TheNewVerse.News

BREADCRUMBS IN A NATION OF LOAVES

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Jazmine Crandall

The economic fallout of the US-Israeli assault and Tehran’s retaliation is spreading fast, and pushing the most vulnerable towards disaster. —The Guardian, March 12, 2026

In the marble halls where voices echo
like coins dropped into deep, indifferent wells,
they debate the price of labor
as though it were a frivolous shadow;
weightless, distant, theoretical.

Outside, the morning opens its weary eyes.

A banker straightens his Hermes tie
that costs more than a week of someone's rent.
His salary is quite the dome;
built stone by stone, pension and bonus,
arches of security rising
towards stained-glass futures.

A manager clocks in,
midway up the ladder of breathing space.
Her wages are a narrow bridge—
not golden, not broken,
but sturdy enough to cross the river of bills
if the current stays calm.

And then there is the worker
whose hands smell of fryer oil and sanitizer,
whose chapped palms hold the ghosts
of a thousand barcodes,
and ears fatigue of a million complaints.

Their meager wage is a candle in winter.

Each hour they feed the flame,
yet the room refuses to grow warm.

And no one says the quiet truth aloud:
this fire was never meant to heat the house.

It was meant to prove endurance.

So the worker learns the mathematics of survival—
how many hours equal a gallon of milk
and a carton of eggs,
how many aching hours on torn soles
and blistered toes equal rent,
how many meals must disappear
so the light bill does not.

Jazmine Crandall is a Colombian-Cuban poet in Atlanta, Georgia. She's beginning her journey of sharing her poetry and strives to make a difference. Her work explores feminism, inequality, and the struggles of immigrants and the working class, using her writing to advocate for marginalized voices.

BAI TASHCHIT (DO NOT DESTROY)

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Lenore Weiss


Israeli settlers and soldiers killed three Palestinians in their village near Ramallah on Saturday night, the third deadly attack in a week of surging Israeli violence across the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers have shot dead five civilians during invasions of Palestinian olive groves, villages and grazing land, in the brief period since Israel and the US launched a new war on Iran at the end of February. —The Guardian, March 8, 2026. Photo: WAFA archive.

Deer bite off the heads of my coreopsis, yellow sunbursts of blossoms I was hoping to see every morning outside my window, but now only sad stumps are left leaning against the pavement. Every day, I go outside to encourage the plant, hoping it might grow back, sprout a few new leaves. The way olive trees are being cut, burned and poisoned, and the olive, which is more than a fruit, a symbol of resistance, buckets picked and pressed with a wooden beam, sometimes with a stone to produce golden flowing oil. Every tree which is not being harvested, is lost to the occupation. Deuteronomy 20:19-20 prohibits cutting down fruit-bearing trees during a war as they provide life-sustaining food. Isn’t this an ongoing war? Olive trees growing in the West Bank are the first to go, surrounded by settlements built high on ridges that strangle villages, and even when armed renegades desist, they return with more venom. Concentration camps and the multitude of prisons throughout the United States produce men and women who understand how physical space can be controlled, minds never. Villagers living in Burin say their olive oil is spicier because it is laced with tear gas.

Lenore Weiss’s novel Pulp into Paper and a poetry collection, Video Game Pointers were both published in 2024. Prior poetry collections form a trilogy about love, loss, and being mortal: Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island (West End Press, 2012), Two Places (Kelsay Books, 2014), and The Golem (Hakodesh Word Press, 2017). Alexandria Quarterly Press published her prize-winning flash fiction chapbook Holding on to the Fringes of Love. Lenore edited a poetry and prose anthology for Kehilla Community Synagogue entitled From the Well of Living Waters: Voices of the 21st Century. She is a member the Writers Grotto and serves as the Associate Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Editor for the Mud Season Review.

WAR SECRETARY

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Lisa Fogarty

Pete Hegseth by Ian Baker

RE: WARY WAR

WRY WAR WAYS

ROTE WAR STORY

RAW SCORE

SORROW

WORST RAT YET

Lisa Fogarty is a journalist and creative writer from New York. She is a mother of two whose work has appeared in several magazines, newspapers, and journals.

I WEEP FOR THE WORLD

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Mary Saracino

“Weeping World” print by Marinka Bendova at Saatchi Art

I weep for the world,

for women and girls

for boys and men,

living and dying at the mercy

of those without mercy,

the merciless misers,

the autocrats who have sold

their empathy for power,

their compassion for money,

who have sacrificed their souls

for privileges they did not earn—or deserve.

The world they manifest burns

with injustice, oppression, war.

I weep for the planet,

Her essence assaulted,

decimated by greed,

and insatiable lust

for all that is unholy.

I weep for our non-human kin,

all creatures, great and small

all vegetation, too,

that seeks to live and thrive

under the sunlit sky,

bathed in the moonlit darkness,

moving through the seasons

with grace, grit, and gratitude.

We humans have lost our way.

