THEY SHOOT POETS, DON'T THEY?

by Paul Hostovsky


Yes, but not in this country.
Which doesn’t mean we don’t have to worry
about telling the truth in our poems—
you can still get hurt
trying to tackle the big truths
on the football field of life
in this country. So tell the truth, but tell it
oblong like a football bouncing around
unpredictably, even comically—
sure, try a little humor, try
tackling the big truths by tickling them
on their ankles or necks or Achilles
tendons—maybe they’ll fall down laughing
at the ten or twenty yard line, slap
your back and have a cup of tea with you
at the table of the poem. But with humor
you risk being glib, or stupid, or worse—
there you are with your pen
or index finger sticking out, trying
to tickle a little skin in the middle
of the football field of life—a poet
could get hurt doing that. True,
in this country we don’t have to worry
about being shot to death for telling the truth
in our poems. But the reason for that—
which has less to do with gun control
and the right of free speech in this country
than the place of poetry in this country—hurts too.


Paul Hostovsky's poems appear widely online and in print.
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GEORGE W. (STANDS FOR WAR) BUSH AT THE FUNERAL OF EDWARD M. KENNEDY

by Joel Solonche


Even here
even in this church
this house of peace

this place sacred to him who said
blessed are the peacemakers
even in this place

this warmonger
this criminal of criminals
this shiftyeyed one

this george w stands for war bush
cannot conceal his crimes
the murders by the thousands

the mutilations by the tens of thousands
the devastation in its utterness
visited upon the innocents

the old men and the young men
the women and the children
they are on his face

I see them there
small shadows on his face
they are in his eyes

especially do I see them there
in his eyes
that cannot stop glancing from right to left

that cannot stop glancing from left to right
that cannot come to rest on any single thing
that will not find a resting place in any place

that know no peace
that know no peace
that know no peace


J.R. Solonche is coauthor (with wife Joan Siegel) of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). His poems have appeared in many magazines, journals, and anthologies since the 1970s. He teaches at SUNY Orange in Middletown, New York.
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HOW TO BE A GOOD CITIZEN


(A DIY Guide for Young People)
by Janice D. Soderling


First you acquire a land lot

(in a good neighborhood, that’s the hard part).

Then you build a house on it.

Then you build a garage.

Then you build a neat white fence around the house
.
Then you plant a high hedge inside the fence
.
Then you add a porch to the house (at the front).

Then you lay a patio (at the back).

Stay healthy and 

take care not to lose your position of

gainful employment.

Then you build a playhouse for the children.

Then you build a tool shed.

Then you build a gazebo and two birdhouses.

Then you put up a birdbath.

Then you dig a fishpond.

(Some like to further enhance with two plastic storks on long red legs

or those cute little wooden windmills that rotate in the slightest breeze.)

All this time, of course, you will be filling

up the rooms of the house, garage, playhouse,

tool shed, gazebo, birdhouses with STUFF, all kinds of STUFF.

Stay healthy and

do not, repeat do not, lose your position of

gainful employment.

After twenty years,

replace all the indoor and outdoor

furniture, then glass-in the front porch,

repave the patio,

panel the basement, insulate the attic,

put up a weathervane, erect a flagpole.

Stay healthy and

do not, repeat do not, lose your position of

gainful employment.

Ever!

Shortly before

or after

retirement,

climb up on a ladder

and reach too far.

Fall off and break your neck.

Die with a minimum of fuss.

The system thanks you for your cooperation.


Janice D. Soderling is a previous contributor to New Verse News. Her work appears at The Pedestal, Stirring, Soundzine, nthposition, Centrifugal Eye, ditch, Shakespeare's Monkey Revue.
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ORIGINS AND DESTINATIONS

by Scot Siegel


the news is no longer with us, my friends,
Walter Cronkite & the Kennedys are dead

a war is not a war anymore, my friends,
but an engagement, a collaborative effort

(involving all the local stakeholders
& security forces
                         on a flexible timetable
for self-governance–)

the news is no longer the news, my friends,
(the polar bear will have to fend for herself)

our species is on fire, my friends,
but I’ve learned to forgive

the ocean is growing


Scot Siegel's recent books include Some Weather (Plain View Press 2008) and the chapbook, Untitled Country (Pudding House Publications 2009). He serves on the board for the Friends of William Stafford.
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IN MY LIFE

by James Penha

Hyannis NewHampshire LAColiseum Washington Camelot Berlin Cuba Dallas St.Matthew’s Arlington NewYork Washington Vietnam Ambassador Hotel OnToChicago St.Patrick’s Arlington Westfield Chappaquiddick Mudd NewYork TheSenate NorthernIreland South Africa Palm Beach Iraq Denver Hyannis JFKLibrary MissionChurch Arlington

James Penha edits The New Verse News.
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END OF A ROPE

by Daniel Wilcox


Last week in stark finality,
A reality TV star of us all,
Wanted by the cops,
Hanged himself
In despair or regret
At the end of a rope,
So unreal in the darkened motel
In Hope B.C.

