NEW ORLEANS MARDI GRAS

WEIRD WORLD OF JOY AND PAIN

by Mostofa Sarwar

AI-generated graphic for The New Verse News by Shutterstock

I rode the Captain’s Float in Endymion

I saw the frolicking crowd

I enjoyed the rainbow of merriment

undulating its mesmerizing wings,

sprinkling its magical potions

over the revelers

The scintillating curves of human flesh

under the thin veneer of fabrics

The vile sound of the Second Amendment

flashing snippets of life

The dead crawling the crowded streets

I saw the specter of Paul Verlaine

over Saint Charles Avenue

He was catching beads

Was he happy?

He was wearing an MP3 player

Was he listening to Debussy’s incarnation

of his ‘Claire du Lune’?

Or was eternal pain eating his flesh

Like a deadly virus

I saw

Under the veil of merriment

New Orleans, like Bergamo,

hiding

the suffering, 

and poverty, violence, injustice

Let me have a jug of absinthe

And forget this weird world of pain and joy

 

Dr. Mostofa Sarwar is professor emeritus and former associate provost at the University of New Orleans, dean and ex-vice-chancellor and provost of Delgado Community College. His opinion essays were published in The Daily Star and Bdnews24.com of Bangladesh, The Strait Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, Phuket News of Thailand, The Times Picayune of New Orleans, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, The Daily Advent and The Opera News of New York. Recently, his English poems were published in Sangam Literary Magazine and The Seattle Star Magazine. Sarwar published three books of Bengali poems. He frequently appears in Bengali talk shows at cable TV channels (broadcast out of New York, Washington, DC, and Dhaka).

KLAMATH RESURRECTION

by Pepper Trail

The Largest Dam Removal Project in U.S. History Begins Final Stretch, Welcoming Salmon Home. After being impeded by dams for more than a century, the Klamath River will be restored to its historic channel this year. —Smithsonian, January 22, 2024. Photo above by Pepper Trail.

When the dams rose, the river did not die
But lost its body, became spirit
Haunting the slackwater depths of the lake
Invisible beneath the dull skin of surface
For those long years, suspended, adrift
It awaited the touch of resurrection
The returning salmon, barred behind a locked door
While a new rabble stirred the helpless warmth
Bullhead and perch and pumpkinseed
Soft-bellied and sleepy in the stillness
 
Now, just now, the iron gates broken
The river is gasping back to life
Moving again time-withered muscles
Reaching blind careful fingers
Retracing its path through the canyon of mud
Remembering, curve by curve, its body
Its purpose, to move without stopping
To dance with the shapes of the land
To keep its ancient promise
To welcome the salmon, and meet the sea

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

ROWS AND FLOWS

by Joanne De Simone Reynolds

 

 

Joni you are glowing in your natural make-up

I love you as much as I love Joan Mitchell—

Works bursting out of this world   Your verse

Flaring   Warning me to prepare to bleed

And I have

And what you sing about stardust

Is oracular and thankfully on track

But as far as the garden goes I think you know

There’s no going back   (O for the roses Joni!)

I’d like to think you’ll be alright with that—

The mix constellating   In keeping   Playing out

Unceasingly on the stage

Of the night sky   Never expiring   Catalyzing   Fanning

Consciousness (and hopefully passion)   Quality we call star

 

 

Joanne De Simone Reynolds has published her work in The New Verse News, Salamander, The Ekphrastic Review, Ibbetson Street, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Lyrical Somerville, among other journals. Her collection of ekphrastic poems for 2020 Art Ramble can be viewed at theumbrellaarts.org. In 2023 she was poetry judge for Art on the Trails in Southborough, Ma.after placing first for poetry in 2022.

