MARDI GRAS

by Mary Saracino


It’s a wonder no one ever peeks behind
the wide-eyed gaze of Mardi Gras
to unmask what lurks beneath the revelry.
Anarchy has always reigned unchecked
for one brief, glorious day at carnival time in— Rio,
New Orleans, Venice, Palermo, the whole world round.
The disenfranchised thumb their noses
at powerful hands seen—or unseen—
whose fists slam shut the gate of self-rule
all the other three-hundred-sixty-four days.
Once each year, from dawn to dawn,
the hours crack open, cities surge
with subterranean vigor, streets
and people erupt, a riff of soulful saxophone,
the throbbing beat of hearts fierce and thriving,
the pounding rage of shattered levees
releasing the deluge. For one brief day the silenced
are set free, the world turns upside down,
men and women morph into rebels,
grow rowdy and roar, kings become peasants,
peasants don tiaras and dance;
bespangled queers prance, no longer bashed
and beaten, untied at last from the fence posts
of puritan prudery, defiantly kissing in public,
marrying their unbridled spirits
to all things good and true.


Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet who lives in Denver, CO. Her newest novel The Signing of Swans is to be published by Pearlsong Press in the fall of 2006.

AND THE HILLSIDE PULLING DOWN THIS SNOW

by Simon Perchik


And the hillside pulling down this snow
--more dirt is needed, the dead
brooding how these flakes stick
how useless was their blood and wings

--it's impossible to breathe, your name
like a cold bit in my mouth
and I hear the snow too --this close

nothing but our names
and the sky is drained as if marshes
or swamps or the heart
where suddenly there's no more rain

nothing to freeze or melt
or cry yanking my mouth

--all you can hear
is my side to side without moving
or stomping my lips on the snow
or even this tree whose leaves
when they are wanted most

--nothing will warm this snow
or my still damp cry on its way
through the Earth.


Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Readers interested in learning more are invited to read Magic, Illusion and Other Realities at www.geocities.com/simonthepoet which site lists a complete bibliography.

AFTER SCARLETT

by James Penha


“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.”

—Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind

[Guantánamo General Bantz] Craddock suggested that the medical staff had indulged the hunger strikers to the point that they had been allowed to choose the color of their feeding tubes.

—The New York Times

Qualities of mercy are not strained
although they have been liquified
in the bush war on hunger:
feed the world’s wretched
by lining poor nasal passages
with plastic hoses turbinated
into guts primed
for floods fulfilling
nutrition without even
the sharp pains and bleeding
of frequent tubal
insertions and extrications
since the satiated now keep
the apparatus in fashionable
red, white, or blue close within
themselves until starvation

is less striking.


James Penha edits The New Verse News.

BUFFALO HEAD TRIP

by David Thornbrugh


I killed the last buffalo last night.
Ran over him in a train outside Denver.
The meat of the last buffalo tasted like dawn.
We cleaned and dressed his body in the boxcar
taking us to Disneyland.
The last buffalo called me once too often
at dinner time asking for money.
When I killed the last buffalo I wore a Lee Marvin mask.
The blood of the last buffalo folded funny paper
when I sliced his furry telephone.
We chewed the last buffalo steaks in silence
with mouths full of legal arguments.
The last buffalo knew my name.
He answered the door holding the Wall Street Journal
and sipping a glass of red wine.
He looked like Robert McNamara sorry about Vietnam.
I killed the last buffalo yesterday before lunch.
I ran over him on my way to meet my agent.
I put him in the trunk to stuff later he’ll look great in the library.
When we kill buffalo my people waste nothing.
Every part of the buffalo is sacred to us
even the asshole which we pull over our heads to escape
the plains we’ve filled with used car lots.
We shipped his intestines to China to make jeans.
We gave his blood to the Mexicans to drink while picking our lettuce.
We rolled his eyeballs to Europe to see the great paintings.
When we cut open the last buffalo he was filled with computers.
Now that we have his bones we can start building the rocket ship
that will take us off this planet.
Last night I killed the last buffalo
walking in my sleep.


David Thornbrugh is an American poet currently living in Krakow, Poland.

THEY KNOW WHAT'S BEST

by Diane Payne


Traffic is lined up for miles with a steady stream of cars
filled with South Dakota women heading north, south, east, and west.
Their husbands have left work and are spending the day in bars
boasting how they were only doing what was best.

“Those damn women ain’t listening to what we’re saying.
They always think they’re the ones who are paying!
Hell, if my wife’s life was really in danger,
I’d be the first to call the ranger
and let them know we weren’t breaking no law
and explain how she was near death and all
so she wouldn’t be locked up in jail
waiting for me to rescue her with bail.”

And all their young sons sit in school,
since the girls have left with their mothers
while the boys sit there silent, once again the fool
all because they refused to speak up with the others
when the girls passed pro-abortion petitions trying to get them on
their side,
but the boys thought of their fathers and said no with pride,
and now they sit there, remembering the close calls,
how they whined about a condom ruining their balls,
and weeks later the pregnancy test,
and they remember all the rest,
but their fathers will never know
and the women will continue to go
because in South Dakota the men know what’s best.
They know what’s best, and now they can rest.

