Slippery ice
He eyed up the ice for the steal,
Which he claimed he would do with much zeal,
But now he’s retreating
From his warlike chest beating—
He calls this the art of the deal.
— zumwalt (1/22/2026, revised 1/28/2026)
Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Relativity
“China wedding goes viral as twin brothers marry twin sisters and both sides have twin uncles.”
Relativity
Two sisters, identical twins,
Wed brothers with big matching grins.
The household now shares
Their uncles in pairs,
But that’s not where chaos begins.
— zumwalt (1/22/2026)
The Art of Repeal
“President Donald Trump, on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, scrapped the tariffs that he threatened to impose on eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland, pulling a dramatic reversal shortly after insisting he wanted to get the island ‘including right, title and ownership.’”
News Story: https://apnews.com/article/trump-davos-housing-greenland-gaza-a2f3f4c18ba321c8025a3e208fc0ddf6
The Art of Repeal
He eyed up the ice for a deal,
Which he swore he could buy or would steal,
But now he’s retreating
From his warlike chest beating,
as if it had all been surreal.
— zumwalt (1/22/2026)
White Russians with White Vodka
White Russians with White Vodka
The sky peers out over
its trailing cape, wide and pallid,
obscuring the meridian,
erasing the horizontal arguments
of Kamchatka avenues.
Don’t check your map:
it will look much the same as in summer;
it won’t show flurries,
blizzards, cyclones,
meter upon meter
of accumulated snowbanks—
You will not see the swallowed
Lada Grantas, Kia Rios,
Toyota Prados, Cherry Tiggos.
Once one could have turned on a TV
late at night
and seen snow—
now politicians,
talking heads,
social media
whitewash and whitenoise us
non-stop:
ultimately,
we will be head deep,
unable to plow out,
and even Kamchatka
will seem like
a tropical paradise.
–zumwalt (January 2026)
Based on today’s news https://asianmail.in/2026/01/19/record-breaking-snowfall-in-russia-extreme-snow-buries-towns-in-kamchatka/ and this dVerse post’s call to action: https://dversepoets.com/2026/01/20/poetics-new-year-snow/
Grēnland unfæst (Greenland off-balance)
The Greenland saga continues to intensify, and this Zumwalt poem addresses the latest escalation of targeted tariffs, contrasting the gravity of the situation with a bit of humor. Given the history of Greenland with its European associations going back to the 10th century, Zumwalt chose a poetic style common to English speakers of that era: Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter.
“Grēnland unfæst” is the latest published Zumwalt poem, published today at New Verse News: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/01/grenland -unfst-greenland-off-balance.html
This is the third consecutive month that Zumwalt has had a work published at New Verse News and the second day in a row a Zumwalt poem has been published in a literary journal.
JOUSTING WINDMILLS
Just published in New Verse News — Zumwalt’s new news poem, Jousting Windmills.
Click on the following URL to read poem: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2025/12/jousting-windmills.html
I will post the text here later on, but for now, let’s drive some traffic to New Verse News!
With apologies to Emily and the DOJ
With apologies to Emily and the DOJ
Release the files but just in part —
Deception’s Pathway lies
Too raw for Headline’s hungry Spark
The whole would scandalize
As Cards dealt from some hidden Deck
With watching eyes confined
The Truth must flame out gradually
To hide the Guilt entwined —
–zumwalt (2025)
zumpoems 