The path is strewn with

obstacles to peace and prosperity,

the carnage of millennia,

the debris of lost memories

of how it should be,

how it could be

if we joined forces and

reclaimed our roots,

celebrated our ancient origins,

honored our connections

to all that is, and ever will be.

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press (February 2026). She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014), The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), No Matter What (Spinsters Ink 1993), and Finding Grace (Spinsters Ink 1999), and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior (Spinsters Ink 2001). She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.

LIMERICK TO HELP FORGET THE WAR FOR A MOMENT

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Zumwalt

Cartoon by Kevin KAL Kallaugher

With a face like a serial killer,
He belongs in a cheap horror thriller;
Some call him a bum
Or the worst of the scum,
But to me he's just Stephen Miller.

Zumwalt's poetry feeds on alienation, shifting reality, and forced adaptation. Zumwalt is a proud repeat contributor to The New Verse News.

TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, I’M NOT SO SURE ABOUT THE VENT

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:30:00 +0000

by Eric Oak

A government handout photograph showed weapon remnants displayed on a table near the ruins of the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, where a precision strike reportedly killed 175 people, mostly children, on Feb. 28. The remnants have been identified by The Times as components of a modern, U.S.-made Tomahawk missile. Credit...IRIB, via Telegram

It was not the Israelis, after all,

who triple tapped the school in Minab.

It was US, according to the Times—

our bombs

that blasted babies into doll parts,

scattered them among the concrete-

silica dust of their classrooms.

But it was always our bombs, really–

Arab Salim and Jabalia, Biden’s

red line to Rafah. Bombs with

our names on them. Cruz and

Haley chickenhawked in Sharpie,

mine and yours scratched san-serif

onto the shells in bolder relief with

each paycheck deposited.

I read the article about Minab

during my planning period, and

it lingers with me now around

this crater-quiet classroom.

The kids are taking a test, but I

don’t care whether they pass it.

I just want to talk to them.

I just want to believe that it's

not too late to talk, that it’s

not too late to believe.

Something about the way the

big vent grumbles when

the air kicks on reminds me:

the surprise lockdown drill

has to be this week or next.

They’re quiet, like now,

the drills at least.

The kids are used to them.

Winder and Uvalde, Gaza and Minab.

Maybe bullets stop when bombs do.

I remember now why that vent rattles—

I took out most the screws that hold

it to the wall, and a few more outside.

The maintenance guy showed me how

to kick and climb our way out there

in case we ever need to flee, to run

outside, unafraid as we are of a

brush smoke sky.

Eric Oak is the pseudonym of a teacher of social studies at a middle school near Chattanooga, TN. He sometimes asks people to read the things he writes so that they may exist.

TO 165 EXPENDABLES, SHAJERAH TAYYEBEH GIRLS’ ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, MINAB, IRAN

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:15:00 +0000

by Kent Reichert

It’s a shame you had to die
but hey,
that’s war, right?
Leave it to the smoke
in your father’s eyes to mourn your passing,
let rubble be your obituary
caught up as you were in other's dreams of power
and fear.
They say
your death is the path to peace. They say
it is going well. They say
all according to plan. They say
their children are safer now.
When their school bells ring,
the screams at recess are joyful abandon.
But your screams rain down upon your
mother's heart
and will for the eternity she lives each
moment
without you.
At least you were not alone at your passing.
Holding your hand
were your ideas and hopes and wishes and dreams;
your children and grandchildren;
your silly laughter;
your joy;
your love of chickpea cookies;
your bedtime stories;
your heart a flutter when that boy said he liked you
and you couldn’t run fast enough to tell your friends.
They were there, right there with you when
your world evaporated instantly.
They feared you or was it where you were born? Or they feared
your school’s location. Or they feared
who you worshipped. Or they feared
the words your leaders spoke. Or they feared
what they might do. Or they feared…so…
“I got him before he got me.”
Nothing personal, just collateral damage.

Those in power far away
hugged power above all else. They smiled in their safety
and their children and grand children’s safety, for…

They say it is going well. They say
all according to plan. They say
the world is safer now.
After all it was them or you, wasn’t it?
That's what they said and
It’s a shame you had to die
But hey
that’s war, right?

Kent Reichert spends autumn beside Becky’s Creek on the Intracoastal Waterway across from North Carolina's Topsail Island. He passes the time walking his dogs, practicing digital photography and writing. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies.

AGAINST PURIM

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Barbara Ungar

ID 67399384 © Olga Kuevda | Dreamstime.com

Parading as Queen Esther in kindergarten

at my first carnival, in her long blue dress,

I tripped and tumbled off the low stage.

Yet I teach my son the fairy tale:

Queen Esther was a secret Jew, raised

by cousin Mordecai, who refuses

to bow down to Haman, who’s convinced the king

to kill all the Jews, so Esther risks her life

to reveal herself and plead. The king relents,

asks what to do to Haman. Mordecai says,

whatever Haman says to do to me. Haman says

hang Mordecai, so the king hangs Haman instead.

