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Thursday, March 28, 2024

ACCEPTABLE LEVELS OF CRUELTY, STEADILY RISING

by Gordon Gilbert




In the not-so-distant past,
genocidal acts, a holocaust,
distant from our shores,
rumoured only, but for most unseen,
finally revealed in retrospect
indelibly to soldiers’ eyes,
brought home in photographs,
not to be denied.
 
Ah, we said, if only… If only…
But we did not know
at the time, only later,
and alas, too late to do
what we surely would have done
had we only known…
 
But now this genocide comes to us live,
like a fog slowly lifting, revealing
the landscapes of barbarity:
bombs falling; the destruction of
homes & neighborhoods,
schools & hospitals,
mosques & churches;
the death of civilians—
babies,  children,  women,  men;
the cries and wails of those
(for now) still alive.
 
Survivors,
searching in the rubble for those they lost.
We know this time. 
We cannot say we do not know. 


Editor's note: The title of this poem is a line from “To the Days” by Adrienne Rich.


Gordon Gilbert is a writer living in NYC's west village.  During the pandemic, he often found solace and an inner sense of peace by taking walks along the nearby Hudson River; now he does so as unwilling witness to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

IMMIGRANT’S SONG

by Jim Burns


Riots broke out in Philadelphia after Nativists burned down a Catholic church in May 1844. This lithograph shows the Know-nothings (in the top hats) clashing with the state militia.


Out of the vapors
of the past
I come
to sing you a song
of the poor and huddled masses
who have gathered at your gates.

I am the inscrutable Chinese,
one of 20,000 from my land
who for a dollar a day built your
grand railway of the golden spike.

I am the drunken Irishman,
the mobbed-up Italian,
the ignorant Pole
who sweated and died
to forge the iron and erect
your palaces of steel.

I am the Shylock Jew 
whose sweatshop toil
made the clothes on your back,
but whose financial acumen you blame
for relieving you of your earnings.

I am the the suspected spy,
the German who had to change my name
to protect me from your Klan
when first our countries fought.

I am the devious Japanese whose family
were reviled as turncoats
and dwelt in your internment camps
while in Europe I fought and died for you.

I am the wild-eyed son of Middle Eastern deserts
denied entry into your land 
and murdered in your cities
because of the evil of a few
who, like me, pray to Allah.

I am of those deemed not human at your southern border,
who braved deserts and human predators
to pick your crops, roof your homes,
tend your lawns,
do the jobs your sons won’t do.

Think of me as you will,
but Lady Liberty, 
raise your torch to me.
I am America,
I am you.


Jim Burns was born and raised in rural Indiana and received degrees from both Indiana State University and Indiana University. He then spent most of his working years as a librarian. A few years into his retirement he turned to a decades old interest in writing, especially poetry, and in the last two years has been fortunate enough to have published 18 poems and two short pieces of nonfiction online, in print or both. He lives with wife and dog in Jacksonville, Florida.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

SIMPLY, CATHERINE

by Suzanne Morris




...is how I chose,
in the end,

to remember her name
on the prayer list

to be read aloud
in Sunday worship.

Not Catherine,
Princess of Wales

or Kate, as she is
familiarly known,

but rather, simply, Catherine.

Not because I
wanted to avoid

raising the ire of anyone
who disapproves of

the British monarchy’s
continued existence, or

starting a dialogue
in hushed tones

about how shabbily the Royals
had treated poor Meghan.

Not to put aside the question of
whether or not

anyone outside
the royal family

and the healthcare professionals
ministering to her

has a right to know
the precise location of

the 42-year-old woman’s
disease

or the degree of
its advance.

No, in the end, I wrote down
simply, Catherine

because I believe

the frail-looking woman,
wife, and mother of three,

sitting alone on a bench
in a striped sweater

that appeared a little
too large on her frame

marshaling all her energy to
assuage the world’s

insatiable desire for
information

will always be,
in the sight of God,

simply, Catherine.


Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, and a poet.  Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, and in online poetry journals including The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, and Stone Poetry Quarterly.  She resides in Cherokee County, Texas.

Monday, March 25, 2024

GOODBYE, KYIV

by Donald Sellitti




Goodbye, Kyiv and thank you
for the chance to stand in solidarity
with you at safe remove to
write of you with passion and with
anger in my slanted rhymes.

I cared a lot, I really did, and bared
my heart in lines I broke in
unexpected places, taking 
risks you wouldn’t 
understand.
You’re not a poet.
I was just as brave as you.

The moving zeitgeist though
has moved and left you 
far behind as winds of war
have blown again and lauded us with
new and fresher outrage for the
dead and dying. My anger needs
new tinder, not the charcoal
of your cities, for its burning.

I’m back inside my garden now
where themes of death and
inhumanity present themselves
in quaint and small tableaux.
A newly fallen tree; a spider that
I’d stepped on carelessly
with one leg tapping. Death is 
all around me as it is with you.

I might write of you again, Kyiv,
if something fresh emerges from
the blandness of unending war, 
a bomb as blinding as the sun 
perhaps, awash in metaphor.
But for now, goodbye Kyiv. 
Best wishes for the future,
really. 


Donald Sellitti honed his writing skills as a scientist/educator at a Federal medical school in Bethesda, MD before turning to poetry following his retirement. Numerous publications in journals with titles such as Cancer Research and Oncology Letters have been followed by publications in journals with titles like The Alchemy Spoon, Better than Starbucks, and Rat’s Ass Review, which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize in 2022.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

UNAUTHORIZED VERSION

by Julie Steiner


“Choir Boys 2” by Christina Clare


“There is no sorrow, pain, or woe…
no suffering He did not know,”
we used to sing. That’s how I knew
the Christ Child was molested, too.

Confused, afraid, and mortified,
He told His mom—who said He lied.
Since mine refused to understand,
I knew He’d known that, too, firsthand.

Each time He said or acted out
what children shouldn’t know about,
she spanked the young Emmanuel
and told Him He was bound for Hell.

That filthy-minded, foul-mouthed kid
reformed, because of what she did.
For decades, she’d congratulate
herself for having laced Him strait.

“I disciplined Him out of it,”
that saint would brag, while He’d just sit—
impassive, passive—and endure
her calling clobbering a cure.

(What “cured” us was we’d moved away
from those who’d made us frequent prey
on seeing no one took our word
for anything we said occurred.)

The current lyrics for that hymn
leave nothing fuzzy, nothing dim,
and nothing to be taken wrong
by snarky teens, who’d say the song

skipped birth pangs, menstrual cramps, and such.
But how I’d sung it was as much
support as victims might derive
back then, for having dared survive.

Let others sing the new, improved,
and ambiguity-removed
text. I can’t. I can’t unknow
the words I needed, long ago.


Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

THE IN-BETWEEN

by Kathy Conway




For a month, we’ve noticed 

tender green sprouts—

too early not to freeze or

be trampled, often poking

out of dried-brown leaves 

of last fall. Do you hear

their crinkle in

the breeze? 


On our walks, we’ve created 

a game—are they crocus, 

jonquils, tips of hosta? We’ve 

savored forsythia and lilac buds, 

the red tint of oaks, the pale 

green of maples. 


I have always loved early 

Spring’s pops of color, signs

of growth and new life to come;

births and passings of loved 

ones, of this year’s departed 

and a yet-to-be-born

grand-nephew.


This spring, we also have the brown 

water of floods and mudslides, 

the yellow and red flames of fire, 

leaving grey-black ash and debris

in war zones—Ukraine, Gaza, 

Haiti. And the orange man—I’ll 

not use his name—threatening 

a bloodbath.



Kathy Conway lives and writes in New England and is increasingly frustrated with the state of the world.

