Insatiable

What Are We Eating?

http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/food-consumption-in-america_2010-07-12/

This year,

The "Average" American ate

32 pounds of eggs;

110 pounds of red meat;

29 pounds of French fries;

22 pounds of pizza;

24 pounds of ice cream;

53 gallons of soda;

2700 calories each day

In One Slum, Misery, Work, Politics and Hope

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/29/world/asia/in-indian-slum-misery-work-politics-and-hope.html?pagewanted=2

Within labyrinth of corrugated tin roof and dirt floors

15 souls packed like vertebrae

Women wrapped in bright saris, jasmine decorating long black hair

Baby’s perfect face marked with kohl, to fool the devil

Dear Leader

Delving into North Korea's mystical cult of personality

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16336991

Icy lake heard cracking

Red fire blazes on the mountaintop of his birth

Manchurian cranes mourn at his statue

Magpies sing his eulogy

Citizens weep in the streets

Government minders snap photographs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16297811

Prosopagnosia

Faceless

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/12/26/health/100000000958226/faceless.html

Children tugging my hands in the narrow aisles, unrecognizable,

Though they call me “Mama”,

The man I love, rendered a stranger with each passing glance,

Faces disappearing with each blink, unknowable,

Surrounded by mystery at every turn

Asperger Love

Navigating Love and Autism

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/navigating-love-and-autism.html?pagewanted=1&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimes

Like the blue screen of death

Emotions wordless

Biting my lips,

Unsure how to arrange my face

Repulsed by mashing my mouth with yours,

Or holding sweaty palms

Wanting only to rock, together

Thirst

Explosion Rips Through Catholic Church in Nigeria

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/world/africa/explosion-rips-through-catholic-church-in-nigeria.html?hp

Saint Theresa Church in flames

Mountain of Fire and Miracles is burning

On Christmas Eve

Bodies bent in prayer reduced to funeral pyres

By people of the Book

What type of God thirsts for blood?

Sudan to Omaha

Sudanese Refugees In Omaha Wrestle With Rise Of Street Gangs

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/23/sudan-sudanese-refugees-omaha-nebraska_n_1165709.html#s569936

Born of dust storms of Sudan,

Children of drought

Dreamers of Nile,

When Northern soldiers came,

We trudged for days across parched land,

Sleeping sons on our backs,

To razor wire of refugee center.

Flight to America,

Our greatest hope

Nebraska, a green prayer on thirsty tongues.

We met snow and hail,

Shot out windows and tenement homes.

Murderous bullets each Friday night                        

Death stalks our sons,

From Sudan to America

We long for green fields,

Quiet plains,

A small, safe harvest.

Drift

Girl Missing Since 2004 Tsunami Turns Up Alive In Indonesia

http://jezebel.com/5870695/girl-missing-since-2004-tsunami-turns-up-alive-in-indonesia

I died in waves

Rushing white ocean

Tore me from mother’s hands

Stinging with salt, gagging on sea foam

Reborn from water

Floating through villages

Hands cupped together

Eight long years,

I drifted home

Duty Free

Sierra Leone seizes drugs from Ecuador in nappies

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16300086

Voyaging from rain forests of Equador

To mangrove swamps of Sierra Leone,

Hidden in the soft fold of cloth diapers,

Cocaine crystals gleam.

Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Abuse by Soldiers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/world/middleeast/violence-enters-5th-day-as-egyptian-general-blames-protesters.html?pagewanted=2

Mothers carrying infants

Housewives  wrapped in head scarves

Dare to defy soldiers

Young men who rip off modest abayas

To reveal girls in brassiers

Men who punch and kick soft flesh

Stripping and beating

Concealing, revealing

Their perverse lust for power

My Business: The slum dweller who founded a food chain

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16248442

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde

Born to slums of Chennai

Bamboo walls and floors of earth

Shanties with corrugated roves of tin

Selling steaming idlis to earn tuition

Washing  the same school uniform by hand

Each night, for three years

Earning scholarships for college

Sister pawning golden wedding  jewelry for my MBA

Two doors appeared

One glimmering with golden rupees

The other, shimmering in sunlight

I turned my back on high rises and fancy suits

Returned to slums, cooking simple meals for a hungry nation

Each man I employ feeds five

Inspire 1,000, millions will eat

Enflamed

Cornered by Attacker in Elevator, Fire Victim, 73, Had No Way Out

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/nyregion/woman-burned-alive-in-brooklyn-elevator-police-question-man.html?pagewanted=all

