I LOVE A PARADE

by Linda Ferguson

as spontaneous as kissing,
one that opens like skies and camellias in January,
one that’s snug as the petals of artichoke buds,
one as knock-kneed as newly born calves in the spring.

I love a parade that knows the way, like elephants returning to a stream,
or a parade without purpose, one that drifts along, trailing its fingers in a summer lake,
or one that’s as wistful as the hound with its nose pressed
against the rough grain of gray fence planks.

Let’s have a parade that gleams like the keys that open the hidden doors,
or like the intrepid turtles that continue to carry small polished maps of the world –
a parade that smells of peaches and petrichor and pine –
a parade that surprises, like the sight of your name, handwritten in ink,
on a cream envelope.

Let’s have a barefoot, makeshift parade made of pinecones and popsicle sticks and twine –
a red-wagon parade, with wheels that squeak and trumpets that strain and ponies that canter
along crooked brick streets.

Give us a piggy-back, leapfrog, hopscotch parade –
a parade of acorns and feathers and beads,
a parade of thick knitted socks and worn wooden clogs,
a parade with spider web streamers and twig batons
covered in clumps of fresh emerald moss.

Let’s have a parade of flags stitched with verbs
like gentle and shimmy and billow and mist
or humble signs printed with pudding and pillow
and button and bone and apple and toe—

Let’s see a parade of dazed passengers stepping off a plane
into a long embrace,
a parade of soldiers lifting their palms,
a parade of perpetrators asking forgiveness,
a parade of jurors confessing, I, too, have sinned,  
a parade of ancestors promising, it will be alright.

Come, let our parade know the beams of a blue supermoon,
let our parade know the loneliness of being lost at sea—
let our parade be the one that remembers
how footprints tremble when they touch
foreign soil.

Linda Ferguson is an award-winning writer of poetry, fiction and essays. Her poetry chapbook was published by Dancing Girl Press. She has a passion for teaching creative writing classes that inspire and support students of all ages.

BELLS & WHISTLES

by Paul Smith

I love a parade
with all the bells and whistles
tanks and cannons and ICBM’s
and, of course,
Sidewinder missiles
I love to watch the men march
and hear their stomping feet
all pound as one in unison
thudding down the street
I love to see the beamish boys
cheering for the troops
waving at their gravity
with manxome jaws outstuck
I love to see the young girls
swept up by fervor true
swooning at platoons festooned
in khaki, white and blue
as the marchers pass the graveyard
their drums and bugles cease
their toots and tweets
a still salute to fallen men
who now lie still
and march no more
the lull is brief
just a moment
a semi-quaver of relief
then right on cue
the band strikes up
Hail to the Chief!


Paul Smith lives near Chicago. He writes fiction & poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

TO EMMA LAZARUS IN THE WAKE OF 45

by Gail Thomas

Art by Dow Phumiruk.

    
The mother of exiles is pissed, her lips
no longer silent. Her beacon hand
sputters against the brazen lout
who threatens to bolt the door.
When a mother is pissed,
you’d better watch out.
When a mother is tired
of your bullshit,
you’d  better watch out.
When a mother is backed
into a corner, she will use
her teeth and voice to protect
the weak, the huddled, the hurt.
Her name is Queen of Heaven,
Empress of Hell, Demeter,
Fatima, Kali, Yemaya,
Ptesan-Wi, Asasa Ya,
Gaia
Lady of All the World.



Art via Pinterest.

Gail Thomas has published four books of poetry, and her work appears in many journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Odd Mercy was chosen by Ellen Bass for the Charlotte Mew Prize of Headmistress Press, and Waving Back was named a Must Read for 2016 by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.  She lives in Northampton, MA. Her last poem for TheNewVerse.News was published in 2012.

OPPOSING THE GREAT LEADER

by Howard Winn


is an act of treason
if he is the country
but if he is only a
hot-air balloon
waiting the pin-prick
of truth to fall deflated
at our feet as the mere
rubber lawn decoration
for Halloween or a plastic
rabbit for the Easter
holiday to celebrate his
myth of the second coming
he must be deposed in
celebration of veracity
for to honor this figment
of his own manufacture
is the worst blasphemy of all



Howard Winn has just had a novel Acropolis published by Propertius Press as well as poems in the Pennsylvania Literary Journal and in Evening Street Magazine.

STATE OF THE UNION

by David Rosier

Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons

All shapes, all shades, all sense,
This winter day, lost in fog
In our deceived, defiled land
Still stolen by a demagogue.


David Rosier is a poet and author who lives in the small arts community of Spring City, Utah.  He is also a musician.

