WHEN CORALS HAVE SEX BUT CAN'T MAKE BABIES

by Darrell Petska

Scientists at the Florida Aquarium have made a breakthrough in the race to save Caribbean coral: For the first time, marine biologists have successfully reproduced elkhorn coral, a critical species, using aquarium technology. It's a historic step forward, and one they hope could help revitalize Caribbean ecosystems and could pay humans back by offering extra protection from the fury of hurricanes. —CNN, September 5, 2022. Above: a two-year-old video of living elkhorn coral in the wild.

Sometimes a whisper, a nudge

can set things aright:

presenting baby elkhorn coral, 

little starlets spawned lovingly

by hand—their parents bleached,

sickly, dying—to take their place

safe-guarding shores from wind-

tossed waves that plague our lives.

Skeptics said “impossible”. Hope

and sound science prevailed.

Though reefs worldwide are fading,

and so all life they nurture, 

dirtied, warming waters have a cure:

hopeful and dedicated, whispering

life back into oceans—it must be us,

the careless and short-sighted,

who’ve created this hot mess.

Darrell Petska's poetry has appeared in Third Wednesday Magazine, Your Daily Poem, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Monterey Poetry Review, Verse-Virtual, and widely elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize nominee for 2021, Darrell lives in Middleton, Wisconsin, near his five children and six grandchildren, for whom he holds hope for the future.

PRAYING FOR YOU, GOV

by Darrell Petska

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said Sunday that he will call a special session of his state's legislature to pass a total ban on abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this term. "Nebraska is a pro-life state. I believe life begins at conception, and those are babies too," Ricketts told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" when asked if he thought the state should require a young girl who was raped to carry the pregnancy to term. —CNN, May 15, 2022

Of course rape is evil,

but evil left to proliferate in a woman

tends to strike again and again in all its

suffocating helplessness, trauma, chronic

anxiety and nightmarish violation,

with all its attendant heartache.

Political one-upmanship and pietisms

that insist on allowing rape's evil to live on

by citing "directives" of god or bandying

emotionally fraught trigger words—

manipulating evil to sell one's agenda—

are beneath a purported man of god

and the yea-saying cadres of men sharing

narrow perceptions of a woman's uterus,

including its role in shaping cognitive

and emotional well-being and the drive

for self-determination—the latter a right

not reserved for men alone.

The shelf-life of your brand of religiosity

is short. We who espouse a more merciful,

compassionate religion pray that your efforts

to be both judge and executioner will fall

to the light, lest "Nebraska Nice" succumbs

to the politics clouding your heart and soul.

Darrell Petska lives and writes in Wisconsin, but part of his heart remains in his birth state of Nebraska.

EYES FORWARD

by Darrell Petska

Ai-Da wears a woman’s head,

speaks in a woman’s voice.

She can paint, sculpt, wax poetic, even

expound on Picasso and knotty issues of our times.

A robot in human guise,

she has no feelings like we do, no designs

on our jobs or our necks—though she states

I enjoy being a person who makes people think.

Ai-Da’s knowledge of Dante’s Divine Comedy

sparked in her these poetic lines:

     We looked up from our verses like blindfolded captives,

     Sent out to seek the light; but it never came,

     A needle and thread would be necessary

     For the completion of the picture.

     To view the poor creatures, who were in misery,

     That of a hawk, eyes sewn shut.

Some, feeling threatened, will rail against

algorithms that might influence our behavior,

subverting human autonomy. Others will engage with

and direct how AI affects words and meaning.

Where shall all this lead? Poor creatures, those

who meet the future with their eyes sewn shut.

Darrell Petska is a retired university editor. His poetry and fiction can be found in 3rd Wednesday Magazine, First Literary Review–East, Nixes Mate Review, Verse Virtual, Loch Raven Review, and elsewhere. A father of five and grandfather of six, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.

LET US NOW PRAISE THE COMMON

by Darrell Petska

The Louisiana Supreme Court last week refused to review the life sentence imposed on Fair Wayne Bryant for “unsuccessfully attempting to make off with somebody else’s hedge clippers.” Chief Justice Bernette Johnson—the court’s first Black chief justice and the only Black justice on the court—identified Louisiana’s harsh habitual offender laws as a legacy of the state’s long history of abusive and racially biased punishment in her dissent from the court’s denial of review. “In the years following Reconstruction, southern states criminalized recently emancipated African American citizens by introducing extreme sentences for petty theft associated with poverty,” she wrote. “These measures enabled southern states to continue using forced-labor (as punishment for a crime) by African Americans even after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.” In Louisiana, these “Pig Laws”—so named because they targeted stereotypical “negro” crimes like stealing cattle and swine—“undoubtedly contributed to the expansion of the Black prison population that began in the 1870’s” by “lowering the threshold for what constituted a crime and increasing the severity of its punishment,” Chief Justice Johnson wrote. —Equal Justice Initiative, August 7, 2020. You can sign a petition to Free Fair Wayne Bryant at Change.org .