Elderly woman steps into elevator

Plastic grocery bags line her arms like strange plumage

He wears uniform of exterminator

As elevator climbs

She ventures a smile

He sprays her with pesticide

Lights a match

Watches detached as she ignites

Dancing bird

With feathers of flame

Scorching, blazing, searing pain

Killing Conscience

No Fear: Memory Adjustment Pills Get Pentagon Push

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/fear-erasing-drugs/

We kill enemies

In Iraq, Afghanistan

Men who hide in deserts and mountains,

In urban wastelands and crowded homes

We kill civilians

At frantic checkpoints,

Amidst blinding noise from helicopters and speeding cars,

Or women who bed down with terrorists;

Children who play with landmines or dance into the path of bullets

We kill fear

When bombs and guns vanish

Replaced with Little League and shopping malls

Tiny red pills banish anxiety

Massacre memories

Victoria's Secret

Victoria’s Secret Revealed in Child Picking Burkina Faso Cotton

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-15/victoria-s-secret-revealed-in-child-picking-burkina-faso-cotton.html

I.

Slender legs strut down catwalk

Long hair waving in faux breeze

Angel wings affixed to perfect back

Lush breasts sprinkled with glitter

Naked save for

Panties of pure white cotton

II.

Skinny arms pick from sunrise to twilight

In burning sun

Back aching

Fingers twitching

Praying to avoid the whips of tree branches as he says to work faster

Pulling the wooden cart since there is no money for a mule

Harvesting pure white cotton

Wilde

Walling Off Oscar Wilde’s Tomb From Admirers’ Kisses

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/europe/oscar-wildes-tomb-sealed-from-admirers-kisses.html?pagewanted=2&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimes#

Even marble erodes

After hundreds of thousands of kisses

Bright red or soft pink stains on black granite,

Scrubbed clean now from adoring lips

Monument encased in cold glass

Though the grass

Is forever strewn with love notes  

Victory

U.S. Flag Comes Down, And Iraq War Is Officially Over

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/15/143791674/u-s-flag-comes-down-and-iraq-war-is-officially-over?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Victory is declared

After 9 years

4,500 Americans perished

33,000 bear the scars

Yet no tally for Iraqis who lie in the earth

100,000 killed?

1,455,990?

Countless corpses

Robbed of name and face molder  in unknown graves

American flags are burning

As camouflaged convoys retreat

Victory is declared

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

 Pakistan police rescue chained students from madrasa

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-madrasa-20111214,0,102451.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fworld+%28L.A.+Times+-+World+News%29

Chained to stone wall

Dreaming of meat, water, sunlight, mother

You recite Koran from rote memory

Praying only to avoid the whip

La Isla de las Viudas - "The Island of the Widows."

Mystery kidney disease in Central America

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16007129

Sunken cheeks

Protruding eyes

Brown skin turning sallow

Kidneys failing

Perishing within

 

Strong men on sugar plantations

Miners toiling deep in the earth

Strapping youths loading ships on the docks

Working to death

Paraya Dhan

Too Young to Wed

 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/gorney-text/2

“The Hindi term paraya dhan refers to daughters still living with their own parents. Its literal meaning is "someone else's wealth."’

Carried in night’s stillness,

Child on her uncle’s shoulders,

Past burning candles and smoky incense

Draped in silk and jasmine by starlight

Given in marriage to a stranger

Before  sun rise

Psychology

CA Prison Psychologist Charged With Faking Rape

http://life.salon.com/2011/12/09/ca_prison_psychologist_charged_with_faking_rape/

Ripped my silk blouse

Scratched my knuckles with sand paper

Split unkissed lips with a needle

Begged a friend to punch me

Hid away our valuables

Claimed I was raped

Longing to be a victim,

Vulnerable as a newborn.