Friday, March 22, 2024

OH, ISRAEL

by Bonnie Proudfoot
Next Year in Jerusalem is said at the end of the Passover Seder. It is an ancient tradition that was first recorded by Isaac Tyrnau in the 15th century. Above art by Caren Garfen.


Oh, Israel, if my love is a suitcase, when I get to your house

I won't unpack, even though my mother and her mother,

my uncles and cousins are buried in pine boxes beneath

a star of David and our Rabbi wept for victims of the Holocaust,

 

cried for a homeland for the children of Zion. Yes, I used to feel

my chest swell open when I heard Hatikvah, yes, you've suffered,

people taken in sleep, in song, as they walked out of their homes.

I know you are perched on a precipice of strife. I too have felt

 

like a stranger in a strange land, my family holding our faith close

to shield us from hate or harm. Here, in the safety of my small

life, I see signs on the highway, a deer rearing up, a warning one

may careen across the road, but that isn't how it happens, not

 

right beside a road sign. When terror charged, you weren't

ready. I see stolen homes, stolen land. I see that hate calls out 

in darkness for more hate. Gazan families starve, pick through 

ashes to find bodies to bury while you shatter hospitals, shelters. 

 

I mean blood will stick to you, Israel. You shatter us too, we 

who were raised with a dream, who held you in the light each

Friday night. Two peoples, breath of one breath, voices raised to 

the same God. The more faith you steal, the less you'll keep.



Bonnie Proudfoot was raised in Queens, NY, and currently resides in Athens, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared previously in The New Verse News and many other fine journals and anthologies. Bonnie's first book of poems Household Gods was published by Sheila-Na-Gig editions, and her first novel Goshen Road was published by Swallow Press. It was named the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/Hemingway Award.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

MARCH



AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock


Once again we’ve let ourselves be taken in by spring. 
Words we haven’t spoken for months come tumbling 
from our mouths. Tulip, soil, survival. 
Fools that we are to trust a tease so early in the season, 
we need it like we need the cat to see ourselves 
in a rosier light—young and more attentive—aspiring 
to the better selves we seem to have forgotten. 
We need it like we need the moon to make the universe 
believable. I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to write 
a poem without any mention of spring or moon or hope
so maybe that’s worth a try. But night still comes too early. 
I see you’ve already poured the wine, set a glass 
beside my chair where a cat sits watching the fire. 
If I don’t close these blinds right now, the rising moon 
might keep me here, wandering the galaxies. 
In case it’s true that hope cannot eternally renew itself
or spring last longer than today, let me let me stay with 
what I know tonight, release the cord and step away.
 

Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Kestrel, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, Presence and elsewhere.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

by Steven Kent




So listen, sheep: The earth is flat
(There's video to prove just that).
Each contrail you can see today
Was put there by the CIA,
While climate change is just a ruse,
A trick the Bilderbergers use
To dupe us now and gain control.
What's more, they mean to steal your soul
Through wicked work like plant-based meat,
Electric ovens for your heat,
Those 15-minute city plans,
And semi-auto rifle bans.
In fact, the Feds will take all guns,
Emasculate our manly sons,
Then bind us up with UN clamps
And ship us off to FEMA camps.

Bill Gates, we know, has killed a lot
Of people with his Covid shot,
Elections rigged--so neatly planned—
With checks George Soros wrote by hand.
We're red-pilled now, nobody's fools:
We watch and watch 2000 Mules,
Convinced that Biden cheated when
He won before, and will again!

A Swiftly conjured magic spell
May now control the NFL
Since Taylor is a psy-op drone
The Deep State here controls alone,
Her latest romance clearly meant
To reelect the president.
I'd still be in the dark, I'll bet
Had I not found the internet.
With Qanon right by my side,
My eyes at last are open wide:
Each truth another truth begat
Since I put on this tinfoil hat.



Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer, musician, and Oxford comma enthusiast Kent BurnsideHis work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, Journal of Formal Poetry, Light, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, Philosophy Now, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, and Snakeskin. His collection I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

BLOODBATH

 by Ron Riekki

 



                                               “If you expect nothing
from somebody

                                                you are never disappointed.”