We rejoice: They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat

hamantaschen, tarts shaped like Haman’s hat.

Bored at my son’s Purim carnival

while his class intones Hebrew verses

no one understands, and the teachers mug

their way through the tale in drag, I read

the whole Megilla, realize this was Persia

(Iran), Esther was in a harem, and Haman

wasn’t hanged, but impaled on a fifty-foot stake.

As the kids trip, one by one, to the front

to chant if they can, or just read the Hebrew

with no vowels, or blush and break down

in tears, I read, yes, Haman did plan

to impale Mordecai (so it’s a grisly take

on the golden rule), but then they impale

all ten of Haman’s sons. At every mention

of Haman, everyone goes wild, twirling their noise-

making groggers and shrieking with laughter.

The besotted king gives Mordecai power so,

the text crows, our hero slaughters 75,000

of his foes in the city, and who knows

how many more in the countryside? This

we are enjoined to celebrate as Purim.

Party on. A vendetta thousands of years old.

Today, on Purim, I see photos of rows

and rows of graves dug side by side for

160 schoolgirls, and a video of an Iranian

man in tears, holding the hand of a six- or

seven-year-old girl, just the hand, all that’s left

of her. Of course we’ll pay in kind.

While the US vows vengeance for its seven

(so far) dead, Jew-hatred blooms across the world-

wide web, and for every murdered child,

how many will avenge?

Barbara Ungar is the author of six books, most recently After Naming the Animals. Honors include the Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press, Gival Poetry Prize, and being named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2015 and 2019. She has published poems in Scientific American, Rattle, Southern Indiana Review, and many other journals.

DOES THE SUN RISE (FOR ME)?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 22:15:00 +0000

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Does the Sun rise

for me? Or if not

for me, does it rise

for my brother,

for my sister?

What about

the sun rising

over Tehran

or Gaza,

London,

or Doha?.

Does the sun

rise for me?

Who is

my brother?

Who is

my sister,

the mother

wailing beside

the rubble

of the school,

her girls

bombed

to bits?

Does the Sun

rise anyway

over killing fields?

Does it rise

over our bodies

thrashing

in the dark?

Does it rise

exposing

the open

grave?

Does it rise

helping plants

to bloom?

Does it rise

whether

we live

or die?

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

THE 7TH DAY

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Adam J. Scarborough

The day

misplaces the sun.
Somewhere
a sky still burns blue
but not here.
Here—
a black noon.

The maps keep shedding people.
Five hundred thousand
coats and shoes—missing from their hallways;
names folded into cars, trucks,
onto motorcycles and buses,
heading north from Lebanon.

A child carries a key
to a pile of ash.
—
Missiles write their brief alphabets
over Abu Dhabi—
two hundred thirty-eight
steel sentences
falling through prayer.
Most of them
erased mid-air.
Even the sky now
has editors.
—
Control of the air,
they say.
The sky is a throat
they have learned
to close.
Jets move there
like indifferent saints.
—
Smoke remembers the night.
Tehran wakes
with black in its mouth.
Balconies gather soot
like winter birds.
Cars wear the same dark coat.
The street
a long finger,
dragged through ash.
—
Oil depots
burn through the hours
when sleep should hold the city.
Ten million lungs
turn quietly
in their beds.
Above them
the sky writes in smoke—
language without vowels.
—
Morning arrives
as rain.
Not mercy.
A rain that stings the eyes,
touches the throat
with a thin metal hand.
Acid falling softly
on bread
on figs left in bowls
on the open skin
of the city.
—
The doctors speak
from distant rooms.
Particles,
they say.
Invisible dust
entering the small, naked doors of the body.
Asthma remembers.
The heart
tightens its fist.
Even the air
now carries
a slow instruction.
—
Do not open the window.
Do not turn the fan.
Cover the food.
Wait.
As if waiting
could rinse the sky.
—
A special relationship
spits across red neckties
tied like telephone wires,
fizzing with foreign cries.

Night keeps arriving early.
Lebanon counts its dead
in the hundreds—
three hundred ninety-four
and still the number
breathes.

Dust enters the lungs
of the city.
Beirut
a broken bell.
—
Elsewhere the world practices
this same dark grammar:
Sudan
South Sudan
Ukraine—
where the ground
remembers fire
longer than people do.
—
And somewhere a man
with a borrowed crown
waits in a golden room
for the door
to open.

Another country
dragged forward
by the nose of a name.
—
Still
someone lights a stove.
Someone boils water.

Someone somewhere
opens a window
to see

if the sun
has been returned.

Adam J. Scarborough is a Scottish writer and social practice artist based in Minnesota. His work has been presented across Europe and New York. His poetry has appeared in Gutter Magazine.

