THE LONG REACH OF KARMA

by Richard Hacken

Kenneth W. Starr announced Wednesday that he would resign as chancellor of Baylor University, effective immediately, saying it was a “matter of conscience.” Mr. Starr’s decision came less than a week after he was stripped of the more operationally powerful position of president of the university in the wake of a scandal in which Baylor acknowledged that it had mishandled accusations of sexual assault against several football players. . . . Mr. Starr was an independent counsel whose report to Congress led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. —NY Times, June 1, 2016. Photo: Kenneth Starr speaks to the media after arguing a case on student free-speech rights before the Supreme Court in Washington on March 19, 2007. (REUTERS/Molly Riley via RawStory)

Could some current Norman Mailer
write about the mess at Baylor,
which is so in need of journalistic prose?
Is the football program’s failure
to send rapists to the jailer
going to send it into existential throes?

Football culture says to nail her,
take a woman and impale her
when protected so that any onslaught goes.
Players hope the coach will tailor
strong defense so words will fail her,
and no prosecutor credits what she knows.

In the court: assault and flail her
and with wholesale slurs assail her,
so with craftiness your guilt you can transpose
till she seems a drunken sailor,
and you easily curtail her
own ability to witness and disclose.

With the Baptist creed at Baylor,
there’s no way truth will avail her,
since suspicion on her own sins will repose.

Now the President and Savior
of the football games at Baylor
was Ken Starr, a man to gridiron wins devoted.
Yes, Ken Starr, the Clinton slayer,
the Lewinsky-scandal hailer
(who as Special Counsel over sex tales gloated)
has mishandled accusations
of forced sexual relations,
and for this from president has been demoted.

Oh, they say that fresh raw karma
is a targeted sweet charmer
that is stronger far than energetic speech
and that irony’s sly reach
can shape attitudes and teach
with capacities designed to, well, impeach.

Richard Hacken is a poet and librarian who has published in TheNewVerse.News before. He once introduced X.J. Kennedy to the plenary session of a literary symposium via rhyming couplets, which may or may not have been gauche. 

THE RALLY

by T R Poulson

Image source: Snopes.com

Crowded around the gleaming
convention center, protestors light flames
and collect bottles, in piles

as the candidate inside talks and shouts
about how much he loves coal mines
and beauty salons, the people of New Mexico

and dollars donated to tall towers.
Outside, the haze forms leering ghosts
as the protestors sway and swarm.

The mounted police appear, helpless
against the storm, and then the renegades,
passionate as the politician they hate,

single out one of the horses, a dark bay
with an upside down white heart
beneath his forelock.  Later, we learn

his name is Stryker.  I once bought
a horse, from a woman who’d rescued him
from the track and tried to love him,

but when her husband found her
wrapped in his best friend’s arms
he took revenge, every night

by flinging rocks at her thoroughbred.
At least this is the story I heard
and believed, because when I bent down

to pick up a dropped brush or carrot,
he would tremble like cornered prey.
So, when I heard about Stryker,

and the mob of haters, snarling
like lions, who reached out to take
bottles and rocks to hurl, hard as fists,

at at him until he fell down,
his cannon broken as a politician’s
promise, the vet finally able

to penetrate the sea of humans
and prick his damp, dark neck
with that final, merciful injection,

I wanted to punch those protestors
in the face.  Except, that Stryker’s leg
was never broken, he wasn’t euthanized,
and nobody knows why he fell.

via Snopes.com

T R Poulson lives in East Palo Alto, California, and takes writing courses through Stanford’s continuing studies program.  She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nevada, Reno.  Her work has appeared in Verdad, The Raintown Review, The Meadow, Trajectory, and Alehouse.

OPERATION SOPHIA

by Jill Crainshaw

through soul-searing saharan sands
into a mythical sea of many names
she brought forth her eighth-born child and
named her
sophia
wisdom
“migrant”
NOUN: an animal that migrates
ADJECTIVE: tending to migrate, “migrant birds”
“migrant boat sinks” migrant people
fleeing seeking flight
“I was ready to die with my unborn child”
roving
nomadic
wandering
traveling
drifting
through intense shivering waves of
fear-refracted deeps
dictionaried definitions designate
describe
determine the “nature, scope or meaning of”
headlines desperate “dozens feared
drowned” in jonah’s great sea
politico-poetic
burial ground
birthing waters of
wisdom

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.

