In Memory of Irene

Our unrealistic attitudes about death, through a doctor’s eyes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-unrealistic-views-of-death-through-a-doctors-eyes/2012/01/31/gIQAeaHpJR_story_1.html

I.

Collapsed

Head tucked under a small table

Feeling fibers of her life unweave

Willing herself back from sweet oblivion

Awoke the next morning,

Her last sunrise,

Called the bank, her lawyer

Signed endless forms

Called to say goodbye

Before the final rest

II.

Deliverer of dreams,

Prayer of the pushke,

Days after her loss

He found his first professorship,

Weeks after,

Baby blossomed  in my infertile womb

III.

She still visits me in dreams,

Four years later,

Many nights I find my arms filled with her lost paintings,

Her fingers covered in costume jewelry turned treasure,

Her slender wrinkled hand in my own

IV.

I will light a candle,

Lend my unborn daughter her name,

Pray for her safe passage

Double Death

Elie Wiesel: Mormon baptism of Holocaust victims ‘scandalous’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/elie-wiesel-mormon-baptism-of-holocaust-victims-scandalous/2012/02/15/gIQApRtpFR_blog.html

Murdered by the millions

רַבָּא שְׁמֵהּ וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ יִתְגַּדַּל

They recited the Mourners Kaddish

Over their own living corpses

Broken bodies long turned to ash

Jewish souls  

Newly baptized to Mormon faith

Fast Eddie's Son

19 Years and £1 Million Later, a Past Catches Up

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/us/british-robbery-suspect-edward-maher-arrested-in-missouri.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Not long after the white veil and dress were cleaned and stored

His words began to slur

His father made millions vanish from an armored vehicle

Childhood on the run

From England to America,

Cosmopolitan cities to the Ozarks

His mother fell from fancy dinners to cleaning houses

His family name King,

Tattooed on each of our wrists,

Just another fiction masquerading as truth 

Red Stained Silence

NATO says found Afghan children dead after air strike

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-afghanistan-airstrike-idUSTRE81C0MU20120213

Dense snow fell like tufts of cotton

As boys  herded flocks of sheep

White on white

Until bombs ricocheted like fireworks,

Yielding only red stained silence.

Amazonia

The river traders of Brazil

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/05/201153142852595854.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_medium=MasterAccount&utm_term=tweets

Air grows thin

At the lacy peak of Inga trees

30 meters above forest floor

A handful of fruit

Brings glittering change, and silence of the belly’s pleading

A village of children

Canoe down the Tajaparu

Scramble up ferries,

Desperate to avoid propellers,

Selling fruits and bowl of beans and rice

Before night falls

Inequality

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?_r=1&hp

I.

Off to ballet wearing a pearly tutu,

Mother and father watching every twirl from behind the two-way mirror

Playing a pint sized guitar at the School of Folk Music,

Painting and sculpting with Nanny in art class,

Play date at the private academy,

Overseen by teachers with clip boards.

Consultant promises it will improve her profile

Essays and interviews

Applications and strategies

Almost three years old,

Seeking an elite pre-schools.

II.

On good days,

Mama will talk about the foods as she puts them in the cart,

Labeling fruits and vegetables,

Revealing their names.

Most weeks

She is distracted,

Tallying the items, deciding what necessity to live without.

War is Peace

Report: Pentagon 'Beginning Review Of Syria Options'

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/08/146568390/report-pentagon-beginning-review-of-syria-options?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"We should start considering ... arming the opposition. The bloodletting has got to stop," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said.

5,000 dead

Now he wants to arm masses with machine guns

To stop the flow of Syrian wounds

Bodies will litter the streets

Blood will run like rivers

Children will ache for lost parents

Panic and terror, the only certainties

The bloodletting has to stop