CHANNEL SURF

(AGAINST COMPLACENCY)
by Oladipo Agboluaje


On one hand I count the massacres,
the daily attrition of death
rubbing against life in a dry corner
of the globe, that reeks of something homemade,
something as familiar as next door's dog
My finger pauses on the wailing of veiled widows who recount their woes, personal and communal.
I dig deep but find the only original empathy
I can muster is a disinterested sigh, all-knowing,
universally sage, as I channel surf
from conflict to light entertainment,
engaging in my own battle with a sleepy head
dying to find watercooler fodder
for the next grey day.


Oladipo Agboluaje is a Nigerian-born playwright. He lives in London.

MAY OR MAY NOT

by David Breeden


That ain’t like me

That’s all I got to say
That ain’t like me

I’m not sure at all
If Jesus walked by

He’d ask me to join up
Or if he was

More like George Bush
I’m not at all sure

I’d make it as one
Of them twelve at all

Of if I’m too fucked up
To be among fish collectors

And tax catchers—I’m
Not sure at all I’d be asked

To join the list. Me
A guy who cares

Too much about the poor
We’ll have to leave it

Up to the gentleman who
May or may not come back

We’ll see but until then
It’s up to us to wonder

If someone who loves everyone
Has any business with that guy

The Jesus one who may
Or may not wander back by


David Breeden is a labor organizer and writes poetry when he can.

CORRECTING A VISION PROBLEM

by Margaret Bouvard


In the dim rustle of the waiting room
I’m asked to sign yet another form
that I will authorize my insurance to pay,
that my birth date is the same
and also my telephone number,
not to mention my mother’s maiden name.
But then comes the three- page form
explaining my rights to privacy,
one paragraph after another implying yes
and mostly no to those just claims
down to the one telling me
law enforcement officers have absolute authority
to examine my health records.
I sign the way I would write a ballot
with only one candidate. In this age of the war
on terror when our president describes the “dim, dark
vision” of the terrorists and how they are all
around us, I am about to have cataract surgery
on my right eye. Even when the lights go out
I know a lie when I see one.


Marguerite Bouvard is the author of five books and three chapbooks of poetry and several books on human rights and one on grieving. She is a resident Scholar at Brandeis University’s Women's Studies' Research Center.

POLICE FIND MARIJUANA-FILLED TEDDY BEAR

by Rochelle Ratner


If asked directly, Little Stevie, at six-and-a-half, would be
quick to tell you he's too old for Teddy bears. Still, she's
taught her son manners. Gil's been trying so hard to be a
father to the boy, not like the other men she's been with.
So when Gil comes home with a new Teddy bear every
Friday, Stevie says thank you and carries the new bear to
bed with him, cuddling at least that first night. And he
sleeps through till morning, something he hasn't done since
his father left. Gil's been such a calming influence on the
child.


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.

MARY SHELLEY HAD IT RIGHT

by Brock Dethier


We feed him money and patriots,
teach him how to disrupt and dismember,
spread rumors about his enemies,
ignore his habit of dining
on kittens and babies,
the times he addresses us
as fuckface.
When he turns mean we threaten
to cut off his allowance.
When he slits our throat
everyone's surprised,
and we send the good herr doctor back
to his lab to make a better one.


Brock Dethier teaches English at Utah State University and has published poems in more than twenty journals. His most recent books are From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music and First Time Up: An Insider's Guide for New Composition Teachers.

FROM THE TABLE TALK...OF RMN (RICHARD M. NIXXXON)

by Bill Costley


“All crooks may be morally equal,”
RMN officiously intoned, “But...as
you all know: I am {NOT} a Crook!”

“Ted, I see you’re fanning C-notes;
did-ya just collect your lunch-money?”
RMN knuckled vice-president STA.

Who the fuck! slipped this ice-cube*
with a fucking! hOle in it in my drink?
Is sOmebOdy here…fucking! sick?

The fucking! kikes are out2get me,
Henry (Kissinger), especially shrinks.
You’re not a kike, Henry, you're a Yid.

“Always speak2the strategy, never2
any particular tactic; just scramble it up
w/ with lots of geopolitical necessities.”

“Western Hemisphere: my right-ball;
Eastern Hemisphere: my new left-ball.
(Chairman Mao loves my ball-joke.)”

“If Jesus came back2day, he’d love me;
He said he loved all sinners, & I’m just
a simple geo-political sinner. Amen.”

“If I have2go, I’ll go quietly, but I’ll leave...
noBody standing 2witness my tragic fall;
so, (technically), it never happened.”

*RMN feared ice-cubes w/holes formed inside them,
banning them from San Clemente, & had any Jewish
psychiatrists screened & banned from any audience.

Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. The first twelve books of his epic-in progress The Cheni@d appear here in The New Verse News. Book XIII begins Volume Two here.

