Dumping on Trump

Trump owned the shutdown.
We owned plane tickets to Yosemite.

El Capitan was grand,
Bridalveil Fall sublime,

but the toilets were full,
no place to go

except the roadside or woods
so we went, wouldn't you?

Of course it's de rigueur
to dump on Trump,

but he wanted this shutdown.
How fitting it seemed then to see,

as we cruised El Portal Road,
so many park guests doing just that.

© Darrell Petska

Yosemite visitors turn roads into toilets as shutdown crises mount at national parks

Yosemite limits visitors, citing continuing problems with human waste during shutdown

Darrell Petska is a Middleton, Wisconsin writer. You can find his published writings at conservancies.wordpress.com

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article223795490.html#storylink=cpy

Starving for Justice: Eight Weeks and Counting

Resistance today has a bold face:
Oleg Sentsov, Ukraine's loyal son
risking hunger's painful death
that his compatriots might go free.

Far from World Cup action,
in a Siberian cell he battles
for his country and his conscience,
refusing his captors' bread.

How long before organs fail
and senses fade? How long
can Oleg Sentsov fight,
determined, weakened, alone?

Torturous force-feeding cannot touch
what this principled man believes.
His captors string his life along.
His death just now? Bad publicity!

Oleg Sentsov is writing the book
on bravery and selfless resistance:
no stronger statement than one's own life
offered to oppose power's abuse.

© Darrell Petska

(Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, accused of terrorism for refusing to acknowledge Russia's occupation of Crimea, is serving a 20-year sentence in a Siberian prison camp. Sentsov has been on a hunger strike since May to protest Russia's treatment of Ukrainian political prisoners. He is striking for their release, though not for his own. He timed his action to coincide with Russia's hosting of the World Cup. Ed)

While everyone watches the World Cup, a political prisoner starves in Russia

Darrell Petska is a Madison, Wisconsin writer of poetry and fiction. He worked for many years as communications editor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dear Mattel

I found Frida Kahlo's head—

"She-ro" Barbie Frida Kahlo's head, that is—

lying in the playroom corner

beside her Mexican peasant get-up

and the slim-proportioned, headless body

of every other Barbie (our girls,

disinterested, having disappeared).

Frida's eyes glared up at me: thoughtless

dupe who'd imagined corporate interests

might somehow bottle in a Barbie

the artist's damaged body, her Communist

dislike of the capitalist rich, her flaws,

complexities, symbolic art—all subordinated

to a plastic-perfect Barbie figure.

I regret my advert-susceptible mind

helped you make bank on Frida's name.

(Had I kept the receipt, you'd see me back!)

Fortunately, books are still "in", the girls say.

We're reading one now about real Frida

and her animalitos: a vehicle truer to the artist.

As for Barbie, c'mon, that's so yesterday!

© Darrell Petska

Mattel unveiled 'role model' Barbies for International Women's Day and I've never felt less inspired

Frida Kahlo: Row erupts over Barbie doll based on artist

Darrell Petska has had work published in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Chiron Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Star 82 Review, Bird's Thumb, Verse-Virtual, and elsewhere. Darrell worked for many years as communications editor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leaving finally to focus on his own writing and his family. He lives in Middleton, Wisconsin.

In Syria, Small Beds Lie Empty

Oh Syria, where are your children?

Do they gambol through your fields?

Do they laze in the sun while clouds drift by

or picnic beside your olive groves?

They are not learning at school.

They are not seated at your table

or dreaming in their beds.

Oh Syria, where are your children?

Did they taste the hatred of your words?

Did they tremble at the drumming in your veins

and fly, small victims of your bludgeoning arms,

into paradise, or someplace in-between?

Oh Syria, stand down! You squander

the seeds of your future. Your children

are as songs gathering voice, tender buds 

unfolding to renew torn horizons.

Without them, love cannot be.

Without them, hope is empty as their beds.

Oh Syria, embrace your innocents

or suffer forever beneath guilt's yoke.

