KEEP

by Janet Shainheit

We keep our eyes peeled, our chins up, our fingers crossed. Feet
planted firmly on the ground.  We keep our heads.  Keep noses
to their respective grindstones.

We earn our keep.  Keep it safe.  Keep body and soul together.
Keep busy.  Keep up the pace.  Try to keep ourselves and those we
love from harm.  We keep at it.  Keep going.
Keep our upper lips stiff.
Keep on truckin’.

We keep secrets, memories, friends.  We keep in touch.
Keep watch on the world, up with the news.  Keep tabs on
what’s what and who’s who.
Keep score.

We keep our word.  We keep strong in troubled seas.
We struggle to keep the flame of truth
on an altar of honor.


Janet Shainheit lives and writes in Worcester, MA. She is a happily retired school librarian, and the grateful friend of poetry and poets.

IF ONLY

by D. R. Goodman

If truth were a truncheon
            and logic a scythe
and facts were a finger—
            a poke in the eye,
then their smack or their cut
            would be suitable tools
to counter corruption
            and falsehood and fools.

But truth is a concept
            and logic a skill,
and facts are for science,
            while lies are for thrill;
corruption’s for profit,
            and profit is yuge;
and fools lack self-knowledge—
            they’re stuck as the stooge.

So temper your weapons
            and fight back in kind;
abandon persuasion,
            abandon the mind;
and dull your compassion,
            for their side has none.
But go vote your ass off,
            lest they will have won.


D. R. Goodman teaches martial arts in Berkeley and Oakland, California. She is the author of Greed: A Confession from Able Muse Press, a past winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and twice winner of the Able Muse Write Prize for poetry. Her poems have appeared in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry, and in many other journals.

A STITCH IN...

by Maria Lisella

Tell clothing brands to support workers by signing the Transparency Pledge. The vast majority of workers do not know whom to turn to for improving their working conditions because the brands they make clothes for are kept secret. This lack of transparency allows brands to avoid accountability and fuels abuses against workers. Transparency benefits workers—they can inform brands when they experience labor abuses. Transparency also helps brands—they can better take steps to stop and prevent labor abuses. Currently, 40 companies have committed to the Transparency Pledge, but hundreds continue to hide where they make their clothes. Workers and shoppers deserve to know where brands make their clothes. This shopping season, call on American Eagle Outfitters, Armani, Carrefour and URBN (Urban Outfitters, Free People, Anthropologie, Nuuly) to support workers by publishing a list of all factories that make their branded products. —Human Rights Watch

It required a stitch or two and so I tacked it
the two tabs that were sticking out
of her cheap striped shirt—
made in Bangladesh reads the label
where women who know nothing
about raised fists of labor united or
the IWW, or the AFL-CIO, sweat
for 14 hours a day, and 35 cents an hour
turn out shirts just like this one stitched
with labels that read: H&M, Calvin Klein,
Ann Taylor, Zara, Target and, yet,
when a factory goes up in flames or
crumbles to the ground in New Delhi,
Bangladesh, Ahmedabad, collapsing
into tangles of steel, concrete blocks,
mortar, or fizzle in flames, the label-owners
deny those women have ever
been making their products and those
women have nothing to do with their
$2.4 trillion dollars in profits.


Maria Lisella is the outgoing Queens Poet Laureate and a newly-named fellow of the American Academy of Poets; she is a travel writer by trade.

