TheNewVerse.News

AMERICA 253

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Scott McConnaha

I turned eight the summer of 1976

and everything seemed to swell

with bicentennial pride.

Even the cement trucks were painted

red, white, and blue and we waved

our flags at the fire engines

and high school band as they

paraded down a crowded Mission Avenue

buzzing with proud cheers and

Tootsie Rolls thrown at our feet.

It belonged to everyone, that time.

Today, there are some storefront windows

painted with America 250 and the light poles

down Main Street have banners with that logo,

but it's different these 50 years later.

Perhaps I've become too gun-shy, too cynical,

too resentful that these patriotic displays

have been hoarded and redefined

and now stand for all the wrong ideas

about what this country is and ought to be.

I looked online but haven't yet found anyone

selling America 253 shirts. I think it's a good idea

because most of us want to celebrate a different,

truer version of what this country is

and ought to be. But we know it’s going to take

a few more years to build a ballroom

that will accommodate all of us.

Scott McConnaha is a veteran, former teacher, editor, and healthcare administrator. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Wis. He is the author of a poetry chapbook titled Without a Prayer, and his work has appeared in Mobius, America, Door is a Jar, New Verse News, Dissident Voice, and Moss Piglet, among other publications.

A NEW BEGINNING

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:30:00 +0000

by Ron Shapiro

Step back from lies, greed

and corruption if only for

an afternoon in Chicago

for the opening of Obama’s

center on the south side.

Feast your eyes

on an alternate

amerikan reality

where character,

kindness, community,

and truth matter.

Listen to diverse voices

speak of the amerikan promise:

life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Hear words and songs

that elevate our country.

No need for a violent spectacle

on the lawn of the people’s

house. No need to reshape

and destroy this nation’s

original sins of slavery

and indigenous genocide.

No need to hide your gender,

skin color or faith.

You are welcome in this place.

Come bring your children to

learn of the struggles for

equality, justice, and freedom.

Join hands with a stranger,

dance in the moonlight,

sing of hope and change,

believe in this country again.

Ron Shapiro, an award-winning teacher, has published over 20 poems in publications including Nova Bards 24 & 25, Virginia Writers Project, The New Verse News, Poetry X Hunger, Minute Musings, Backchannels, Gezer Kibbutz Gallery, All Your Poems, Paper Cranes Literary Magazine, Zest of the Lemon and two chapbooks: Sacred Spaces, Wonderings and Understory, a collection of nature poetry.

I, SYCOPHANT

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Pepper Trail

Cartoon by JD Crowe

You ask “How can you?”

You ask “Have you no pride?”

That just shows your ignorance, and you don’t even know it.

The first rule, of course, is never to ask a question.

The name and face of Our President deserves to be on every government building and document.

A Mixed Martial Arts cage fight on the White House lawn is a beautiful celebration of America.

A gilded triumphal arch is the perfect expression of our nation’s democratic ideals.

President Trump is the greatest peacemaker this nation has ever known.

There are those, maybe, who say these things but don’t believe them.

They are beneath contempt.

I do believe. Every day, more.

Every day, I forget more that embarassment, my former self.

I was never the best.

Now, in His eyes, I am. Or, I can be.

No one but President Trump could have saved us from the invasion of immigrant rapists.

from transgender girls playing sports.

from electric cars.

from Iran.

The perfection we see everywhere around us is all due to You and your wise leadership.

Everything I say is just a way of saying, God bless you, Mr. President.

Without You, I am only what I was before.

Nothing.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

HEADLINES JUNE 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Margaret Gannon

PAY-PER-VIEW CAGE FIGHT

ON WHITE HOUSE LAWN

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

ICE RAIDS THREATENED

DURING WORLD CUP FINALS

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

SAN FRANCISCO D.A. DEMANDS

15 YEARS JAIL FOR PROTESTERS

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DECLARES

MORMONS ARE NOT CHRISTIANS

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

TRILLIONAIRE’S IPO TITILLATES

RETIREMENT ACCOUNT OWNERS

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKED;

WORLD ECONOMY THREATENED

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY STAGGERS

TOWARD TWO AND A HALF CENTURIES

(Israelis are still killing Palestinians in Gaza)

Margaret Gannon is a retired attorney in San Francisco, CA.

DELANEY DEFINES “PROVOCATIVE”

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Michelle DeRose

At not-yet one, he cannot toddle

but his baby thighs can yet befuddle.

At four, all crayon plots require shredding

and no legs may be revealed by leggings.

A woman’s toes? Oh, mercy me!

Two rows of cleavage, can’t you see?

A human knee, oh hold me back—

a frontal, bulbous, sexual attack!

They get desperate when we enforce the code

that won’t let decency erode.

Professor Emerita of English, Michelle DeRose has published over a hundred poems in various journals, including multiple times in The New Verse News.

…BUT ‘TWAS A FAMOUS VICTORY

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Philip Kitcher

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

"Our excursion delivered a world-changing win!"—

will it also uncover the limits of spin,

as the faithful besotted are forced to conclude

they've been conned for too long, and their emperor's nude?

Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.

ODE TO JALEN BRUNSON

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:45:00 +0000

by Kirby Olson

Before a crowd of 10,000

we watched the fifth game at Pier 17.

The guy next to me was from Astoria.

He told me golf was his favorite

sport, because he loved the lawns.

A black kid said he wanted the upstate

residential college experience,

and his knees hurt from bball.

June 13th, we spent the day

looking for Swedish candy.

Everyone was wearing a Knicks jersey,

even in tiny parks such as Seward.

That night, Brunson took out Wemby

by using his size advantage.

He could get a quicker start

with Hezis; he could start and stop.

Wemby jerked around on baby giraffe legs.

Growing frustrated, he mushed Brunson.

The crowd began to hate the French giant.

FU, Wemby, was heard, as the giant got the whistle again.

Frustration grew, and the kid next to me said that

a Spurs teen had been put in a coma at the MSG location.

I tried to find that on my phone, but I couldn’t.

We hated the Goliath, but remembered he was 22,

So we loved the mature Brunson as he wove in and out,

and stopped the questionable flopping

of the previous year.

This year, he drove like a barracuda,

his head was sheathed like a woodpecker.

He had the strength of ten gorillas.

He went in like a kingfisher,

but more than all that he was human.

He married young and loved his child.

His wife was there for him.

We loved that he was an American

and had seemingly no hatred for the Spurs.

He said in many ways he preferred Texas

because the taxes in NY were so terrible.

His friendship with Kat and Anunobe,

his laughter with Bridges and Hart,

his wearing of the helmet to avoid

eye sting from champagne;

We loved it all, as orange and blue prevailed!

Kirby Olson is a poet who lives in the Catskills and who occasionally visits the city. He plays adult basketball and isn't very good. His most recent book of poetry is called Night Shift at the Utopian Turtletop Factory (Half-Inch, 2026).

AN ODE TO DAVID, GOLIATH, AND THE NEW YORK KNICKS

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:30:00 +0000

by H.G.

Jerry Seinfeld would call me a snob.

Me, a believer that truly brilliant writing
needs a deep understanding
of the wide spectrum of human emotions.

Him, co-creator of a show
about nothing,
yet wise enough to know:
even nothing is something.

And who dare argue
with the man who saved Snapple

and thinks he’s saving Israel
while larping
as the IDF
in 2018,
mock killing Palestinians
who are killed for real
a few miles away.

All to fly 5,677 miles
home
to his NY Knicks
and his courtside tickets.

Now,
2026: Mayor Mamdani’s NYC
the Knicks first championship win
since 1973.

Jerry,
and the whole stadium,

Mayor Mamdani,
and the whole city
at watch parties

electric
street filling joy
spreading
New York
to New Jersey:
an eruption
of celebration,

as one.

The stadium,
a stone’s throw
from Palestinian Brooklyn
intertwined
with Jewish Brooklyn
and Palestinian Patterson
adjacent
Jewish Fair Lawn

where tensions must be buried
memories are long,
trauma, genetic

and walls
unnecessary.

Because
everyday
a better story
can be written
by better people
than Jerry Seinfeld
and me
as on the night of June 13, 2026
when every color and creed
of New York and New Jersey
chanted

My mayor Muslim,
my bagel Jewish
my Christian, Dior
Knicks took it in five, not four*

*Italicised lines based on the viral rhyme created by MD Ahnaf Hossain prior to game 4.

H.G. is an American poet based in New York. She holds an MA in history and is working on her first verse novel. Her previous poems have appeared in The Inflectionist Review, The Amphibian, The New Verse News, Blue Minaret and is forthcoming in Neon & Smoke.

STAYIN’ ALIVE: NO KINGS

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:15:00 +0000

by Roderick Deacey

Cumulonimbus clouds jostle & dominate
the dark side of the sky.
They have gathered in towering, glowering stacks,
as ominous grumbles of thunder announce
the storm is upon us.

Of course we ignored the signs—
we have long learned to ignore warning signs
here at the far end of democracy,
lest one of the regime’s masked rib-breaking squads
single us out somehow,
& fling us to the ground & kick us until our ribs break.

So, we simply accept,
that under the hard rain that’s gonna fall,
we will, as usual, get soaking wet.

How did we become so sad & beaten down?
Isn’t it true that, en masse, Americans are good people?

Perhaps racist & prejudiced, but with good hearts?

Maybe short on critical thinking, but mostly meaning well?

Whatever—this is still America—
supposedly no kings allowed.

We can put on raincoats & resistance yellow hats.
We can wear red knitted hats like WWII Norwegians.
We can wear turquoise knitted hats, or teal—
& many of us will wear those bright rainbow hats—
because that’s where we stand—
& some ladies among us will dig out their old pink pussy hats
from back when
the country was another country.

What we seemingly can’t do
is decide on a single unifying hat color—
not a good omen.

Roderick Deacey writes many poems and is rejected a lot. James is always very nice about it, though.

O BEAUTIFUL

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Jacqueline Coleman-Fried

Just before her 250th birthday

America, sweet land

of checks and balances,

has died in anguish.

