NVN Friday: 2 timely poems constructed in contrareity
“Human” by Darrel Petska and “Conversely…” by by Regina YC Garcia
HUMAN
by Darrell Petska
Photograph and sculpture by Yuichi Ikehata
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I’m part American, part Czech, part Israeli and Kenyan, part Russian, Swedish, Palestinian, part northern hemisphere and southern, part all things spawned from stardust in the roiling sea of space, so why does my body war with itself, one eye peering left, the other right, one ear denying what the other one hears, each leg opposing the other’s direction while my hands hammer and claw each other till they bleed? One by one, I pare away my warring parts, yet the battles rage on. Soon, of all I was, only my two-sided heart shall remain. Already, each side argues a different allegiance— surely one will stop beating just to spite the other, and there I’ll lie, at last a heap of bones some beast shall drag into its lair as lesson to its offspring of what transpires when a body’s many parts fail to live in harmony. More fortunate stolid stone and knobbly bark than unruly human flesh.
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Darrell Petska, a Wisconsin poet, is one part of a large and loving family.
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CONVERSELEY…
by Regina YC Garcia
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All land is holy/land was holy until it is not/until it was not Land that has been planted/has been penned by hearts beating contrite/or hearts lying unrepentant with feet that have walked/ or feet that have occupied and minds with thoughts of peace/ or minds with thoughts of plot The land-now restructured The laws-now revised The people-once free/the people-now contained live inflamed/ live in flames We wonder of war We wail of death All of it waged by hands some clean/ some unclean The terrain, at least large enough, seems to be not enough and struggles to be/desires to be reframed/ to be reclaimed by new ghosts/by ghosts of old.
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Regina YC Garcia is a DAR American Heritage Literary Award Winner and a Pushcart Nominated Poet, Language Artist, and English Professor from Greenville, NC. She has been published in South Florida Poetry Journal, Amistad, Black Joy Unbond, and numerous others. She has also contributed to a variety of podcasts, documentaries, and musical and literary arrangements including the Sacred 9 Project (Tulane University) and an Emmy award winning episode of the PBS art show Muse. Her debut chapbook The Firetalker's Daughter was released in March 2023 by Finishing Line Press.