ACCEPTABLE LEVELS OF CRUELTY, STEADILY RISING
The New Verse News
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1h ago
by Gordon Gilbert In the not-so-distant past, genocidal acts, a holocaust, distant from our shores, rumoured only, but for most unseen, finally revealed in retrospect indelibly to soldiers’ eyes, brought home in photographs, not to be denied.   Ah, we said, if only… If only… But we did not know at the time, only later, and alas, too late to do what we surely would have done had we only known…   But now this genocide comes to us live, like a fog slowly lifting, revealing the landscapes of barbarity: bombs falling; the destruction of homes & neighborhoods ..read more
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IMMIGRANT’S SONG
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22h ago
by Jim Burns Riots broke out in Philadelphia after Nativists burned down a Catholic church in May 1844. This lithograph shows the Know-nothings (in the top hats) clashing with the state militia. Out of the vapors of the past I come to sing you a song of the poor and huddled masses who have gathered at your gates. I am the inscrutable Chinese, one of 20,000 from my land who for a dollar a day built your grand railway of the golden spike. I am the drunken Irishman, the mobbed-up Italian, the ignorant Pole who sweated and died to forge the iron and erect your palaces of steel. I am ..read more
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SIMPLY, CATHERINE
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2d ago
by Suzanne Morris ...is how I chose, in the end, to remember her name on the prayer list to be read aloud in Sunday worship. Not Catherine, Princess of Wales or Kate, as she is familiarly known, but rather, simply, Catherine. Not because I wanted to avoid raising the ire of anyone who disapproves of the British monarchy’s continued existence, or starting a dialogue in hushed tones about how shabbily the Royals had treated poor Meghan. Not to put aside the question of whether or not anyone outside the royal family and the healthcare professionals ministering to he ..read more
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GOODBYE, KYIV
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3d ago
by Donald Sellitti Goodbye, Kyiv and thank you for the chance to stand in solidarity with you at safe remove to write of you with passion and with anger in my slanted rhymes. I cared a lot, I really did, and bared my heart in lines I broke in unexpected places, taking  risks you wouldn’t  understand. You’re not a poet. I was just as brave as you. The moving zeitgeist though has moved and left you  far behind as winds of war have blown again and lauded us with new and fresher outrage for the dead and dying. My anger needs new tinder, not the charcoal of your cities ..read more
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UNAUTHORIZED VERSION
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4d ago
by Julie Steiner “Choir Boys 2” by Christina Clare Charles Spencer says he was sexually and physically abused at elite boy’s boarding school (The Independent, 12 March 2024) Former Mormon bishop highlighted in AP investigation arrested on felony child sex abuse charges (AP, March 1,  2024) Nearly 500 victims of church sex abuse in France have received financial compensation (AP, March 14, 2024) Quiet on Set Uncovers Abuse Allegations at Nickelodeon, Raises Deeper Issues (Vanity Fair, March 14, 2024) Middlesex County jury awards $25 million in ..read more
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THE IN-BETWEEN
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5d ago
by Kathy Conway For a month, we’ve noticed  tender green sprouts— too early not to freeze or be trampled, often poking out of dried-brown leaves  of last fall. Do you hear their crinkle in the breeze?  On our walks, we’ve created  a game—are they crocus,  jonquils, tips of hosta? We’ve  savored forsythia and lilac buds,  the red tint of oaks, the pale  green of maples.  I have always loved early  Spring’s pops of color, signs of growth and new life to come; births and passings of loved  ones, of this year’s departed  and a ye ..read more
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OH, ISRAEL
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6d ago
by Bonnie Proudfoot Next Year in Jerusalem is said at the end of the Passover Seder. It is an ancient tradition that was first recorded by Isaac Tyrnau in the 15th century. Above art by Caren Garfen. Oh, Israel, if my love is a suitcase, when I get to your house I won't unpack, even though my mother and her mother, my uncles and cousins are buried in pine boxes beneath a star of David and our Rabbi wept for victims of the Holocaust,   cried for a homeland for the children of Zion. Yes, I used to feel my chest swell open when I heard Hatikvah, yes, you've suffered, people ..read more
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MARCH
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1w ago
by Juditha Dowd AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock Once again we’ve let ourselves be taken in by spring.  Words we haven’t spoken for months come tumbling  from our mouths. Tulip, soil, survival.  Fools that we are to trust a tease so early in the season,  we need it like we need the cat to see ourselves  in a rosier light—young and more attentive—aspiring  to the better selves we seem to have forgotten.  We need it like we need the moon to make the universe  believable. I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to write  a poem w ..read more
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THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
The New Verse News
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1w ago
by Steven Kent So listen, sheep: The earth is flat (There's video to prove just that). Each contrail you can see today Was put there by the CIA, While climate change is just a ruse, A trick the Bilderbergers use To dupe us now and gain control. What's more, they mean to steal your soul Through wicked work like plant-based meat, Electric ovens for your heat, Those 15-minute city plans, And semi-auto rifle bans. In fact, the Feds will take all guns, Emasculate our manly sons, Then bind us up with UN clamps And ship us off to FEMA camps. Bill Gates, we know, has killed a lot Of ..read more
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BLOODBATH
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1w ago
 by Ron Riekki                                                  “If you expect nothing from somebody                                                 you are never disappointed.”   ..read more
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