GATHERING (CLOUDS)

by Indran Amirthanayagam

We are gathering in Kansas City,

poets and publishers, writers

and editors: our people, friends,

colleagues, rivals. But I am

skipping the encounters. I don't

want to rub anything or anyone

except for the keyboard where

I compose this letter of resig-

nation, aware of the moving

staircase, the precipice, rocks

falling from the sky, aware

of train. bus and car wrecks

to come, bombs dropped

on friends' homes and cultures,

fireballs rolling through Chile's

Viña del Mar, vine now of fire

and mourning, through hills

near Valparaiso where

I fear cobblers and tailors

and hardware stores with

their giant signs have 

become ash, in memory, 

thy kingdom come, thy will…

how can we explain our 

suicidal impulse, this expelling 

of hot gas, assaulting 

of children and women 

in Gaza, famine threatening

that strip, and Ethiopia 

again in 2024. Are you 

ready for Live Aid 

once more, the concert 

for Bangladesh? How 

can we reply when the prompt 

calls for murder, 

by climate, by dictator?

Indran Amirthanayagam is the translator of Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). Mad Hat Press has just published his love song to Haiti: Powèt Nan Pò A (Poet of the Port). Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks) is a collection of Indran's poems. Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun. (Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

OF ALL THINGS

by Jennifer Schneider

Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the teenager who killed four students pictured above—Madiyson Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Justin Shilling, 17; and Hana St. Juliana, 14—at an Oxford, Michigan, high school in 2021, was found guilty Tuesday of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in a novel legal case that stood as a test of the limits of who’s responsible for a school shooting. —CNN, February 6, 2024

that could have, should have,
been different—

the swish of a three-point shot. shooting stars, solar eclipses. the journey from girl to woman. 
balding men. camera flashes. grilled cheese on slices of Wonder. plucked daffodils. pinches of 
salt. something borrowed. something blue. wedding vows. bare feet on sand. morning waltzes. 

a day, anew.

dimes in jukebox machines. campouts under moonlit skies. crabbing on summer days. a Beatles’
whistle. yellow jackets on lavender petals. the semester’s last exam. anticipation of the daily 
mail. Billy Joel on the radio. parked sedans. Sunday drives with no destination.
 
birthday wishes.
 
candle wax. solar lights. hoops at midnight. blueberry-scented cravings at dawn. whole-grain
muffins before flight takeoff. puddle splashes. watercolor paints in tiny pots. a manual typewriter 
retrieved from a lost and found. the clang of bowling pins. green leaves. Ladybugs on sleeves. 
oversized football jerseys. soiled laundry awaiting freshly scented soaking.  
 
mugs of strawberry lemonade. promises handknit for safekeeping.
unfinished paperbacks. romances with happily-ever-after endings.
untied Converse laces. tied knots and coffee-fueled conversation.
scattered pumpkin seeds. rainbow kites. diaries with tiny keys.
lullabies sung off-key to future generations. goodnight kisses.
 
all the things
that could have, should have,
been different—

instead,
there was no interception —

a blank canvas. multiple strikes.
bullets lodged in metal hoops.
unrepairable tears. no spares.

shooting stars
amidst recurring nightmares.

of all the things,
that could have, should have
been different,

none were spared

Jennifer Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

McCAFFREY'S MOM

by Sharon Olson

Lisa and Christian McCaffrey

49ers Star Christian McCaffrey’s Mom Jokes They're ‘Boycotting’ Taylor Swift Until After Super Bowl —People, February 5, 2024

A clever one, she is, who realized the dilemma,

the whole family Swifties,

her four sons and father Ed,

couldn’t get the music out of their heads.

They tried a prayer circle, but even 

though their second son’s 

a Christian, it wasn’t their schtick, 

seemed phony.

Who knows what the Niners 

listen to on those pods,

during the game is it Kittle wide left 

or "Everything Has Changed"?

One thing’s certain, Mom said,

we’re putting Taylor under wraps,

flipping the volume off

whenever she comes on.

Maga nation frets about the halftime,

what strange potions might appear,

the Stanford Band, their mascot Tree?

The game goes to the swift, SF or KC.

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian who has recently moved to Annapolis, Maryland. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019. 

OUR ENEMIES SUTRA

by Laurence Musgrove

AI generated graphic from Shutterstock

This evening, the Buddha and I 

sat and scrolled through our phones

before retiring for the night.

I read to him about the latest

retaliation strikes in Syria and Iraq,

and he read to me about our deportation

flights of refugees deep into Mexico

designed to discourage their return

and the hopes of those now streaming

to our razor-wired border.

