BLACK QUENCH

by Len Kuntz

The girl at the river scoops up

handfuls of

warm soup,

brewed black by the beaten

Sudan sun.

She knows how lucky she is, this thirsty child.

Her mother told her there was no water to drink anywhere,

that it had all gone bad.

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with his wife, son, an eagle and three pesky beavers.  His short fiction appears widely in print and online at such places as Vis A Tergo, Clutching At Straws, and Amphibi.Us.

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DELIVERY ROUTE

by David Chorlton

Join Amnesty International's Write for Rights - December 4-12, 2010

First stop Missouri, USA, to give Reggie Clemons
some hope sealed into envelopes
from people he doesn’t know
who can’t envision
the bed in which he sleeps to dream
each night of the execution
chamber. Then it’s off to a town in Romania
with a bundle for the mayor
intended to persuade him that the Roma
are human and need houses with doors
to close behind them
even when they sing at open windows. After that,
Iraq, with a sack full of questions
as to why a certain Mr. Ahmad
has been alone in a cell for ten years
without anyone telling
anyone else
why this should happen to anyone
anywhere. There’s never time to rest;
not with the letters addressed
to Pasteur Street in Teheran, all beginning
Your Excellency, but signed with angry pens
at the end of the appeal
to release a student leader
and turn off the machines by which
he is tortured. There’s a sick man in Ghana
with months yet to serve
in a prison only compassion can open,
Mr. Karma, incarcerated in Indonesia,
who raised a flag in peaceful protest,
and a Guatemalan lady in fear for her life
yet nobody investigates. Always so far to go,
and so many locks
but the letters are folded
thin as knife blades, slim enough
to fit through what little space there is
between the doorframe and the door.


David Chorlton lives in Phoenix, likes to shop at the Supermercado and has his alarm clock-radio set to a Mexican station to wake him up with a reminder that Arizona benefits from its recent immigrants. His poems have appeared recently online at Stride Magazine (UK), The Blue Guitar (Arizona), and Pemmican. Chiron Review, Poem, and Pembroke Review will feature more in print soon.
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HANOVER COUNTY JAIL, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

by Bonnie Naradzay           


Lunch today for the inmates means white bread
and a slice of baloney.  Dinner is more of the same.
The limit now – two meals a day to stay in budget.
The jail’s run by a profit-making corporation.
Vending machines hold other selections,
like undated Twinkies and cinnamon buns.
Immigration rents beds here
for young, married Chinese women
without papers, only fake passports they bought in haste.
Fearing reprisals, they fled the provinces, their homes and families.
For one bore a child after marrying too young, at twenty,
and another had a second child, a girl.
One has an abscessed tooth. 
As a volunteer, I write down her plight,
mainly that she cannot pay a Chinese-speaking lawyer
in New York City, her only hope, or even call long distance,
collect.  I read her confession, search for gestures.
The budget does not fund dental work, I’m told.
What’s more, they charge for aspirin.
The next one, wearing the same ink-blue pajamas
and plastic shower shoes,
holds her stomach, speaks of constant pain.
The doctor comes once a month
and sees only those who signed up long before.
The system weeds out malingerers, the female warden says,
handing me a sheaf of small-print regulations.


Bonnie Naradzay lives in the Washington D.C. area, earned her MFA in poetry from Stonecoast (University of Southern Maine), and has published in numerous print and online journals.
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HOW TO TELL THE CHILDREN

by Jon Wesick


After a dinner at Chuck E Cheese the Transportation Security Agency and Right to Privacy sat the American Public on the couch.

“You know we’ll always love you no matter what happens. Well,” TSA swallowed, “we’ve been going through some hard times lately and think it would be best if your mother moved out. It has nothing to do with you. She just needs a little space right now.”

“What your father’s trying to say is that he no longer finds me attractive.”

“Please, we promised not to discuss this here.”

“Oh now you want your privacy, Mister Let’s Get a Backscatter X-ray to Spice Things Up in the Bedroom! If it was supposed to be so good for our marriage, how come you’re putting them in every airport in the country? Huh?”