MEN WITH NO LIPS

by Tricia Knoll

I’ve learned to be afraid of them.
Someone is going to tell a lie.
Go after the drug peddlers, ignore
drug companies pumping opiods.
Refurbish Hotel Guantanamo
with used mattresses from high-rise hotels.
Breathe deep of clean, clean coal.
Pretend the sick get health care
or that your dreams are equal
to those of people without a country.
I'm never afraid to kneel
and know its rightness.

White guys who smile by folding
their lips in, straight lines across the face
to hide  the aging of the down curves
but not to show teeth. Some public relations
gimmick to refrain from being read as wolf,
predator, out to get you. Smuggy. Smirky.
Someone is telling a lie.  I’ve known frogs
I trusted more.


Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet who once heard of an art installation by Robbie Conal called "Men With No Lips." So here we are in the news of the State of the Union. Men without lips.

"Men With No Lips" by Robbie Conal

"Can't Even" by Robbie Conal

AMERICAN DAEDALUS

by Alejandro Escudé

America first, because I’m qualified to say American first. America first, as in the first crocodile. America first, as in the rich literary history of the United States. America first, as in Huck Finn killing the pig to cover his tracks. The estuary. America first, as in Chicago, Hog Butcher of the World. America first, Sandburg, Sandburg. America first, the red wheelbarrow again the wall there. The rising tide of America. And the woman rocking on the porch, the water rising. Flood waters in New Orleans. America first of the dress socks you wore to Davos. The helicopter rising amid snow you’d never know. Fuck you, fuck you. America first, of the Dodge Challenger that ran over the protestor. Did you know she was there, in front of your hood? Blood smears the shape of the continent? America first, the city on the hill. What hill? The city, you bastard, the one you saw from your New York City skyscraper. I remember sweaty mornings in the summer. Do you know what summer is? The sweat, sweat, sweat. And now, America first, where does your wife sleep? The house where Melania, goddess of the hunt, sleeps. Do the rest of us sleep, the ones that need the jobs? Do you know what a job is, hovering about the river? What river? Fuck you, the river, the river, the river. There is a dog barking in the distance. Do you hear that dog? Do you hear history knocking? The book that lies open on the coffee table, abhorred. How many us had to die. How many of us gave an open night just to earn a college education? By the time you’re forty you want to blow up the circuit before the circuit. The boss that gave you shit. The movie you fell in love with. So many Western reenactments. There’s the Civil War, the Vietnam War, then there’s Desert Storm, the war you grew up with. Now, there’s Fox News and Sean Hannity—sounds like a deadbeat Joyce character in Ulysses. The one who ignored Bloom and Daedalus and you wanted dead or pussy-whipped, same thing. I’m thinking of the dust storm in West Texas, was it really there? The doggy door I must shut to shut the doggy indoors. Will you feed him when I’m gone? No, you won’t? Then, what good are you? When I was twenty, my parents urged me to get my citizenship and I stood and put my hand over my heart. My heart? Doesn’t it make you laugh? It makes you want to scream “I am a dreamer!” And I am I guess, I have dreamed before. My son is blonde and he is ten-years-old. My wife is a “hell hath new fury” type of woman. A real feminist, if you know what I mean. But my father disapproves of my guns. He remembers grandfather back in in South America taking aim at the cats who murdered his pigeons, but he hates guns. I sit back and drink wine and wonder what happened to the man who would cut the moon in twain and then I recall there wasn’t such a man. I am that man! The sky is broken. The heat is coming. There is a street ready to take it all. There is a mind that has already moved beyond you. Somewhere, there is a liquor store open late. We walk into it and buy a six pack of beer. Something to drink before the dinosaurs burst into our room and we are too drunk to notice.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

SELF-REVELATION

found poetry by Diane Elayne Dees

I have the right temperament,

I try to learn from the past.

I thought being president

would be easier than my old life.

I'm an honest person, I thought

it would be easier. Bing bing,

bong bong, bing bing bing.

I have embraced crying mothers

who have lost their children

because our politicians put their personal

agendas before the national good.

I have a great relationship with the blacks;

I wouldn't mind a little bow.

Despite the constant negative press

covfefe, they don't know how to write good.

I know more about ISIS than the generals do;

why can't we use nuclear weapons?

I'm their worst nightmare, my fingers are long

and beautiful. Even if the world is going to hell

in a hand-basket, I won't lose a penny.

Who’s doing the raping?

Who's doing the raping?

Diane Elayne Dees’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

STATE OF THE UNION

by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Graphic by Kevin Kreneck
via The Progressive Populist

While T***p looks presidential
reading words slowly on the networks,
on the classic movie channel
King Kong the giant ape runs amok,
first on Skull Island,
then in Manhattan.

Karen Greenbaum-Maya can't. She just can't. The Book of Knots and Their Untying is published by Kelsay Press.