APRIL SHOWERS

by Verandah Porche


Down-spout leaks
like a chief executive--

Come
what may

in the mouths
of daffodils.

Declassify;
release
his secret
stain.

Thru rain,
the strains
of
“My country,
t’is…”

or t’was.


Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.

HOMELAND SECURITY 101

by Carol Elizabeth Owens


He “instructed her to perform a sexual act
while thinking of him." – ABC News (Apr. 4, 2006)

“Some of the exchanges ‘are too extraordinary
and graphic for public release'". – New York Times (Apr. 6, 2006)


little
girl, is your dad
at home? i want to come
over— we can play house without
anyone else knowing
about our
little

secret
service meetings.
the house is white, inside
out. sex has exposed a weak link
in security. guard
our boarders—
little

girls, boys.
children at home
with electronic text
are frequently chained to danger
as intelligence lurks
on line. stranger
little

things are
happening, right?
beyond the picket fence
is where big problems really lie—
so keep looking outside.
remain on high
alert.


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 "homeland security 101" [above] is written in a form called 'eintou'.

CHOMSKY GRILLING LINGUICA (PART 2)

by Rochelle Owens


To read Part 1 of “Chomsky Grilling Linguica” click here.


The voice   the voice   the voice
of the tapeworm   the voice   of an alien
in the house   in the house   in the house
of Noam Chomsky   imitating imitating   the flat line
the flat line   monotone monotone
voice of Chomsky   the breath of the tapeworm
blowing kisses   blowing kisses   along
the digestive tract   of the linguist   while
grilling chunks of linguica

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Deceit prances in   prances in   prances into   charming
Chomsky house   the house that Chomsky built   the charming
Chomsky house   on ocean side   Chomsky grilling linguica
grilling grilling   globules of fat   sizzling sizzling sizzling
spattering sputtering muttering
a secret tribal language

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

A secret tribal language   muttering sputtering globules
fat spatterings   fat and gristle   sizzling sizzling
exposing a flawed   and repellant   ideology   ideology
ideology of Chomsky’s vanguard of   judeophobia
passing gas   squatting   on his hobby horse
passing gas   the breath of the tapeworm   blowing kisses
belching platitudes   to his cronies   blowing kisses
along the digestive tract   of the linguist
the tapeworm   looping its segments
looping a noose   of Jewish self-hatred  an Uncle Noam
relaxing his sphincter   his flat line monotone
again and again   the voice of the tapeworm
the voice of an alien   imitating the monotone monotone
voice of Chomsky   grievous violations   of bad Jews
of  Israel   vehemently deplored   by the Wellfleet
Deplore Israel Organization   who are of
double standard persuasion   Intelligentsia
of Academia

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Intelligentsia of Academia   in their secret enclave
on Cape Cod   in colonial Wellfleet Wellfleet
with beautiful New England architecture   classical revival churches
where no blacks sing   where the word ‘WASP’
was invented   by a wasp   in the house   in the house
in the house   of Chomsky   in Chomsky’s house
the voice of the tapeworm   the voice of an alien
imitating the monotone   flat line   goose-stepping
Chomsky voice   goose-stepping   in a vanguard
of Chomsky judeophobia   the Chomsky tongue
coated with   fat and gristle   articulating tongue
of an ideologue   living high on the linguica   chomping Chomsky

          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

The tongue of   the linguist   swelling swelling swelling
ten times its size   the tapeworm segmenting segmenting
the linguist   articulating articulating   a flawed
a flawed and repellant   a flawed and repellant
ideology   Zionism equals Nazism
the body   of the tapeworm segmenting segmenting
generating generating   its body a language   chunks chunks
of itself   folding into itself   folding into itself   into totem
and taboo   into totem and taboo   folding into itself
the breath    of the tapeworm   blowing kisses   along
the digestive tract   of the linguist   the tapeworm
folding itself   folding itself
into the totem-scrotum   the totem-scrotum of a

          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew

Again and again   grilling grilling   chunks of linguica
the taste buds   of the tongue   of the linguist
goose-stepping   coated with peppery fat and gristle
the fat globules   of the Protocols of Chomsky
in his secret enclave   the house that   Chomsky built
his cronies chomping Portuguese   sausage grilling
Chomsky grilling   the breath   of the tapeworm blowing
kisses   the pornographic vision   of  Otto Weininger
and judeophobic Jews   Uncle Noams
the tapeworm   segmenting   segmenting   segmenting
propagating   propagating   propagating
blowing kisses   along   the digestive tract
of Chomsky

          chomping linguica in his house
          famous linguist and anarchist too
          Israelphobic pious progressive Jew


To read Part 3 of “Chomsky Grilling Linguica” click here.


