SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

by David Southward

"St. George" by Salvador Dalí (1971)

Four nights in a row, the motorcade
of believers rolls past my house,
ignoring the mayor’s curfew. Bullhorns
blaring, they ride on the roofs
of moving sedans, brandishing signs
to remind a republic of the dying words
of George Floyd: I can’t breathe!

I think about history’s martyrs—
those saints of the early church
swallowed by Rome’s imperial machine,
who couldn’t possibly have known
how they would be transformed
by common love and fury
into heroes and miracle-workers.

Take Saint George. Once
a nobody—a lowly foot soldier
in Rome’s legions—he died clinging
to his faith in a better world. Today
he gleams from Europe’s stained-glass
windows, resplendent in his armor
as he stands on a dragon’s hide.

David Southward teaches in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of Apocrypha (Wipf & Stock 2018) and Bachelor’s Buttons (Kelsay Books 2020).

A SONNET FOR GEORGE FLOYD AND MANY MORE

by Scot Slaby

Old white knights sit atop white steeds
believing blindly that their deeds
are God-ordained—a Christian right-
ness coupled with systemic white-
ness—ancient notions from the West.
They claim their weapons are the best.
Their helmets shield us from their faces.
Do they protect and serve all places?
Black knights have seen this all before:
refusing to bow before a Moor,
white knights wage wars to hold their power.
They raze our homes; their flames devour.

We must resist. We know it's right
to kneel. To raise one fist. To fight.

Scot Slaby's chapbooks include The Cards We've Drawn (Bright Hill Press, 2013) and Bugs Us All (Entasis Press, 2016). His poems have appeared in The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms, Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Authors, unsplendid, and elsewhere. An international educator, he divides his time between Shanghai, China and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

THE FLAMINGO CUP

by Jenny Doughty

The last time I cried was when I heard my daughter try and explain events on the TV to her three year old. There were protest marches, she started to say but Katie interrupted, What’s a protest march? My daughter hesitated. Katie flourished a cup picturing a pink flamingo. She’d liberated it from her baby sister earlier. Was it over a flamingo cup? The strain hit me of a week spent watching a black man die under a white cop’s knee, hearing I can’t breathe, seeing blood flow from baton blows, people gasp and choke from tear gas or bruised by rubber bullets. Baby girl, yes, it was all about a flamingo cup. It was about some people wanting all the flamingo cups and others having to use their cupped hands. It was about some people whose flamingo cups overflowed with the juiciest juice while others drank lead-tainted water from faucets. It was about cops stopping black people who had flamingo cups because they might have stolen them from white people. It was about people with the biggest and best flamingo cups taking them from others who were left, like your baby sister, crying on the floor. Sometimes it was about stopping somebody else from taking your flamingo cup when they already had their own but wanted more. It was about caring about that flamingo cup so much that you no longer cared about the person holding it, even if that person was left with only cupped hands to drink from or crying on the floor or crushed under a knee, not breathing.

Jenny Doughty is a former English teacher and Education Adviser to Penguin UK.  Originally British, she has lived in Maine since 2002. Her poems have appeared in The Aurorean, Pulse online review, Naugatuck River Review, Four Way Review, and several anthologies. She is currently President of the Maine Poets Society. Her first book of poems Sending Bette Davis to the Plumber was published by Moon Pie Press in 2017.

IN THE CONTEXT

by George Held

When long waves roll in at Napeague and roil the tidal pools, I feel nature’s force and nature’s balm soothing my wounded body and my troubled mind,

All in the context of Covid-19, the plague upon all houses...

Ah, “coronavirus,” that beautiful poetical word, amphibrach + trochee, a perfect word for free verse, a word that can break any meter the way the virus can break down any human organ—

“Coronavirus” - caress its divine sonic details on the tongue, in the pharynx, the miraculous voice box,

As you murmur the all-consuming word—
coronavirus,
coronavirus,
coronavirus


George Held, a longtime contributor to TheNewVerse.News, is sheltering in Eastern Long Island.

IF I COULD BLOCK YOUR ANTI-BLM TWEETS, BY GOD, I WOULD

by K Roberts

“All lives matter,” you sniffed,
and I marvel at how glibly
a cry for help
is transformed into a grammar lesson.

We are dying, they said to you,
and within your bleached brain
you donned a miniaturizing monocle.
You placed a mirror over your ears, like a hearing aid.

If a man is drowning
will apostrophes keep him afloat?
If a house is burning
will conjugating “veni, vidi, vici” dowse the flames?

America, the stones in your foundation are on fire.
Put down the textbook. Pick up a bucket.
The colorless gas
of cowardice and silence
is poisoning us all.


K Roberts is a professional non-fiction writer.

ROCK ART

by Geoffrey Aitken

John Boyega  issued an emotional rallying cry in support of Black Lives Matter in London's Hyde Park on June 4. 'I need you to understand how painful it is to be reminded every day that your race means nothing,' the Star Wars actor said. 'Black lives have always mattered.'

anger
is frowned upon
unless morphed
into articulations
for interpretation
by lawyers
weighed
valued
returned
for implementation
almost unrecognizable
and impotent
and so
some aren’t waiting
        until it becomes metaphysical


Geoffrey Aitken is regarded as an emerging poet in his home State of South Australia and writes pithy poetry (after a time of poor mentals). He does not dwell. He is older. Recently published in Flashes of Brilliance (US x 2), Aesthetica (UK).