They know what’s best, and now South Dakotans can rest.


Diane Payne teaches creative writing at University of Arkanasas-Monticello. She is the author of the novel Burning Tulips, and has been published in hundreds of magazines.

IN THE FACE OF A RACE

by Carol Elizabeth Owens


“People said they hoped I would fall & break my leg, using the n-word."

– Shani Davis

sometimes
an “i” appears
in team. look closely— you
can see it on the ice. a cool
distance. a swift glimpse to-
ward our past.
the race

does make
a difference.
discrimination will
test the mettle of tainted gold
moments— the u.s. weighs
in: “we won!” yet
no warm

glances,
handshakes, or hugs.
hate loves to hold on. there-
fore the medal is never light.
thus, olympic rings sting
like that anthem
we sing—

“oh say
can you see.” how
this victory pains me!—
a foreign nation sustains me
as the u.s.a feigns
equality.
“does it

bother
me?” probably.
but watch as i move on—
high speed and full circle. check out
my reflection when faced
with the impact
of race.


Carol Elizabeth Owens is an attorney and counselor-at-law in Western New York (by way of Long Island and New York City). She enjoys technical and creative writing. Her poetry has been published in several print and virtual publications. Ms. Owens loves the ways in which words work when poetry allows them to come out and play. The poem "in the face of a race" above is written in a form called eintou (which is West African for "pearl," as in "pearls of wisdom").

MOM PLEADS GUILTY TO HOSTING SEX PARTIES

by Rochelle Ratner


All she ever wanted was for the boys to love her. To maybe
ask her out some Saturday night. But all they did was
tease. She skipped the school cafeteria most days,
preferring hunger to their insults, just as she learned from
fourth grade on (when she started "developing") not to use
the restrooms. She found seats at the back of every
classroom, slouching, hoping she wouldn't be called on. Not
that she wouldn't know the answers – she always knew
everything, which might have been part of the problem.
She just couldn't play dumb. And when the first boy who
ran his fingers through her just-washed hair, fondled then
slept with her, got her pregnant, there was no way anyone
could convince her to give it up. It was a boy, she just knew
it would be a boy. And he would love her. And her son's
high school friends would give her all the physical
attention she'd been so desperate for when she was their
age. All she ever wanted was to fit in, to feel like one of the
cool group, to be like the other girls, for the boys to love her.


Rochelle Ratner's books include two novels: Bobby's Girl (Coffee House Press, 1986) and The Lion's Share (Coffee House Press, 1991) and sixteen poetry books, including House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003) and Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, October 2005). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage: www.rochelleratner.com.

I SPY A SPY

by Mary Saracino


I spy a spy
in the land of the free
a spy down the block
in the house
on the phone
a spy in the office
line two it’s no joke
I smell a rat
a warrant-less tap
okayed by the man
from the bureau of prying
a rat-a-tat-tapping
illicit conniving
a whine of a deceit
a click on the line
domestically plotting
their eavesdropping crimes

I spy a spy
in the office of oval,
with eyes full of lies
and a heart full of guile
who speaks of terror
and winning the peace
as reasons for wiretaps
illegally seized
to spy after all
is power’s prerogative
surveillance of citizenry
keeps us all free
there are false gods among us
of this I am certain
purveyors of fear
running amok
they’ll do us all in
if we let them
speak truth to tyranny
don’t hesitate
stand up for liberty
before it’s too late


Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet who lives in Denver, CO. Her newest novel, The Singing of Swans, is to be published by Pearlsong Press in the fall of 2006.

HITLER DIDN’T DO H@LF!

by Bill Costley


Hitler didn’t do half of what They say he did. He did 1/3rd.
cavils David Irving, lying on his cold Styrian cot, depressed,
          despite hundreds of daily fan-mails,
after a righteous half-century, his cause nearly starved
          of lurid-media-color-supplements;
confused with Clifford Irving’s, his name blurs in the minds
          of hardkore komikbuchers devoted to Heil Hitler!
the moustachioed Hero of [{Sw@stik@Storm}] komikbuchs,
snappy dresser, jig-dancer, stern, standing auto-heiler!
He had it all! He almost had it All; He lost it All!
          Irving day-dreams as he thrashes...


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. Bill's epic-in-progress, The CHENI@D, appears here in The New Verse News.

CLARK KENT AND THE NEW AIRPORT SECURITY SYSTEM

by Wayne Crawford


Meek Clark Kent can't slip
through airport security. The Man
of Steel leaps
faster than a speeding missile, --not
fast enough to trick
a refurbished metal detector.
Beeping alarms and flashing lights
swell a mob
of Homeland rent-a-guards,
recently hired, to bug-eyed, red-alert,
empty holster panic,-- a clear
and present danger to all.

Latexed hands rake through luggage,
single out extra eye
glasses with fake lenses,
a form-fitting body
suit, obviously custom-tailored
for a criminal act,
a large red letter "S" embossed
on the chest, maybe an Arabic symbol,
coded threat to the American way.