What else would make him protect me?

Sterilized

Thousands Sterilized, a State Weighs Restitution

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/redress-weighed-for-forced-sterilizations-in-north-carolina.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimes

Young girls raped by dirty old men

(Endless stream of sick uncles, fathers, cousins, priests)

Then forcefully sterilized

Poor kids from homes with too many mouths to feed

Made to “sign the paper or mama’s checks get cut off”

Teenage boys who failed IQ tests

Who skipped school to pick cotton in the burning sun

Deemed unworthy 

60,000 men and women sterilized

Futures stolen, 

Excised by the state’s skilled hands 

We, The Broken

Safety Issues Cited In Deadly Indian Hospital Fire

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/10/143483578/safety-issues-cited-in-deadly-indian-hospital-fire?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

We saw the flames

Smelled noxious smoke

Then a blur of doctors and nurses flew past

A flurry of white robes, scuffling shoes, beepers, and then, silence

We, the broken,

Armed only with respirators and feeding tubes,  

Left to wait for fire to reach our hospital beds

After the Flood

New Orleans Struggles to Stem Homicides

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/us/new-orleans-struggles-to-stem-homicides.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Flood waters long clear,

Death still drowns boys

On the streets of New Orleans

Both killers and victims,

Young black men,

More likely to be shot in school

Than in Afghanistan

After Cafe Au Lait and Beignet,

On Cobblestone streets,

In gardens bordered in wrought iron,

To the beat of brassy jazz bands,

Bodies afloat in receding waters

Holy Land

West Bank mosque set alight in suspected 'price tag' attack

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/west-bank-mosque-set-alight-in-suspected-price-tag-attack-1.400129

Mosque alighted

Korans in flames

Burning, as our hopes flicker,

In the Holy Land

Nascent

What's Behind A Temper Tantrum? Scientists Deconstruct The Screams

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/12/05/143062378/whats-behind-a-temper-tantrum-scientists-deconstruct-the-screams?ps=cprs

Tiny toes (each of which have been kissed hundreds of times)

Kick yielding earth,

Raging at its solidity

Clenched little fists pulse with indignity

Cheeks impossibly red

You explode from imagined slights,

The injustice of sunset, when it forces us from swing and slide;

The audacity of the dog, who swipes the meat you wave in front of her;

The imperfection of a cookie that fails to be precisely round

You inhabit an exhausting in-between 

Words, with their mysterious power, sometimes fail 

Abandoning you to primal screams

Sobbing for acknowledgement, 

For a clean, dry diaper,

A perfect slice of cake,

A night without bedtime

A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-minimally-conscious.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ref=general&src=me

Between knowledge and oblivion

I linger

Trapped in hazy dreamscape

Of lost classrooms and endless rivers

Mother found me

Sprawled on asphalt

Unseeing eyes staring into sunlight

Purple welts covering my skin like exploding stars

Days spent fording rivers of netherworld

Trout rising from ceaseless waters

Yet each night after the pill,

My eyes shift to focus,

Returning to land of the living

All too briefly

Before sunrise arrives, 

When darkness descends

When You Die

A dead heat - crematorium to sell power for National Grid

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/8917633/A-dead-heat-crematorium-to-sell-power-for-National-Grid.html

Your bones and blood will heat our homes

You will be the fire in the furnace

Alighting 1,000 televisions

With teeth, tendon and tongue. 

Liberation

Portrait of Pain Ignites Debate Over Afghan War

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/world/asia/05afghan.html

For Afghan Woman, Justice Runs Into Unforgiving Wall of Custom

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/asia/for-afghan-woman-justice-runs-into-the-static-wall-of-custom.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

I.  Aisha

Canyon in the center

Of her visage

Like an exploded landmine

He cut off her nose to spite her lovely face

Slashed her ears, silencing baby’s cries and water’s boiling

Freed now;

But what has become of her baby sister?

II.  Gulnaz

She plans a wedding

From her prison cell

Arrested for her own defilement

Resigned  to marry her rapist,

Forcing the beast’s sister to marry her own brother,

To ensure her own survival

III.