So we must ignore

mixed martial arts fights,

the Marine Band, fireworks

aimed at the moon.

A despot blocked the birth canal

of oil and gas.

While conducting state business,

he's gold-plated his family’s progeny.

Critics who think he’s broken laws,

say he should be held accountable—

he hunts down.

Since America has flatlined, honey, cancel

the sticky lemonade, the red, white and blue

sheet cake.

On July 4, play taps.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried is a poet living in Tuckahoe, NY, and Williamsburg, VA. Her poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Macrame Literary Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig, Nixes Mate, and Streetlight Magazine. Her chapbook mansucript The Losing has been longlisted for The Headlight Review’s Annual Poetry Chapbook Contest 2026.

HE ARRIVED JUST IN THE NICOTINE

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Steven Kent

Source: Artlyst

"David Hockney's lifelong love of smoking—and the 2,000 cigarettes he kept 'for emergencies'" —The Guardian, June 13, 2026

The docs predicted early death each time they made their rounds,

But he outlived 'em one by one—the irony abounds.

How did it take so long for David Hockney to expire?

No matter: Still his spirit lives, for where there's smoke there's fire.

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.

RAINBOW COAT

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Irene Axel

President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued on his first day of the second term, made it official policy: transgender, nonbinary, and intersex identities would no longer be recognized by the federal government. And, in turn, federal agencies started removing the questions that once measured SOGI [Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity] characteristics across approximately 360 data collections. —Instinct, February 19, 2026

A newbie gay sitting in my office

and the intake form said ???

next to sexually active

Girl, I see you.

And when she says I'm here for birth control

I whip out my rainbow pen to take notes and say

my usual normalizing speech

about the benefits of BC past preventing pregnancy

and we settle on a good plan to get to

NO MORE PERIODS

and when she starts to get up I say

hang on my dear what about a pap smear

you are 21 and due

and they say... but I'm well you know???

and I say—gently—aware of the white coat

covering my pride tattoo

you still need cervical cancer screening

and they shuffle their feet and bolt with a

KTHXBYE to go pick up their pills

but at least they were in my office

and now—we won't even know—

how many newbie gays

think they don't need

a gynecologist

when everyone with a cervix

needs the right

rainbow

gynecologist

Author's note: The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology cannot tell you how the rate of cervical cancer differs in the queer versus the straight population because they do not have enough data, but the ACOG does say that the risk factors for cervical cancer are more prevalent in LGBTQ patients and that ongoing research is needed. In addition, of course, LGBTQ patients may face significant obstacles in getting acreening—particularly transmen who may have a cervix and may not feel comfortable going to a gyn office to get a pelvic exam or pap smear. How are we in the field supposed to understand this underscreened population when federal policy works to obscure them?

Irene Axel is a queer OBGYN and a poet based in California. Her work has appeared in One Art: A Journal of Poetry.

TIDY UP

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Peter A. Witt

Nobody can predict how the 48 teams will do at the FIFA World Cup this summer, but if you wanted to gamble on Japan being the tidiest team, you’d surely clean up at the bookies. Thanks to a societal expectation of all Japanese people, you’d never know they were there. —CNN, June 14, 2026

The final whistle echoes across the Dallas pitch,
and the stadium slowly drains,
leaving behind the usual modern tax of celebration:
a landscape of crushed plastic, discarded cups,
and the torn remnants of a stadium afternoon.
Most of us walk away,
assuming the mess belongs to the stadium,
or the city, or anyone but ourselves.

But then, the blue jerseys of the Japanese faithful emerge,
not moving toward the exits,
but walking down the rows.
They carry large, simple trash bags,
bending to collect the garbage left by strangers.
There are no television cameras forcing their hand,
no rewards promised at the gates.

They call it tatsu tori ato wo nigosazu,
"the bird that flies away leaves the water unstirred."

It is a quiet philosophy woven into the fabric of a childhood,
where classrooms are swept by the students who occupy them,
and responsibility is not a chore,
but a form of respect for the space we share.

It makes you stop and look at the row you just vacated.
Why must we always leave a scar on the places we visit?
Why do we treat the shared world as a landfill managed by someone else?

Imagine a culture where accountability isn't outsourced,
where we take pride not just in the win,
but in the condition of the ground beneath our feet.
To leave a place cleaner than we found it
not for the praise, but simply because we were there.

Peter A. Witt by chance lives in Texas and is a recovering university professor who lost his adjectives in the doldrums of academic writing. Poetry has helped him recover his ability to see and describe the inner and outer world he inhabits. His work has been twice nominated for the Best of the Net award and has appeared in a variety of online and print publications. He also writes family history. His book about his aunt was published by the Texas A&M University Press (Edith's War: Writings of a Red Cross Worker and Lifelong Champion of Social Justice). He is also an avid birder and wildlife photographer.

MASS SHOOTING #16

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

19300 block of Rensellor Street, Livonia, MI,

June 10, 2026

by Ron Riekki

Ron Riekki has covered every mass shooting in Michigan since July 2025 for The New Verse News.

The Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network offers a 24-hourhelpline at 1-800241-4949.

And those in a mental health crisis can call 988 intead if 911.

“With my ear to the door

of my cell. And my want

like a comb in my hair.”

—Jane Huffman,

“Failed Sestina”

“I’m sure as heat,

as surety.

The bleed”

—Jane Huffman,

“Surety”

“Police say there is no ongoing threat to the public.”

Are you kidding me? Michigan has had more than

100 mass shootings since 2020. You don’t think it’s

an ongoing threat?! I can’t imagine a more ongoing

threat to the public. It’s another family annihilation.

Yes, another family annihilation. Another. Another

family. Another family annihilated. Anti-Christed,

hated, non-mothered, to not, knotted, no other Tues-

days, shooter unsteady. When you search “Livonia”

on the Poetry Foundation website, it says “0 results.”

When you search “Livonia” on the Gun Violence

Archive website, you get 31 results since 2014—

31 shootings here since 2014. Only one of them a mass

shooting. I’m at the mass shooting. The house, small.

The houses nearby, small. A small man sits on a small

porch, a tiny porch, broken wooden rails, his skin also

broken so that I ask what’s wrong, bandages on both

arms, the look like previous bleeding, bruises, purpura,

petechiae. The feel of peripeteia, bathos, pathos, cath-

arsis, anagnorisis, a chorus of country music cranked

in some a--holes truck parked mid-street, blocking traffic,

the guy getting out, going to the memorial in front of

the house, standing there, staring at it, has enough, goes

back to his truck and then squeals the tires loooong with

the truck in park, attention-seeking, angry, this hyper-mask,

this loudness, this performativity, and then he floors it,

truck swerving, almost hitting cars on the side of the road,

and he’s gone. I talk to Doug, a neighbor two doors down

from the mass shooting. So many of these guys who live

near the mass shootings I go to look like pirates—sea-salt

skin, Blackbeard-types with white beards, beer-belly skinny.

Doug tells me his last name and, swear to God, he actually

has the same last name as a famous pirate, a 1600s buccaneer.

He smokes, looking like a survivor, tells me that on Tuesday,

the day of the mass murders, he was in the backyard with

the family that was killed, helping them set up a pool. I say,

“A pool. And then it becomes a pool of blood.” Doug says

in a voice that combines hip-hop’s Drake and outlaw pirate

Sir Francis Drake, “I should kick you in the shins.” He’s not

joking. He tells me of seeing the corpse of the mother killed

by the shooter, tells me the shooting happened at 5 p.m.-some-

thing, but the bodies weren’t taken out until 11:30 p.m.-ish.

Why would they leave the bodies there for that long?

Fingerprints, detectives, a cop telling him, “This is a crime

scene,” Doug staying on his property. And the cop cars.

Cop car after cop car. No place to park. He points to a car

on the street, says, “That’s Sterling’s car.” 58-year-old.

The father. Shot and killed by his son who shot his mother,

his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend. Doug tells me that

they’re slowly towing their cars away. I never thought of

the cars. How the owners are all dead. Something I’d never

even think of. He tells me how long it took them to take

the bodies away, how long it’s taking them to tow the cars.

Doug wears an ALICE’S RESTAURANT WOODSIDE

CALIFORNIA T-shirt, black-and-white. It’s a black-and-

white neighborhood. The shooter, white. Family, white.

All dead. The killer looking dead in news video footage of

him in front of the judge who denied him bail. A face that,

honestly, the first time I saw it, I thought of severe substance

abuse disorder. A face that made me think of abuse, and of

disorder. Doug pulls his shirt out like pro basketball players

do after scoring a critical basket, says, “Guthrie,” proud,

a song about cops, about crime, the longest song I’ve ever

heard. Doug tells me of his wife calling him, telling him

she heard gunshots. Doug telling her to hide in the bath-

tub if it continues. The song has the lyrics of kill kill kill

kill. Such strange lyrics. Such a strange life. Telling your

wife to hide in a bathtub if the gunshots continue. Doug

tells me the mass shooter “didn’t talk much,” was “quiet,”

but “I’d joke with him every once in a while,” like yelling

at him to “buy me a Slurpee!” Doug tells me the mother

planted flowers. It’s the exact same talk as the last family

annihilation I went to, the neighbor in Grand Rapids telling

me about the woman’s love of gardening. These mass

shooters are killing women who love to garden. I can’t

imagine anything more peaceful, more grounded, paired

with such horror. This life makes no sense, because of all

the death. That pairing. Doug says, it “seemed like a normal

day,” the day of the mass murders. He tells me no bullets

came towards his home. The killer used a semiautomatic

rifle, shoots five to thirty rounds with up to five bullets per

second. You can kill five people in one second with a semi-

automatic rifle. Who would own that? Online, it says semi-

automatic rifles are for “hunting, sport shooting, self-defense,”

and, apparently, for mass shootings. They forget to mention it.

I’m going to be honest: Fuck the NRA. That’s my one

curse word I’ll allow. The three-letter curse word: NRA.