A RISING TIDE

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:15:00 +0000

by Gordon Gilbert

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

At high tide the king comes to the shore

and stands upon the sands at water’s edge

He commands the sea to leave his kingdom

as followers break into loud applause

TRiUMPhantly he gloats as it recedes

But alas he tarries far too long

The tide has ebbed and soon relentlessly

the waters now make their advance

and still the king refuses to retreat

unheeding warnings from his own soothsayers

He does not, cannot, won’t acknowledge

the inherent truth that laps now at his feet

All shall soon be swept away

by the waters of the rising tide

just like the foolish pharaoh and his legions

in pursuit of Moses and his people

who when the waters parted chose to follow

only to be drowned in the Red Sea

Gordon Gilbert is a New York City west villager. In these trying times, he finds some solace taking long walks along the Hudson River. He keeps hoping things will turn around, waiting on that elusive inflection point, but it keeps receding. Maybe next time…

Still waiting.

MIDDLE AGES CONTEMPORANEITY

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Judith Skillman

Herr Drumpf fastened by the feet

to a wooden panel, drawn behind a horse

as illustrated in Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora,

hanged almost to the point

of death. Watch as Drumpf’s emasculated,

disemboweled, beheaded, quartered.

See his remains on display (as depicted in the execution

of Hugh Dispenser the Younger),

where a crowd of brightly dressed 13th century men

gather to view a ladder. A fire

blazes on the ground,

logs crisscrossed like bound limbs.

Another ladder holds green capped executioner

with his short sharp knife. I watch

Mr. President’s flesh gape, pulled apart

at collarbone and genitalia.

At the base of these Elizabethan ladders

placed in perspective by the painter, Froissart of Louise of Gruthuse,

a group of top-hatted gentlemen gesture.

Bulldozers sit where the ballroom

would have been, heaps of dirt piled. A group of giant moles

unearthed the newest labyrinth a la Hamas.

And here we are, dressed to the nines,

wearing ballet-like slippers,

talking in low tones, holding not iPhones but harmonicas.

Let this be an example

for any would be high treasonist’s,

as well as Matthew Lambert,

the Irishman who suffered this punishment

as little ago as 1581.

If he’d been a woman

he’d have been burned at the stake

for reasons of public decency.

Judith Skillman is the author of twenty collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Commonweal, Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, Zyzzyva, and numerous other literary journals. She has received funding from The Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, among other organizations. Her new book is Oppression, Shanti Arts, 2026.

JERUSALEM EVEN NOW

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Esther Cohen

Two sirens before 8 AM woke Ibtisam, a Palestinian,

and her Jewish neighbor Melila. They’ve lived

in the same Jerusalem building for decades.

In their pajamas, sleepless after the loud attack

the night before, they decided they’d clean

the building together, as something positive they

could do. And when they finished

removing spider webs and dust, they celebrated

the new cleanliness with mint tea

and homemade butter cookies.

Esther Cohen’s new book is All of Us.

LEGAL CLINIC, CHURCH RECTORY, MARCH 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:15:00 +0000

by Paula Finn

AI-Generated graphic from Craiyon

Let me not forget the volunteer interpreter,

his black bangs, a curtain raised in this dim room

as if to let in any word: hambre, matanza.

His hands, sallow, unwrinkled. He offers

the pro bono lawyer starvation, death,

what propelled the woman seated to his left

2,000 miles on foot and crammed in vans,

a path our young interpreter already knows

not in Spanish/English, but in thirst, in ditches

become a bed, saguaros lurking overhead.

Still he comes here every Monday night.

His gift, to translate horror free of charge.

Paula Finn has been nominated for a 2026 Pushcart Prize. Her poems appeared recently in Common Ground, Bicoastal Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Spoon River Review. On the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Finn spearheaded a piece of musical theater capturing that historic tragedy and the female immigrant worker organizing that arose in its wake. Featuring Finn's poetry set to music composed by the late composer Elizabeth Swados, the dramatic oratorio, Triangle: From the Fire, won the Best New Musical Theater award at the 2011 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.

ODE TO BLAZING INFERNO

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Clara Altfeld

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

O America, I too fear my own demise.

I thought nothing was so permanent

that it could never be undone,

but in you, constants shift

and movement stills.

I swore before God in a city you promised to love

that I would honestly demean myself

that I would support the Constitution

of the United States—that sickened poem

written in praise to itself.

Attorney comes from an Old French word

meaning to turn to. And if I had not sworn myself

to your wretched service, America, I would turn

away and away and away.

And in the turn: a shift, a settling, and the past,

silky and surreal, would come rewinding back.

The hearing, unheard. No judge, no gavel,

no order of removal for the mother and daughter

I had promised to protect.

We walk backwards out from the courtroom,

Wrinkle our suits and hang them in the closet

Unwrite, undemand, unmove the pleasure of the court.

Become strangers again, part ways.

I, reversed to my little luxuries, spinning in place.

Mother and daughter, to unend their journey,

undo footprints in the desert, the jungle.

Leave the sand unmarked, the Darien Gap uncrossed.

Let the boat rise from the waters

like the dawning sun. Water will expel

from lungs. Eyes will unclose.