Women of Afghanistan

The tanks are leaving

Military fatigues and rifles of a foreign occupier

Will no longer stain your dusty streets

American bombs will no longer kill your innocents

We liberate you to your own doom

Outlaws

Hungary outlaws homeless in move condemned by charities

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15982882

Sleeping on benches with a thin blanket of newsprint,

Eating rubbish from trash cans in the park,

Sleeping on heating grates, covered with snow flakes

Outlawing homelessness

Provides no heat, nor beds, nor blankets

It creates 10,000 newly-minted 'criminals' 

Surviving on dirty streets

Black Friday: Target Shoppers Step Over Walter Vance As He Collapses, Dies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/27/black-friday-target_n_1115372.html?ref=mostpopular

We stepped over him,

Barely noticing how convulsions turned to stillness,

Focused, instead, on the symphony of televisions,

Each singing its own siren song

Svetlana Alliluyeva

Lana Peters, Stalin’s Daughter, Dies at 85

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/world/europe/stalins-daughter-dies-at-85.html

Wherever I go,” she said, “here, or Switzerland, or India, or wherever. Australia. Some island. I will always be a political prisoner of my father’s name.”

Father’s simplicity butchered us all

His love, his cruelty

Created and destroyed us

Born Stalin’s ‘little sparrow’,

Pampered as a princess,

While millions slaved in his forced labor

Brother Jacob, murdered by the Nazis,

(Father wouldn’t stoop to trade a single German general for him)

Brother Vasili, killed by the bottle

Mother ‘s self-mutilation

(They claimed appendicitis, but I saw the gashes)

My youngest  love banished  to Siberia

There could be no other

All of my marriages withered

No man strong as his steel

(Father would grab me by the throat, rip my hair, make me dance)

Setting my Soviet passport on fire

Wandering citizen of the world

Rootless, nameless,

Little sparrow no longer

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/238280-Stalin-s-Daughter-Lana-Peters-Dies-at-85

The Hidden Cost of Chocolate

Nestle 'to act over child labour in cocoa industry'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15917164

In the Ivory Coast

Children wielding machetes

Hack through golden cocoa pods

They squat in muddy tee shirts

Skinny legs scarred with past mistakes

Silently harvesting our delight

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15681986

Unknown Namesake

I.

There is a danger in such ignorance

Scanning names on a parchment family tree

Isadora? Lily? Sadie? Rose?

Great grandmother’s family wiped clean from memory's slate 

II.

Who will know Sadie was the only one on Seeley Avenue

With two coins to rub together during the Depression?

Backyard bordered with peonies in bright fuchsia and soft pink;

She wouldn’t share a bloom.

III.

Who will know little Rose Mendelsohn died jumping rope

Braids flying, her heart exploded

Mother’s screams were heard blocks away

At the “Five and Dime”

Blood curling shouts to wake the dead

But little Rose was gone

IV.

Unknown namesake

Legacy unspoken

Like an antique wedding band

Bequeathed by souls long asleep at Waldheim

Double Death

The funerals that cost families dear

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15890662

Ironwood, Kiaat, Oak, Walnut

Deep woods of forest

Sanded smooth by craftsman’s hands

Lined with silk for hereafter

Bright robes in crimson and vermilion

Brilliant scarves, beaded black braids

Pose at the cemetery

Coffee and tea

Pastries and liquor

Meats and nuts

Must serve hundreds of mourners

Music and wine

Dancing and laughter

Send off the departed

Years will be lean

After death

Hunger will plague us,

Memory won’t feed empty bellies

Promise and Plenty

Black Friday Is Busy, but Are Holiday Shoppers Spending?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/business/black-friday-shoppers-fan-out-in-the-dark-of-night.html?_r=1&hp

Big screen televisions tower over the crowded aisles

Christmas carols blare

Shoppers in pajamas jostle for blenders, baby carriages, diamond studs

Everything screaming of promise and plenty

Snapped up by tired hands

Shoved into overflowing cars

Coupons and flyers lining dirty floor mats

As the hunt continues

Turkey

In This Town, Turkey Picks Up Bill for Dinner

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/us/ozark-ark-a-town-that-runs-on-turkey.html?pagewanted=1