The nonrandomness of these shootings, how repetitive

they are, automatic, unraveling daily, nonrational, enraging,

the pain they cause unratable. Sunrays hit the house, punch

our skin. Doug tells me he’s on blood-thinners, the reason

for his contusions, his arms covered in red, blue, purple,

green, yellow discolorations. Semiautomatic rifles were

invented by a German, were used by the Nazis in WWII.

The killer’s last name is Pierce: to make a hole or opening

in. Perforate. Penetrate. The penitentiary awaits.

I remember when I worked in the prison system, an inmate

in there who was doing back-to-back-to-back life sentences—

he would have to die, get resurrected, die again, resurrect,

and then die again, and then he could get out on his fourth

life. I think of the 1.7 million men in prison in the U.S.

The prison system is hungry for angry men. Its stomach

aches for angry men. It’s “nearly impossible” for men

to get into therapy—the cost, the therapists who work

Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and don’t

realize that’s when people work, that they can’t go to

therapy if you schedule your hours for when they work,

the therapists who “refuse to see men,” the stigma, markets

of anger, the MMA marketing, the UFC marketing, WWE,

the road-rage retaliation that’s stuffed into men’s brains, how

boring it is, how polluted. Doug tells me the shooter killed

his brother in his bedroom, his brother’s girlfriend the same

bedroom, killed his parents in their backyard, Doug realizing

the mother was dead because she’d “been there for an hour

and a half,” lying there, motionless, when he saw her, the body

in the sun, the body “on the patio.” Doug tells me “Tuesday

night, I prayed and cried and cried and prayed,” that he “did

not sleep well.” He tells me it took “two days” for their “cat

to come out of the basement.” The shooter even shot one

of the dogs in the leg. Doug says, “I didn’t know he got

any guns in the house.” I ask Doug if he has a gun. “No,

my wife won’t let me.” I ask him if his wife won’t let him

because so many guns, I find, are used to kill the partner.

It seems there’s nothing safer than ensuring there are no

guns at all in a home. I talked to a therapist who told me

that gun ownership is a sign of mental health disorder,

another therapist who told me how often you find that

those with substance use disorders are gun owners, as if

they go hand-in-hand. If I was married to someone, I think

the first thing I’d do is throw out any guns in the home,

because I’d prefer not to be shot. But that’s just me.

I want to tell Doug that his wife is smart, brilliant.

I ask Doug what needs to happen to improve things. He says,

“The yahoo in the White House, he doesn’t do anything

about gun control,” adds, “I don’t even like saying his name.”

Doug tells me he’d own a gun though, if it wasn’t for his wife.

Why? “Protection.” He says the problem is “alpha males,

macho males,” says the answer is if we “cut the trigger finger

off” of these mass shooters, takes his free hand and acts like

he’s holding a saw, his finger sticking out, pretending he’s

invisibly sawing off his finger, adds, “background checks”

would help. I tell him the mass shooter had no criminal

background, no reported mental health issues. At least

that’s what the news reports. I see a neighbor pull up,

lives in the house right next to the mass shooting. I go

over. The guy reminds me of Ichabod Crane, how I

imagined him when I read the story. He’s nervous,

visibly, very. We talk. He’s guarded. A full family

was murdered feet from where we’re standing. Even

his dog in the window looks scared. I say this to him.

I asked if he talked to the shooter. Yes. I ask what

he was like. He starts to tell me, then backtracks.

He’s jittery. He tells me not to put that, tells me

to put he was “nice,” that the mass shooter was

always “nice.” He repeats the word “nice.” He

doesn’t want me to put what he was originally

going to say, except I don’t know what he was

going to originally say, just that now he wants me

to put that the killer was “nice,” and I have this

revelation—all these times I’ve seen the news

where neighbors, friends, family of the mass

murderer gets asked to describe the killer, they

always say something like that, that he was “nice”

and I realize now, for the first time, that it’s B.S.

He’s saying the killer was nice, because he’s nervous,

noticeably, almost exaggeratedly, a definite PTSD, eyes

darting, restless. He doesn’t want me putting anything

down that might make the killer pissed off, a killer who,

I remind him, will most likely be doing life in prison

with no parole. He tells me his name, but I tell him

I can use a nickname, but he says, no, I can use his

name, but I won’t, simply because of all sixteen mass

shootings I’ve gone to, I can tell he’s really honestly

fearing for his life from this guy who’ll probably be

incarcerated forever, but I understand. It’s right next

to his home, his dog in the window, anxious for him

to go inside, his dog having heard the gunshots. Can

dogs have PTSD? Hell yes. My parents owned a rescue

dog and that thing was more hypervigilant than an ex-

Marine. I walk over to the memorial in front of the house.