PREDICTION

by Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Coral reef scientists estimate that mass bleaching has killed 35% of corals on the northern and central Great Barrier Reef. After months of intensive aerial and underwater surveys, researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies have released an initial estimate of the death toll from coral bleaching. The impact, which is still unfolding, changes dramatically from north to south along the 2300km length of the Reef. “We found on average, that 35% of the corals are now dead or dying on 84 reefs that we surveyed along the northern and central sections of the Great Barrier Reef, between Townsville and Papua New Guinea,” says Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (JCU). “Some reefs are in much better shape, especially from Cairns southwards, where the average mortality is estimated at only 5%. —ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, May 30, 2016

A child, I dreamed of a metropolis of no kind I knew.
I can figure it out later, I said. Then came the boutique shoes.
What did I understand about those except to say no?
Over the tulle, I turned up my nose.

I spoke from the temple of childhood, from the fever-dream of growing up,
predicted no water to drink, more lost land, moaned, it will all
be gone soon—Saks Fifth, the city pool, the Port O’ Call, ousted
like Clyde Beatty's circus and its lions--to make room for other recreations.

In my first home, they taught fashion which is disguised prejudice
and manners which are mostly separation and meanness.
But what is my recollection? I was all mouth and adolescence.
I had yet to learn only compassion with gravy on its chin will sustain us.

And could I have dreamed an ocean stilled by its freight of CO2,
its islands of plastic? No. I could never imagine saltwater
stretched over  uncountable suffocated lives could not
foretell the piled and boundless bones of coral ravaged by a yacht.

Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives and write in the Ozarks. She is the author of two books and three chapbooks, most recently Persephone on the Metro. See her work in Concis, Rat’s Ass Review, Mom Egg Review and upcoming in the Kentucky Review.  

MEMORIAL DAY

by William Cullen Jr.

Relative places flowers at one of the tombstones in the Los Angeles National Cemetery (then the Sawtelle Veterans Cemetery), where flags were posted for Memorial Day, 1940. This photo was published in the May 30, 1977 Los Angeles Times.

We walk down the rows
in a Civil War cemetery
like we were inspecting the troops
looking for one particularly
outstanding soldier
to pin a medal onto
instead of laying down flowers
in the pouring rain
on a great-great uncle whose name
escapes both us and his headstone.

William Cullen Jr. is a veteran and works at a social services non-profit in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry has appeared in *82Review, Canary, Gulf Stream, Right Hand Pointing, Spillway and Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics.

BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY

by James Penha

Large group of school children, with their teacher, standing in a town street, circa 1850s. Daguerreotype by an unknown photographer. Original in the Daguerreotypes Collection of the Library of Congress.

Which of these boys
in the back rows shucked
his suit for another uniform, packed
a Remington revolver 1858,
a Colt 1860,
or a Beaumont-Adams,
aimed a Pattern Enfield 1853 rifled musket,
a Springfield 1861,
or an M1841 Mississippi Rifle,
held high a Model 1832 foot Artillery Sword,
a Cutlass, or a Bowie knife,
before he was cranked
and grounded by a Gatling
or by J.D. Mill’s Coffee Mill Gun?

And how
many?

Which of their teachers?

Who among the girls cried
for the dead? Who
among the littler
boys?

Who craved
more?

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News.

WEIGHING DAY

by Devon Balwit 

Mayor-weighing in High Wycombe, England on May 21, 2016. The custom is thought to go back to medieval times and be unique to High Wycombe. The mayor is weighed in at the start of their year in office and then again at the end to make sure the mayor is not getting fat on the back of the town. Photo by Andrew Colley, Bucks Free Press.

Hey all, Hey!  In High Wycombe, it’s weighing day.
Come, big-bellied bureaucrats, step your girth on the scale.
Let the sigh or the groan of the gears tell the tale,
show you abstemious or making loose with our pay.