© Darrell Petska

Children of Syria 

Headlines We Could Live With

 Re-outfitted U.S. Drones Bring Humanitarian Relief

 Nations Changing Habits: Carbon Emissions Plunge

 Historic Middle East Accord—Peace At Last!

 Global Corporations Helping Fight Disease

 Grass Roots Coalitions Winning Against Poverty

 World's Richest Launch Learning Networks for Kids

 DMZ Gone, Korean Unity Talks Underway

 Immigration Reform Paying Dividends 

 Endangered Rhinos Latest Species on Comeback

 Doomsday Clock Shelved: Artifact of Bygone Era

Mars Rover Captures Elvis Image on Rock Face

Doom and Gloom Poets Turn to Love Lyrics

The News

©Darrell Petska

Darrell  is a Wisconsin writer whose work appears in a variety of online and print publications.

What's One Rhino?

He's old and gray, cantankerous,
and of little use to the ladies.
His head'll prove way more valuable
harvested than left to nature's ways.
What a waste, and so painful, just to be eaten
slowly to death by jackals, lions and vultures!
The hunter'll do everyone a favor,
rhino included. Then
the 1499 remaining Namibian rhinos
will have better sex (Really! It's scientific!) resulting in
more rhinos. Hell, let's kill 30 old bulls each year.
Or 300, making Namibia flush,
the rhino population skyrocket,
and the ranks of godly mercy hunters soar.
A rhino? It's a walking gold mine.
And a dead one is so much more 
than a head, severed by a saw,
crucified upon a wall.

Hunter bid $350,000 (£212,000) for a permit auctioned by the Dallas Safari Club

©Darrell Petska 

Darrell Petska is a former university editor. His poetry appears in a variety of print and online publications.

The Needle's Eye

Pope Francis is preaching Marxism?

Oh my!

Does that make him a Commie?

And aren't Commies bad?

My oh my!

Doesn't Francis preach the spirit of Jesus?

Oh dear!

Could Jesus have been a Commie?

Dear oh dear!

That would make Jesus bad—

But wait! Who said it?

Uh-huh.

A very rich man.

Who lives in a very rich house.

Who is paid very many millions each year

to speak what's in his mind.

Of course.

And what's in his mind?

©Darrell Petska

Pope is preaching 'pure Marxism'

Darrell Petska retired recently after more than 30 years as an editor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His poetry appears in a variety of online and print publications.

Zombie Antidote

Down our streets shuffle and moan

the zombie horde, off to work

or a mass feeding—nothing better to do

than crave living flesh. They've invaded

supermarkets and malls, even our pubs!

Sounds of their banquetings linger into night.

The police can't stem the slobbering mob.

The military succumbed to them long ago.

The average citizen is left to cower indoors.

News has been grim, yet gone unreported is

not a poet has been bitten—as if

imaginative minds repel zombie teeth.

How ironic, except to poets themselves, that

poetry, rather than barricades and brain shots,

might be an answer to this plodding scourge.

What works for poets must work for others:

cultivated widely, surely creative minds will

finally leave zombies with nothing to chew.

(As for the unemployed zombie population,

there'll come an ingenious solution, say,

first-line defense against beefy extraterrestrials?)

© Darrell Petska

Darrell retired recently after more than 30 years as an editor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His poetry appears in a variety of online and print publications.
Why are zombies so popular?

Mystery People

That man near your elbow—
           one of the mystery people?

The woman clicking her heels—
           maybe one, too?

They blend in, belying
           what they really are.

Sometimes, their true nature
           must surprise even themselves.

Often by accident, their deeds
           finally give them away:

Out of the blue to save a child drowning,
           to pull a man from a burning wreck—

Amazing! Where do they come from?
           Sometimes they'll quietly

disappear, sometimes stay to thanks.
           Such a mystery! They turn up

everywhere. My friends, my colleagues,
           could they possibly be?

I look for a sign in my mirror.
           How average. Could I?

© Darrell Petska

Mystery man saves 'lifeless' baby from drowning

Darrell Petska retired recently after more than 30 years as an editor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His poetry appears in a variety of online and print publications.