TAR

by Jess

The world is burning, 

So I took a lighter and match, 

And set fire to my craft, 

So my nails could saw and sear my keyboard, 

So black plastic can burn and rise, 

Sting wide nostrils, smoke Spanish shaped eyes, 

With memories of my community in zip ties, 

Hoping its loud clack might drown and drown, 

The images of  that little girls tears, 

As her mom was forcefully pushed down, 

By a non-native in a black vest,

Twisting our poetry into tar, 

To gag our syllables and curls, 

As white women recorded and watched, for their performative internet fodder, 

A small brown girl escorted home, without her father. 

So I go deep in the iambics of colonizer language, 

Because they cut, lynched and burned our tongues, 

In the Rio Grande of Texas,

And from Boston, 

I can hear the screams of Chicago and Canal Street. 

They can come and hang me from the Texas Oak Trees, 

In high June, 

Before they take the words  in me,

They can tighten the rope, 

Make it a hundred degree day, 

Scorched earth and crackling grass, 

The smell of magnolias and cookouts, 

They will see the blue come over me, 

Before they take the Mexican me. 

Jess is a Mexican American / Arab Proxmate human rights activist and writer from South Texas. She has been nominated for a PEN Robert J. Dau Prize and Pushcart Prize for her story "Feathers." Her poetry and op-eds have been published by Dissident Voice, The International Human Rights Art Movement, Poets x Hunger, and Missing Perspectives. She has forthcoming work with Writers Resist and Radical Catalyst Literary Journal. She holds a masters from Brandeis in Conflict Resolution. 

VENICE SUN

by Alejandro Escudé

Venice has finally revealed the details for its entrance fee, making it the first city in the world to charge daytripper visitors. Starting in spring 2024, visitors to the floating city will have to pay 5 euros ($5.40) to enter on peak days if they’re not staying the night. But this isn’t a permanent move yet – the Venice authorities have committed to a 30-day “experiment.” —CNN, September 13, 2023

When you first get there—

Your ocean liner looms over 

The island city and you spot

The ancient roofs and the plazas,

The gryphons, and the gold-fringed

Streets, both real and imagined,

And the people on the cruise

Get off onto the bridges, you 

Smell the canals—leafy, oily, 

And the mask you purchase is 

Expensive, the plague doctor,

And you drink a cold beer

And you eat in a restaurant

Down a corridor, and you think

Of the writing you should be

Doing, and every corner brings 

That lifelong, exquisite guilt, 

And you sidle through crowds

And get too hot and walk

Out too far, where there are

Fewer people, only sunlight

Splashing against a cracked wall.

And you are in Venice, but

At night, it’s Euro-urban scary, 

And you’re alone and lost

And you almost miss the boat

Though the boat is docked close.

You take the tender back 

To the pastel-colored cake-boat

That is every cruise and you 

Go to the ship’s casino and sit at

The red neon bar, and you forget

That you were ever in Venice

And it’s almost twenty years

Later and you learn that now

Venice wants to charge a fee

Like an amusement park, and

It makes you sad to look at 

Your mask, hanging on your

Wall, remembering the latest 

Plague. But it makes you 

Even sadder to learn there

Will be days in that city

Where it’s not advised 

That you visit because of

Crowds. And you think:

I’d go anyway. I’d go

Right now just to smell

Those canals again. Just 

To see that palace, fringed

In gold. To feel that heavy,

Doge’s sun like one coin

Of the two that sit upon 

My aging poet’s eyes. 