Hey all, Hey!  In High Wycombe, it’s weighing day.
Time to see what the work of our civil servants has been:
Slaving hard for our good or steeping in sin,
Swilling down spirits, cheese and filets.

Hey all, Hey!  In High Wycombe it’s weighing day.
Who looks chagrined, buttons straining from stress,
the fine silk of their suits split from duress,
as they step from their town cars, chauffeurs driving away?

Hey all, Hey!  In High Wycombe it’s weighing day.
All acts leave a trace, let’s spy out their deeds,
their back-table dealings, the track of their greed,
their cronies and sycophants, let’s make them obey.

Hey all, Hey!  In High Wycombe it’s weighing day.
Ready your missiles, your eggs and your offal,
sharpen invective to make them feel awful.
They serve at our pleasure: make them hear what we say.

Devon Balwit is a poet and teacher working in Portland, Oregon.  She has poems upcoming in The Fog Machine, The Cape Rock, The Fem, and Of(f) Course.  This election distresses her.

VISIT TO HIROSHIMA

by Alejandro Escudé

A boy looks at a huge photograph showing Hiroshima city after the 1945 atomic bombing. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Japan August 6, 2007. Reuters/Toru Hanai via International Business Times.

Oh children of Japan,

the dot that inflated
to the size of a neutron star.

Oh children of Japan,

you watched your own feet
evaporate.

Oh children of Japan,

you clung to a rope
thick as an Egyptian obelisk.

Oh children of Japan,

an apology flying like
a bomber evading a blast.

Oh children of Japan,

your bodies, a pile
of blackened marbles.


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.

KOMAGATU MARU

by Akua Lezli Hope





Forgiveness,
                      an evolution
Apology
                is          
                     revolution
Acknowledgment
                               does not redeem
                               but embodies
growth                          maturity                understanding
re                                   cog                                nition            
               known
                                see            again
                                             grant permission        
 now                            better                        now now now    
the  denied
                       arrival
                              has landed
disembark

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, and metal, to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, wearables, jewelry, adornments and peace whenever possible. A third generation Caribbean American, New Yorker and firstborn, she has won fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts,  Ragdale, Hurston Wright writers, and the National Endowment for The Arts.  She is a Cave Canem fellow. Her manuscript, Them Gone, won Red Paint Hill Publishing’s Editor’s Prize and will be published in 2016.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BISON

by Peg Quinn

“On Monday, May 9, 2016, President Obama signed into law the National Bison Legacy Act, which designates the bison as the official mammal of the United States. . . . Lobbying for the official mammal designation was a coalition of conservationists; ranchers, for whom bison are business; and tribal groups, such as the InterTribal Buffalo Council, which wants to ‘restore bison to Indian nations in a manner that is compatible with their spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices.’ . . . Before the mid-1800s, bison (also called buffalo) lived mostly in the Great Plains, but were also found throughout the continent. . . . The U.S. Army led a campaign to wipe out bison as a way to control [native] tribes. . . . Columbus Delano, secretary of the interior, wrote in 1873: ‘I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western plains, in its effect upon the Indians.’ —Elahe Izadi, The Washington Post, May 9, 2016.  Image: A colored-pencil drawing by Peg Quinn of a bison’s head.

A bison's bladder holds seven pounds,
about one gallon, enough
for indigenous people to use
for storing water, clothing,
or food when hunting

Horns sufficed as drinking cups,
or carrying hot ash from one fire
to start the next

Fur became blankets,
papoose and moccasin lining

Skin became saddles, or, when
stretched over low lying branches,
sewn to form teepees, clothing,
quivers, drum heads and ‘canvas’
for recording the year in pictures - their
‘winter count’ during freezing blizzards

String was pulled from sinew
then threaded into carved bone needles

This is no metaphor:
drumming sticks were made
by dropping a round rock into
a testicle then wrapping with tendons
to the end of a stick

Sinew binding teeth and hooves
made door rattles outside the teepee
for announcing a visitor

Bones were carved into knives,
scraping tools, and toys while
tails had second lives swatting flies

Eyes, brains, tongues and organs
were reserved as treats for tribal elders,
meat, berries and fish the daily diet
Snacks were made from intestines
packed with dried herbs and jerky

Though no one knows how they used the nose,
it’s no wonder they were worshipped

Peg Quinn grew up in a rural area outside Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child, she once got her head stuck between the tail and rear-end of a life-size buffalo statue in a public park. Today, she teaches art and paints theatrical sets in southern California, always wearing a bison ring made from an Indian head nickel and morns how they were slaughtered as a means of controlling indigenous people. Her Great-Grandmother was Sioux. 

