Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

DISSOLUTE SONNET

by Esther Greenleaf Murer


Sundays I drive three blocks to services
and pray the Lord to banish all these strange
ill-mannered folk that twist my world awry.
What could be more dire, what could be graver?

I like my burgers! Damn the consequences!
So what if the cattle never see a range?
It's not my fault that prices are so high,
when they take all the jobs and do no labor.

Here's what we need: a supermanic pres-
ident with magic powers to rearrange
the universe and so construct the pie
that I will always have more than my neighbor.

For all the world is clamoring for change,
and so am I, but only in my favor.

Esther Greenleaf Murer lives in Philadelphia. In addition to New Verse News, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Externalist, The Ghazal Page, Mimesis, Light Quarterly, and Town Creek Poetry.
___________________________________________