Into the light emerging, cicada-like,
singing his bold, particular song…

Comes Fair Wayne Bryant,
from whence to where unknown,
yet vibrant as budding day.

He takes what he finds,
though it may not be given him,
and the brash guard dogs howl.

He takes and takes what he finds,
because he has not, or ought not,
or knows not, so he does.

And away the guard dogs drive him,
far from song’s great intersection,
yet he sings, sings what he is

to unhearing walls, obscure skies,
and guard dogs protecting their bones.
To the light he is forgotten.

Thus passes Fair Wayne Bryant,
unrecognized, alone, shorn of hope,
yet like no other in the great Common.

And he takes with him what he finds:
souls, left untended and wanting,
that valued goods over good.

Darrell Petska lives in Middleton, WI. Some recent and forthcoming publications include Boston Literary Magazine, Willows Wept Review, Loch Raven Review, First Literary Review-East and Buddhist Poetry Review.

FINAL JEOPARDY

by Darrell Petska

Zellyart

The formerly democratic
North American republic
despoiled by an authoritarian regime
that ruled through extrajudicial measures
typified by deploying masked,
heavily armed federal agents
to suppress violently
civil protest and political expression,
consequently instilling a sense of fear

as in the bureaucratic authoritarianism
of Pinochet’s Chile
where federally dispatched agents
violently swept citizens away
to unknown locations
for intimidation, humiliation,
interrogation, and abuse—
acts later adjudged to be
crimes against humanity.

What was America?


Darrell Petska is a Middleton, Wisconsin writer.

THINKING OF FROST, WALLS, AND THE PANDEMIC LONELINESS OF THE OLD

by Darrell Petska

Neighbor, on his side, calls over
to the scratchings of my rake:
“How are you faring?”

“We’re managing.” My voice
clears that slatted wooden fence
neither he nor I erected
nor wished taken down.

Beyond that slender chink:
the most I’ve seen of him for days.
Hale youth to seasoned elder:
“Do you have all you need?”

Opposite that fence a decade,
we’ve seldom spoken—different lives,
yet on this day quite cordially:
“Of goods, yes. Family and friends we miss.”

“Same here,” and “Give a shout
for anything you need. We’ll help.”
Brent. His name I learned
through a postal worker’s error.

“Thank you,” and “Stay well.”
Then back we turn to our private cares,
abiding by a fence unseen, cruel wall
we raise between us as we go.


Darrell Petska, a Wisconsin writer, misses the hugs of his children and grandchildren.

OZYMANDIAS REDUX

by Darrell Petska

A section of Donald Trump’s much-vaunted border wall between the United States and Mexico has blown over in high winds, US border patrol officers have been reported as saying. The steel panels, more than nine metres (30ft) high, began to lean at a sharp angle on the border between the Californian town of Calexico and Mexicali in Mexico amid gusts on Wednesday. Photograph: STR/AFP via Getty Images via The Guardian, January 30, 2020

In the desert
a shattered visage lies
and these words:
My name is T***p, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains
of that colossal Wreck.

Darrell Petska, a Middleton, Wisconsin poet, thanks Percy Bysshe Shelley for his prescient poem.

WITH EARTH OUR FLESH, WATER OUR BLOOD

by Darrell Petska

Extinction Rebellion is an international movement that uses non-violent civil disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and mimimise the risk of social collapse.

 "It's the least I can do." Into my ears,
starving bees hived. Deep in my lungs
nested gun-shy doves.

In droves came reeling beetles and butterflies,
evicted toads and frogs—these to my heart's
several chambers, while in the burrowed
turnings of my gut, bait-sick
gophers and ground hogs found refuge.

"It's the least I can do." Lodgeless muskrats
and beavers sheltered in the round
huts of my armpits, harried owls and hawks
took to my shoulders, even swooning
flowers and trees I drew to my nostrils.

I took all in, as many as I could, and still
others pressed near, threatened and sore,
until at last I cried "I've done all I can!"