“It was Thich Nhat Hanh,” he said,

“who wrote our enemies are not people,

but our ideologies, fears, and attachments

to views that justify our ignorance

of cause and effect with absolutely

no guarantee of freedom or peace.

The fires we spread always burn us, too.”

Laurence Musgrove is the author of three poetry collections Local Bird, The Bluebonnet Sutras, and A Stranger's Heart. He teaches creative writing and literature from a Buddhist perspective at Angelo State University in West Texas.

RED TEAM VERSUS RED TEAM

by Shannon Anthony

Sounds like your party has a civil war

or self-implosion theme. Unfriendly fire:

Your taco bar comes with razor wire.

So now briefly, you are chiefly

claiming that your camp is

against the heartland champs

because the one point of Barbie, that doll,

is to be here to cheer, not cheered at all.

And because she once spoke

and you're proudly unwoke

you're rooting for the 49ers

to kiss the ring where the sun don't shine

forgetting every bad thing you ever said

about the city that gave you Nancy.

Cognitive dissonance and decline: Go red!

Knock yourself out with your bash (nothing fancy).

I think you'd agree I've got that right.

(I'm not male, but not pregnant, and I'm white.)

If you come to (such as they are) your senses

you'll see that concussions have consequences.

You're not immune, and this isn't a kingdom.

What happens in Vegas is just a symptom,

another test we'll hear he aced. Remember

the Big Game: That happens in November.

Shannon Anthony lives in Minneapolis.

ON THE ARREST OF A DOMESTIC ROCK DOVE

by Matthew King

A pigeon that was captured eight months back near a port after being suspected to be a Chinese spy, is released at a vet hospital in Mumbai, India, Tuesday, Jan.30, 2024. Police had found two rings tied to its legs, carrying words that looked like Chinese. Police suspected it was involved in espionage and took it in. Eventually, it turned out the pigeon was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had escaped and made its way to India. With police permission, the bird was transferred to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose doctors set it free on Tuesday. (Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times via AP via ABC News, February 1, 2024) 

It’s said, when Noah’s ark had run aground

but water stretched far as the human eye

could see, he sent a dove out as a spy.

Her first sortie betrayed for miles around

no evidence of anything undrowned,

but with another week for things to dry,

and Earth to soak in hues of sun and sky,

she brought a sprig of leafy green she found.

The world may end, depending on a word.

We all know, if not why, a dove is meant

to signal peace, so let’s rename the bird

and think, if we would like, it might be sent

to fight for land or money or religion:

that’s no dove, it’s just a dirty pigeon.

Author's note: A Taiwanese racing pigeon, which had been detained in India for eight months on suspicion of being a Chinese spy, was released last week. (In 2020 Indian authorities arrested a suspected Pakistani spy pigeon.) "Pigeon" is another name for domesticated rock doves, and the idea of a spying dove, for me, recalls the bird Noah sent from the ark to see if there was anything alive in the world. The image of the dove returning with an olive branch is of course a widely recognized peace symbol, used for instance in the logo of the annual UN-sponsored International Day of Peace. In light of so much going on in the world, including struggles over naming things and what follows from our naming of them, it is darkly fitting that a dove by another name would be mistaken for a hostile agent.

Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto, Canada; he now lives in what Al Purdy called "the country north of Belleville", where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry.

WE DIG TRENCHES

by Dmitriy Shandra

Translation by Denis Pinchuk and Bohdan Bondarchuk

 Servicemen of Separate 14th Regiment of Armed Forces of Ukraine dig a trench on the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region. —The Guardian, November 7, 2023

We dig trenches

too tight to stand and walk in

we dig them nights and we dig them mornings

and evenings we dig them

we are swarm

 

There is death

we will tear out its eyes

cut out its heart

and strangle it with beautiful hair

 

Of

The girl from Mariupol

The girl from Irpin

The girl from Bucha

The girl from Gostomel

 

I promise

Dmitriy Shandra is a poet from Ukraine, Kyiv. He is a paramedic of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