What an oxymoron of factual news,
A final exit show in
This small fairytale town
Below snow-capped peaks
And evergreen, cliff-ledged majesty
By the River Fraser rolling past time;

Strangely last Fall,
I, too, clung at the end of a lifeline in
A brightly lit motel down that same road,
But now I thrive in this troubled life
Far from the ledge of loss
Because last year when peering
Into the bottomless abyss,
I took a leap across
Despair
To the ageless Rock,
There in Hope, A.D.


Daniel Wilcox, a former activist, teacher, and wanderer--from Montana to Hope, B.C.--casts his lines out upon the world's turbulent waters and wide shores in Counterexample Poetics, Moria, Frame Lines, Full of Crow, Centrifugal Eye, etc. His first book of poetry, Dark Energy, was published in July of 2009 by Diminuendo Press.
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MEMO

To: Sarah Palin
CC: GOP


by Andrew Hilbert


A death panel already exists
and it sits at every health insurance
board meeting.

Eugenics:
Those who cannot pay
must die.


Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
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AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE

by Howie Good


Bombs Kill 95
the headline says

beside the sunflowers
in a milk bottle


Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York, is the author of nine poetry chapbooks, most recently Visiting the Dead (2009) from Flutter Press.
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WHERE HAVE YOU GONE...

by John Azrak

In response to Wayne Scheer's "Divine Order"
(The New Verse News, August 16, 2009).

Oh, Wayne, you got me singin’ the baseball blues
right here in the pages of The New Verse News.

It’s hard to sit pretty when you got ‘roid rage:
see Republican Roger the artless dodger hurl
a bat at Mike Piazza on the World Series stage.

I do agree that Andy has a sweet dimple in his chin
and that Bible he carries makes my heart go a-flutter
but it took a syringe of HGH to get him a big win.

Look no further than A-Roid when it comes to cheatin’
the Dominican Republic will take the heat
for the Boli and testosterone cookin’ in his kitchen.

The story is getting old, McGuire was a liar
Big Papi on the juice, Sosa’s smile a ruse . . .
Manny being Manny another hit man for hire.

So if Yanks on top today is order divine—
Give me chaos! Give me rain!—
I’ll look to Joe D for a heavenly sign.


John Azrak is a retired baseball fan. Growing up in Brooklyn, he was a shortstop for the Kings County all star team in 8th grade. Unfortunately, Kings got battered by Queens County in the battle of NYC boroughs. He has had poems and stories about sports published in Aethlon: A Journal of Sports Literature (East Tennessee University) over the past decade or so. Aethlon is part of the nationwide Sports Literature Association.
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POETS AGAINST THE WAR

by John Grey


You weren’t expecting us
to be against the stars were you,
or protesting sunsets,
too gaudy, too bloody.
The days of tongue-lashing tree trunks,
berating love, vilifying childhood,
are behind us.
Likewise the smear campaign
against any and all beauty,
be it rose or water-fall or woman
glimpsed briefly in train window.
No more blackening hearts,
dragging souls through the gutter.
From now on, it’s strictly weapons
and the ones who wield them.
It’s dumb cluck politicians
and their smart bombs.
Good times, great days,
are safe from our vindictiveness.
No more ganging up on butterflies
and carousels and well buckets.
We’re working for the wounded now.
We take our orders from the dead.