SAVING PAUL RUSESABAGINA

by Elane Gutterman

Paul Rusesabagina at his cell at the Remera Metropolitan Police Station, Kigali, Rwanda on September 3, 2020. Rusesabagina, arrested early this week to face terror, murder, and arson charges, says he is choosing his defence team to prove his innocence. Following his arrest, Mr Rusesabagina, whose heroic actions during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi inspired the Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda, was paraded before the media by Rwandan authorities on Monday. His deeds are also captured in the 1998 book We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by American journalist and author Philip Gourevitch. It remains unclear how he ended up on Rwandan soil, where had not set foot in almost 20 years. Authorities said he was arrested on an international warrant, and with the cooperation of other countries. He is accused of founding and sponsoring an armed rebellion that claimed multiple attacks on Rwandan territory, leading to deaths and destruction of property. While living in Belgium and the US with his family, he formed the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) in 2018, an opposition party with a military wing—the National Liberation Front (FLN)—that has claimed responsibility for a spate of attacks in Rwanda, from its base in eastern DRC. He has also been a fierce critic of President Paul Kagame since the early 2000s, often accusing his government of undermining human rights. —The East African, September 3, 2020

This is why I say that the individual’s most potent weapon is a stubborn belief in the triumph of common decency —Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner, An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography


Transported to the land of a thousand hills
at the Hotel des Mille Collines,
the Hotel Rwanda of that harrowing film,
we cheered for the manager,
Paul Rusesabagina, who managed to save
more than twelve hundred Hutus and Tutsis,
after they fled the killing streets
during the Never Again days
when neighbors hunted down neighbors
as spies and inyenzi cockroaches.

Years later, I swam in the hotel pool
where refugees once drank the water.
I ate in the hotel café where penniless
refugees once came for free meals.
I rode the City’s gardened main thoroughfares,
I went to its clinics, restaurants
and galleries. My eyes saw a facade
of peace and prosperity in this land
of a thousand hills.

Yet the hills stood without freedom
and the ruling strongman ruthlessly silenced
his critics. Even before the film,
Rusesabagina had to leave his country to champion change,
living as a citizen of Belgium, then a resident of Texas.
And this week the strongman netted
new prey, that hero kidnapped, taken from Dubai
to Rwanda, to face trumped up charges as a terrorist.

Now, I too feel immersed in the sea of lies
created by our wannabe strongman.
How can Rusesabagina be saved --
yes, he who managed to save so many.

Elane Gutterman is a health researcher who has studied breast cancer treatment in Rwanda and other East African countries. She is a trustee and the literary chair at the West Windsor Arts Center. Her poems have been published in Kelsey Review, Patterson Literary Review, U.S.1 Summer Fiction, and TheNewVerse.News.

TOM TERRIFIC: A SMUDGE IN TIME

 by Earl J. Wilcox

Tom Seaver 1944-2020

"Tom Seaver" by LeRoy Neiman

Still watching baseball in his ninth decade, Earl Wilcox is a regular reader of and contributor to TheNewVerse.News.

THE MOCK TURTLE: SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL

by Ed Shacklee

Famed for toxic prattle and gelatinous physique,
combining theft with battle, it assails the poor and weak
while herding mulish cattle with its games of hide and seek.

Exhibiting surprise if folk decry its sly venality,
it mocks with blatant lies. Its crooked, looking glass morality
enables wolves’ disguise of greed with sheepskins of frugality.

Partly turtle, partly snake, a spineless omnivore,
the terror of Kentucky, this dystopian dinosaur
has lined its nest with feathers but is always plucking more,

and creeps through halls of power like a sleepy Southern breeze.
Its purse-lipped, goggled glower bringing cowards to their knees,
it stalks a fatal hour or a moment it can seize.

But piles of cash are paper thin and make for flimsy armor,
and miles of rural roads can never daunt the brave reformer,
and while the trail has gotten cold, I’m told it’s getting warmer;

for babies vilely kissed in past campaigns will not forget
the rabies it has spread, or tears we’ve shed—which are still wet—
and maybe time will tell us why the Russians play roulette.

Resist, my heart! and choose, so there may be a morning when you
wake to light a fuse and then demand a change of venue—
that longed for, lucid day when turtle soup is on the menu.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who lives on a boat in the Potomac River. His first collection, The Blind Loon: A Bestiary, was published by Able Muse Press in 2017.