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

UNOPTIMISTIC DAY

by Barbara Schweitzer 

Tennessee Republicans’ ruthless use of their state House supermajority to expel two young Black lawmakers for breaching decorum exposed a torrent of political forces that are transforming American politics at the grassroots. The GOP action, after the lawmakers had led a gun control protest from the House floor in response to last week’s Nashville school shooting, created a snapshot of how two halves of a diversifying and increasingly self-estranged nation are being pulled apart. AP Photo by George Walker IV: Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson raise their hands outside the state House chamber after Jones and Pearson were expelled from the legislature on Thursday, April 6, 2023, in Nashville. —CNN, April 7, 2023

I read the political news
and then I worry.
I go upstairs to the writing
room and stare.
I kill a moth that has
flown by our tacky traps
in the hopes that it is
the last one so I might
again pull the cashmeres
(gifts over years)
out of the cedar trunk
yes cedar trunk but no
it does not protect.
Every November I see
the damage little things
can do, like worries,
wormholes in everyday:
how will we survive
inside all this hatred
what is wrong with humans
how can we believe in evolution
when lame brains govern
and all are men at the root
and they are not created
equal...  I must believe but... 
It is just that we are not winged
and we turn to dust so quickly
it takes only a finger to squash
a moth and just five pounds
of pressure on that finger 
to kill us. Guns and men 
who rule will soon too
be dust, unfortunately 
most not before us.

Barbara Schweitzer is the author of 33 1/3: Soap Opera Sonnets (Little Pear Press, 2008) and is now returning to poetry after a decade of writing (more or less) for theatre (which is a very different experience).

A POEM FOR UKRAINE

by David James

“Writing My Heart Out,” a painting by Gladiola Sotomayor.

I want to write a poem that will lick

 

your heart clean,

that will make you forget every nightmare,

 

every cut and scrape, every syllable of bad news you’ve ever heard,

a poem that will close your eyes and let you dream

 

of another life, perfect in its arc, where

all things, dead or alive, bow to your smile,

 

all clouds move to your breath, birds and desires and wishes

land on your forearm when you call them.

 

I want to write a poem to send all sadness into exile,

to fit all pain and despair onto one gaudy blue dish

 

that you can toss outside and ignore,

a poem so quiet you never hear it

 

come into your life, sit on your couch, sleep in your bed,

never hear its small footsteps on the floor.

This poem, which must be written under a moonlit

sky with eleven stars and one dog barking in town,

 

will end the world as we know it. No more death

or hunger or war. No more aging or sickness or weeping.

 

No more walking with your feet on the ground.

David James’ most recent book is Alive in Your Skin While You Still Own It.

THE MATILDA EFFECT

by Betsy Mars

This is the painting I did not paint,

the poem I didn't write.

It was never my curious eye

fixed on petri dish or darkest night.

 

Not my hand that held the pen

or brush, not my place to wish.

It must have been my better, man,

who led me to discover that which is

 

impossible for my gender. Please

excuse my claim to wonder—it was not

in my code but clearly the expertise

of some other pocket-protected polyglot.

 

A woman’s work is never done

by her. Now how can I atone?

Editor's Note: The Matilda Effect posits that women in science become overlooked because many of their discoveries and breakthroughs are attributed to men. —Lost Women of Science.  “It is important to note early that women’s historically subordinate ‘place,’ in science (and thus their invisibility to even experienced historians of science) was not a coincidence and was not due to any lack of merit on their part. It was due to the camouflage intentionally placed over their presence in science.” —Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America.

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, photographer, publisher (Kingly Street Press), and currently an assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. In 2021 she was nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Betsy’s photos have been featured in Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Spank the Carp, Praxis, and Redheaded Stepchild.

SATURDAY

by John Guzlowski

Mayfield, KY Daylight Drone Footage Aftermath - December 11, 2021

Where I sit, the world 

is quiet, unassuming.  

Snow falls & becomes 

rain, rain falls 

& becomes snow.  

I write on a pad of paper 

& think of the tea  

steeping in the cup next to me.

200 miles away in Kentucky 

The wind shook the world

And my friends died.

John Guzlowski's poems and stories have appeared in North American Review, Ontario Review, Rattle, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review. Garrison Keillor read his poem “What My Father Believed” on his program, The Writers Almanac.  Guzlowski's poetry book Echoes of Tattered Tongues won the Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Award for most thought provoking book 2017. He’s also the author of the Hank and Marvin mysteries. Now settled in Virginia, Guzlowski lived in Kentucky for a while.

DELIVERED

by Julian Matthews

“Dinner With Friends” Painting by Victoria Coleman

A poem on our first meeting after being in a writing workshop on Zoom for six weeks, and in various lockdowns for a year and ten months.

