New Verse News

FIRST CRUSH

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by Barbara Eknoian

I am only nine-years-old,
when I feel my heart flutter
watching the tall, blond cowboy
on the screen at the Alvin.
I don't even know his name.
Every night, before I fall asleep,
I daydream about him.
I live out west and work
at the general store,
a stage coach stop.
I sell calico and ribbons
for granny dresses and bonnets.

I am fickle and soon forget
my movie star to fantasize
about Johnny, the boy in 4th grade
that all the girls like.
While watching TV, years later,
the actor looks familiar and I realize
my cowboy crush was Peter Graves.
I recall sweet musings,
when I wore a red pinafore,
my heart, a pitter-patter,
waiting for my handsome cowboy
to amble into the general store,
tip his hat, and say, "Howdy Ma'am."

Barbara Eknoian is the first recipient of the 2002 Jane Buel Bradley Poetry Chapbook Award for her chapbook, Jerkumstances published by Pearl Editions. She is a long time member of Donna Hilbert's Poetry Workshop in Long Beach, CA.
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BANKRUPT ON SELLING

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:00 GMT

by Andrew Hilbert

they'll get the votes
when they get the votes
it's only a matter of time
until they get the votes
they'll soon realize, i hope
that it's too late
to argue over language
in a law
while kids already breathing
and playing
and laughing
and smiling
are told that mommy and daddy
are too poor to keep
any of them alive
and the country they pledge allegiance
to
refuses allegiance to them

they'll get the votes
when they get the votes
soon, i hope
some kids can't wait

kucinich will posture and make his stand
at the risk of ruining everything
stupak will posture and make his stand
at the risk of ruining everything
and maybe the country'll go bankrupt

from the way these assholes talk,
it already is.

Andrew Hilbert has a degree in History at Cal State Long Beach and lives in Orange County, California.
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STICKS & STONES WILL MAKE A WAR & NAMES WILL ALWAYS HURT ME

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by Rasma Haidri

I can see them now
my children's grandchildren's children
their heads bowed over history books
(or screens or holograms or whatever
the state-of-the-art futurorama schoolroom will offer)
scoffing at what they read:
that a cartoon drawing started it all
first in a Danish newspaper
then copycatted in a Norwegian one
then again in a Swedish one
(nah nah boo boo
we'll draw Mohammed
as a pig or a dog or a bomb if we want to
freedom of speech, of the press
and you can't do us do-do)

They will shake their heads at us
the way we shook ours at our own grandparents
who did nothing to stop Hitler

Because when the offences grew
and men raged full fury in the streets
and curbed their cabs in protest
and swaddled their young in tripwire
and sent their priests to demand apology
the Swedish paper that printed the drawing
did not say Sorry
not even Sorry you can't take a joke
or Sorry you overreacted

No, no, no my great great great great grandchildren
it is true what your books say came next:
that in week 10 of 2010
ALL the newspapers of Sweden printed the drawings

They called it solidarity
the way the weak join the bully on the playground
to get in on being mean while the mean is getting good

America had already taken Iraq
and Afghanistan
and Pakistan
and even though Israel had not yet taken Iran
we were fighting each other in the streets
and fuelling the fire in our schools
with hijabs and skullcaps
and crucifixes on chains

You may well shake your heads over what you read
that we did nothing
as fear grew and festered all around
that it started with a cartoon
and the rest was history

Rasma Haidri is an American writer of South Asian and Norwegian descent who grew up in Tennessee, spent childhood summers in Manhattan, studied in Wisconsin and lived in France and Hawaii before settling down on the arctic coast of Norway where she currently lives with her daughter and domestic partner. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many literary journals including Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Kalliope, Fine Madness, Runes and Third Genre. In addition, her writing has been widely anthologized in collections from publishing houses such as Seal Press, Bayeux Arts, Pudding House, Marion Street Press, Bluechrome, Grayson Books, and Chicago Review Press. She co-authored the textbook International Focus (Gyldendal, 2007) for the Norwegian National Curriculum upper secondary course in international and cross-cultural English. Her most recent work appears in Not a Muse (Haven Books, 2009), Eating Her Wedding Dress (Ragged Sky Press, 2009) and Lavanderia (City Works Press, 2009). Among recognitions for her writing are the Southern Women Writers Association emerging writer award in creative non-fiction, the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Letters & Science poetry award, finalist in the Elinore Benedict Prize in Poetry and the Barry Hannah prize for fiction, and a fiction residency scholarship at Vermont Studio Center.
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BP DEEPWATER BRAZIL DEAL

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by Victor David Sandiego

We want to buy Brazil
and all the mealy peasants to forge our footprint
there – and in London, under a natty truce flag
spill cups of Caspian Sea on our trousers.