Stunned

Plucked

Slashed

Gutted

Cleaned

Injected

Stuffed

Sent

Served

Rough Judgement

Texas High Court Suspends Judge In Beating Video

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142695227/texas-supreme-court-suspends-judge-in-beating-video?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Put away your robe, Father

Your throne no longer awaits

You’ll no longer wield your gavel,

Passing judgement on those beneath you

Put away your belt, Father

Your rough justice is over

You’ll no longer beat me into submission

Passing judgement on those beneath you

On Lucks Lane

Grandmother's walnut table
Covered in rain
Proud red velvet seats
Glistening in the gloom
Expelled from dusty dining room
Bathed in mist
Abandoned to gravel and weed

Rising Unbidden

Survivors Seek Answers at Khmer Rouge Trial

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/world/asia/cambodian-survivors-seek-truth-at-khmer-rouge-trial.html?hp

Sandalwood burning

Jasmine petals adorn pyramid of skulls

Monks in saffron robes chant

Teeth and bone still emerge from mass grave

During monsoon rains

Rising,

As memories

Unbidden, to a foreign land

Stolen Words

Elizabeth Nichols, Occupy Portland Protester Pepper Sprayed in the Face, Identified

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/19/liz-nichols-occupy-portland-pepper-spray-in-face_n_1102895.html

Her mouth opened in silent scream

Pepper spray rips down her throat

Words awash in poison

Education

UC Davis Pepper Spray Video At Occupy Protest Launches Probe By University

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/19/uc-davis-pepper-spray-video_n_1103075.html

On their knees,

Deferential yet defiant

Silently resisting,

Youth link arms.

Hit by plumes of pepper spray,

Eyes shut to the fire

They openly weep,

And so do I.

She Lies

Kate Prout murder: Husband to reveal Redmarley farm grave

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-15788696

Her body lies

Under the orchard

Apple and pears trees will bloom

From blood and bones

Her words lie

As she demands papers for divorce

Her foolishness would have destroyed the farm

Now she lies here

At dawn and gloaming

Safely tucked under the greening earth 

Modern Slavery

The Face of Modern Slavery

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/kristof-the-face-of-modern-slavery.html?_r=1&hp

Sold at six.

Arms and legs tied to the bed.

Sold night after night.

Sewn up,

Sold as a virgin again.

And again.

Finally free

Though other girls remain.

When will we save them from the nightmare? 

Bridal Slave

Bridal Slave
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/slaverya21stcenturyevil/2011/10/2011101013102368710.html


Henna will not decorate slender fingers
Gold necklaces will not drape her neck
No diamond will stud her nostril
She will have no embroidered sari
He will not feed her sweets from loving fingers
Neighbors will not bless and celebrate


$120
For a bride like a mule
Who will labor in burning sun by day
And be used by him each night

Gather

As the Police Moved In, the Word Went Out: ‘It’s Happening’

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/zuccotti-park-protesters-its-happening.html?_r=1

Strangely quiet now

Wordless after destruction

Like an abandoned village

Without a hut left standing

Protestors, tents, tarps,

Gas masks and goggles,

Drums and American flags

All ripped away

Zuccotti  Park hosed down

Stripped clean.

Nerve center crippled

Yet still we gather

Green

Your Prius' Deepest Darkest Secret

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/10/rare-earths-prius-molycorp?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+motherjones%2FTheBlueMarble+%28Mother+Jones+%7C+The+Blue+Marble%29

Young workers in Inner Mongolia

Hair, a shocking white,

Teeth, falling out one by one,

Youth reduced to radioactive waste

For rare earth mining

To gather  Neodymium

That fuels your Prius

And runs your wind turbines

We will clear dense forests in Malaysia

Soon defects will mar village babies

Women will fear water in the rivers

You, however, will drive your Smart car, 

Play with your toys,

Congratulating yourself for treading gently

On a poisoned planet