And so we sit at the table partaking of a meal,

the home-made, home-cooked, home-delivered

a gathering of friends, new and old,

unmuted, unzoomed, live, in-person, fully embodied,

greeting each other like refugees

meeting on the dock, our boats having survived

the treacherous crossing of middle class suburbia

and stepping back onto the shores of human connection again, 

wetting our cold feet and lapping up warm chatter about pets, 

pasta, pastries, prices, politics and the pandemic, always the 

     pandemic,

and, thankfully, of our common love of books, and writing and 

     poetry

and missing sitting in darkened theatres with strangers, to watch 

     a movie,

or a play or just chilling with a warm-up, pre-concert cocktail, 

     perhaps a long island tea, 

or two, before listening to an orchestra, fingers fondling keys, 

     bows caressing strings,

lips pressed against mouthpieces, hugging tubas, the tsk-chizz 

     of sticks on cymbals, 

being enveloped by the sensurround sounds of music played by 

     real, in-the-flesh humans...

And in the end there is laughter, ribbing and the teasing out

of each other's backgrounds, our reasons for being, why the 

     need to put words

on rectangular screens, this unboxing of the isolation inside us, 

     this shedding of thickened skins,

double-vaxxed, immunized, and unmasked, fully ensconced in 

     that most singular of human acts,

the Art of Conversation, manifesting our ancestral DNA of 

     gathering around the embers of dying

fires under stars, trading stories, sharing opinions and yes, even 

     gossiping,

just to know we are alive, 

we are still alive.

Julian Matthews is a former journalist finding new ways to express himself in the pandemic through poetry, short stories and essays. He is published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nine Cloud Journal, Poor Yorick Journal, Borderless Journal, Second Chance Lit, Poetry and Covid, the anthology Unmasked: Reflections on Virus-time (curated by Shamini Flint), cc&d magazine, a Scars Publication, and forthcoming in the American Journal of Poetry. He is based in Malaysia.

WATCHING A WASP THE DAY AFTER JOHN LEWIS'S FUNERAL

by Linda Gelbrich

A small yellowjacket joins me
at the patio table this morning,
absorbed in the pinch of sausage
I set aside on the tablecloth
a short distance away.

It wraps its body
halfway around the morsel,
its legs and jaw clamped on,
and the sausage begins to roll
toward the table edge.
I stop the rolling with my notebook.
The wasp hangs on.

The second time it rolls to the edge
both fall to the deck,
and the wasp hangs on
until it bites off a small piece,
flies away, then returns for more.

All this happens
while I finish breakfast,
get out my pen and begin to write,
wondering if I, too, could be
so absorbed in anything
that I’d keep on with my work
no matter who or what
sat near me,

no matter the rolling and falling
that surely would happen,
that I’d keep on, even
if bruised and battered,
that I’d want something so much
I could not be deterred,
would not give up,
as long
as I still
had breath.

Linda Gelbrich is a retired Clinical Social Worker and adult educator living in Western Oregon.   Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies, on notecards she creates, and in chapbooks.  Her spiritual reflections have been published in books of daily readings.

LIFE IN THE PANDEMIC

by John Guzlowski

"The Persistence of Memory" (1931) by Salvador Dali

Things are slowing down.

It takes me 2 days to drink a cup of coffee,
A week to read a book,
A month to water the bushes we re-planted in June.

I move from one room to another
looking for shoes I haven’t worn in 2 months.
If I come across my car keys
I won’t recognize them.

I’ve stopped listening to the news
Stopped looking out the window
Stopped wondering what tomorrow
Will be like.

I started this poem in March
Maybe I’ll finish it
By Christmas.

John Guzlowski's poems and stories have appeared in North American Review, Ontario Review, Rattle, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, and Salon. Garrison Keillor read his poem “What My Father Believed” on his program The Writers Almanac.  Guzlowski's poems have won the Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Award for most thought provoking book of 2017, the Ben Franklin Poetry Award, and the $7500 Illinois Arts Award for Poetry. 

