeared in Willy-Wash and other literary magazines. He lives in Nigeria.

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.

JUST A COOKOUT WITHOUT HISTORY

a glosa with a nod to Jemar Tisby 

by Rachel Landrum Crumble

AI graphic created by Nightcafé for The New Verse News

You whom I could not save
Listen to me.   
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.   
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.   
—Czeslaw Milosz from "Dedication"

If I could write history with sparklers
in the newly dark air, light cherry bombs of truth, send bottle rockets
of lament to arc the unbelieving sky,

the sky that says: "Not this again!

​​Can't we just have a nice family meal without politics?"​
​​​I wonder, "Whose politics?" For the sake of 'peace', I cave.

​"The hotdogs are ready. Who wants a hamburger?

​Let's give thanks for the Founding Fathers' faith."
​​​If God is holy, why did they enslave?
​​You whom I could not save.

​​​I'm still the youngest, so experience doesn't count

​​​though I've been married to a Black man for forty-five years.
​​What about 300 years of slavery?
​​Then decades of terror and Jim Crow?
​​Where does all that sorrow and anger go?

​​​It bleeds into the bank accounts of Industry.

​​​Broken Black and brown bodies pave the way.
"Now that's all behind us. Our future is bright."​
​​​"Yeah, for the land of the rich where some arefree."

​​Listen to me.

​​Silenced by inattention, 

​​I am again the youngest at the family table.

"Did anyone bring that peach cobbler I crave?"​

​​Why blame the victims with a little wave   
​​so the flies of understanding never find landing?

A voice canonizes the Founding Fathers--it's my brother.
​​​Most were slave holders, 

​​​who wrote that "all men were created equal."
​My siblings channel the politics of my blue-blood mother,
​Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.

​By now, I'd settle for cap-gun sparks of recognition. 
​My husband, veteran of fireworks, stayed home from this failed mission. 
​He is a tired conscientious objector in this war.
​Weary of the White noise of indifference, my grown children won't engage.
​​I write with sparklers, but I need a torch.
"Fireworks are beautiful, but they kill birds."

Land of the free. ​But how free, and who are 'we'?"
Heads together, they discuss the State of Things.

​​I love them, but this feels absurd. 

​I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words. 

Rachel Landrum Crumble 

is a life-long poet and a retired teacher. She has published in The Porter House Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Common Ground Review, among others. Sister Sorrow (2022 Finishing Line Press) is her first book of poetry. Her second is In Praise of Detours (2025 Main Street Rag). She is working on a novel. She lives with her husband of 45 years, a jazz drummer. Find her on http://substack.com/rachellandrumcrumble or at poetteachermom.com.

SUDANESE LAMENT

by Maia Justine Storm 

Escaping Darfur: Mothers face starvation under trees in Chad —Al Jazeera, June 26, 2026

i give her a breast

that is empty

 

a bowl 

that is broken

 

a cracked cup

 

i offer my daughter

weeds and leaves

 

crushed and boiled

 

but she 

is too hungry to eat them

and i am too sad 

to cry

Maia Justine Storm is a 78-year-old woman living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She has been an immigration attorney for 25 years and has returned to her adolescent dream of being a poet. Most recently, she has been published in the Poetry Superhighway where she was a Poet of the Week, haikuniverse, Antifa Lit Journal, The Mersey Review, Shot Glass Journal, and forthcoming issues of several more journals.

SHORTAGE

by Tara Menon

The Boston Globe states
there’s a shortage of breast biopsy needles 
in the nation, the result of a recall.
Doctors need to conserve their supply.
Breast cancer diagnoses are delayed. 
 
We mustn’t sprout cancer cells 
at least until the end of March.
Better yet, we must remain healthy 
our entire lives while science
invents ways to cure or prevent diseases.
 
What do we do about shortages
when the Strait of Hormuz closes
or when nations hoard supplies as weapons of wars
or when global warming results in more pandemics,
overwhelming hospitals to prioritize surgeries,
or when doctors are forced to turn down patients
or when the cost of insurance swells to smother us?
What then?
 
None of those scenarios have to happen, you know.
The worst enemy is the shrug of shoulders.

Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is a two-time finalist for the Willow Run Poetry Book Award. Her latest poems are forthcoming or have appeared in AMPLIFY (Sheila-Na-Gig), The Sucharnochee Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Chaotic Merge Magazine, and Grey Sparrow Journal.