ROVE GOPushes BARTLEBY

By Bill Costley


[A tragic GOPlaylet]

Behind double-locked White House doors
in a miniscule room with only [1] window
Karl Rove berates Rep. Bartleby Scrivener
for his pitiful lack of GOP@rty enthusiasm:

Rove: “Do you know what’s @ stake here?”
“Only the eternal GOPresidency!”
Bartleby (groaning): “I prefer not2.”

Rove: “Your preference is GOPre-fixed!”
“You already pre-prefer the GOP!”
Bartleby (moaning):“I prefer not2.”

Rove: (standing & looming over him):
“You have only 1way2go this Fall;
I’m shoving you on2 the GOP@th.”

Bartleby: (frightened) “I prefer not2!”
crawlingon2 the open window ledge.

Rove (pushing Bartleby): “Jump!"
Bartleby (falling): “I GOPrefer not2.”

Rove (smiling): “He fell on-message.”


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. Volume Two of his epic-in-progress The CHENI@D appears here on The New Verse News.

WOMAN CRASHES WHEN TEACHING DOG TO DRIVE

by Rochelle Ratner


The story doesn't say what breed of dog it was, or
even if it was large or small. But a friend says she
bets it was a beagle. No, she thinks, couldn't have
been a beagle. Beagles don't crouch on the steering
wheel, they don't watch you drive, they're hunting
dogs, on the lookout for prey. Her puppy kept
outside all day after it playfully bit her. The picket
fence her father built. The puppy instinctively
digging, tunneling, then running, barking, standing in
the street. Lying in the street. Its body crushed like
the plastic model beagle she'd been pasting fake fur
on that she threw against the wall as soon as she got
home, ten years before her first official suicide
attempt. And it was only then that her mother
learned to drive.


Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.

FUTILITY MUSIC

by Alan Catlin


Futility Music

That's what they
call it:

the interrogators,
assassins
spooks

Heavy metal to us

Twisted Sister
Metallica
Kiss

Angry music:

Limp Biskit
Slip Knot
Rage Against the Machine

"Interro-tunes"
say those in the trade,
approved by your
Defense Department

"Mood music for
jolting your jihad"

Unholy, infidel
noise, horror sounds

the ultimate
cultural clash:
pure torture:

"We're Not Going to Take It"
"Shoot to Thrill"
"The Sandman"

Drowning Pool,
"Let the Bodies Hit the Floor"


Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", and updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower administration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. One year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.

WHY DO THEY HATE US?

By Charles Frederickson


US versus THEM bombastic confrontations
Mucky environment pitting drastic extremes
Absolutely good versus relatively evil
Pure white abysmal black dichotomies

Divisive hypocritical double standard contradictions
More farcical tragedy than strategy
Think tank running on empty
Losing side out of gas

Globe neatly divided into categories
Perceived adversaries or feckless friends
No neutral ground sinking quicksand
Where wronged left is right

Warped false truths destruction bent
Unintended consequences facing innocent victims
Intimidation humiliation desperation root causes
Poverty versus greed hapless powerlessness

Violence begetting more senseless violence
Dichotomy between enlightenment and darkness
Lunar phase disk half illuminated
Counterfeit promises passing the buck

Avenging angel creating worldly hell
Haloes versus horns derisive put-downs
Does black-and-white color blindness represent
Moral clarity or sheer madness?!


Dr. Charles Frederickson is a Swedish-American-Thai 4midable, 10acious, cre8ive 1derer who has wandered intrepidly through 206 countries, an original sketch and poem for each presented on http://www.imagesof.8k.com. This maverick uniquecorn is a member of World Poets Society, based in Greece, with 100+ poetry publication credits on 5 continents, such as: Ascent Aspirations, Auckland Poetry, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Both Sides Now, Caveat Lector, Cordite Poetry Review, Dance to Death, Greatworks, Green Dove, Indite Circle, Listen & Be Heard, Living Poets, Madpoetry, Melange, Newtopia, New Verse News, Planet Authority, Poetry Canada, Poetry of Scotland, Poets for Peace, Poetry Superhighway, Pyramid, Sz, Ya’Sou.

BUSH SETS THE AMERICAN PUBLIC STRAIGHT

by Anne G. Davies


Fellow Americans, you need to understand
Victory in Iraq is not yet at hand.
We have a big problem with Islamic militias
Who behave in a manner barbaric and vicious.
If we don't inflict massive defeats
We'll be fighting terrorists on U.S. streets.

You see, these folks really hate freedom
But we'll try to convert 'em and lead 'em
Toward democratic ways and means
Or blow them all to smithereens.

War is hard on innocent civilians
But America's invested multi-billions
To wipe out the evils of Saddam's reign
And give the Iraqis a peaceful domain.

