Zumwalt Poems Online

Posts tagged ‘Free Verse’

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.

take this

“take this” is the latest published Zumwalt poem, published today at Ink Sweat & Tears: https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/zumwalt/

No More Cornborers

No More Cornborers

My steel-wool scrubbed & Comet-clean spuds
grate with injurious gusto
Protect the enamel at all costs!
And a sheen is added to our distended
esophagus.
Wintry blasts of fluoride and chlorophyll
attack the waste
But only further pollute the abused
frame.
Death enters the corridors, stalking stealthily
in the Ajax-whiteness.
All is blinding! There is no more gray!
Josephine is become a slaughter-baron.
Ammonia chokes us all


—Zumwalt
[1981?]

Von Bock Was A Pansy

Von Bock Was A Pansy

Those iron plates that churned the mud and gravel
Impress me not.
The rifled bore was, and is a crashing bore,
I shut my eyes to the breechblock and
Do not care for thermite.
I recoil from venturi.
I have only cutting remarks for the bayonet;
C.B.W. stinks.
Give me Gandhi & Walden, with a little pickle
On the side, and I am content.
Blood-red waiters make me yawn.

—Zumwalt
[Early 1980s?]

Slice-of-life, Microwaved

Slice-o-life, Microwaved

Askew in a vinyl cosmos
life’s beading up on
a cold tumbler
And Juan Valdez
has repossessed my mind
for the glory of Brazil
or Colombia
Some squalid country at any rate
Leaving my 33
grooves
scarred by needles at 78
several rich hits
off of
Mrs. Olsen
And Muzak sounds
like steam jets
and
dark mutterings over eggs
become berserk natterings
of rabid chipmunks
Gee Zus !
Only 12:00?
Existence is
deformed
in a
time-warp
—Zumwalt
[Night of 30 Sep-1 Oct 1981, Washington, DC]

The human touch

Based on this recent news event: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/25/g-s1-103683/powerball-player-arkansas-won-jackpot

The human touch

On Christmas Eve, many just like me
stopped at the station where I get my gas
and bought slips of paper
as thin as my patience
waiting its reward.

A mile or so away in Cabot
I closed my own store,
shut down the register,
reminded by the radio of
the size of the jackpot
while I drove home
in my rusty 2003 Tacoma.

Maddie set out some sandwiches—
our light Christmas Eve meal;
two months of watching costs
earned tomorrow’s fortune of presents
paired with roasted prime rib.

That morning came, and our two children
visited us in bed to tug at us—
too small to pull us out
and not old enough to realize they hadn’t.

A delight of flung wrapping paper and
unchecked squeals energized our living room
as, with some guilt, I looked at my phone
to glimpse the weekly Powerball snub.

No ordinary loss:
promised paradise, this time,
came from the station where I staked my three bucks.

But this small defeat brought reassurance:
in a world of algorithms,
predictive apps, and AI advisers
that steal away jobs and raise energy prices
there was still one thing technology couldn’t do:
choose the right numbers.

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)

Imperfect Information

My apologies. I had messed up the formatting earlier. It is now corrected.