I notice the neighbor watching me. He mentioned that

he’s in therapy. I think, Good. I wish more men would

get into therapy. I wish more men weren’t seduced by

the small-penis pseudo-cure of gun ownership. I wish

more men were actually like Ichabod Crane and less

Headless Horseman—brainless, violent, ghoulish; I think

of the Hell that awaits the mass murderer, what happens

in prison, the sons in there, the poison of prison, the way

you pay and pay and pay and pay, an inmate one time

telling me that he taped books to his chest when he slept

at night, worried about being stabbed in his sleep, another

inmate telling me he didn’t go to the chapel because so

many men were raped in there, and I remember this row

of toilets, toilet after toilet after toilet that you’d see

through the glass, on the way with the walk to the chapel

and how all these men would be sitting, shitting, in full

sight, no privacy, and the chapel in back, a guard taking me,

and this intricate Jesus Christ depiction, incredible, detailed,

even expensive looking, carved, careful, Jesus with so much

blood on his wrists. So much. I kept staring at all the blood.

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

BOOING BOSS TWEET’S CRUEL REICH CULT WHEREVER THEY GO

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Raymond Nat Turner

Rise Up, Sing Out: Watch from Home

The boos are growing stronger

The boos are lasting longer…

Crescendoing class-war bugle calls—

thundering tsunamis—

from factory floors, from stadiums, from arenas, from

concert halls, bouncing off white supremacist border walls

The boos are growing stronger

The boos are lasting longer…

Lions and elephants roaring, rejecting orange ICE Age rampage. Rejecting bassackwards

Wayback Machine Making America Grate again. Splitting families up in profit-driven

torture centers. Rejecting double-dipping, rights-stripping, grifting, gerrymandered Jim Crow

$campaigns and $elections turning our sweat beads, blisters, callouses into their personal ATMs.

The boos are growing stronger

The boos are lasting longer…

Background vocals for SNAP songs stolen from babies’ growling bellies.

Harmonies for cancer patients’ plug-pulling laments

and dirges of screaming farmers fucked by their Tariff Sheriff arresting

our development at 2 bags of groceries for the price of 6…

The boos are growing stronger

The boos are lasting longer…

Foghorns warning fishing boats ‘bout mass murder on high seas and

War Of The Week. Warning of walking waste, fraud and abuse by

2,000 lb. bomb-worshippers—

Department of Class War on working-class—home and abroad.

The boos are growing stronger

The boos are lasting longer…

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; Black Agenda Report's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.

DUAL-CLASS PURGATORY

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

by Mostofa Sarwar

Caricature at Pinterest

SpaceX shares come in two main types: Class A and Class B (although the company has the option to issue nonvoting Class C shares in the future). The Class A shares are the ones being offered for sale to the public in the IPO, and are subject to the usual "one vote per share" rule for voting on company matters. But the Class B shares, which ordinary investors can't buy, confer 10 votes per share, and Elon Musk owns 93.6% of those Class B shares. That gives Musk 85.1% of the combined voting power of the company. Generally speaking, it's good for a CEO to be a major shareholder of their company, because it means their goals are aligned with those of other shareholders. But when a CEO controls a supermajority of the entire company's voting power, their vote is the only shareholder vote that matters. All other shareholders are basically just along for the ride. —Yahoo Finance, June 5, 2026

See also “Elon Musk, Human Ponzi Scheme” by Paul Krugman.

The Class B shares are held

by a singular phantom,

ten votes for every dead soul

trapped in the machinery.

Down in the valley,

the river still runs cold and silver,

unbothered by the governance of the super-voting elite.

We bought into the future

at an inflated premium,

only to find ourselves locked

in a Class C silence,

watching the billionaire steer his iron chariot toward Mars

with the capital drained

from our pension pots

and collective dreams.

The fireflies still blink in the hedgerows—

a fragile, democratic light

that requires no underwriters.

Dr. Mostofa Sarwar is a professor emeritus of geophysics and former associate provost at the University of New Orleans, as well as the dean and former vice chancellor and provost of Delgado Community College. His opinion essays were published in The Daily Star, New Age, Dhaka Tribune, and Bdnews24.com of Bangladesh, The Straits Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, Phuket News of Thailand, The Times Picayune of New Orleans, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, The Daily Advent and The Opera News of New York. Recently, his English poetry has appeared in the Sangam literary magazine, The Seattle Star, The New Verse News, Ellipsis, and other publications, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Sarwar published three books of Bengali poems. His book His book Sunflower Wounds, a collection of English poems about the war in Ukraine, has been accepted for publication by the University of New Orleans Press.

TREES IN SPRING

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Royal Rhodes

David Hockney, who died on Friday, painting in Normandy in 2020. Photograph: David Hockney in The Guardian

Hockney shaped the Lockdown into art --
an old half-timbered house in Normandy,
and made a cider-press his studio.
The synchronized, rich colors that we see
in pallid light with white tonality
in fruit trees and a pinkish sky take part
with summer greens around a bright blue pond.
"My little Bayeux tapestry, " he called
these scenes of painted whorls and arabesques.
Reflections show reality exists
in splashing drops of rain and morning mists,
as wind and moving boughs create a bond,
even if no breath of wind is felt.
One storm can set the blossom's wind-blown fates,
transforming how we viewers see ourselves.
A world we know intensifies, inflates
the voices of laments each throat creates.
We see a light that helps the winter melt,
as trees pass nutrients from heart to heart.
The openness of strokes has moved his brush
in twisting marks appearing in the hundreds,
a deft illusion of the real we rush
to feel before Corona comes to crush
us just as hoped-for Spring can truly start.