American forces will remain at their post
Until these fiendish militias are toast.
I can rely on intervention divine
To make it happen before 2009.


Anne G. Davies is a fund-raising writer by profession and a writer and versifier by avocation. Her work has been published on local and regional papers. She lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

WMD & OUR PRESIDENT AGAIN

by Gary Kay


WMD
The case for WMD--
discarded, departed or dead.
Where can these weapons be found?

Inside the president's head.


Our President Again
presents the case for war.
The choice is clear, his mouth insists,
eyes shifting with the light.
We fight them there, or fight them here.
The one beside you on the plane,
the bus, the train,or in your car
could be a terrorist.
Beware of those who smile or wave.

They're holding hostages, he says,
in Gaza, Baghdad, Lebanon,
omitting U.S.A.


Gary Kay has had poems published in California Literary Quarterly, Poetica, Canadian Verse, Litchfield Review, Sheltering Pines. He teaches reading and English at Broward Community College in south Florida.

TRYING TO KEEP OUT THE BIRDS

by Elizabeth Farrell


We have tried netting over the bushes;
a mesh canopy nailed on a wooden frame
to mark the boundary of where the birds
may not go. They flew in anyway.

Fluttering their wings in confusion
with blueberry in their beak, sometimes
they made it back to the free sky,
and other times their wings were caught.

We took pity and brought our fingers
to pry them loose, or saw too late
the silent hanging body and cut away the mesh
to release what remained of bone or feather.

Perhaps we should regret that we want
the dark purple sweetness to collect in numbers
at the bottom of our bowls, or have enough
to fill the crust of a pie shell.

We know we have our own confusion
about taking what we think is ours,
rustling the leaves to pull from the branches
what would have been only for the birds

had we not tried to construct this barrier
between us. So we've created a war
in a yard that might have mimicked Eden
had it not been for our appetites.


Elizabeth Farrell has a poem forthcoming in the anthology, The Chaos of Angels. She has published in numerous periodicals, been a copy writer, and worked in advertising in Chicago. She has been a teacher of creative writing in various schools in New England where she lives.

THE HORSES AT TROY

by Barbara McDonald


The horses at Troy wore bells
To drown out the horrors of battle.
Jingling sleigh bells distracted them
From the crushing of bones, the breaking of bones.
For ten years the Trojans and Achaians fought.
Chariots careened across the great plain
Led by magnificient steeds with bells on their bridles
To mask the chaos of combat,
The manisfestations of pain.
Iraq is a different kind of war.
Hummers rather than horses,
Rockets, guns, human greandes.
Gone are the spears, arrows and swords.
This war is fought over oil and greed
Not for a beauty spawned by a god.
Warriors return limbless, broken, shattered
Or in draped coffins hidden from public view.
It is the fourth year of battle. Each evening
Likenesses of dead heroes flash across the screen,
All that remain of intrepid young soldiers.
Unlike the horses we have no bells to shield us.
The horror is transparent.
So we weep for the dead, the injured, the maimed
And wonder what we have gained.


Barbara McDonald lives in Greenbrae, California. Her work has appeared in anthologies and periodicals. She is currently working on a play about a soup kitchen.

A FROG AND A PAN OF WATER

by Mike McCulley


Put a frog in a pan of water,
let him relax, slowly add heat.
The frog adapts and settles in,
he can forecast the present

but not the future, he can’t tell
what’s coming. Increase the heat
and the frog gets anxious,
tell him it’s a natural cycle.

Add more heat, the frog starts to worry,
tell him the scientists don’t agree
on pan warming, it’s not our fault,
it’s beyond our control. Increase the heat,

the frog says it’s never been this hot,
there’s never been so much steam,
old ways need to change.
Tell him not to worry,

the solution is technology.
When the steam clears
cash out the carcass,
get a new frog, and a pan of water.


Mike McCulley: Retired from educating / rewired for recreating / pastime birding, / part time wording.

DRY HEAT

by David Chorlton


We say the heat is dry
to deflect from its burn.
We call uncontrolled expansion
into the desert growth
suggesting houses are a life form
that flourishes without water.
Words have begun to wear a disguise.
Even the freedom
the president keeps boasting
feels like we’ve drawn the blank tile
in a Scrabble game
only to find all the words on the board
are already complete.
Homeland Insecurity would better name
the office responsible
for patting us down at the airport
and every time I hear the city
has a village plan
I look for rural life
but find only herds of cars
grazing at stop lights.
Free speech zones
make the areas surrounding demonstrations
safe for censorship
while democracy metamorphoses
into five hundred dollar
fundraising meals
where the tables are set
with the bones of victims
from foreign policy deployments.
Terror is the key
of the age, repeated often
to inspire love of country
and to foment war
which is another word for it.
Economics is the science
of loose change trickling down
to a minimum wage
in a working week
with hours based
on a forty-eight hour day.
English only is the language
of thieves
intent on stealing culture
from illegals who smuggle themselves
across borders
that capital is free to cross
without the Minutemen reporting it.
The rich get richer
in this climate
of a hundred degrees
while the poor rest when they can
but it’s only
dry heat.


