A BLOT UPON THEE

by Zumwalt

 

 

 

 

"One prominent House Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said Monday afternoon that he had reviewed the unredacted documents [of the Epstein files] and saw  'tons of completely unnecessary redactions... I saw the names of lots of people who were redacted for mysterious or baffling or inscrutable reasons,' Raskin said." —CNN, February 10, 2026

 

 

What Blindness now doth mark this stream of text,
Where Blame falls dark, and we are left perplexed.
The blurred distinction between right and wrong—
The weak are blistered by the brazen strong.
The blundered records, bleached of wealthy name
Won't bear the Guilt, now blotted free from shame,
While those who bled a trail of broken trust
Are bluntly bared, the others cloaked with dust.
What blatant gall to hide the rich man's Sin,
To shield in blacked-out lines the wolves within,
Now battered, those who bear no Stain at all—
What Blight is bred in this corrupted hall?
There is no Justice, just the shattered teen,
Her blank Betrayal b-l-i-n-k-i-n-g on our screen. 

 

 

Zumwalt's poetry feeds on alienation, shifting reality, and forced adaptation. Zumwalt is a proud repeat contributor to The New Verse News, and was recently nominated for Ink Sweat & Tears "Pick of the Month." 

WHEN WAR COMES

by Tricia Knoll

At first the war seemed far away from dying manatees, 

slaughtered wolves, prices at the pump, and bomb cyclones.  

 

Then I asked myself IF I had ever

            eaten from plastic boxes in an air-raid shelter

            witnessed the death of my children on Instagram

            slept in a subway station on one old blanket

            carried a bleeding pregnant woman from a bombed-out hospital

            met my neighbors for the first time in a shelter

            tried to explain why my dog should get food

            pushed twelve women and children into a minibus

            moved my grandmother in a wheelbarrow

            asked where all the shoes went in the shoe store

            lined up all my books—from Dante to Harry Potter

                        to Yeats and Dickinson as shields from bullets

            considered shooting a saboteur on my street

            sang a song to comfort strangers

            clutched my passport every minute of every day

            cooked for a soldier in the basement

            hoped there was enough water for bedtime

            decided to name a newborn as a missile fell

            realized I had to leave behind the family Bible

            worried about who is running the nuclear plant

            mixed a Molotov cocktail in yesterdays’ Chablis bottle

            tried to resurrect the footprint of my family’s home

            fled from ancestral graveyards

            appreciated bright stars in a black-out

 

in dark days for the globe—midst pandemic, 

climate change, aggression, lies, inflation, poverty,

and pollution. What song does the Earth sing today? 

Tricia Knoll understands concerns about rising gas prices and inflation. She is able to drive less, to stay home while others cannot and buy less. The televising of the war against Ukraine is ceaseless and compelling, She wishes we could act as if we are all residents of Earth, what destroys one hurts us all as citizens of this globe.

SAVAGE AND IGNORANT DELIGHT

by Pepper Trail

In this photo provided by Adam Messer is a gray wolf, a member of the Nez Perce pack, seen north of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., on March 31, 2002. Wolf hunting policies in some U.S. states are taking an aggressive turn as Republican lawmakers and conservative hunting groups push to curb their numbers. Antipathy toward wolves for killing livestock and big game dates to when early European immigrants settled the American West in the 1800s. (Adam Messer via AP)

Wolf takes one step, one step wrong. The jaws of the trap snap.

In three days, three short days of permission, the men of Wisconsin, 

with hounds and traps and guns, have killed two hundred wolves.

 

Oh great Aldo, Dr. Leopold, what would you say

to the "Hunter Nation," these men of your beloved state 

who went to court to secure those days of death?

 

Your words are there to read in "Thinking Like a Mountain"—  

how you mourned the wolf killing that you did, 

mourned the fierce green fire dying in her eyes.

 

Young then, and full of trigger-itch, you came at last

to hear the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf,

to see that wildness is the salvation of the world.

 

You grew up, but not all men do.

You lived to see, too clear, the wilderness gone,

the waiting swarms of deer, the disease of appetite.