Royal Rhodes is a poet whose poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including several times in The New Verse News.

WORLD CUP BUTTERFLY

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

by Indran Amirthanayagam

AI animation by Nightcafé for The New Verse News

Yes, this is a poem dribbled, crossed, headed, corner and free kicked

This is the beginning of the month that will never equal any other

period in time: The World Cup in North America, in Mexico

with families gathering to ask for news of loved ones disappeared,

to ask for electricity, to ask for justice and to ask for tickets;

In Canada, all quiet for the moment, a tranquil backwater, a pause

between acts. But over there in the Great Bearish United States,

denying entry to a Somali referee, claiming an official Iraqi photographer

has ties to terrorists, and eleven US cities handed extra costs by FIFA,

excluded from sponsorships that compete with FIFA contracts,

and local taxes removed from ticket prices. As the saying goes,

FIFA takes the loot and host cities are left holding what?

A bunch of memories, some extra grass in stadiums, and something

more ineffable, beautiful: pride in hosting teams from far away lands

in our corner of the planet, spinning the web to capture the butterfly,

not a bad use of taxes to be left holding the woven bag.

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.

KYOKA

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Chen-ou Liu

this golfball-brained man

behind the Resolute Desk

loves inflation ...

a MAGA sign, Donald Trump

$20,28 per gallon

Chen-ou Liu is the author of five books, including Following the Moon to the Maple Land (First Prize, 2011 Haiku Pix Chapbook Contest) and A Life in Transition and Translation (Honorable Mention, 2014 Turtle Light Press Biennial Haiku Chapbook Competition). His tanka and haiku have been honored with many awards.

A MATCH

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

by Anne Reiner

What does one

give for a 250th anniversary?

The first gift was easy—

a declaration on paper.

We used to be a nation

who gathered

in pews, in booths,

on steps, on roofs.

But the pulpit has a party line,

and the diner is turning tables.

Now, a diamond can be manufactured.

After 250 years,

how does one

celebrate freedom?

With a cage.

Cartoon by Ann Telnaes

Anne Reiner is a writer and biostatistician based in NYC.

RAIN YEAR ROUND

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

by Christine Jackson

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

Under my tarp shivering, boots soaked, mud. Jesus an attack in this rain? We were ready, sure. My back muscles still zinged from days of digging burying metal cases under the trees, tamping soggy ground. Like for small graves. High school kids hacked into the Jay Six list. We were next. Tonight. My phone flashes a text from Irene in the vols tent by the road: 3 F150 pickups. A thrum of thunder rolls over the wintry field behind the library and my taut nerves. Trucks rumble into the parking lot. Profane confusion among bobbing flashlights. My binoculars pick up a dozen long-beards in ragtag camo and epaulets, oilskin duster coats. One horned helmet. Flagpoles with bayonet tips. I tap a quick text to our people.

Sprays of shattered glass and a percussive thud from a flash bang mean they are inside. Tipped shelves clatter. Rows of racks collapse, crash. Guttural whoops over their empty victory. The library’s massive alarm leaps to life, out-whooping them, pulsing louder in the rain. They scramble, cursing along the slick walkway. I huddle at the edge of the woods, my rifle close to defend sacred ground, the buried texts. We knew the Project’s targeted titles, so many, Shakespeare, Orwell, Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King. We saved what we could, but for how long?

The F150s roar away. More would follow.

We had truth. Was it enough?

Icy rain continues to fall, steady, insistent,

pelting the tarp overhead like birdshot.

Christine Jackson is retired from her day job, three decades of teaching literature and creative writing at a South Florida university. She continues to clock in on a life-long night shift writing poetry. Her work has appeared in an array of online journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, and South Florida Poetry Journal.

FOUL TROUBLE

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 22:00:00 +0000

by Tammy Smith

Cartoon by Clay Jones

I know nothing about the Knicks
other than they’re from New York

and haven’t won a championship
since 1973. I know even less

about the Spurs. Game 3 at the Garden

means more traffic—

something I can’t ignore.
Maybe that’s why I’m paying
extra attention to the hype, the energy
around the rim so electrifying

I decide to watch, for the first time—
the whole game from my living room

wearing fuzzy bunny slippers

with soft pink pajamas.

There’s no point pretending

I understand the game

or its rules—

but I know players
who commit fouls get punished
with free throws.

A flagrant foul sounds poetic,

as satisfying as the swish

of a slam-dunk—but the notion

of excessive contact
as a boundary violation

makes me want to learn more

about why David Hollander thinks

basketball can save the world. The court,

layups, turnovers, every rebound--

offense and defense, skill and hustle

underscores that legendary mantra:

you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,

which has everything and nothing

to do with deciding who gets benched,

or booing Trump.