                                                            —Sylvia Plath

 

If I don’t get elected,

it’s going to be a bloodbath…

 

It’s going to be a bloodbath

for the country.

 

Bloodbath—coined in 1867.

1867—the transatlantic slave trade

 

“ends.” Blood red state said,

“The candidate is candid,” but did

 

you realize he’s inciting another

insurrection, an opposite of Resurrection

 

with Easter coming up, playing possum,

a country in toxic immobility, a wrath,

 

a hoodwink, a flood path we walked,

knee-deep, after the storm, the sewage,

 

age 18, me and a friend, Boston, cars

drowned. “It already is a bloodbath,”

 

she says. Adds, “And we’ve already lost.”

There’s a birdbath outside my window,

 

Dearborn, no birds, no deer, no births,

a friend having a miscarriage. There’s

 

a smell outside like hell outside, the factories

in the not-so-distant distance greying the sky

 

violently, no insight, no sun in sight, buried

by clouds, or smoke, or both. “It’s going to be

 

a bloodbath,” my ex- says, choked on the words,

mocks. The clock ticks in the other room, or

 

is that water dripping in the shower? A madness.

Blathering on and on on the TV. We listen. Scared.

 

“He looks like a Star Wars villain.” “Children

are watching this.” “I hope not.” “He has cash

 

in his blood.” Bloodbath dumbass scumbags

aftermath sociopath car-crash collapse. “I always

 

imagine him with a Hitler mustache.” Fat naps.

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.”—Plath.

 

Gasps. Gaps. I read a story about Roman Polanski

walking onto the set of Macbeth that he was directing.

 

the set designer supposed to be filling the room with blood, but

Polanski looked, said, “It’s not enough.” They added more.

 

“It’s not enough.” They added more blood. He said it wasn’t

enough. He said he was there, had seen it; it wasn’t enough

 

blood. Manson murderers targeted Polanski’s home. He’d seen.

“More blood,” he said, “It’s not enough.” My ex-: “How is he

 

even running again? How is this happening?” It’s a repetition.

I was in Macbeth once. We’d say the name of the play, didn’t

 

care about the curse. The boy who played The Boy in the play

killed himself, the week of previews. Macduff’s son. The egg.

 

He jumped off a bluff. Landed in a field. Not found for a week.

I was Macduff. I was bad. I was young. I was not ready for

 

the role. I feel like that now. The bad reviews, of me, at least.

My family, slaughtered. The Boy, a friend of mine. The fall.

 

At the end, the decapitated head. The death. The wooden stage.

The poor attendance. The bad politics, even back then. Poverty

 

in my mining hometown. My boyhood. How I stood on stage

after it was done, the place empty, and from the back of our

 

theater, I saw The Boy, my friend, emerge from the shadows,

and I swear to God, how he appeared, dead, but still there, stepping

 

out, of the silence, the madness of that role, the method acting

I tried to do, failed, succeeded, both, a good attempt, a good

 

failure, and then him, here, there, in front of me, in the dark-

light, this friend, ended, how he stood there, looking at me,

 

and I froze, flecks of blood on his face—no, his face only

blood, and his mouth opened, and he stepped back, and he

 

was gone. And my ex- leaves the room. And I turn off

the volume on the television. And the Presidential candid-

 

ate stood there, stands there, his teeth like ghosts, ghost-like teeth,

his hat like hate, his arterial cap, the horror of this country,

 

the terror of this moment, the repetition of it all, how I’ve

seen this same snippet, comment, from him, already thirteen

 

times today, and the room is silent, and I turn my head and

look to the right, a room that we didn’t know until we’d

 

already paid the rent, signed the lease, but we’d found on-

line that someone had killed himself in this apartment, our

 

apartment, where we lived; of course, it happens, they don’t tell you,

you move in, find out, stumble on it. And I looked into the room.



Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press).