Husband and four children will unsleep

their watery sleep. Shelter from demons

as a family. Oh, America,

haven’t you always been this way?

Under the shine and sparkle,

hollow and hostile and unholy?

Buried beneath the bones and rot

of bodies once loved?

Oh, America, let me write you

a beating heart.

Bring yourself back to life so I can see you

in the firelight.

Clara Altfeld is a lawyer in Houston, Texas. She hopes to own a cat one day. This poem was written in workshop with KT Herr.

POSEUR

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:30:00 +0000

by Devon Balwit

The New York Times

Today, I’m much struck by a phrase in the news

and try it out—“I demand your unconditional surrender!”—

my finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse.

Like magic, it aligns differing views.

(Backed by troops and gelignite, no wonder!)

I’m much struck by this phrase from the news.

“Bring me tribute,” I add, “your children, booze!”

and suddenly, my house dazzles with gilt-y splendor.

My finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse,

my cup runneth over with oily ooze.

I down glass after glass, a drunk on a bender,

spurred on by this phrase I pulled from the news.

Outside, the sky purples to the shade of a bruise.

Let lesser men hide. I now live for thunder,

my finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse.

As if on a pulpit staring down at the pews,

I fulminate, my creed’s best defender,

completely transformed by this phrase from the news,

my finger on the trigger, a lit match by the fuse.

When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press, Asterisk Magazine, and Works in Progress.

THE SOBBING

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:15:00 +0000

by Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser

My father awoke one Saturday

and died as fast

as though a bomb had fallen.

There was no bomb, only

the rogue rhythm

of his heart.

Our anguish seems so pure now,

the sobbing all turned inward.

Did we understand the gift

we had been given,

to grieve without rage

or horror,

without the knowledge that

honed malice

had crushed beloved flesh?

Would that there were a tonic

to suck out the venomous rage

of war, to leave the heartbreaks of life

untainted,

a balm…

Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser is a visual artist and poet in New Jersey. Her art has been exhibited locally and regionally; she has had poems published in Kelsey Review and on The New Verse News. After a 43-year career working in educational assessment, she is happy to be able to dig deeper into both media.

A TRUMP SUPPORTER

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Ralph Dranow

ANGRY POET. SUMMER 2008. From a cycle "ART FAIR AND ITS INHABITANTS" Print by Yuri Kachkin Ukraine

"Why do you like Trump?" I ask.

It's his first term.

Bill's pale forehead furrows,

bespectacled eyes twin fires.

"He's a strong leader and a successful capitalist.

I happen to like capitalism."

After a poetry reading at night,

we're drinking beer in a pizza parlor,

amidst a hum of conversation

and clatter of glasses and dishes.

We go on talking politics,

our voices civil

despite disagreeing on every issue.

But troubled, I wonder:

How can a nice, intelligent guy like Bill,

who's treated me tonight,

embrace a monster like Trump?

We part, shaking hands,

like two diplomats from countries

somewhat wary of each other,

neither friend or foe.

Later, at home, a detective in search of clues,

I reread Bill's poetry book,

and some of the lines cry out to me,

like forlorn children:

"Rage burns deeply inside me.

It always has."

"Alone and miserable.

Maybe I deserve it."

Politics fades away.

My heart opens its gates,

as I give Bill a long distance hug.

Ralph Dranow is an editor and poetry teacher.

HILARY CLINTON READS SYLVIA PLATH’S COLLECTED POEMS BEFORE HER LATEST CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Mary Ellen Talley

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

I would no more pick up a book

of confessional poetry than

read cautionary tales and Greek myths

while picketing the White House in my youth.

Vietnam was such a waste.

Why in the world am I reading Plath

when I should be boning up for Epstein testimony?

Some say my schedule was suicidal

when I was Secretary of State. I came of age early

but took Bill’s name as my own

in spite of Gloria Steinem’s dominion.

There is little value in confession;

Whitewater just about did us in,

but see how even my daughter

embraces our legacy. She learned the lesson

of the ratings game and will thrive

even if her hubby’s hedge fund

ever skims the truth. At least I’m free

to be honest. Epstein was Bill’s gig,

not mine, although I’m savvy enough to know

the more opulent connections the better,

especially while the world goes bonkers.

Plath wrote, It might be heaven,

This state plentitude: still in one

Gigantic tapestry…. That’s my life.

Plath’s young mental illness captures me,

Twice that lamp of the possible.

I believe in that. We studied the Greeks

at Wellesley. First reading, I disliked Perseus,

but here I am in Plath’s title,

The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering.

I refuse catastrophe. I still maintain

more rigor than any elected sycophants.

No rigor mortis come to stiffen all creation.

If I could only sway Senators with such strong words!

But why am I reading from a woman

who let adultery cave her in? Not me!

I’m blond. Plath brunette. Neither of us stupid.

But she stuck her head in the oven to escape.

How could she dare to evade

this imperfect future, this amazing challenge?