“I’m doing it for you. When you’re sitting at home eating goat-cheese bonbons, I’m busting my ass trying to keep you safe. Oh, I’ve seen it all: explosive g strings, sarin-laced suppositories, tampons that can fire .22 caliber bullets.” TSA fondled the images on his hard drive. “Flat-chested Victoria’s Secret models wearing Semtex falsies, even eunuch jihadists with artificial C-4 testicles.”

“Margaret said you groped her and Stan in the airport security line and called it an ‘enhanced pat down.’ Really? Men too? You never told me you swung that way.”

While the Right to Privacy packed what remained of her dignity, the American Public belched stomach acid that tasted of half-digested, bacon-jalapeño pizza. Despite the vague promises of a trip to Disney World during the holidays, he wondered if he’d ever see the Right to Privacy again.


Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over two hundred poems in journals such as the The New Verse News, New Orphic Review, Pearl, Pudding, and Slipstream. He has also published forty short stories. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest.
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IT'S A DOG'S LIFE: POST-ELECTION SYNDROME SONNET

by Earl J. Wilcox


It is raining here in Middle America .
Shall I elect to stay indoors today?
There seems little to do on a rainy day
except slosh up and down the driveway,
sip from a puddle now and then, fluff
my beautiful, long hair, slough off
heavy water trickling down my back.
Weighty issues of the day well up before me,

Shall I ask my master for a treat?
Shall I bark feebly at the mottled pooch?
Should I crap in the back yard?
Autumn has come. Winter beckons.
I shall need a long winter’s nap.
Here in Middle America it is raining.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
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MAIN STREET MONEY TRAIL

by David S. Pointer


Americans bumped from all upward mobility
flights for the foreseeable retro future ram

Americans left behind like Abe Lincoln’s
first, second and third string law partners

unformed fraud squads watch over us? No!
unformed fraud squads watch our vaults

open and agape and ajar and airy and
reopened to restock and reopen to deplete

unformed fraud squads eventually strangle
big bankerism with their own spermatic cords

micro flogging permits escalate exponentially
macro fleecing financial crimes curb themselves

plasma bags and bone bending pliers refuse to
condone anymore intergenerational indifference


David S. Pointer lives in Murfreesboro, TN. Recent publications include "The Baseball Chronicle," "The American Dissident," and "J Journal: New Writings on Justice." David is a sociologist and has a recent surgical technology diploma.
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ANTI-SONNET

by James Penha


For physicists, a bit of antimatter is a precious gift indeed. . . . Now a research collaboration at CERN, Europe's particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, has managed, 38 times, to confine single antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap for more than 170 milliseconds. The group reported the result in Nature online on 17 November. --NatureNews 17 November 2010


We have just confined an anti-sonnet
actually trapped a bit of quatrain
in trochaic rather than iambic
pentameter: DEATH be NOT proud THOUGH--


James Penha edits The New Verse News.
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THE RECOLLECTION OF OTHERS

by Buff Whitman-Bradley


When his memory fails to show up for work one day
He decides to hire one
From an international corporation
That has purchased at very reasonable prices
Millions of perfectly functioning memories
From the unfortunate poor all over the world
So grateful for a handful of coins

He finds that the memory
Performs the required tasks efficiently and effectively
And without complaint
What goes in is what comes out --
Appointments addresses phone numbers
Checkbook balances the GDP the price of coltan
The names of people he meets at cocktail parties
When his library books are due
His second cousin's birthday
Where he left his keys

However from time to time he experiences certain anomalies
For example vivid images of helicopter gunships
Firing into occupied houses
Body parts twitching in the dust
Security forces dragging him from his people's land
Soldiers raping him in front of his children
Prison guards sodomizing him
With a broomstick
An orange-haired balloon-bellied toddler
Unable even to cry
Dying in his arms

So he sends that memory back and tries out a few more
Only to discover that the nightmarish episodes are much the same
Yet he does his best not to give in to despair
To keep his spirits up and carry on
Then quite unexpectedly one morning
His own memory returns to the job
And he is able to experience once again
The pleasure of recalling the beautiful old house he grew up in
Summers at the lake
His first convertible
Passionate sexual encounters
The births of his children
To experience once again
The pleasure of carrying out the business of his days
And of sleeping soundly through his nights
Untroubled by the recollections of the others