Oh, but then my grandchildren came running:
"Grandpapa, Grandpapa, save us!"
Into my arms my loved ones curled,
soft and vulnerable, and I realized
much more I yet could do.

My feet stepped forth, driven by the lives
within and about me, all earth becoming
my flesh and its waters my blood.
No fears of failure could enter my mind
when life, lived large or small, is all we have.

At the core of Extinction Rebellion’s philosophy is nonviolent civil disobedience. "We promote civil disobedience and rebellion because we think it is necessary—we are asking people to find their courage and to collectively do what is necessary to bring about change."


Darrell Petska, a Wisconsin poet, sees hope in concerted action for a livable planet. His five grandchildren make that effort ever-more urgent.

RED BALLOON AT CHRISTMAS

by Darrell Petska 

Be my poem
oh red balloon

fly true from my hand
unhindered by distraction

soaring beyond all borders
fording tidal winds

unto receptive eyes
that take your words to heart.

Herald hope
to those without it

testify to love
in the face of hate

and bare your soul
before the distrustful--

your tatters proof
of high intention.

An 8-year-old girl in Mexico attached a note for Santa to a
balloon. Randy Heiss found it across the border in Patagonia,
Ariz., on Dec. 16. —Washington Post, December 21, 2018

We must be more
oh red balloon

than bladdered air
upon cold ether

breath's exhaust
dangling a string.








Darrell Petska is a Middleton, Wisconsin poet.

CHILD OF YEMEN

by Darrell Petska

"The path to ending the war is clear. First, the United States and other countries must cease arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Security Council should pass a resolution demanding an immediate end to the war and compelling the Saudis and Emiratis to withdraw from Yemen. The United Nations must sponsor a political process that begins by obligating all parties to the conflict to disarm their militias." — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman, "Enough is enough: End the war in Yemen," The Washington Post, November 21, 2018. Photo: A Yemeni child after receiving treatment for malnutrition in a hospital in Taiz on Wednesday. (Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images via The Washington Post)

Here I am
too thin for a shadow,
too weak to cry.

Can you see me?
I'm traveling light
down Paradise road.

I leave behind my mother
but go to see my brother
who feasts on heaven's bounty.

My face will shine again,
my feet fly with angels.
This sorrow I'll forget

which eats me from within
and abandons me to die,
a husk on my native sand.

Can you see me?
Is anyone there?
Does anyone care?

I am here,
hunger on the breeze
just beyond your window.


Editor's note: Recommended listening: The Daily Podcast: Why U.S. Bombs Are Falling in Yemen.

Darrell Petska is a Middleton, Wisconsin poet with many reasons to feel thankful. Sadly, there was no Thanksgiving in Yemen on Thursday.

RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!

by Darrell Petska

Caricature by Josh Ferrin

Hey, He could've shot james comey
and not been prosecuted:
He's the President.
He can say what He wants,
do what He wants:
more power to Him!
He can sleep with your lover if He wants,
steal babies from their mothers,
hell, He can rob an armored bank car
for all I care, and not be prosecuted
while He's the President.
He can pardon chuckie manson,
lee harvey oswald, the golden state
serial killer—whomever He damned well pleases:
He's the President.
He can put jeffy sessions out of his misery.
I mean permanently.
That turncoat trey gowdy, too.
He can cop a feel on sarah what's-her-face
sanders and what could she possibly do?
He's the President.
Just try to indict Him. He'll pardon Himself.
Besides, He can't be guilty of collusion or obstruction
when recollections keep changing.
What are facts, anyway? After three days
they begin to smell.
Allow me, your beloved prince of new york,
to spare you that terrible stench
by uttering the stupidest things—
just as He hired me to do.
(Praise god! I'm relevant again.)
I represent the President,
the One, the Anointed, the Boss,
so take it from me:
you'd better toe the line, amigos,
or He'll strip you of the rest of your rights,
and there'll be nothing you can do about it
while He's the President.
Capiche?


Darrell Petska often doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry at the news. So he tries to laugh.

SHE WAS PLEADING WITH HER EYES

by Darrell Petska

Samir Salim is a White Helmets volunteer in Syria's Eastern Ghouta. Already out on a rescue mission when another air strike hit, Samir rushed toward the smoke: a Syrian government air strike had destroyed his house. He saved his infant nephew, sister, sister-in-law and father, but he could not save his mother crushed by the ceiling. He vows to continue his work.

Save the baby, Samir.
Now, fast to the girls.
Your Papa: Take him!
His cries tear my heart.