John Grey’s work had been published recently in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal and is upcoming in Poetry East and The Pinch.
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WHAT WOULD SQUEAKY FROMME DO?

by Steve Hellyard Swartz


Standing in the rain protesting the protesters
Up at the Sears corner of the Colonie Mall
When a woman in a Hummer stops and eyeballs me
And screams -
"Hey You! Ask yourself - What Would Jesus Do"?
The rain picks up
People honk, people wave
Some extend a hearty five
Some a sullen, middle one
On the western horizon
Here comes the sun
Jesus, it's been one hell of a summer
And now I'm pissed off at that nut in her Hummer
Jesus, my brother from another mother
Fellow Jew, and likeable too
From what I've read, you sound pretty great
Just damned if I know
Where you fit in - in this debate
So in lieu of giving props to you
Instead I consider
What would Squeaky Fromme do?
Oh, Squeaky, visionary follower of Charles Manson
     (self-proclaimed back-up QB to God's only son)
Squeaky, who was miles ahead of the curve
Bringing loaded weapons to a Presidential event in
     the time of Ford and Rockefeller
Will we see Squeaky at a town hall event
No longer young, now an Old Yeller
What, I wonder, would Squeaky do?
As the rain continues to pelt us
And the woman in the Hummer
Uses her GPS to find Jesus


Earlier this month, Steve Hellyard Swartz was selected as Poet Laureate of Schenectady County in upstate NY. A regular contributor to New Verse News, Swartz has also been featured in Best Poem, switched-on gutenberg, and The Kennesaw Review. A two-time Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, Swartz is also a filmmaker. Never Leave Nevada, which he wrote and directed and in which he co-starred, opened at The US Sundance Film Festival in 1990.
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A WINGBEAT FROM SILENCE

by David Chorlton


I
As certain colours fade when
the light to which they are exposed
eats into them

a language fades to silence
on its final speaker’s tongue

when he tries to remember the name
of the bright red birds
he used to see all the time

but they no longer answer
his calls

and nobody knows how to ask him
where they are.

II
When millions turn into thousands
there are still enough to count
without worrying about
missing noughts.
When thousands

are hundreds
we see them as if
they were all
that ever lived.
The hundreds

are a dozen
but each of them remains
as lovely as they were
when common.
A dozen soon

is two. Then
the last one
sings from
a branch
and we listen

as if it
had nothing
to concern it.

III
A bird’s plumage in the light
of intense observation
first turns white
and then invisible,
but from the trees

where it has lived for so long
its call continues
to ring against the leaves.
Its language is all that remains

of foraging and flying,
of scratching in the soil,
of bringing each new brood
to fledge, and those who heard it

talk about how much it meant to them.
They formulate their words
in many ways
to say

it sounded like this or like this
and they try again to replicate
the particular notes

but survival has no synonym.

IV
The last word from a language in decline
survives as a call for help
but nobody alive understands it.

It has always been a word
considered lovely, whether spoken
or as script

with the trailing lines of a pen
ornamenting its consonants
and a loop at the centre

of the interlocking syllables
where the music of its vowels
has existed since anyone can remember

the slanted lines of sunlight
in the forest. Then came clearcutting
of the ancient alphabet

which took away the letters used
to spell the word, so all that remains
is the sound

as it flies from someone’s tongue
in desperation to be understood
as more than beauty.

V
The sound of rain became a word.
It didn’t need an alphabet
in order to exist; people spoke it
and the sky went dark.
They knew the power of speech
when the first drops fell.

Many gathered when the earth was dry
and their voices rang as thunder.
The word was never written down.
It remained in its native region
where it never failed to break
a drought. But many of its speakers

went away while others died
and in the absence of books
there was no rain
when there was no word to describe it.

VI
Syntax unravels. Punctuation
slips between the lines.
The words do their best to hold together

by rhyming or as phrases
but don’t know when
a letter should be upper case
and without leadership

they fall into a state
of fragmentation. Then the verbs
grow tired

and pale into invisibility.
Nouns resist the longest.
They dig into the page the way they remember
from when type was set by hand
one letter at a time. The adjectives

promise to hold on
as long as there is something to describe
but even the nouns

surrender and in time
everyone forgets
what they mean. When the adverbs

collapse, nobody comes to save them.
What use can gracefully be

without fly to precede it? When do we say
melodious when there is
no singing?


David Chorlton watches the world from central Phoenix where he lives and writes. His new chapbook, From the Age of Miracles, appears this summer from Slipstream Press as the winner of its latest competition.
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WOODEN YOU

a wooden playlet after Carlo Collodi


by Bill Costley


GEPPETTO: Pinocchio, my dear wooden Son,
you need fixin’ but my hands hurt too much.

PINOCCHIO: Soak them in clear water, Father.

GEPPETTO: I have, my wooden Son, I have,
but they still hurt, I cannot grip my knife.

PINOCCHIO: Who else can fix me, Father?
Who else can carve me as well as you can?

GEPPETTO: Any, who have knives & skill.
There are many skillful wood-doctors.

