No More Cream Puffs

By Darrell Petska

Can’t you feel it?
That chokehold on our throats—
write like this
say it like that
be dignified, calm, aloof—
Hell, today’s hands demand poems
hard as a brick.
Frilly little rhymes?
Maybe Sundays with tea.

Something afraid of us
wants our words meek, not defiant:
“Go ahead, throw your cream puffs.
Now aren’t you a rebel!”—
hoping we won’t throw bricks.
Don’t fall for that.
Now’s not the time for nice.
Something needs to learn
what pissed-off poems can do.

Darrell Petska‘s writing appears in Whirlwind, The Missing Slate, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Red Paint Hill, Right Hand Pointing, and numerous other print and online publications. Darrell worked for many years as engineering outreach editor, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He left the university to be the arbiter of his own words. He lives near Madison, Wisconsin.

Photo credit: Way Tru via a Creative Commons license.