Buff Whitman-Bradley is a peace and social justice activist in Northern California. In addition to writing, he produces documentary videos and audios. With his wife Cynthia, he is co-producer/director of the award winning video Outside In, about people who visit prisoners on San Quentin's death row.
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CONNECTED

by Fred Schraff


Worldwide consumers’
voracious appetites
for cell phones, laptops
and MP3 players
fuel Africa’s darkest side
where minerals containing
tungsten, tin and tantalum
are mined at gunpoint
by terrorized workers
conveyed by smugglers
to far east processors
for anonymous rebirth
as electronics purchased
in countries by people
who don’t want to know.


Fred Schraff lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was born. He holds BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering. He currently works as a design engineer in an electronic company and writes poetry for relaxation.
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ONCE MORE WITH FEELING

by George Held
 

   Veterans’ Day, Nov. 11, 2010

Once more Armistice Day falls on 11/11

But in 2010 who knows what “armistice”

Or “caisson” mean?

Once more the boys (& girls) are “over there,”

In unimaginable places called Iraq

And Afghanistan.

At 11 AM the big parade up Fifth Avenue

Begins with files of Korean War Vets, a few

WW II Vets later,

And a float carrying three little old men

With a sign saying they are our oldest

Medal of Honor recipients

And the crowd hold signs that say “We ♥ Vets”

And “Thank you, Thank you” cascades from voices

Young and old, foreign and native.

Patriotism is hip again, supporting the troops

Is cool again, maybe even war is in again:

“This is my country!”

Plays the high school band from Topeka, then

Segues into “America, the Beautiful” in march

Tempo, and I wave

My little American flag; then kilted bagpipers

From a Marine Corps auxiliary outfit play

“Amazing Grace,”

And I tear up, and wave after wave

Of uniformed veterans march by

In perfect fall weather:

The Vietnam Vets, once shunned, now idols

Of a grateful nation, especially grateful that now

There’s no draft.

At the end, to much applause, come Iraq Vets—

Iraq, lost cause of a devious leadership—and Afghan Vets—

Who sacrificed

For another feckless regime—and they are few,

Because most have been redeployed

Multiple times

And those back home have PTSD

Or bodies unfit for marching in parades,

And some are AWOL,

And then the endless march sends forth

Gorgeously reconditioned ’40s and ’50s cars,

Even a LaSalle,

And Humvees and weapons carriers, driven by Vets,

And uniformed school children lug 30-foot-square

American flags,

And then I see the Iran Vets and the Pakistan Vets

And the other veterans of the future in this state

Of perpetual war,

And another marching band plays “God

Bless America,” and I pray to the empty sky,

“Yes, God bless us.”

George Held’s poetry chapbook Phased is available in a print-on-demand version at amazon.com.
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THE JOSEPH GRASSI FILM SERIES

by Bill Costley

Ex-Fr. Joseph Grassi (S.J.) is dying.
We’ve renamed his film series after him.
Most recently he showed my & Woody
Allen’s favorite film: “Bicycle Thieves”
(1948, Italy), directed by Vittorio De Sica.

We’ve just showed “Bite the Bullet” (1975),
next up is “The Professionals” (1966) both
written & directed by Richard Brooks
who directed “Elmer Gantry” (1960), Sinclair
Lewis' satire on freewheeling '20s evangelism.

We’re doing what we can to continue Joe’s
service to the senior citizens who live here
at Valley Village in Santa Clara. We may
choose less famous films, but we’ve added
a commentator who was on the set & met

the director. We’re calling that authenticity,
something rare in these times of rabidly
unverifiable partiginous propaganda intent
on dismantling this country quickly while
we’re trying to keep this country in frame.