PINOCCHIO: Well, where are they, Father?
Bring me to them, or bring them to me.

GEPPETTO: It is not so simple my wooden Son.
Wooden insurance is needed to make it work.

PINOCCHIO: Then say those words, my Father,
& They will do it. You are their master, Father.

GEPPETTO: I wish I was, my one wooden Son;
I must choose among them & I am confused.
What does Public Option mean? Single Payer?
What is a Co-op? I just live & work all alone.

PINOCCHIO: Father, somebody can explain
each of them to you so you will understand.

GEPPETTO: Who? I have no telephone. Besides,
Parl' solo Tosc'ano, no capich' Italy'ano.

PINOCCHIO: How do I speak to you, my Father?

GEPPETTO: I do not know, my one wooden Son.
We just say what we have to say, somehow.

PINOCCHIO: Then think wooden Thoughts, Father.
Think wooden Thoughts & They well hear you.

GEPPETTO: I am thinking them, my dear Son.
I cannot fix you all by myself. I need help.
Please help me, o, skillful wood-doctors.

WOODEN DOCTORS: We are listening to you,
Geppetto, we hear your wooden thoughts.

GEPPETTO: Thank you, listening wooden doctors.
I need your skills to repair my wooden Son.

WOODEN DOCTORS: Are you covered, Geppetto?
What kind of wooden coverage do you have?

GEPPETTO: I have clothing of cloth & leather;
my wooden covering is my wooden roof.

WOODEN DOCTORS: You do not understand us,
Geppetto. Covering is wooden insurance.

GEPPETTO: I only need wooden insurance for
Pinnochio, my only wooden Son, not myself.

WOODEN DOCTORS: You both need wooden
insurance for us to help you, Geppetto:
for us to talk to you & for us to fix your son.

GEPPETTO: How do I get wooden insurance?
What do I do? Where do I go? Who do I see?

WOODEN DOCTORS: You are doing it now, but
you alone must choose the type of coverage.

GEPPETTO: I do not understand this coverage.
What does it cover? My head? My hands?

WOODEN DOCTORS: Your hands, because you
are a self-employed wood-carver, Geppetto.
Just your hands. They are what hurt you now.

GEPPETTO: Yes, they hurt me so much I cannot carve.

WOODEN DOCTORS: Do you have Workmen’s Comp?

GEPPETTO: No, I work alone, I have no workmen.

WOODEN DOCTORS: Then we cannot help you. We
cannot fix your hands to fix your wooden Son.
That would make you a wooden doctor like us.

GEPPETTO: But you are skillful wooden doctors!

WOODEN DOCTORS: Yes, we are, but we follow
the rules set by whatever coverage you have.
You have no coverage, so we follow no rules.

GEPPETTO: All men follow rules. I have a Rule
there on my workbench & I follow it carefully.

WOODEN DOCTORS: We follow rules of practice,
If we do not, we could be sued for malpractice.

GEPPETTO: But you practiced for many years!
Questa mala fortuna has now befallen you?

WOODEN DOCTORS: Health care reform, with
many new options, soon will re-regulate us.
We fear what it may do to our wooden skills.
(We should not be talking to you about this.)

GEPPETTO: Wait, please, skillful wooden doctors;
Do not fear talking to me; I will try to understand.
I am not part of your mala fortuna malpractice.
I am a humble woodcarver. My hands hurt. My Son…

WOODEN DOCTORS: We do not want to hear any more
about your wooden Son until you choose a health plan.
A wooden health plan for him, not you. Yours must
be a human flesh & blood health plan. For your hands.

GEPPETTO: (weeping) My hands are my only skill.
My hands have made my wooden Son. My hands
are my only hope. [He lifts them to the ceiling.]

[Wooden curtain drops.]


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union.
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LES TRICOTEUSES

by Paul Stevens

How dirty tricks dossier forced Oxford's female poetry professor to quit.
-The Independent

Defarge and her sisters
At the guillotine's base
Sharp-eyed examine
Each citizen's face

For non-PC thoughts
Betrayed by a glance,
An opinion, a flicker
Of least deviance.

A hint is fact,
Hearsay is better;
Conclusive proof—
An anonymous letter.

What these tricoteuses need
Is Walcott's head:
Knit one, purl one,
Walcott's dead!

Defarge rocks her chair
While the pulleys squeak,
She knits one more name,
Click-click, click-click.


Paul Stevens has published poems and prose all over the blooming place. He teaches literature and edits The Flea and The Chimaera.
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