Barrels of elastic dollars roll out of the pipeline
to death knell the small boats, the smell of little fish people
bent in an exciting missionary position.

Crude oil sands the rough spots down when we fall
beneath the train wheels of yacht payments
or (God save the Queen) slip in a prolific basin
of muddy stock shares.

Victor David Sandiego divides his time between México and the Pacific Northwest. He was the winner of the 1st WordStorm Poetry Competition held on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, a winner of the 2008 Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Prize, and the winner of the 2009 Crab Creek Review poetry contest. His work has appeared in various journals, and he loves to read and play drums in poetry / music collaborative settings.
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AFTER WOUNDED KNEE

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

(A. M. A. 1945 – 1975)

by Darla Biel

                                                “But what is denied actually does exist
                                                 And eventually comes to the surface.”
                                            –Joy Harjo

Anna Mae Aquash, thirty, a Mi’kmag,
shot in the back of the head off State 73
outside Kadoka, South Dakota. A doctor unwrapped
your frozen body ten days after did not report
your wounded head or your ten missing teeth.
He said “death by exposure” and cut off your hands
to send for fingerprints. They dug a pauper’s grave
and buried you as a Jane Doe.
Eight days later, they brought you into the light
again and uncovered a .32 caliber bullet from your skull.
The one accused of shooting you
as you knelt to pray is thanking God today.
The federal charges have been dropped.
Annie Mae, if he's the one I pray that now you haunt him--
his rape of you, your hair around his fist,
the pleading in your voice never lets him rest.

Darla Biel is a poet who teaches at South Dakota State University and enjoys cross-artistic collaboration. She was recently commissioned by Heartland Opera Troupe to write a libretto based on "The Trickster and the Troll" by Virginia Driving-Hawk Sneve and is completing a poetry manuscript titled "Sparkler Bomb."
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INDOLENT SUN

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by Michael Lee Johnson

In early March
an indolent sun
persists in tossing
volunteer rays of
soft flickering sun silk
through dark desolate
willow tree branches-
melting remnants
of snow diamond crystals
from weathered wooden planks
on my balcony.
I’m starting to think life
is an adjective exaggerated
by the sway of seasons.
It’s normal feeding time.
Below two floors
wild Canadian geese
wait impatiently
for the tossing of morning feed;
the silent sound they hear─
no dropping of the seed.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry chapbook with pictures is From Which Place the Morning Rises, and he has a new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom. All of his books are now available on Amazon.com. Michael has been published in over 22 countries. He is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at his Web site.
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TURD BLOSSOM

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by John D Wilson

After Courage and Consequence.

Poor, poor Karl
Ten years old, Nixon sticker on your bike
Little girl from down the street takes offense
JFK is her choice, fisticuffs ensue
Now we all must pay the price
For your long memory

John D Wilson, Long Beach Ca, Novice, Retired Government employee and political organizer.
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JIHADJANE

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by Anne Harding Woodworth

“What do I remember about her? Nothing. Wasn’t nothing to remember.”
—Sheldon “Buddy” Barnum, one-time husband of jihadjane, Washington Post, March 11, 2010

To be remembered for nothing,
not for blond hair, not for blue eyes—
mediocrity she didn’t know the word for—

was intolerable, until in her teens
she thought she could be memorized
by whoever took her to bed.

She remembered well.
Why didn’t the others?
She remembered Buddy

and hated him and his dogs,
the stubble on his face,
the smell of his teeth,

how it was to be sixteen lying
next to a male body twice her age
who memorized nothing,

not even the Lord’s Prayer.