NOT/KNOT

by Alison Luterman

Palestinian children killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza:  Here is a list of the names we know, from more than 11,500 children killed during Israel’s war on Gaza. Even this is less than half of those killed. | Al Jazeera Newsfeed

If I'm being honest about it
and I'm probably not, 
I've had my head in the sand
all this time, not
like an ostrich, but like a person
who doesn't know which voice to listen to
amid the explosions and the shouting,
and I don't know what I'd do 
if I were in charge of anything
over there, which, 
thank God, I am not,
I don't know anything
anymore, but still—if the price
of the place
is to kill and kill
and keep killing
children,
and if you had to
see it up close, for yourself,
the small, shattered bodies, 
the homes, markets, schools, the
hospital
with its roof torn off,
the piles of naked, bound men
loaded onto a truck
going nowhere, and be told, not
for the first time,
that this was all being done
for your supposed benefit
or ultimate safety—
then what? Not
in my name, we say, 
but that does not
change anything 
on the ground, the knot
of history, too snarled and 
tightly matted with the blood 
of innocents, cannot
be picked apart
by even the most nimble fingers, 
and the riddle: 
how many babies' bones
are worth the illusion
of a homeland?  

Alison Luterman is the author of four books of poetry, most recently In the Time of Great Fires from Catamaran Press. She teaches and writes in Oakland, California. 

SIGNPOSTS IN DANTE’S ECOLOGICAL HELL

by Richard L. Matta

Illustration by Gustave Doré (1832-1883)

third climate opinion—

the surgeon says

why did you wait so long

winnowing wheat

a merchant trades

for a farmer’s daughter

bulldozed forest…

a herd of cars running

at the burger joint

oil and gas

a lobbyist drills 

for a politician 

water rations

a city meeting 

boils over

flame throwers—

a spirit departs 

from a scorched tree 

one more war crime

the drone creates 

a poisonous cloud

a disposal contractor

doubles his profit

leaking drums wetland

mineral reserves

one more leader leaves

a pit in Africa

Richard L. Matta grew up in New York and now lives in San Diego. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop, San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday, Gyroscope, and many international haiku journals.

WHO WANTS TO FIND AMELIA EARHART?

by Barbara Simmons

Since Amelia Earhart disappeared more than 85 years ago while attempting to fly around the world, people have been searching for her plane with hopes of solving the mystery behind her final flight. Now, an underwater exploration company says they may have found it about 15,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Deep Sea Vision says it captured a sonar image [above] of a plane that matches the dimensions of the Lockheed Electra aircraft Earhart was flying on July 2, 1937. —The Washington Post, January 31, 2024

We love the story, her setting off
to circle the globe, her route 
marked cleanly on the map, 
as is her disappearing point.  
 
We’ve loved the stories since, scenarios
not yielding happy endings, 
but ways to keep Amelia alive, perhaps
as prisoner, spy, or living out a secret life.
 
We’ve climbed with those aboard Itasca, 
signaling hope along with charts,
shedding tears enough to fill the oceans,
not knowing where she lay, nor why.
 
The sonar image we see now, sent from
a depth much deeper than full fathom five,
resembles what she flew, now resting
far below, scant hundred miles from where
 
she’d chosen to refuel.  And if this proves
to be the place her coral bones and pearl eyes rest,
her story has its ending.  We’re left with answers,
not with mystery. We miss the question
 
we maybe wish unanswered, embedded
forever as you’ve been, still flying,
seeking wide and open and free, beyond
a world of narrow, closed, and occupied.

Barbara Simmons, is a Boston-born Californian, a Wellesley College and The Writing Seminars (Johns Hopkins) alumna, a retired educator. She savors life with words to remember, envision, celebrate, mourn, and understand. Publications include Boston Accent, The NewVerse News,  DoubleSpeak, Soul-Lit, Capsule Stories, Journal of  Expressive Writing, and Writing it Real publications.  She was recognized with First Place in the last two annual San Jose Library Spring into Poetry contests, and has published a book of poetry, Offertories: Exclamations and Disequilibriums (Friesen Press), 2022.