SHE BLEW IN ON LENTEN WINGS

a quarantine poem in four parts
by Jill Crainshaw

Painting M004351 from Life? or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon at the Jewish Historical Museum.

I

she blew in on lenten winds
i think i’ll stay awhile
be your muse until this thing ends
her left eye winked a suspicious smile

you plan to stay awhile?
she tossed an ancient tweed jacket on a chair
looked at me with a smile
pushed back her fedora, twirled her hair

i eyed the tweed lounging careless on the chair
her costume convinced me—well, almost
the faded fedora, the uncontained wisps of hair
who are you? i smiled—a suspicious host

though her costume convinced me—almost
that she harbored dubious ends
who are you? i smiled—a guarded host
when strangers blow in on lenten winds

II

today i harvest the tomatoes i prayed for yesterday
she’s still here—says she’s a poet but i am unsure
no pen or paper, not much to say
she just watches me, smiles--a quaint saboteur

she’s still here--insists she’s a poet but i am unsure
what are you writing? i’d like to know
she just watches me, smiles—a quaint saboteur
who arrived uninvited, interrupting my flow

tell me again, what are you writing? i am eager to know
it’s not everyday a poet moves into my space
arrives uninvited, interrupts my flow
wearing a faded fedora and a dubious smile on her face

no, i’ve never had a poet move into my space
tell me—how can i rhyme your presence away?
because you are here uninvited, interrupting my flow
while i harvest summer tomatoes i prayed for yesterday

III

the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
she waxed eloquent when i queried her work
i don’t know what she meant—she’s a shroud of mystery
and her presence here? a self-satisfied smirk

as she waxes eloquent when i query her work
which, if you must know, lacks reason and rhyme
and undermines her presence here, her self-satisfied smirk
what? is writing poetry considered a crime?

well, no—unless it lacks reason and rhyme
okay then—look at your hands, the lines in your face
i’m writing poetry right there and that can’t be a crime
we need to mark the moment—we need to leave a trace

she’s right—i see my hands, the lines in my face
a poem is emerging in the body of me
she’s writing it down; is that such a crime
when we know that the apple falls close to the tree?

IV

she blew in on lenten winds
brought with her a threadbare refrain
i never meant for us to be forever friends
but telling her to go has been in vain

she just keeps repeating her threadbare refrain
“you are dust; to dust you shall return”
and asking her to go has been in vain
her tweed’s still in the chair—no end to her sojourn

“we are dust; to dust we shall return”
she keeps saying—her eyes full of hope
just let me stay—expand my poetic sojourn
let’s rhyme our way together out of this weary worn out trope

she says it again—her eyes bright with hope
shining from beneath her fedora—her hope never ends
let’s rhyme ourselves away from this hackneyed hopeless trope
and see where we can travel if we follow different winds


Jill Crainshaw is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a liturgical theology professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

A QUESTION FOR THE NEW VERSE COMMUNITY

by George Salamon

Image source: DonkeyHotey

"'Tis the season once again. You should know it well by now: a 'progressive' Democrat running in the primaries for president of the United States. We've seen it all before, from Jessie Jackson to Dennis Kucinich, left-leaning voters have time-and-again been asked to support candidates that are working to transform the corrupt and war-happy Democratic Party from within. And each and every time the strategy has failed..."  Joshua Frank," Why Bernie Sanders is a Dead End," Counterpunch, June 3, 2015

Our poems burst with love for humanity,
We care for all its members, only not their oppressors.
We sign petitions, shout for peace and march for justice.
It's all so good, but we risk little and gain even less.

Is it time to put our bodies
Where our pens played and our words sprouted?
We shall confront once more what Tadeusz Borowski
Discovered after his liberation from Auschwitz:
 "The world is ruled neither by justice nor by morality,
The world is ruled by power and power is obtained by money."

Been there, done that you say, but what did we do?
We blinked and vowed to go on writing and volunteering and organizing.
We played by the rules in the land of the lemming
And the home of the harmless.

"We tried," we'd say as the words curdle
Into cold comfort on our tongues while
Power grins and grants us our gestures.

Our words struggle to trade as conscience's currency.

What is to be done?


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