HOW WE ROLL

Prelude to prayer and action

by Darrell Petska

AI-generated gif by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Killing. Maiming.
Forever grieving.
That’s how we’ve rolled
since descending from trees
and living in caves.
Rolled with spear, with bow,
with sword, gun, and bomb.
Killing. Maiming.
For power, gold or spite,
god or country, king or knave.
Forever grieving.
Our own graves digging
or those of our loved ones.

Is killing our imperative?
Sorrow forever to yoke our necks?
Or might we have (we must believe
we have) hidden wings
awaiting prayer and act
to relieve us of these roads we roll on,
spill blood on, die on over and over
until life is cheapened, some cruel curse?
Wings we can will to grow,
to spirit away hatred, envy, and fear.
Wings at long last on which to fly
along peaceable skyways promoting
unity, egality, and love.

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin with his wife of more than 50 years.

MY PRAYERS FOR HOSTAGES DIDN'T END WHEN MY PRAYERS FOR PEACE BEGAN

by Laurie Rosen

With college campuses seized by conflict over the war, is there anywhere for students who don’t want to choose a side to turn? Image by Yoav Einhar. —Forward, December 6, 2023

For every child kidnapped, 
burned, bombed 

I believe there is someone 
on both sides grieving 

the pain of the other, 
hearing cries from the other,

growing wary 
of taking sides. 

For every yes, but someone is saying 
this is true and so is this,

Elu v’elu divrei Elohim chayim: 
these and these.   

For every life displaced,
beaten, brutalized 

I believe in the hope 
of two hands holding

multiple truths,
two hands plowing a path 

for compassion and peace. 

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in Peregrine, Gyroscope Review, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater: a journal of The New School, One Art, and elsewhere. Laurie won first place in poetry at the 2023 Marblehead, MA Festival of the Arts.

BOTH CAROLINAS WEEP: HOMAGE TO UNC CHARLOTTE

by Earl J Wilcox

Riley Howell, 21, took three bullets while tackling a gunman last week at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He was one of two killed. In interviews with relatives and friends of Mr. Howell, not one person was surprised that he had acted decisively and with little regard for himself. —The New York Times, May 6, 2019. Above: Photographs of Riley Howell at his viewing ceremony on Saturday in Waynesville, N.C. Credit Swikar Patel for The New York Times.

Up the interstate about forty minutes
from our campus, Charlotte 49ers
weep as do their Eagle friends—
both schools connected by Carolina
geography, by our students taking
classes there, friends come for classes
here, some adjunct faculty teach at both
schools. Carolina cousins, uncles, aunts,
friends, sports competitors, youthful
world citizens making their way.
Today we grieve our mutual losses—
a semester ending too soon for some.


Earl J Wilcox is a retired Emeritus English Professor at Winthrop University (whose mascot is the Eagle), located about 25 miles south of Charlotte, NC.