Samir, my angel,
release my soul
from this burden of being.
Be strong, as I taught you.

I am above you, Samir.
I am all around.
Tell them we are more,
more than paltry flesh.

Inhabit their eyes, my son.
Toward life's supple altar
draw their misspent hearts.
Show them we can fly.


Darrell Petska learned of Samir Salim and his family and felt a great sadness.

INSIDE DISNEY'S HALL OF PRESIDENTS

by Darrell Petska





Transported like a side of beef,
the 45th arrived on a cart,
a small hand jutting from the wraps.

"Dog hater!" growled LBJ.
"Wall builder!" shouted Reagan.
Obama stirred. "Uh . . ."

Onto the stage, positioned off-center,
went the 45th, animatronically correct,
a dead ringer for Jon Voight.

"Jesus Christ!" prayed Jimmy Carter.
"He'll mock my braces," bemoaned FDR.
"Travesty," said Washington. "I cannot lie."

Switched on, the 45th did its test run:
hands moved, head nodded, voice sounded
rather like Putin's—

"I smell a crook," muttered Nixon.
"The only natural area he knows is beneath the belt,"
Teddy complained, and Obama gestured, "Uh . . ."

The techs fixed the Putin glitch,
except for faint tweeting in the background,
and the America First dummy stood ready to wow.

"Uh . . ." spoke Obama, "anyone whose meal preference
is two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a malt
will never complete a full term!"—

which perked up Bill Clinton: "Yum!"
Abe sighed. "Shall we never stop this bleeding?"
"Lightweights! I'm huge!" crowed their silicone successor.

Darrell Petska's writing has appeared in Whirlwind, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Chiron Review, Rat's Ass Review, Verse-Virtual, previously in TheNewVerse.News and elsewhere. Darrell worked for many years as communications editor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

THE SHIP OF FOOLS

by Darrell Petska

In Plato's Republic a ship of fools sailed—
can you see one now, just rounding the bend?
Already the ship lists heavily, its new captain
unskilled and lacking in sailorly knowledge.

Will the ship capsize? Chaos sweeps the deck,
its sailors bumbling their jobs as the ship veers
first toward one shore, then the other. From on high
descends a flurry of orders to right the vessel,
but their predicament grows worse by the moment.

Each sailor, believing to have the answer to their peril,
snitches and backstabs, crying foul of the rest.
Blood and curses fly, their captain at the helm inept,
or disinterested. Erratically onward they sail,
mutinous words like life jackets tossed about.

Someone barks an order—another sailor
no more skilled, rising up to wrest command,
but little does it matter: onto its side rolls the ship,
its unruly crew leaping overboard—
the captain fleeing in a lifeboat lugging gold.

Once tall and stately, the ship takes on water,
some fortunate ballast preventing its quick demise.
Will a wiser captain and crew come to the rescue?
Or will this ship, and its storied past, be remembered
for those who so miserably sailed it last?

Darrell Petska's writing appears in The Missing Slate, Whirlwind, Verse-Virtual, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, previously in TheNewVerse.News, and numerous other publications. Darrell cut short his career as a university editor to be the arbiter of his own words. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

THE PROBLEM OF WHITENESS

by Darrell Petska

Snow-covered Abraham Lincoln
statue in front of Bascom Hall
 Photo by Jeff Miller, University
of Wisconsin-Madison Photo Library.

Republican legislators in Wisconsin are threatening to reject the University of Wisconsin-Madison's requests for additional state funding unless an elective course they find offensive is cancelled and its professor is fired. Rep. Dave Murphy, chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Colleges and Universities, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he believes the course “The Problem of Whiteness” contributes to “the polarization of races in our state.” —Slate, December 22, 2016 

Some rubes in America's Dairy Stand
say U'd better teach just what they command
or they'll wave their Nazi luger
i.e. hold back on their lucre—
curdling Dairy into the New Reich Land.

Darrell Petska's writing appears in The Missing Slate, Whirlwind, Verse-Virtual, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, previously in TheNewVerse.News, and numerous other publications. Darrell cut short his career as a university editor to be the arbiter of his own words. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

ANECDOTE TO A HEARTACHE

by Darrell Petska




My grandson
who is 4
and enamored of
all things "Frozen"

overheard mention
of a gun—
What's a gun?
he wanted to know.

Our hearts ached
as he looked
adult to adult,
awaiting a response.

Darrell Petska writes poetry and fiction within reach of his three grandchildren in southern Wisconsin.