Mary Ellen Talley’s poems have appeared in many journals including Louisville Review, Deep Wild, and Trampoline as well as in multiple anthologies, and three chapbooks. She resides in Seattle, WA and worked for many years as a school-based speech/language pathologist (SLP.)

CLAMPDOWN AT DILLEY DETENTION CENTER

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Ellen Romano

Children detained at the immigrant family detention center in Dilley, Texas, speaking with ProPublica reporter Mica Rosenberg over video call. Clockwise from top left: Diana Crespo, Luka Mora, Juan Nicolas Mo, Alexander Perez, Amalia Arrieta, Mayra Delgado. Mica Rosenberg/ProPublica. Click here to donate to ProPublica.

Imagine the children’s drawings,

a family of three, standing in a cage,

a family of five, standing in a cage, their faces blank,

a family of seven lying down in a cage, labelled

with the words, me quiero ir, I want to go home.

Imagine the children’s letters,

We are kidnapped, help.

There’s an agent here, he’s watching us.

I can’t see Willi, accompanied by a picture of a pet cat.

On the day the art supplies are confiscated,

crayons, pencils, drawing paper,

the letters and pictures are seized as well,

portraits of friends, the tracing of a child’s hand,

tears and a frowning face in the palm,

even a five year-old’s picture of a peaked roof house,

lit from one corner by an inextinguishable sun.

One mother saves a handful of shredded pages,

all that is left of her daughter’s drawings. In a place

that is never warm enough, another mother hides

the drawings of as many children as she can

in the sleeves of her puffy jacket, carries them

everywhere.

Imagine a government that tries to steal

a child’s ability to imagine, imagine a five-year old

wearing a detention uniform, a replacement

for the blue, bunny-eared jacket taken from him,

the conejo that shared his name,

imagine a child’s voice too dangerous to be heard,

though no louder than the sound

a crayon makes on a scrap of paper.

Author’s note: All descriptions of children's letters and art work were taken from various news articles except for the description of a five-year old's picture of a house, which as an elementary school educator I feel is quite typical.

Ellen Romano, she/her, is an educator, mother, grandmother, widow, and beekeeper living with her dog, Doc, in Hayward, California. She is the winner of Third Wednesday’s 2023 Poetry Prize, and won second place in Naugatuck River Review’s 2023 Narrative Poetry Contest. Other work has appeared in Lascaux Review, The Deadlands, december magazine, and other publications.

SHELTER FROM THE STORM

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Steven Kent

The Guardian, March 4, 2026

Our kids feel safe, say dads and moms

(Except for, you know, all the bombs).

They learn their science, math, and spelling

(Also how to hide from shelling).

Bless these teachers—they're the boss!

(Damn both Bibi and Hamas!)

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.

EMPERATORI PARS VE GHARB (THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND THE WEST)

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by J. P. Linstroth

To Our Armed Forces

Combat between a Persian (left) and a Greek (right), depicted on a cup at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Credit: Wikipedia

A vision of armies of men in thousands kicking up dust in white puffs in ordered unison files

Marching forward, beating rounded shields of Athenian owls and Spartan Lambda letters

Their burnished Corinthian helmets, their fierce eyes peering through almond bronze slits

Aeneous and glinting bronze in the sun, horsehair plumes of varying colours, waving from zephyrs

Metallic and muscular cuirasses shining aurulent and golden in harsh sunlight

Emperatori Pars under Darius the Great and his son, Xerxes, the existential threat to Greek isles

Legends, the Athenian General Miltiades at Marathon, King Lionidas at Thermopylae Pass, with no betters

In ancient times from the West, even with acrimony among Hellenes, and all their splits

Moving as one at the Battles of Marathon and Thermopylae and Salamis, against Persian aggressors

With bronze swords drawn, a chiliad of pointing dorata, gleaming helmets behind shields tensed to fight

Cleverness of the Greeks tricking Persians in battle even with their formations across many miles

Outnumbering the Hellenes in the thousands and the weightiness of death in all its bellicose fetters

If it were not for these brave men, then what of Western civilization, and all its benefits

To win the day, again and again, and many times at great loss, the sacrifice of war, and all its tethers

For empire, for glory, for homeland, even with Pars Bozorg (Persian Empire), the Greeks never bowed to their might

II.

And more than two thousand and five hundred years forward a war against old Persia continues

Having become part of Islam and Shia from the martyrdom of Husayn Ibn Ali and following the Imams

Reaching back to the death of Mohammed and at one time British and following the Shah

With all its oil riches and arcane monarchy and then the Iranian Revolution and American hostages in ’79

And the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini and advent of an oppressive Iranian theocracy

And so our past repeats, again and again, from ancient times til now regardless of disparate epochal venues

Every time and place, men in continual discord, even against the House of David, and revenge of Absalom

How soon we forget after unity against Great Persia, Athenians and Spartans brawled in awe

Of brother against brother, Greek to Greek, the Peloponnesian War, how civil wars intertwine

From Alexander the Great, and Napoleon, of voids to the destruction of Republics and Democracy

Can you not see we are the same brethren, those of the reds, whites, and blues

The same from Washington, the same from Gettysburg, but now directives from Jerusalem

Across Zagros and Alborz ranges and deserts, against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and their Allah

To contend with ourselves, and not think Poland 1939, but reverse time, and save our demokratia

III.