David Chorlton has spent the last twenty-eight years in Phoenix, trailing English and Austrian roots. His poems have appeared widely in the small presses and he currently anticipates a new book, Waiting for the Quetzal, from March Street Press. It reflects his increasing preoccupation with the natural world.

DER SCHEISSM@N SPEAKS

a Labor Day poem
by Bill Costley


auf B.B.

All of you have seen me walk behind;
none of you will see me walk before
Der Elef@nt as it stupidly scheisses
fouling the Cirkus' Parade; quickly, I
shovel-up its scheiss before comrades
slip & slide & smirk like silly clowns.

My work is just as useful as yours is
& so I proudly bear my worker-title
on my uniform-back: Der Scheissm@n.
Comrade, consider the Cirkus? pitiful
state if I did not do my work so well:
Der Elef@nt is not the only scheisser.


Bill Costley serves on the Steering Committee of the San Francisco chapter of the National Writers Union. Volume Two of his epic-in-progress The CHENI@D appears here on The New Verse News.

PACKING

by Elizabeth Farrell


We make a list of things to pack: toothpaste,
shampoo, aloe vera in case of sunburn.

How simple to take our carry on bags,
avoid long lines at the airport.

The news intrudes on our vacation. Returning home
will not be so easy; security rules are in effect.

Gathering the lipstick, shaving cream and gels
a terrorist might use to disguise explosives on the plane,

we send them in a box to our home address instead
of discarding them at the departure gate.

Our teeth brushed with water, there is no escaping
what could be delivered to our doorstep.


Elizabeth Farrell wrote advertising copy in her early years in Chicago. She settled in southeastern Massachusetts where she raised two sons with her husband. Her poems have appeared in Animus, Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge, New Bedford Magazine, The Onset Review, and many others. She has been writer-in-residence in several schools. She has a new poem in the forthcoming anthology, The Chaos of Angels.

HOW TO ACHIEVE WETBACK STATUS

by Margaret Towner


She showed up
in my classroom,
one day, a tiny
sliver of life.
Wisps of wilted
plumes framed
her eyes, the color
of the river.
Once left behind
on the rancho
by her mother,
she now carried
buoyant hope north.
School was of no use
when she arrived.
She knew no books,
but she knew
about the river.

The coyotes
never asked
if she knew
how to swim.
They blew up
plastic grocery
bags, tied them
to her arms,
you know,
like wings.
At school
she spoke
of the mud,
how it oozed up
between her toes.
How her feet sank
into the sludge.

She spoke of fear
that wrapped around
her skin like darkness,
of stepping off
into nothing
with only plastic
bags around her arms.
She whispered
of haunting voices
that called her
into the river
as she clung
to the embankment.
Searching for her mother
where water and night
become just one,
she sought to keep
her hope afloat.
I watched
the other girls
encircle her,
as her words traced
the path of the water.
Like she-dogs
they shielded her
from fly balls
on the playground
and hovered close,
as if their presence
could erase that
night, so they could
all forget the
journey north.


Margaret Towner has taught elementary school for many years, working in bilingual programs and with English language learners. She has lived many years in Latin America and performs in a Latin American folkmusic group. A participant in a poetry workshop led by Donna Hilbert, Margaret has been writing about the difficulties faced by immigrant students.

THE NEW YORK WOMAN LOOKS AGAIN AT KATRINA PHOTOS

by Rochelle Ratner


on this, the storm's first anniversary. Vivid photos.
Bright blue skies and golden water, the facade left on
some buildings also golden. Reflected orange flames
are sheer magnificence. Red cars wading up to their
bumpers look as if they'd always yearned to swim.
Outside the Convention Center, even the camouflage
uniforms are reflected bright tan and green in
standing water. A little boy's riding piggy-back.
And no matter how high it rises, water covers refuse.
The New York Woman who once thought of herself as a
photographer turns to look at the dull blues, greys
and browns of her wedding photos. It was pouring
rain that day. The brightest spot is two blurry parrots
on their shoulders a month later, in Florida. She
thinks of them as her children.


Rochelle Ratner's latest poetry books include Balancing Acts (Marsh Hawk Press, 2006), Beggars at the Wall (Ikon, 2006) and House and Home (Marsh Hawk Press, 2003). She is the author of fifteen previous poetry collections and two novels (Bobby’s Girl and The Lion’s Share) both published by Coffee House Press). More information and links to her writing on the Internet can be found on her homepage.