ROCHELLE OWENS is the author of eighteen books of poetry and plays, the most recent of which are Plays by Rochelle Owens (Broadway Play Publishing, 2000) and Luca, Discourse on Life and Death (Junction Press, 2001). A pioneer in the experimental off-Broadway theatre movement and an internationally known innovative poet, she has received Village Voice Obie awards and honors from the New York Drama Critics Circle. Her plays have been presented worldwide and in festivals in Edinburgh, Avignon, Paris, and Berlin. Her play Futz, which is considered a classic of the American avant-garde theatre, was produced by Ellen Stewart at LaMama, directed by Tom O’Horgan and performed by the LaMama Troupe in 1967, and was made into a film in 1969. A French language production of Three Front was produced by France-Culture and broadcast on Radio France. She has been a participant in the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie, and has translated Liliane Atlan’s novel Les passants, The Passersby (Henry Holt, 1989). She has held fellowships from the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and numerous other foundations. She has taught at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oklahoma and held residencies at Brown and Southwestern Louisiana State.

DELAYED RESPONSE

by John Newmark


Delay today
did say, "Aweigh!"
(Away?) "I go."
And, so,
Do I
cry, "goodbye?"

No.


John Newmark lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and has performed at open mics for twelve years. His poetry and fiction have also appeared at Newspoetry, EOTU, The Landing, Bewilidering Stories, MillenniumShift, and Scared Naked Magazine. More information can be found on his website at http://www.transylvaniandutch.com.

PACIFIST RUMINANTS

by Verandah Porche


For shock and awe
three centuries ago
Swedish cavalry broke
moose to the saddle.

Bog-strider, briar-breaker,
browser, sub-merger,
stalwarter than a warhorse,

Moose refused
to gallop into pikes and fire.

Moose refused:
gun-shy as the trees
they wore…


Based in rural Vermont since 1968, Verandah Porche has published The Body’s Symmetry (Harper and Row) and Glancing Off (See Through Books) and has pursued an alternative literary career. She has written poems and songs to accompany her community through a generation of moments and milestones. As a teacher and facilitator, she has created collaborative writing projects in schools and nontraditional settings: literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200 year-old Vermont tavern and an urban working class neighborhood. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Artbeat,” on public radio stations around New England and in the Vermont State House. The Vermont Arts Council awarded her a Citation of Merit, honoring her contribution to the state’s cultural life in 1998, and a recent grant to support the preparation of poetry for publication and performance.

THE FIRST TIME

by Laura Madeline Wiseman


Someone for the first time is being raped
in South Dakota. And after, because there’s always
the after, she finds her way to locks and folds
in upon herself smaller than before and waits.
She has to find the way back without glancing back,
because we all know what happens to women who look back at disaster.

Someone for the first time is silencing a show.
They’re telling New York it’s about context,
rather than money. And the girl, in her own words,
who was flattened for standing is silently raging
in her dead world as some blame it on the Jews, again.
And yes, we know what happens to history when voices are selected.

Someone for the first time is revealing statistics.
That 75% of all G-film characters are male.
This someone, we’ll call her Thelma, says it
teaches girls that they aren’t a significant part
of the living world. The spokesman of these
movies couldn’t be bothered to comment.

Someone for the first time is reading poetry
on a blog. They’re thinking the rules are about context
and which characters are allowed to speak. They’re
wondering whose making these rules, this story.
And the reader, we’ll say she’s you, for the sake
of argument, is picking up a pen to begin to write.


Laura Madeline Wiseman is an award winning writer teaching at the University of Arizona. Her works have appeared in 13th Moon, The Comstock Review, Fiction International, Poetry Motel, Driftwood, apostrophe, Moondance, Familiar, Spire Magazine, Colere, Clare, Flyway Literature Review, Nebula, and other publications. She is the Literary Editor for IntheFray and a regular contributor to Empowerment4Women.

CHINATOWN SWEAT SHOP

by A.D. Winans


I sit here at the
Lost and Found bar
watching them come and go
working sixteen hour shifts
six, seven days a week
imagining the sewing machines humming
"A stitch in time saves nine."

you see the coming but never going
I imagine the boss madam's eyes
an executioner in disguise
watching waiting for the universe
to devour them


A.D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet, writer and photographer. Grduate of San Francisco State University. Former editor and publisher of Second Coming. Widely published.

TO THIS DAY WOMEN WAKE EARLIER

by Simon Perchik


To this day women wake earlier
--long, overflowing gowns and the sun
whose kiss occurs only once, their lips
stay red even when saying goodbye

--they pour that heat across their thighs
and babies everywhere the same
turning to what is warm, smells from light
and the soft breath calling forever.

To this day under every belly the small lake
freezes over and women all night
listen for those sure steps
sleepless inside the heart

--they place what they love
near the window --on an ordinary morning
opened and the curtain
filling on all sides.


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.