For all our technologies and our missiles and our Artificial Intelligence and aircraft carriers

War is no less terrible and spontaneous circumstances no less unforeseen and death death death

Young men struggle for generals’ musings far removed and clash in arms on land, sea, and air

Often far from homelands, for fellow brothers, for fellow countrymen, for the flag under God

And Persia once more erased, once more conquered by armies as powerful as Hellenic hordes

Lest we forget ourselves in conquest and lose our values and our Republic, lest we remove such barriers

For ours a Constitutional Republic and much celebrated, lest we drink from the waters of Lethe

Lest we forget red poppy fields of the Somme, or white crosses of Normandy, and markers en plein air

As our Arlington and Tomb of the Unknown, so many Medals of Honour, so many left abroad

Lest we forget how the Iranians ignored our pleas to avert a day of war by dismissing all our accords

But remember this one and all, we are Americans, our nation is still true, our jets as raptors and harriers

Ripping azure skies, missiles through azuline heavens, across Strait of Hormuz, against Iranian shibboleth

From Mullahs and their enforcement of Islamic law, at the expense of the Iranian populace and its despair

May ours be a road to freedom, away from Shiite clerics, a regime heavily flawed

By waging war in the name of God, supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis, their demise by swords

IV.

And while the thousands marched and thousands more gunned down for their freedom

Lest we forget ours in these uncertain times and living with mendacity and profiteering

At the expense of our dignity of our community of our brotherhood of our common sense

Lest we forget our Independence from tyranny, lest we forget our lacking representation

And we remember Locke and Montesquieu and Rousseau and our Enlightenment

Now some two-hundred and fifty years, from independence to civil war, now extremam corruptiem

Of our leaders to whom we entrust with our lives, but who seem immune from sneering

And directing us toward wars and away from personal investigations and forgetting our tariffed expense

May we uphold the pillars of our democratic oaths by not scapegoating the newest from migration

While understanding hyper-capitalism undermining our social welfare from Neo-Gilded Age Entitlement

To our brave soldiers, brave men and women, who fight for our Republic, not as vassals for a fiefdom

Lest forgetting Spartan might won over Athenian intellect, and protect ourselves with judicial hearings

If necessary and to use our laws and our cameras and checking imbalances in our defence

So, to the breach against armies and foes, now the Iranians, we ask to pray for victims in supplication

Likewise remembering who we are and our history, and not the spoiled life of a political miscreant

To America, to America, forever the brave and the bold

Across the seas from now and remembering times of old

May we remember our fallen heroes always, their fearlessness not to be cajoled

To America, to America, the beautiful and the bold

May we always protect our sea shining shores, may your glories always be extolled

To America, to America

Now and forever as many have before foretold

About the land of our brave and our bold

J. P. Linstroth has a PhD (D.Phil.) in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford, UK with several awards for his research concentrating on the Spanish-Basques, Brazilian urban Amerindians, and Cuban, Haitian, and Guatemalan-Mayan immigrants in South Florida. He is an Adjunct Professor at Palm Beach State College (PBSC) and the author of several books: Marching Against Gender Practice: Political Imaginings in the Basqueland (2015, Bloomsbury Books); The Forgotten Shore (Poetic Matrix Press, 2017); Epochal Reckonings (Proverse Publishers HK, 2020, Winner of Proverse Prize 2019); Politics and Racism Beyond Nations: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Crises (2022, Palgrave Macmillan); and Swimming in Blue Shadows: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems (2022, Proverse Publishing, Proverse Supplemental Prize). He was awarded a J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholar Grant (2008-2009) to study urban Amerindians in Manaus, Brazil and he received a Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for his accomplishments toward peace, conflict resolution, and social justice.

FLORIDA JOURNAL, MARCH 4, 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:15:00 +0000

by Ilene Millman

Snowy egret in flight

black-stockinged legs, yellow feet.

Avoid newscasts

pray they are safe.

Great blue heron

quiet filled with sit-and-wait.

Avoid newscasts

pray they are safe.

Patient green language

of floating lily pad.

Avoid newscasts

pray they are safe.

Cataract of sun blinds

then hides in a nest of clouds.

Avoid newscasts

pray they are safe.

Lumpy greenish grace

of manatee surfaces.

Avoid newscasts

pray they are safe.

Walt’s Fish House packed

search for dinner down the road.

Avoid newscasts

pray they are safe.