THRESHOLD

by Paul Smith

Cartoon by Taylor Jones

There is a paradox
that goes like this:
a real good liar is so good
he is never caught
so he gets known as
an honest man
an honest man, though, may
become desperate and lie
once or twice
a greenhorn at deception
he gets labelled a liar
but there are limits, sir
the threshold is
five lies a day
two thousand lies in one year
once you cross that line
you are out of the vestibule
of deceit
and into the parlor, the banquet hall
then all of us are on to you
you stick out like a sore thumb
we have your number
we
the second sex
the fifth estate
the one they call
the seventh son
we all
know your sum

and it is zero


Paul Smith lives near Chicago. He writes fiction & poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.

T***P AT DAVOS

by Rick Mullin

Cartoon by Patrick Chappatte, The New York Times, January 22, 2018

Bloated, he descended with the rest,
the social X-Ray plutocrats, the best
and brightest on the snowy global stage.
His speech was warmly welcomed by a few
and tolerated by their retinue.
His teleprompter did not turn a page.
And he got through, despite low expectations.
He sang in praise (eschewing other nations)
of the USA, the market surge,
and all the aliens he hopes to purge.
He finished without serious faux pas,
he left the audience in less than awe
and waddled through the press contingent, dumb
and tough. He was the ultimate sore thumb.



Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Transom.

THE RELUCTANT PROTESTER

by Elane Gutterman

“As a woman, I feel it’s my responsibility to be here. Practice the privilege you have. I came from a land where people had to die to vote. Americans can change their history by protesting.”  Awalin Sopan, 33, from Virginia, dressed as a character from The Handmaid’s Tale. Ms. Sopan, originally from Bangladesh, became a United States citizen in 2017. —Photograph by Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

 “Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.” —Martin Luther King, Memphis, TN, April 3, 1968


Why not let others
Demonstrate, agitate, escalate?

Stretched in yoga, weekend routines we
Equivocate, abdicate, meditate.

We rely on the media and courts to
Investigate, adjudicate, mitigate.

We’re overwhelmed by the acts of the 45th to
Disintegrate, contaminate, perpetrate.

The way his core of supporters
Adulate, gravitate, accommodate.

We’ve grown accustomed to a mind set to
Dominate, fabricate, fulminate.

On MLK day, I heard his speech evoke dogs and firehoses to
Activate, necessitate, consolidate.

At the Women’s March, last Saturday,
I stood my cold ground to demonstrate.

Elane Gutterman is a health researcher and poet, whose poems have appeared in the Kelsey Review, Patterson Literary Review and the US1 Summer Fiction Issue. Living in West Windsor, NJ, she attended the Women's March on New Jersey in Morristown. 

REST EASY

by Edmund Conti

Jim Morin, Morin Toons Syndicate via The Denver Post

According to the latest poll,
It’s all there on the table—
Right beside his taco bowl—
His genius? It is stable.

We all can see how smart he is
As far as we are able.
Just watch him do his daily biz.
His genius. It is stable.

He likes to watch TV all day
Especially on cable.
To see what Fox and Friends all say.
His genius. It is stable.

He is the hottest president.
Reminds us of Clark Gable.
Smart and handsome is this gent.
His genius. It is stable.

The news you hear of course is Fake.
Some Democratic fable.
Don’t listen to them bellyache.
His genius. It is stable.


Edmund Conti is not your normal genius.

GOOD-BYE

by Wilda Morris

Eleven Guantánamo inmates are challenging their indefinite detention in the US military camp in Cuba on grounds that Donald Trump’s defiant pledge to keep all remaining detainees permanently locked up is fuelled by hostility towards Muslims. . . . Some of the petitioners in the new filing have themselves been held on the Cuban base almost since the beginning; others have been detained for 10 years. None of them has ever been charged, and all know that unless the courts intervene they could remain in their cells until they die. In a memorable phrase, they say that ‘the aura of forever hangs heavier than ever.’” Pictured: The entrance of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images —The Guardian, January 11, 2018

           “ . . . And good-bye to you, old Rights-of-Man.”
                  ~ Billy in Billy Budd by Herman Melville


Hello to paying men of questionable truth to bring in suspects.
Hello to assuming men guilty without evidence
Good-bye, old Rights of Man

Hello to ice water baths, sleep deprivation, threat dogs
Hello to solitary confinement and mocking of religion
Good-by, old Geneva Conventions

Hello to hours in stress positions, temperature extremes
Hello to sexual abuse, rectal rehydration, waterboarding
Good-by to you, old Rights of Man

Hello to the US using medieval torture techniques
Hello to the US adapting techniques from the Nazi camps
Good-by, old Geneva conventions

Hello to holding prisoners indefinitely without trial
Hello to holding prisoners decades after deeming them innocent
Good-bye to you, old Rights-of-Man

Wilda Morris is a widely published, award-winning poet. She is a past-president of the Illinois State Poetry Society, Workshop Chairperson of Poets & Patrons of Chicago, and Chair of the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Wilda Morris's Poetry Challenge provides an online contest for other poets each month.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT BACK THEN

by Gilbert Allen

Slavery in America began when the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, to aid in the production of such lucrative crops as tobacco. —History.com


Four hundred years ago, we needed you.
Turn Air Force One into a time machine.
Bless colonists with your enlightened views.
Four hundred years ago, we needed you
to end this chain migration’s witches’ brew
before it started. Be our go-between!
Four hundred years ago, we needed you.
Turn Air Force One into a time machine.