Kent is stripped, searched
for detonators and tiny foreign
language scripts. An anal exam reveals
a tight ass. He pleads
incoherently to make a phone call
in a phone booth. Considering
that he might be gay--he is
well-built, well-endowed, good-looking,
and color-coordinates his belt
with his shoes, one guard, displaying
a red jock strap, warns that terrorists
have reached a new low, sending
queer men to do a straight job.

By the time Kent is cleared
for boarding--feted
as a metrosexual from Metropolis,
his flight is cancelled, his cape
missing, his glasses broken,
and some woman who looks--
in the surveillance camera video--
like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show
walks off in his boots.

He decides, then and there,
next time he schedules an emergency
flight, instead of leaving or arriving
in El Paso, Texas, he'll lift off
and land near Roswell, New Mexico
where he can travel without hassle
as just another of their promotable
unidentified flying objects.


Wayne Crawford's poetry has appeared in many journals, Sin Fronteras,
Las Cruces Writers and Poets, Language Arts, and Aethelon: Journal of
Sports Literature, among them.

FALKLAND'S TOWN CRIER

by Carolyn Howard-Johnson


Mike Butcher makes his point. From his home,
his town is Leg-O-Land, red roofs like plastic bricks,
peat sod walls separate green Monopoly houses from brick
hotels. Beyond, Stanley harbor idles, a mirror, Falkland's

connection to the world. Near Pioneer Road, Mike's gate
--a Magellenic penguin, iron-wrought--does not invite
me in. No need, really. Rusty cannon so close
I could touch it through the fence, its voice

a hand-scrawled sign, 22,000 lives it took
from '37 to '65. Remnants of its deeds pock
his yard. Over there beside Mike's potato patch,
a Minke jaw, farther on a sperm whale's spine,

here harpoon clusters like arrows emblem-eagles
clasp in talons, explosives bound
to each to assure their spurs wreak instant death.
We needn't chat over tea, Mike and I.


Carolyn Howard-Johnson's first novel, This is the Place, and Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered are both award-winners. Her fiction, nonfiction and poems have appeared in national magazines, anthologies and review journals. She speaks on culture, tolerance, writing and promotion and has appeared on TV and hundreds of radio stations nationwide. Her how-to book, The Frugal Book Promoter won USA Book News' Best Professional Book 2004 and her chapbook of poetry, Tracings, is now available from Finishing Line Press. Carolyn is the founder of Authors' Coalition and editor of the newsletter for that organization as well as a blog that helps authors turn a dull book fair booth into a sizzling success. Her website is: http://carolynhowardjohnson.com.

HONORING DICK CHENEY TANKA

by John Newmark


I went to Subway for lunch.
They wanted to know
what kind of cheese
I wanted on my turkey sandwich.
I asked for pepper jack.


John Newmark lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and writes grants for a not-for-profit. He has performed at open mics for twelve years, is Literary Editor for Tribalsoulkitchen, and has published poetry at Newspoetry, EOTU and Scared Naked Magazine. More information can be found on his website at http://www.transylvaniandutch.com.

TOM TURNING 70 ON THE 17THORTHE NEWS AND THE NOT NEWS

by Patricia Smith Ranzoni


Remarkable when you think it over,
raised in that bowl of papermill spew
his parents brought him to
where so many others' lungs and vitals
have grown in and gone down
and the Francos and Indians fighting it
and their mates and children fighting it
after they've gone into the ground
and fighting-back people all over the state
fighting it and the other mute smokestacks
to no avail. Try to find out how many tons
of particulates and immeasurable plumes
they're allowed, the way I did again
when my old man's kidney grew beyond
itself, and see for yourself the suppression.
Not even news anymore than any rain
over us all is news, even ho-hum lethal,
but Tom's turning 70 on the 17th beating
the odds chewing whatever grows here
with deadly juices in its stems and leaves,
papermaking belch and leech the sweet sap
in the timothy stalk he'll suck between his
teeth and swallow another summer
my mill father's brother no longer
cramming verse into his lunch basket
turning 70 the 17th but forever a union man
and Maine poet just the same what's new?


Patricia Smith Ranzoni was born and has lived in papermill towns nearly her entire life. Her father and uncles and most of her neighbors have worked for them, and her mother wrapped paper in one during WWII. Her children have had various part-time work through them, including cutting and hauling pulp to sell there with their father. She received scholarship aid for graduate work from one and once wrote for a local papermill's retirement program. She has one of the neuro-muscular disorders more common in regions with papermills. Tom is her friend.

LUNCH

By Charles W. Harvey


America’s corporate souls
have just finished eating
at the buffet trough, ingested
noon day blues. In their bellies
burgers and fries acidify
into atomic shit particles
to be gassed out into commodes
into bayous and oceans
to feed fish which get ground up
to feed other fish and then cows
hormonized to make more burgers and fries.

Yesterday a postal clerk said to me
as she reloaded and unloaded her glock,
“I’ve given these SOB’s my ovaries
but they will not have my soul,
not my soul. I am a woman
not some damn fish.”


Charles W. Harvey lives in Houston Texas. He is currently working on a novel, two collections of poems, and stories.