AMERICAN HISTORY

by George Held

Photograph: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/EPA via The Guardian.

              "I am honored and humbled to announce

the sale of an American firearm icon…"

--George Zimmerman

When George Zimmerman advertised
an auction for “a piece of American history,”
the gun he murdered Trayvon Martin with,
it didn’t take long for the bidding to soar
to 65 million dollars, since withdrawn.

The money, George said, would go to two
worthy causes: protecting peace officers
from the violence of Black Lives Matter
protestors and fighting Hillary Clinton’s
“anti-gun rhetoric.”

Like a magician’s wand, this gun will
“Open presto” not just the wallets
of fatuous rich collectors but also
the deep Pandora’s box of bigotry
and racial discrimination.

Poets have no tropes for dopes who
uphold the Second Amendment in order
to justify the right to shoot to kill
any “other” in a hoodie on a dark
Florida night

And they have no tropes for hope that when
President Obama flies the White House
coop he’ll leave the legacy of a post-racial
society, for America is more racialist
than ever.

It turns out that George Zimmerman,
who’s been unemployable since his
acquittal, has accepted a bid of $138,000
for his piece, enough to keep him in beer
and skittles for a few years.

George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News, has a new poetry collection Bleak Splendor (Muddy River Books, 2016).

THE DOG RUNS ON

by Laura McHale Holland

Alejandro Nieto was killed by police in the neighbourhood where he spent his whole life. Did he die because a few white newcomers saw him as a menacing outsider? —The Guardian, March 21, 2016. Image source: Justice for Alex Nieto.

the dog runs on
and my daughter’s friend
is gone

Alex carries a burrito
up Bernal Hill
a neighborhood jewel
his lifelong home

a husky, off leash, lunges, yips, growls
in pursuit of Alex’s food
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care
he’s looking at a female jogger’s ass

Alex leaps onto a park bench
the dog lunges, yips, growls
Alex stands, fends off the fangs
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care
he’s looking at a young jogger’s ass
the dog lunges, yips, growls
Alex pulls out a taser, points it at the beast
the owner notices, reins in his dog,
sees he’s facing a taser, not a gun

he trots off with his dog, calls a friend
says he wishes California were like Florida
he could stand his ground against
a brown-skinned, no good gangbanger
who dares to threaten his lovely dog
he could stand his ground against
a Latino dressed in red 49ers jacket
black 49ers cap, black pants, sunglasses
he could dispense with Alex
who is unnerved by a dog lunging
for a burrito on Bernal Hill
a neighborhood jewel
Alex’s lifelong home

Alex sits down, bites into his burrito
some passersby see a normal guy, a familiar face
others see a menace with gun tucked at his waist
one calls 911, police drive up the hill
Alex finishes his meal, stands up
a security guard with licensed taser tucked away
Alex, ready for work, ambles a familiar route
police move in
Alex ambles a familiar route, police move in
he does not know his new neighbors
ensconced in remodeled homes
believe he’s a threat, police move in
Alex does not know his neighbors, ensconced
see him as a threat, police move in

What happens next?
officers involved say they told Alex to stop
but he crouched, weapon in hand
they feared for their lives
he crouched, weapon in hand

people who loved Alex say
he would never do that
he was a role model, a youth advocate
a community volunteer
he studied criminal justice
he knew better than most
how to respond to police

an eyewitness says Alex did not
crouch, did not pull out his taser
an eyewitness says Alex did not
pull out his taser, did not crouch
an eyewitness says Alex’s hands
were in his pockets

my daughter says Alex, her friend
from Horace Mann middle school,
was a sweetheart, a peacemaker, always
a connector, a sweetheart always
in all ways

bullets blast and soar
through Alex’s lifetime home
knock the young man down
shatter his jaw and teeth
rip through leg bones
blast and shatter his lifetime
bullets pound the young man
already down without motion
bullets mangle his brain
his blood colors the ground
and the bullets stop at last
his blood pools on the ground