Tammy Smith is a poet and licensed clinical social worker from New Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Thimble Literary Magazine, LIPS, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She received honorable mentions in the Journal of New Jersey Poets 2026 Poets Prize and the 2026 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards.

BUNKER HILL

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

by Betsy Johnson

Maybe history belongs in an aquarium,
sealed glass, nothing escapes,
tourists tapping,
their faces blurring into the water
like fish circling stones,
forgetting how a river ever tasted.

Blindfolds are now built into the monument,
no need to hand them out.
People gather,
guessing at the gaps,
swapping stories about words that used to live here.
There’s a kind of bravery in pretending
not to flinch.

Slavery, taken from the wall.
Women erased,
the ones who refused to fold themselves small.
Immigrants, scratched out.
Only the dead left,
the ones good for a headline in June.
Someone decided truth was too “woke” for the daylight.
Wouldn’t want anyone catching empathy from a plaque.
You stand in front of absence,

try to piece together stories from what’s left in the shadows.

The monument looks lighter,
but the air is heavy,
pressing on your chest,
the way silence does
when no one wants to go first.
Tourists line up for their photos,
kids run the steps.
It gets too easy,
not seeing what isn’t there.

History shrinks down,
something you can keep in your pocket,
hard questions packed away in dust,
stories left behind
because they were too honest to let us sleep.

And I wonder,
what happens to a country
that keeps pretending it’s finished telling the truth,
when everyone who knows better
is still standing here,
waiting for their name to be spoken
in the story that always belonged to them.

Betsy Johnson is a poet, storyteller, educator, and autism specialist whose work explores belonging through disability, caregiving, healthcare, social justice, and the natural world. Her writing weaves personal narrative with larger social questions, tracing how people navigate uncertainty, connection, loss, resilience, and change. Her poem "Mathematics of Mercy," on the human impact of Medicaid policy, was read on the floor of the House of Representatives.

AND THEN

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:59:15 +0000

by Debbie Benson

The New York Times

then came bees the sizev cats- they

overtook the sky

2put a stop2 our, wherever it was we

were going?

they told us we’d failed 2 really see

our world,

dizzying us w/eyes like sharded glass.

they dove & purred, unruly w/ yellow,

nonpoisonous

if fearsome, aghast but all unwarring,

& w/ them hopes we’d been ignoring

were dipping also soaring

Debbie Benson’s recent poems appear (or are forthcoming) in Indiana Review, Passages North, Bennington Review, Ninth Letter, and The Penn Review. Past awards include the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize, Vern Cowles Prize, an International Merit Award from Atlanta Review, inclusion in Best New Poets, and a “Best of the Net” nomination. She is a prior contributor at The New Verse News. She works as a clinical psychologist in NYC.

DATA CENTERS

noreply@blogger.com (Editor2) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:30:00 +0000

by Mariana Mcdonald

For Abeline, Texas

As farmers say goodbye to farms

and crops lie withering on the soil,

the eyes of AI tech bros widen,

enthralled with prospects of cheap land

soon on the selling block, to build

gigantic Data Centers, some the size

of Central Park like the one in Abeline,

meant to make “its own” energy,

with ten gas turbines, fifty planned,

five dozen diesel generators, to power

an industry that plots and plunders.

While locals gaze at threatened vistas

of endless fields framed by the sun,

breathe toxic air and drink dank water,

face raised bills for heat and cooling,

Data Centers generate heat islands.

All horrors hidden by a scheme of secrecy

and NDAs, without a single question posed

to those who live there: “Do you want this?

Give consent? Are there ways it hurts you?”

The CEOs don’t want to hear from locals,

use permits that will circumvent them,

don’t want to hear about the headaches, asthma.

To them, all land is an AI site without a people,

for an AI industry without a site. Their tax breaks

gut the county budgets, cutting schools and fire

departments, while AI moguls’ pockets overflow.

A painful microcosm of the plague that daily

spreads and grows, infects, now kills our nation.

But people are not silent or compliant.

They rise up angry all around the country,

from Oregon to Texas to Virginia, protest

three thousand Data Centers up and running,

fifteen hundred more planned or in process.

“You can’t drink data!” people cry, and so far,

they’ve blocked sixteen Centers in seven states.

Erin Brockovich is back in headlines, hosts

a website tracking Data Centers, while arrogant

tech oligarchs brush off concern for how AI

is damaging where we live and how we think.

From sea to littered sea the fight is growing.

Governors, reps, and senators take action,

call for moratoriums with enforcement

of new rules for how Centers are greenlit.

Let struggle be how we stop this violation

of the Earth, the land, the waters, air, and

people, in this dangerous time of cruelty

and corruption, fraught with lawless

theft and broad denial of basic rights

we fought for, won, and we want back.

Oh, Abeline, Abeline! May your heavenly vistas

remain, with turquoise skies and dappled sunsets.

May the air you breathe be poison-free and fitting

for all your toiling people, and all life.

Mariana Mcdonald is a poet, writer, activist, and scientist. Her work has been published and anthologized widely. A southerner with lifelong ties to Puerto Rico, she lives in Atlanta.