Gilbert Allen lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent books are Catma and The Final Days of Great American Shopping.

THE NORWEGIAN QUESTION

by Gail White

Cartoon by Peter Kuper for The New Yorker.

Why don’t we get more immigrants from Norway?
All winter long they never see the sun.
But their health care’s taken care of
And they’re not, that I’m aware of,
Very likely to be murdered with a gun.

What is it with these ignorant Norwegians?
Don’t they want what all Americans receive?
But they love the smorgasbords
And the mountains and the fjords,
And on top of that, they get parental leave.

Why do I sometimes wish I were Norwegian?
Am I really quite as socialist as that?
Yes, the dream that I aspire to
Is to sit beside the fire to
Caress my own Norwegian forest cat.

Gail White is a formalist poet with work in many journals, including Measure, Light, First Things, and Hudson Review. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her latest book Catechism was published in 2016 by White Violet Press.

A SHITTY POET

by Maurine Meleck

Nobody wants to read a poem about shitholes.
I will be called a fake poet, a charlatan,
an impostor trying to imitate real life.
Nevertheless, when nature calls we must
answer its whistle, its plea, its song.
Years ago, backpacking through Europe,
I was able to use the real shitholes
at the youth hostels I frequented,
holes in the ground where one actually
dumps one's shit.  Perhaps that conjures
up foul odors or visions of shit and miss
on your white sneakers.  It looks nothing
like a gold-plated toilet at the Ritz
with a self flushing mechanism or smell
like a stroll through a flowered nature trail.
Never underestimate a true shithole
as it can be hidden beneath a garden of roses,
but all you have to do is kick away the dirt.

Maurine Meleck has published poetry in numerous journals and anthologies including Luna Negra, Calliope, and Oasis.  Her poems appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume 1, South Carolina.  She authored a chapter of poetry titled "Song of Sweetwater" in the book Revolutionary Grandparents.  She lives in Florida with her autistic grandson, whom she has raised.

TO THE KNOW-IT-ALL

by Terese Coe 

Image from boingboing

After Emily Dickinson

I’m nobody and, as for you,
I frankly cannot construe
how you manage to think mere contempt
could possibly make you exempt
from being a nobody too.

Terese Coe’s poems and translations have appeared in 32 Poems, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Cincinnati Review, New American Writing, Ploughshares, Poetry, Threepenny Review, Agenda, The Moth, New Walk Magazine, New Writing Scotland, Poetry Review, the TLS, The Stinging Fly, and many other publications and anthologies. Her latest collection Shot Silk was nominated for The Poets Prize of 2017.

FLY ON THE WHITE HOUSE WALL

by Cindy Hochman

It’s a pit of vipers, I tell you.
Too much excrement, even for my species.
If only I had human language I could maybe write a book.
Flies and Fury.
Lordy Lordy Lordy of the Flies.
Someone open a window—I’ve gotta get the heck out of here.


Cindy Hochman is the president of "100 Proof" Copyediting Services and the editor-in-chief of the online poetry journal First Literary Review-East. She reviews books for Pedestal magazine, Clockwise Cat, Home Planet News, and others. Her latest chapbook is Habeas Corpus from Glass Lyre Press.

NO RESOLUTION

by j.lewis

Image from Breaking Burgh

again, the ball drops, but does not break
its descent carefully engineered to delight

again, the ball is fumbled, or intercepted
despite the carefully engineered play

again. the ball passes its mark in space
the carefully engineered orbit a quiet assurance

again, we wait, not for ball, but for hammer to drop
for the carefully engineered investigations to resolve

but the dropping ball,
wobbling pass,
eternal orbit,
special investigation
seem to have no end

again, an angry tweet that
"my button, my nuclear football
is bigger than yours"
pushes us closer to the dropping
of the other shoe
and no amount of careful engineering
will save us when it strikes the floor

j.lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. His poetry and music reflect the complexity of human interactions, sometimes drawing inspiration from his experience in healthcare. When he is not otherwise occupied, he is often on a kayak, exploring and photographing the waterways near his home in California. A Clear Day in October, j.lewis’s first collection of poetry paired with his own photography, is available directly from E&GJ Press.