Alex, Buddhist, peace activist,
junior college graduate
aspiring probation officer
Alex, campaign volunteer
community event organizer
Alex deeply loved and loving deeply
breathes his last on Bernal Hill, his home
Alex, a neighborhood jewel
loving deeply and deeply loved
breathes his last on Bernal Hill
and the bullets stop at last

When San Francisco’s finest enter the home
where Alex dreamed the dreams of childhood
where he grew from beloved boy to beloved man
they do not tell his parents their son is dead
they interrogate, look for gang affiliations
they do not tell his parents their son is dead
they interrogate, look for drug connections
proof that Alex was unstable, unreliable, violent
San Francisco’s finest fail to mention that Alex is dead
until his parents demand answers
with no warrant, San Francisco’s finest steal Alex’s car
they find no drug connections, no gang affiliations
they smear Alex’s memory, look for drug connections
gang affiliations, look for dirt and find none

police brass, city brass exonerate the officers
the grieving parents seek justice, restitution in a civil trial
the dog’s owner testifies, jokes about the jogger’s ass
Alex’s grieving parents look on
the officers laugh in the hallway
the grieving parents look on
a jury clears the laughing officers
the grieving parents look on
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care

the dog runs on and on
my daughter’s friend
is gone

Author’s Note: This poem is related to several police shootings being protested in San Francisco. It is specifically about Alex Nieto, who was gunned down in 2014. On May 9, people in the Justice for Alex Nieto group were among the protesters seeking the resignation of police chief Greg Suhr. Last week, after another in a spate of officer-involved killings, Suhr was asked to resign, and he did.

Author, editor and storyteller Laura McHale Holland has published the anthology Sisters Born, Sisters Found: A Diversity of Voices on Sisterhood; The Ice Cream Vendor's Song, a flash fiction collection; and Reversible Skirt, a memoir. You can sign up at her site to receive an excerpt from Resilient Ruin, her new memoir in progress.

THE RED SUITCASE

by Jill Crainshaw

she borrowed the suitcase from her cousin

a faded fake leather red one that

stood by the door all those weeks holding

a bathrobe and slippers and baby things ready

to go to the hospital when her first son was born

five years ago now so the suitcase was empty

and made to fit in the overhead

her aunt stuck a magazine in that front

zippered pocket at the last minute

just in case she was hungry for a taste of

home while dining in places far away

it bobs in wild waters now

with sixty-six others spilling out

blouses linen trousers a new blue jacket just in case

those pills she always took to help her sleep

handwritten sticky notes hotel receipts

hidden in the corner from

the trip before the last one

toiletries travel-sized

she planned on returning home

her aunt stares at the television screen

"vanished from radar"

"no survivors"

commentators talk on and on while

she watches wind-swept waves

longing

for something

even a flash of red

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

STUMP POEM ASSEMBLED FROM DONALD TRUMP’S TWENTY MOST FREQUENTLY USED WORDS

by Mara Adamitz Scrupe 

if they can’t win        stupid            (they’re the)

weak loser(s)           (they’re the) politically

correct          moron(s        they’re not) smart

(enough)        tough  (enough)

dangerous     (enough         to be) bad (as me)

lightweight(s!)         (I’m) amazing           (and I’m)

huge   (I’m) tremendous    (and I’m) terrific

 (not a big) zero       (not like them)          out (of)

control          (I’ll make        this country

truly)             classy  (again!)

Mara Adamitz Scrupe has created significant bodies of work in poetry, book arts, installation, and social practice. Her fellowships include NEA/CEC ArtsLink, D.C. Commission on the Arts, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. She has authored two poetry collections Sky Pilot published by Finishing Line Press, and BEAST, winner of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies' Stevens Manuscript Award. Scrupe’s poems have been widely published nationally and internationally in literary journals and anthologies and she has won numerous prizes and awards for her work.