CHIP IN TO SUPPORT AMY McGrath

ICE CREAM TRUCK

by Jacqueline Jules

At the park this summer
Jacob misses the big blue truck
full of treats.

I am relieved.

How could I let him
run to the window for a fudge bar?
Risk one hand touching another?

It’s enough of a gamble to ride bikes
on the circular path, reminding Jacob
every few minutes to keep his mask on,
stay away from Joseph over there
on the swings.

How will Jacob remember this summer?
The only one without the ice cream truck?
Or when he was taught to keep his distance,
to fear the air others exhale?

School on a screen begins in three days.

Will he ever learn to hold hands again?

Jacqueline Jules is the author of the poetry chapbooks Field Trip to the Museum, Stronger Than Cleopatra, and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including TheNewVerse.News, The Rising Phoenix Review, What Rough Beast, Public Pool, Rise Up Review, and Gargoyle. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.

ISOLATION

by Carl Mayfield





Slicing blossom rot off tomatoes,
we add the remains to the salad.

Loose chickens mill about the gate,
separating the dog from his mind.

Deep breathing keeps me busy.
News of the world replaces the world.

Scaled quail stay close to saltbush,
fearful of what the sky might send.

Carl Mayfield lives in the American Southwest. He doesn't want to jump his place in line so he washes his hands a lot, wears a mask, and stays home. He hopes this helps you keep your place in line right where it is.

CONTEMPLATE THIS FOR A MOMENT

by Marc Swan

Mario Guti/Getty Images via Los Angeles Magazine

Through my window I watch the older woman
across the street hold her mask
as one of the teen bathing beauties
returns from the dock. She dons her mask

and asks of the crowd—
the mid-August high tide locals
who gather each afternoon for a swim,
a paddle board or kayak ride,

a mixed bag, mostly kids,
young adults, no masks
or social distancing—
immunity of the community expected.

I try to imagine what this older woman thinks,
taking medication,
immune system compromised,
just wanting a short walk to a safe place.

I think of school reopening,
many starting in outdoor tents,
seated on folding chairs

or in some cases hay bales. Masks
for the middle and high school kids,
teachers trying to educate in person
as government leaders, some parents expect—

inspire the children, give them a social outlet,
a safe place to go
while parents toil in the work space,
play tennis at the club,
go for long walks along the shore.

If the wind picks up or rain falls
in a torrential burst     what then?

And when the virus strikes hard and deep
where will the students be?

Marc Swan’s latest collection all it would take was published in May 2020 by tall-lighthouse. Poems forthcoming in Gargoyle, The Stony Thursday Book, Nerve Cowboy, among others. He lives in coastal Maine with his wife Dd, an artist and yoga teacher.

COVID-19 LIPOGRAM

by Martin Elster

Kay Scanlon / Los Angeles Times; Getty Images

Masking my physiognomy
may blight my glorious bond with you.
Your shroud, part of your armory,
brings to mind this bugaboo

bugging all of us. So now
as you and I chat through our masks,
although your orbs and striking brow
may knit or grin, a ticklish task

awaits us: To concoct a way
to talk with hands, with nods, and know
that you and I can simply say,
“I want you!” though our lips won’t show.


Author's Note: This is a  poem without the letter “e."

Martin Elster, who never misses a beat, was for many years a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His career in music has influenced his fondness for writing metrical verse, which has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies in the US and abroad. A full-length collection Celestial Euphony was published by Plum White Press in 2019.

THE LAST DAYS OF TYRANNY

by Mukund Gnanadesikan




Mustachioed Napoleon
Kalashnikov-bearing Narcissus,
Stands on his balcony, waves
Proclaims his potency
Knowing he is but a puffer fish.
The coalescing crowd
Becomes a famished tiger shark.
He must depart, fade into shadow
Or blood that flows
Will no longer spring from innocents
But from his pump that counts its mortal days.
Even uniformed lackeys stand aside
Listen as harmonic voice of millions
Rises in unison, crescendos,
Pries the strongman’s fingers from his weapon.
Let sentiment engrave in stone
Collective Will and Testament.