CO'VID-AS'

by L.A. Pontes

An anti-government demonstrator wearing a protective face mask holds a poster representing a coffin of a victim of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) with the message "30,000 deaths, so what?", during a protest named "Amazonas for Democracy" in Manaus, Brazil, June 2, 2020. © REUTERS/Bruno Kelly via France 24, June 2, 2020

The face of the infamous man is painted in black with red dripping fangs on the tall walls of the house on the corner.
"Fora Bolsonaro!" with the colors of the rainbow.
As the pans bang in every window—the ‘panelaco’ hour—the little girl fights with the dogs for bones tossed on the empty streets. The dogs are dying alone.
Her dark skin shows ghostly on orange lights.
She wears no mask, her face is empty.
The "little flue" had made a ghost out of her stoned mother and enemies out of friends. Mother stands tall in her grave.
Manoela climbs the tree on the corner and chews the splintered bone. She wished she had fangs like the monster.

L.A. Pontes is a Brazilian writer living with his wife and six dogs on the bushy outskirts near the city of Belo Horizonte. His writing has appeared in LITRO UK. He shares with all conscious Brazilian citizens a deep disgust with the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

SHELTER II

by Corey Weinstein

    at the foot of Sinai

Meandering through our sheltered lives of isolation
A fortnight and forty nine mark the days of our trek
Weeks weeping with news, sidewalks burdened by tents
Safer than starving migrant workers tramping home
More generous than gang youth herded into gladiator pits
Than daughters crying goodbye through computer screens
This trudge of my safety through a retreat of comfort
I look to those who have endured decades locked
down in eight by ten concrete and steel tombs
They at my right arm of justice, left of compassion
My teachers of confinement, five decades at their knee
Bang on my pipe, whisper somethings into my vent
Fly me a kite on a string through others’ hands
Design my program from wake up to bed down
Rise for tea and slow stretch and slower meditation
Gratitude, healing, love, praise, respect for the elders
Eat, walk, write, trash, eat, read, tidy, rehearse, eat,
dishes, news, read, TV, lockup, gray head weekly shop
Make sure the canteen is paid up and shelves are full
Decaf black, Rooibos, Hawthorne, Lemon Verbena
Sleepy Time, chocolate, hummus, cabernet—the essentials
Make sure the letters are written, calls made, people loved.
Boredom, comfort and routine seem too much the same
As the new moon brings us cowering to the foot of Sinai
We descendants of Noah through Shem enter full footed into
hallways of the breathless dying, and acres of coffin digs
More black men officially murdered, again and again
Exploding into the rage of youth, of those left further behind
How can we find the radiance borne of inner wisdom, of hope
Of gratitude or new knowledge, of being touched by the ineffable
We cover up while societies are unmasked, still and always
Worse for the worst off, and not so good for me either.

Corey Weinstein is a retired physician who works for the human rights of prisoners. He is founder of California Prison Focus that advocates for prisoners in long term solitary confinement. He has published two CDs of music largely inspired by the klezmer and Yiddish stage musical traditions and has written and produced a play in song staged in 2016 in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar. His poetry has been published in Jewish Currents, Vista and Byways, and Forum (City College of San Francisco).

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

by Marsha Owens  

Credit Warren F. Johnson, Photographer

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."  1 Corinthians 13-12


The black eye
of the storm
is the safest place
we’re told.

I don’t know blackness
slumped in the abyss
of my white privilege

yet I see broken
everywhere,
a prism of shame
shattered
beyond words.


Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA. Her writing has appeared in print publications, including The Huffington Post, Wild Word Anthology, The Sun, and online at TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rat’s Ass Review, and Rise Up Review. She is a co-editor of the poetry anthology, Lingering in the Margins.

WRESTLED

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S.

Open palms by Pasqi

"If violence isn’t the way to end racism in America, then what is?” 

—Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian, May 30, 2020               

i wrestled for days to discover
the one   right   thing
one answer to help heal
our nation’s white wound of privilege
what i learned in that starkness
was the anguished lesson
of my own poverty
that is   to sit in the stillness of solidarity
knowing there is no one right answer
save in the empty begging bowl
of the open palms of my hands
which i will fill
each night with my tears

Sister Lou Ella is a former teacher and librarian. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and TheNewVerse.News as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker, and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015. (Press 53.)

LAST WORDS

by Joan Mazza

Without TV, I turn to the Internet to see
videos of crowds rushed by the police
with shields and full riot gear as they push
back protestors. Tear gas and smoke,
shouting, chanting one man’s name,
his last words an echo of another’s—

I can’t breathe.

So many people pushed together, crowds
breathing each other’s breaths, droplets
of anger and outrage pooling to form
a stream, a river, an ocean of grief,
hundreds of years of slave masters
and tyrants, bullies and dictators.

I can’t breathe.