 

You taught the good that wolves do, that hunters can share,

but too few learned.  Two hundred wolves dead is not hunt,

but slaughter, the most savage and ignorant delight.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

A NORMAL HEART

by Mary K O’Melveny

Larry Kramer (June 25, 1935 - May 27, 2020)

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

—epigraph to The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer

from “September 1, 1939" by W.H. Auden

Angel of agitprop.
Terror of timid times.
Shout first, schmooze later.
A shriek into skies
defeats discreet death.
Being polite never
gets appropriate attention.
Rage against the slight,
against the folded lie.
No heartbeat can stay quiet.

How we say goodbye
always matters more than
we think when the party
is on. How many names
can be embroidered on
quilts or printed in papers
before we go mad with grief
or sit stunned into silence?
Losses cannot be private
or they will mean nothing.

Quiet farewells are for sissies.
Frankly, we need more fury.
Power never changes course out
of duty. There must be shame.
We listen when wolves howl.
We may want to be loved alone
but we must act up to make
it so. The spleen is the most
important organ of the body,
next to a normal heart.


Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.

HOW DO WE GO FROM HERE TO THERE?

by Michael H. Brownstein

Part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, known as the 10-02 area, serves as the summer breeding ground for two hundred thousand caribou. Photograph by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty via The New Yorker, December 20, 2017

President Donald Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress, who opened their first year in full control of Washington on rocky terms, are closing it with a flush of late legislative achievements: a sweeping tax overhaul, a long-sought repeal of a pillar of the Affordable Care Act and a surprise deal to open up Arctic drilling—all signed into law Friday. —The Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2017

Hold onto these works.
Let the laps come between us,
The field swamps of black blood leaking from metallic arteries.
Is nowhere safe?
Let these secrets divide us.
Snow fell last night.
In the great white house, the small man looks over his great expanse of green.
He does not know what he has sewn.
The wolves are leaving, coyotes join forces:
wild dogs, feral cats, the great grizzly, the large boar of the forest.
My dog is going blind.
I am covered with scabs of disconnection.
In the far north, whales lock behind cages of plastic.
In the west, fire storms and Gomorrah.
In the south the wrong pythons multiply into more pythons.
Is nowhere safe?
Was the cause of this man in the house on the hill to cause disharmony?
Did he think the snow covering the great oil spill pristine and fresh?
Did he think the snow covering the streets of my town clean linen white?
Did he believe the snow falling over the east blister free and safe?
The man looks out his window.
There is no snow where he is,
only a vast discord sinking into morass and danger.
The snow falls acid white chemically deranged from the sky,
and when it lands, muck and mire, gray, black with fresh blood.


Michael H. Brownstein was the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam, 2011.

GIVING THANKS IN THE DISUNITED STATES OF AMERICA

by George Salamon

Archive photo of Thanksgiving at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in New York City.

Give thanks with a beholden heart
To 12 million Americans who voted for Bernie Sanders.
Give thanks because of the future we could build with them.

Give thanks with a sympathetic heart
To two of ten Americans whose vision is not electronically enslaved.
Give thanks because they insist on seeing for themselves.

Give thanks with a delighted heart
To Susan Sarandon, celebrity with mouth and mind.
Give thanks because she spoke truth to DNC's power.

Give thanks with an empathic heart
To Mitch Hedges, cattle farmer in Paris, Kentucky.
Give thanks because on November 8 he understood that "there was nobody to vote for."

Give thanks that all Americans
Are neither wolves of Wall Street nor sheep on Main Street.
Give thanks because more of them begin to see through
Slogans touting "change" or "greatness."
Give thanks that some of those duped and disenfranchised
No longer are seduced by circuses performing for them.
Give thanks because they may discredit and dismiss
The folklore of capitalism as provider and protector
Of government for the people.

Let's eat!

George Salamon experienced his first American Thanksgiving at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Manhattan in 1948. He was asked to slice a turkey and his picture doing that appeared in the centerfold photo section of a New York tabloid, with a caption claiming that the turkey was the first one he had seen. That was correct, but the paper's reporter never asked him if he had ever seen a turkey before. Some things have not changed since then. Salamon now lives and writes in St. Louis. MO.

WARNING FROM THE NORTH

by Kit Zak

Earth Day is April 22

 
Even before the shaman’s words, we knew
gulls screeched warning
water sipping the shore
the full moon, our lone night’s light, swollen tides
Newtok’s first six huts poised to surrender before the others.