Bill Costley has served on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the National Writers Union. He lives in Santa Clara, CA.
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THE LAUGHING CURE

by Judy Kronenfeld


“…to perpetually circumnavigate the globe,
spreading laughter from continent to continent.”
         --“The Laughing Guru,” The New Yorker


A chuckle at the negotiating
table, almost completely
suppressed, like a burp, as Abu Mazen startles
awake, having dreamt
of his oldest son as a child
climbing into his lap
to tweak his ear. And Bibi,
hearing, he thinks, one tiny hee
that seems to end in a glottal stop
feels an odd tickle in his throat.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying
he doesn’t know who has told
the crowd there are gays
in Iran, ‘cause there are not, titters
into his lifted arm. Kim Jong-Il,
stuffed with giant rabbit meat,
giggles as he topples off
his platform shoes.
Myanmar’s Than Shwe remembers
a joke told by one of the two Moustache Brothers
he imprisoned, and guffaws.  Marxist Mugabe slips
on the marble floor of his 25-bedroom palace
and horse-laughs until he roars.
A great wave, like wind
mowing down wheat across
the American plains, across the vast
breadbasket of Russia, roiling
the Atlantic, making the Pacific seethe, rushes around
the globe. The Janjaweed’s Kalashnikovs
shake in their arms as they split
their sides, and  tears spill
from their eyes. The Taliban in Kandahar
cackle and shriek and let their AK-47s
fall, as they roll on the floors
of their caves. Al-Qaeda in Peshawar
leave off building their IEDs;
they burst their seams, they pee
in the pants of their shalwar kameezes,
they laugh until they drop.
And then they all stop.


Judy Kronenfeld is the author of  two books and two chapbooks of poetry. Her most recent full collection is Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize (Litchfield Review Press, 2008); her most recent chapbook is Ghost Nurseries (Finishing Line, 2005).  Her poems, as well as the occasional short story and personal essay have appeared in many print and online journals including New Verse News, Calyx, Cimarron Review, The American Poetry Journal, Fox Chase Review, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Natural Bridge, The Hiram Poetry Review, Passager, Poetry International,  The Spoon River Poetry Review, Stirring, The Women’s Review of Books and The Pedestal, as well as in a dozen anthologies or text books, including Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California (Greenhouse Review Press/Alcatraz Editions, 2008), Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease (Kent State University Press, 2009), and Love over 60: An Anthology of Women's Poems (Mayapple Press, 2010).
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ATOMIC DREAMS

by Kim Doyle


He threw himself on top of her,
the flash of intense light had seared
his eyes, even though he was inside,
wide awake in bed.

We're dead, he thought.
In truth, the computer died,
the night light went out, she sighed
and objected thinking that

it was some sort of night passion.
The waves of sound followed
rolling and crashing.
Atomics he shouted out loud.

It must be the Capital so far off,
so god damned proud.
He heard the trees outside sizzle,
and a drizzle of something scorch the roof.

Al-Qaeda, Real IRA, Democrats, Republicans -
any group without reason.
The end of the silly season.
Hate the traitor, love the treason.


Kim Doyle is an Op/Ed poet for The Brunswick Citizen and remembers "Duck and Cover."  Now that was really silly. 
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DID YOU KNOW?

by Steve Hellyard Swartz


Did you know that Obama's trip to India is costing one trillion dollars per day, and that's a conservative estimate?

Did you know that we have sent 100,000 Persian cats, each one a certified black-belt sensei, on several Navy warships, to the Gulf of Bombay, just in case?

Did you know that a cabal of liberal Jewish filmmakers, led by a dozen Judd Apatow-lookalikes, are filming Obama's triumphal return to his birthplace of Indonesia, which will have its world premiere in front of a delirious crowd of 150,000 octaroon Hitler Youth at a rally in Nuremberg, Germany just in time for the Presidential election of 1936?

Did you know that when my mother broke her hip on Saturday morning, the hospital ER admission clerk gave me a dirty look when I said: "You still accept Medicare here"?


Steve Hellyard Swartz is Poet Laureate of Schenectady, NY. He is a frequent contributor to New Verse News. Swartz is a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee for Poetry. His poems have appeared in The Patterson Review, The Southern Indiana Review, The Kennesaw Review, and online at Best Poem and switched-on gutenberg. He is the winner of a First Place Award given by the Society of Professional Journalists for Excellence in Broadcasting. In 1990, Never Leave Nevada, a movie he wrote and directed, opened at the US Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
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