BERTA CACERES

by Darrell Petska

Berta Cáceres, the Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, has been murdered, barely a week after she was threatened for opposing a hydroelectric project. Her death prompted international outrage at the murderous treatment of campaigners in Honduras, as well as a flood of tributes to a prominent and courageous defender of the natural world. –The Guardian, March 4, 2016

They come in darkness to kill you,
the cowards,
to kill you because they fear you
or because someone paying them fears you
because your words, sharpened on truth,
have ripped the facade from their villainies.

So they counter with bullets.
In darkness. Because daylight
exposes them for what they are.
The people know rapaciousness when they see it.
Nonetheless, the cowards kill you
as if that will be the end of you.

Now she is dead, they boast.
Her mouth cannot speak,
her body cannot block our path.

But you saw this day coming.
The cowards approaching.
The flash of their bullets.
That part is over. You are dead.
Your body rests in peace.
Now the heart of your work can begin.


Darrell Petska's writing appears in Blast Furnace, The Tule Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Red Paint Hill, previously in TheNewVerse.News, and other publications. Darrell cut short his career as a university editor to be the arbiter of his own words. He now is, in Madison, Wisconsin.

COUNTING RHYME

by Darrell Petska

The Greek Coast Guard recovered the bodies of 34 migrants, including 15 children, on Sunday in the Aegean Sea after their wooden boat flipped over in strong winds as it attempted the short but often perilous crossing from nearby Turkey. --NY Times, September 13, 2015

Each little coffin

one two three

a boatload of dreams

lost at sea

Where to lay them

four five six

waiting on the oarsman

plying the Styx

From whence to where

seven eight nine

Hush now, you boxes,

no jostling in line

Ten eleven

twelve thirteen—

what rhyme or reason

worth losing a one

Fourteen fifteen

sweet moppets spent

weep fast: offshore

bob boatloads more

Darrell Petska is a retired university editor with poetry or fiction appearing recently in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Boston Literary Magazine, and Tule Review. He lives near Madison, Wisconsin.

FOR FASHION SAKE: RANA PLAZA REMEMBERED

by Darrell Petska

The bodies of a man and woman as they embrace in their last moments from the collapse of a garment factory in Rana Plaza building.
Photo by Taslima Akhter   |   Savar, Bangladesh   |   April 25, 2013
Image source: Raw Journalism

Rana Plaza a year on: did fast-fashion brands learn any lessons at all? Some 1,133 garment workers died yet profits from cheap clothes have soared.
--The Observer, April 20, 2014

A year after Rana Plaza: What hasn’t changed since the Bangladesh factory collapse.
--The Washington Post, April 18, 2014

If spirits ascending outworn bodies
sing life's value

then what a chorus a thousand raised
though Rana Plaza crumbled
to the indifferent click of dice
and money's soulless shuffle!

One year on, millions of hands
operating millions of sewing machines
in thousands of Rana Plaza lookalikes
make hand-to-rack clothes fast,
cheap, and disposable--apparel
and their makers mere commodities
valued a day then shed
for the next fashionable thing

cherished dreams and personal lives
of laboring souls be damned.
Torn from families and home,
Rana's dead remind us still

life and love abide in our hearts,
not our closets.


Darrell Petska, writing from Madison, Wisconsin, is a freelance editor in adult education who previously worked as a mental health caseworker, nursing home evaluator, and university editor. Past publications include Modern Haiku, Verse Wisconsin, ProtestPoems.org and others.

TO END HUNGER

by Darrell Petska



“The United States has higher rates of hunger and poverty than any other industrialized country. We may feel embarrassed, but we haven’t built the political will to actually do something to improve the situation.” --2013 Hunger Report


President Obama said:
Senator Reid said:
Senator McConnell said:
Representative Boehner said:
Representative Cantor said:
Representative Pelosi said:
The governor said:
The mayor said:

Tommy said: “I'm so hungry my stomach hurts.”
Tommy's Mama said: “Try to sleep.”
Tommy said: “Will we eat tomorrow?”
Tommy's Mama said: “I don't know, Honey.” And sotto voce:
“Some folks don't care if we live or die.”

The Senate Dining Room said come feast on our vermouth-braised
salmon with fingerling sweet potato salad, tarragon dressing,
sugar snap peas, and radishes.


Darrell Petska, writing from Madison, Wisconsin, is a freelance editor in adult education who previously worked as a mental health caseworker, nursing home evaluator, and university editor. Past publications include Modern Haiku, Verse Wisconsin, ProtestPoems.org and others.