Now sleepless at night
she tries to figure out memory
and why it’s so mixed up

with saliva inside her mouth,
sweat in her fist, sperm
dripping between her legs,

and that dark, mysterious place
under her sternum
that aches and screams

and forces her to shout to the world,
I’m going to explode, to kill you
so that you remember me.

You will know the color of my eyes
through the slit in my niqab.
You will remember me, you bastard kafir.

Anne Harding Woodworth’s most recent books are Spare Parts, A Novella in Verse (Turning Point, 2008) and a chapbook, Up From the Root Cellar (Cervena Barva Press, 2008). Her poetry, book reviews, and essays have appeared in U.S. and Canadian journals, such as TriQuarterly, Rain Taxi, Cimarron Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Connecticut Review, Antigonish Review, and Poet Lore, as well as at several sites on line.
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THE COLOR OF BONE

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:00 GMT

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

Dreams are the fabric of countries
at war; patterned, sold to natives,
painted with oil, dipped in lye. Colors
of egg shell, ivory, or bone
outline skeletons, cloak history
only the buyers remember.

Neither can sellers remember
names of rock-piled countries;
where, lying in dark history,
in the mottled flesh of natives,
they covered the buried bones
of ashen dreamers drawn to color.

Earthen, flesh tones, colors
of mass graves remembered,
scattered like gnawed chicken bones
in the stilled air of a sleeping country,
where dreamers weave history
warp and weft, in native

looms.   Life belongs to natives
dreaming patterns of bold color,
in blanched landscapes; their history
witnessed and remembered
by refugees of a tortured country,
inked on charred flesh, and nibbled bones.

When bright red darkens, vivid colors
disappear in manufactured history.
Will there be one person to remember
the fabric of a country,
who will gather its buried bones,
who will awaken its sleeping natives

from black tears and stupor?   Who will promise native
looms, tribal customs, and dreams colored
in fetal flesh and bone?
Who will print dreams from oral histories
of dwellers in self- fashioned countries?
Who will stir others and remember?

I beg you: Remember those forgotten natives
whose dreams for their country can never color
pieced history, clothed in skins dyed the color of bone.

A workshop leader, Lucille Gang Shulklapper writes fiction and poetry. Her work appears in many publications, as well as in four poetry chapbooks, What You Cannot Have, The Substance of Sunlight, Godd, It’s Not Hollywood, and In The Tunnel. Living up to traditional expectations led to work as a salesperson, model, realtor, teacher, and curriculum coordinator throughout schooling, marriage, children, and grandchildren.
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THE LAS VEGAS TUNNELS

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:06 GMT

by Millicent Borges Accardi

Black widow spiders
Abound in the wet darkness

Under Las Vegas
The unemployed and the addicted

Run schemes during the day light.
A credit hustle, picking up slot machine

Credits and found chips to buy food.
Their beds held just above the impending

Flash floods. The ever-present damp cement,
A cool testament that they are not just camping out.

Plastic milk crates hold books and a special
Rigged shower made from a water dispenser

Echo this temporary life. Temporary, like Vegas itself.
Lucky some days, not so lucky other days.

Amid the gold and glitter, the city seems
To take more than it gives, everywhere are signs

Of impermanence, everyone here is a visitor of sorts
There are no natives, no real locals. Ever the tanned

Well-seasoned cocktail waitresses came from somewhere
Else. A good storm could flood the tunnels, caving into a roaring

River in a matter of seconds with rain. Or, a roll of the dice
Could give the 700 underground residents another twenty years.

Millicent Borges Accardi is of Portuguese-American ancestry. She has received poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts (NEA), the California Arts Council, the Barbara Deming Foundation(Money for Women), Jentel, and the Corporation of Yaddo. Her work has appeared in over 50 literary publications including Nimrod, Tampa Review, New Letters and Wallace Stevens Journal as well as in Boomer Girls (Iowa Press) anthology. She’s been a writer in residence at Yaddo, Jentel , Vermont Studio Center, Fundación Valparaíso in Mojacar, Spain and Milkwood in Cesky Krumlov, CZ.
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