Mukund Gnanadesikan’s poetry and short stories have been published in Adelaide Literary Magazine,  Ayaskala, The Bangalore Review, Calliope on the Web, The Cape Rock, Tuck Magazine, Junto Magazine, Meniscus Literary Journal, Blood and Thunder, Poets’ Choice, and Dream Noir, among others. His first novel Errors of Omission is due out in fall of 2020 from Adelaide Books. He lives in Napa, CA, where he practices psychiatry.

IJS*

by Judy Juanita

Imma be ok

Even wif lightening ‘n thunder 

setting de trees on fire

& dogs howling up a storm

but if I were a spooky sort 

(which I is deep down)

I’d say we is coming into 

de apock-a-lips

* = I’m just saying

Judy Juanita’s poetry has been published widely. Her poem “Bling” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). She appears in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Season 5, Laney College where she teaches.

NARRATIVE

by Colm Ó Ciarnáin

Artwork: Indie

Gibberish       weponised    nonsensity

Obnoxification of society
ratification of cagedness
realization of stupidity
recognition of affirmation bias
nausea at repugnance
aversion to its abhorrence
revulsion at the antagonism
animositic reluctance to truth

                          and traveling abroad we find exciting
                          and It can be life changing enjoying that freedom

and traveling abroad we find exciting
                          and It can be life changing enjoying that freedom

speak fluent moran
crisp without even a sludder
then lean into the suck
as there is a virtue in
broadcasting your amorality at
the highest known volumes of stupidity
trust busting reality of lies

                          and we enjoy new languages
                          and they give us hope
                                                 
                          and we enjoy new languages
                          and they give us hope

untethered to truth
thoughts prayers and cynical gestures in
pioneering of nauseating evention, testifony, fasadism
mythic past warped by
liberal             feminist          or                      immigrant
conjured truths against faith and adjacent reality
decorum trumped constantly by derision
bannonesque divisions

                          and my friends are with me
                          and it's going to be a good day

 and my friends are with me
                          and it's going to be a good day

fetischouce twitter fingers
trust busting realities of lies
I believe him Truth isn't truth but When I can, I tell the truth—
He means it
making hate again
with truths that burned witches
make fake again by self-proclamations testifications
down the slinker hole
otherings untethered to truth

                          and we shall have fun
                          and the future is bright
                                                                           
                          and we shall have fun
                          and the future is bright

Colm Ó Ciarnáin is a cultural worker originally from Ireland but now living in Sweden. He likes to use his emotions to paint pictures with words. He realised early in life that no matter how much he talked around a subject, words didn’t have the power to convey his feelings, being hampered by logical structures. He finds though that words when used in poetry for him paint between the lines. Flowing beyond the confines of realism and logic to bare self. A nudity of the soul inconceivable except in the hope of a poem. His poetry defines his inner self.

KYOTO PROTOCOL

by Katherine Williams

Even in August there is now wildfire.
In spring, rains will take what remains.
Kyoto calls us from bygone times.
Hearing Kyoto, everyone stops and turns.
The fires are a small state now.
Cuckoo’s eggs roast in foreign nests.
Cry for help, cry for mercy.
I scan the river, a trickle on pavement.
Long ago we were warned.
For one hundred years we flew into the sun—
Kyoto, we did not stop and turn in time.


Author's Note: The poem is a haiku acrostic, with the words of Basho forming the first word of each line of the poem.

Katherine Williams has published four chapbooks and read at venues from the L.A. Poetry Festival to the College of Charleston. A Pushcart nominee, her poems appear in Spillway, Projector, Diagram, Measure, and elsewhere. She is a retired biomedical research technician living on James Island, SC, with her husband, poet Richard Garcia, and their dog, Max.