Author’s note: With airports now closed around the world, many of us find ourselves separated from loved ones and anxious about their safety amid the missiles drones and uncertainty. My husband and I are vacationing in sunny Florida while our children and grandchildren are in the Middle East and under threat. So many people and their families under threat in too many wars.

Ilene Millman writes about memory, music, motherhood, modern times and mud among other topics. Her first poetry book Adjust Speed to Weather, was published in 2018; her most recent book A Jar of Moths in 2024 (Ragged Sky Press). Her poems have been published in a wide variety of journals and anthologies including the Potomac Review, MacGuffin, Kelsey Review (nominated for Pushcart Prize in 2023 and 2025), Connecticut Review, TheNewVerseNews and others. A speech/language therapist, she has also published two language therapy games.

A WALK IN THE PARK

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Carole Z Croll

That’s what Maverick called it

in Top Gun before he set out

on a perilous mission.

As it turned out, it wasn’t

a walk and there was not

a park. It was more about

bombs, side-winding

missiles, planes and pilots

falling from the sky.

As I think about it now,

I am certain everyone

would call this otherwise

as well, especially those

who recently parachuted

to safety, and city dwellers

who comb through rubble,

and those in neighboring

countries who wonder

if they are next, or the ones

stranded in airports wanting

desperately to go home,

or persons manning ships—

sitting ducks. War is

never a walk in the park

so I encourage you

to take one. Do it today,

tomorrow, and the next,

because the earth

beneath you is undisturbed

and the ground prepares

to sprout, trees are tall

and steady as they reach

toward unthreatening skies,

birds and creatures

are out and about being birds

and creatures,

and children can still play

on playgrounds.

Carole Z Croll has returned to her native Pennsylvania after an extended residence in the Chicago area. She is a former massage therapist as well as a teacher of English Language Learners. Her first collection of poetry The Gift Forthcoming was published in 2000. Her work has appeared in The Prairie Light Review and publications of The Brookfield Zoo and the Winfield Post in Illinois, as well as those of Studio B in Boyertown. Her poetry has received awards from The Nevada State Poetry Society, Poets and Patrons of Chicago, and The Illinois State Poetry Society. Her most recent book A Hundred Pairs of Eyes is available on Amazon.

MASS SHOOTING #10

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

5400 block of Edwards Ave., Flint, MI, February 19, 2026

Multiple people shot in drive-by-shooting in Flint —WILX

by Ron Riekki

“searching for you in the cinders of cement”

—Semaj Brown

“Almost Majnun”

Another shooting after another shooting after

another shooting after another shooting after

another shooting after another shooting after,

and nothing’s being done, and after that, still,

nothing’s being done, and, after that, nothing

is being done, and after that, nothing’s being

done, and after that, nothing’s being done,

except prayers and thoughts, because those

are easy, simple, no effort. How much effort

for a thought? I remember going to a lecture

at Central Michigan where the message was

that, to help the poor, to lessen violence, we

have to pray. That’s it. That was the entire

lecture. And it was long. And I went up to

the mic after the lecturer was done, grabbed

it and started saying, before they could turn

the microphone off, that there’s organizations

people can volunteer with. There’s the ONE

Campaign and The Borgen Project, Global

Citizen and the National Urban League, and

there’s the American Foundation for Suicide

Prevention, Violence Policy Center, Sandy

Hook Promise Foundation, Brady. So many.

I drive up to the latest mass shooting. It’s

residential. Small houses. Poverty? Yes.

Extreme poverty? No. But small houses.

I visited a wealthy student’s house once

where the front room’s larger than these

houses. There’s no one around. I want

to ask the same question: how to lessen

gun violence? But there’s no one around.

There was another shooting on the same

day as the mass shooting, February 19.

How much can I learn about why drive-

by shootings happen simply by driving

by the site where it happened? Maybe

nothing. How much can I learn about

mass shootings by going to the areas

of the mass shootings to ask those who

live there how we stop the violence?

Maybe everything. But today, there’s

no one. There’s a liquor store not too

far away. Omnipresent. I decide to

drive to the other February 19 shooting.

East Court Street. On the way, I pass by

a liquor store named LIQUOR STORE.

Then another liquor store with the same

lack of name. The name doesn’t matter.

Everything seems to be closed, except

for the nameless liquor stores. So easy

to get guns and alcohol. The two-trillion-

dollar global alcohol industry. Forty-

billion-dollar gun industry. A man walks

out carrying a forty in a brown paper bag.

I get to Richert Manor with its mix of

“Rich” and “Manor.” I look up “manor”

online and see mansion and colonies

and feudal system and I think of feuds

and land and see the apartments with

the “efficiency (0-bedroom) floor plans”—

the strangeness of “0-bedroom”s—and

the 195 units are compact, more compact

than the houses, the shooting inside of

the “community room” here. Community.

A community that has reported lack of

heat. Flint winters. In 2024, a three-year-

old boy fell from a ninth-floor window.

Community. A man limps out the front

door. Crosses the street. The difficulty to

walk. To simply walk. How goddamn hard.

Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.