Gowned and masked, medical workers
adjust tubing and drips, hear last gasps
of the those dying alone. No visitors
allowed. We’re socially distant, isolated,
afraid of friends and family who have
marched to say no to brutality.

I can’t breathe.

George Floyd, your name enters
the litany with Philando Castile, Sandra
Bland, Michael Brown, Eric Garner.
White, armed protestors who threaten
the Wisconsin governor’s life are met
with hard stares, not tear gas.

I can’t breathe.

I’m coughing. My throat is sore. My eyes
hurt, joints ache. Ticks and pollen
are thick this year. The news is muddy.
Our president is no leader, no comfort.
He threatens more beatings, promises
shooting will reign supreme.

I can’t breathe.


Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, and The Nation.

AMERICAN PLAGUE

by Jan Steckel

“Bug Bell Jar 3” Color Screen Print on 250gsm Stonehenge by Emma Wiesenekker

Ensconced in my 1926 paint-peeling
clapboard-rotting Oaktown bungalow
on the eleventh day of George Floyd
I-Can’t-Breathe marches, three months
into COVID-19 Bay Area lockdown.
Ate the last big-pharm pain pill.
Looters hit our CVS, so I’m texting
photos to GreenRush Cannabis Delivery:
driver’s license, medical marijuana card,
a postmarked envelope to me myself,
so they’ll hand-deliver me CBD balm.
Those dudes are intrepid: not rain
nor snow nor sleet nor tear gas. I could just
handshake-buy shake from the boys
hanging out unmasked in front
of the Korean liquor store all day,
but I’m trying to preserve that fragile
lung tissue, don’t want to aggravate
my alveoli, because I’m high-risk
four different ways. I no longer
venture out of my crib, just click
click click my thumbs while humming
"We Shall Overcome" to the rhythm
of flash bangs and helicopter blades.
Once I marched for Black Lives Matter.
Now I’m a bug in a bell jar launching
bucks through the ether at bail funds.
My hair grows in wavy and gray.
For exercise I prune deadfall,
clear long grass and blackberry vines
from the  backyard fence,
waiting for fire season to spark,
black smoke to roll. Oh Lord when
will we all be able to breathe?


Jan Steckel is a former pediatrician who stopped practicing medicine because of chronic pain. Her latest poetry book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, December 2018) is a finalist for poetry in the Bi Book Awards. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, TheNewVerse.News, November 3 Club, Assaracus and elsewhere.

THE DOOR

by Katherine West

"But it falls on all of us, regardless of our race or station—including the majority of men and women in law enforcement who take pride in doing their tough job the right way, every day—to work together to create a ‘new normal’ in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts.”  —Barack Obama, May 29, 2020

There is a door—
someone has left it open
just a little bit
so a band of light
runs along the floor
to where we stand in the dark
touches the feet
of the first in line

I can tell this makes them happy
even though their backs are to me
something about the relaxed
line of their shoulders
the ease of the way they turn their heads
this way
then that
confident
it won't be long now

The band of light
doesn't touch my feet—
I'm about halfway down the line
even if I stood on tiptoe
or craned my neck to one side
I couldn't get a good view
through the door

So I look at the line—
it starts out white with reflected light
then gets darker and darker
the further away it reaches
down the dim hall where we wait—
the first in line are clear cut
their collars
their buttons
outlined in light
but the ones behind me blur
into a single
black
unmoving
cloud

I wait for someone to step out of this cloud
to show me details
beautiful details
of finger and face
soft lips
the curve of forehead
I wait for the music
of speech
laughter
for an empty space
inside me
to fill

Then I feel it
a weight
in the space that is not empty
a weight that shifts
like a child
impatient to be born—
then it kicks
something bursts
and I see
hundreds of eyes meeting mine—
candles, stars, constellations...
we all move at the same time and the line
is broken


Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near the Gila Wilderness, where she writes poetry about the soul-importance of wilderness, performs it with her musician husband, Yaakov, and teaches seasonal poetry workshops that revolve around "wilderness writing."  She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, and TheNewVerse.News  which recently nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize.

LAST DAYS OF FREEDOM

by Mickey J. Corrigan

What about the women who think
they are shore birds in startled flight
over the unruffled sand, eggs nestled
in jagged rock crevices slap-fed
by the bathe and bash sea?

Don't blame the shoreline, comfortable
in the lap and suckle, the eating away
the sloping of high grass dunes
hillcrests ever flattened by time
and growth spurts of starlit cities.

What about the clotted clapboard graves
narrow streets, neighborhoods blissful
in their ignorance, their pancake morning
sameness, their white cream frosting
smothering rich cakes of desire?

Don't blame the strong men barging
onto the ark, boarding forcefully
pillage in their knife eyes, hammy fists
full of weaponry, double strapped bullets
draped across broad hairy chests.

What about the meat-and-potato talk
in the pubs and pastel living rooms
all our fears shrunk to shadows
blued under hot white moons
gibboning in a lurching black?

Don't blame the suck and slur of the tide
days trailing by, forgetting themselves
in the flutterkick to a shared illusion
spoon-fed to us in flying dreams

the windswept sky like a blue door
that will swing shut behind us.


Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include  Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self.