Even before the Anchorage experts, we knew
Permafrost melt killing birds and fish,
winter ice, barrier against flood, icebox for our food
lifeline” for seals and polar bears—vanishing
ancestors’ dreams rippling in our sleep.
         
Even before the tribal grapevine,
we marked the tide, knew it was coming.
Heard about our brother whales’ distress
Denali sheep and wolves starving
lakes drained and trees burning.

Even before the talk of moving, we knew
millions to resettle one hundred tribes
and time galloping, winter winds walloping, huts sinking—
we knew.


Kit Zak lives in Lewes, Delaware, where she observes with disbelief the failure of the politicians to take up the issue of climate change. Her most recent poems are forthcoming in California Quarterly,
Portage, Poet Lore, and  The Albatross.

I CANNOT SAVE

by Howard Winn

“January 2015- BC’s War on Wolves continues: As you read this, wolves in British Columbia, Canada are being shot at by hunters in helicopters. This is an ill-conceived plan to save endangered caribou in B.C.. The wolves are not responsible for the dwindling caribou numbers; habitat loss and human encroachment are. But wolves are taking the blame and paying the price. B.C. Wolves Need Your Help: Consider donating to our Indiegogo Campaign. Sign the Save B.C. Wolves petition.” --PACIFICWILD.org

I cannot save
them all
the wolves and walruses
the manatee and elephants
the white rhino and
the mountain gorilla
not to mention the cod
and the tarpon
of course we have
already lost the
passenger pigeon
so nothing to do there
but perhaps we
can save the redwoods
although they are
unlikely to personally care
as with the need to save
the Colorado River
and the Amazon rain
forest which is being
clear cut for agriculture
so we have to save
the indigenous people
who live in the woods
and the song birds that
are the tiny relics
of the extinct dinosaurs
so much to save and
I cannot finish the list
if only I were a heartless
sociopath without empathy
or a care in the universe
beyond my selfish self
like the Ayn Rand disciples
one could be oblivious
and blissful in the face
of obvious total extermination
as the earth we know
turns into Mars, Pluto, or Ceres.


Howard Winn’s poetry and fiction has appeared in a number of literary journals such as The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Dalhousie Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Journal, Blueline, and Sediments Literary Arts Journal. He is a State of New York University Professor of English.

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, LONE RANGER?

by George Salamon  

"I didn't get my ideas from Mao, Lenin or Ho Chi Minh;

I got my ideas from the Lone Ranger."

--Jerry Rubin, Do It (1970)

The class war is over, the verdict is in:
Working people and the middle class have lost.
The world's superpower
Is ruled by the Wolves of Wall Street,
Who are served by the Sheep of Main Street.
No Lone Ranger from Brahmin Harvard
Rode to their rescue this time to
Become a traitor to his class.
The best and brightest shine on
As entrepreneurs of the self.
A Lone Ranger couldn't cut muster
In their world of resumes and networking.
But this I know:
Our nation no longer turns its eyes to you,
Lone Ranger, you who have left and gone away.
With Joltin' Joe DiMaggio you still bat away
In the reruns of our mind.


George Salamon taught German at Harvard, Haverford and Smith colleges, served as reporter for the St. Louis Business Journal and senior editor at Defense Systems Review. He contributes to the Gateway Journalism Review, Jewish Currents and The New Verse News from St. Louis, MO.

TO A DRONE

by Mary Cresswell

The Justice Department will publicly release a secret 2011 memo that provided the legal justification for the killing of American terrorism suspects overseas, according to a U.S. official, following extensive pressure on the administration to do so. --Karen DeYoung and Sari Horwitz, Washington Post, May 21, 2014 [Image source: World Mathaba]

Sonnenizio on a line by William Blake (‘To the evening star’)

Thou fair-hair’d angel of the evening
swooping nefarious above our lives
like some fairy tern. When we know
to pay the fare, you help us, sure –
but if we don’t, you go feral,
throwing us to the wolves, a fair cop
in some snoop’s book. The ferryman
collects our words, ferrets out
our fairweather friends and foes
and provides a fair copy to those
who think their welfare under threat.
In classic times, the Pharos did better,
keeping ships on course, sailing fair.
Spying on us is none of your affair.


Mary Cresswell is from Los Angeles and lives on New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast. Canterbury University Press will publish her fourth book, Fish Stories, next year.