inspired by Nudging Young Women To Think About Fertility

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136401095/nudging-young-women-to-think-about-fertility

Time marches like a high school band

Horns wailing, drums beating,

Twirling batons, sweating in polyester

Ears stopped with cotton

You turn your back to the parade,

As time,  like a mugger,

Steals gold from your hair

And babies from your womb.

Sacrifice

inspired by Changes in Oregon Law Put Faith-Healing Parents on Trial 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/30followers.html?_r=1&hpw

Holy hands laid

On her small chest 

A tiny bird, a wounded rabbit  

Flesh, blood, bones binding spirit

He anointed our baby with oil

She glistened,

A sacred being, broken, perfect

We waited for burning bushes
Parting seas, fish and loves.

Shunned herbs, poultices.

Murmured prayers
She grew still.

We cursed His Name

Kewpie Doll; Gas Mask

inspired by Chernobyl - 24 years on

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chernobyl--24-years-on-1954969.html

In an abandoned fun park

A rusty carousel spins

In the breeze

Husks of buses and cars

Rot in snow and sun

In deserted classroom

Books remain opened on desks

Sheaves of yellowed paper cover floorboards

Peeling green paint and ripped curtains adorn

A room of toddler beds,

All empty.

Lying in the corner,

a Kewpie doll, a gas mask

Charade

How to spot a psychopath

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/21/jon-ronson-how-to-spot-a-psychopath

In a sea of slovenly men with vacant eyes

I wear pin stripes

My steady, dark eyes

Calculate its effect

Why Broadmoor Psychiatric?

Attacked a homeless man

Kicked him until rage subsided

Into song

Faked lunacy to escape prison

Quoting Clockwork Orange, Blue Velvet,

Ted Bundy

Locked up for twelve years

Away from

Mother, with her gin tears,

Her endless stream boyfriends,

Needles and tie-offs.

Now my name is ‘psychopath’

How do the sane cross their legs?

Interact with the deranged?

Express remorse?

Unbroken

They had 24 minutes to escape the twister

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/26/joplin.tornado.minutes/?hpt=C1

Hiding under a stairwell,

Or in airless closets,

Praying in bathtubs,

Clinging to children,

As walls and roofs peel away

Wind whips

Uprooting oak and cottonwood,

Tossing pick-up trucks and tractors

Fence flying like a

Metal bird

Couch in treetop

Chandelier on sidewalk

Everything inverted

Crystal vase, strangely unbroken

Surrounded by an avalanche of loss

On the Arrest of Ratko Mladic

Executions Were Mladic’s Signature, and Downfall

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/europe/27balkans.html?hp

In Srebenica

Your soldiers gave

Chocolate wrapped in golden foil

To Muslim boys,

Sweets before slaughter.

 

In Sarajevo

You withheld electricity, food, water,

Burned our cathedrals and mosques to ash.

You shot us at soccer games,

Waiting in endless lines for water,

At the market, bartering for bread.

You destroyed our harvest,

Bound our hands and escorted us, still breathing, 

To our graves

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/europe/27ratko-mladic.html?hp

Vagabound

Leather Man, Mysterious 19th-Century Wanderer, Will Remain So

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/leather-man-mysterious-19th-century-wanderer-will-remain-so/?src=twrhp

Leather man

Clad in tall boots,

Soft as Lamb’s Ear

Coat crafted of musty hides,

Pants, a rough patchwork of pelt and skin,

Hat and scarf of suede and buff.

Tramping on railroads,

Favoring sardines and brandy, rough bread and dark beer,

Sleeping in lean-to’s and rock shelters,

Surviving blizzards and twisters,

Smelling of smoke and earth,

Walking 365 miles each month,

Sleeping in a pauper’s grave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherman_%28vagabond%29

6:01

Make My Bed? But You Say the World’s Ending

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20rapture.html

When the apocalypse didn’t come

I knew my life was over.

College fund emptied

By parents who dragged us to Times Square

Bearing garbage bags full of

Bibles with cheap plastic covers

Mother will sit on the calico couch

Too dejected for dishes or showers or paying bills or cooking dinner.

Father ,too listless for working or mowing or speaking or protecting,

Devotes whole days to numerology and prayer

Like overgrown children, or lunatics,

They gave it all away for the rapture

Too witless to realize the sun would still rise,

Shedding light on our diminished future

Blackmarket Blood

In Bulgaria, a black market in blood is flourishing as donors become more and more scarce

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-bulgaria-a-black-market-in-blood-is-flourishing-as-donors-become-more-and-more-scarce/2011/05/23/AFX23b9G_story.html

Black market sales of blood

By bearded men in a haze of tobacco,

Outside of the emergency room.

Desperate relatives count worn bills

Paying dearly for red vials

Life, for a price

Silent Genocide

SKorea, US to investigate veterans’ claims Agent Orange was buried at US base in South Korea

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/skorea-us-to-investigate-veterans-claims-agent-orange-was-buried-at-us-base-in-south-korea/2011/05/22/AFf1s48G_story.html

Working in darkness

Roped muscles straining

Fifty grunts in filthy fatigues

Digging deep hole

A  mass grave

for cardboard boxes of Agent Orange

Seeping through the centuries

Into soil and ground water

Silent genocide

Our parting gift

The Devil You Know

At Hussein shrine, nostalgia for a strong leader

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/war-zones/at-shrine-to-saddam-hussein-in-iraq-nostalgia-for-a-fallen-leader/2011/05/18/AFvW7u7G_story.html

Filing past marble tomb

Festooned with plastic carnations,

Purple and green lights flicker

Children throw sweets

We pay respect to 

a jackal bearing blood drenched fang,

Our fallen leader

(Don’t think of  how Uday and Qusay,

Would select a treasured daughter,

Devour and throw her away,

Predator and prey)

Look how these weak leaders quake

Without Saddam

(Forget the Kurds he gassed

The thousand daily terrors of his reign)

When he ruled,

Electricity flickered from outlets,

Children walked to school

Knowing whom to fear

On the Cancellation of British Literature

Fighting with only bare hands,

Beowulf  vanquishes Grendel,

Hangs the monster’s bloody arm above the mead hall,

And sails home on ancient seas

Prioress, Wyf of Bath,

Monk and Miller

Ride on palfrey and stallion from

Canterbury, tales all told

Arthur reminisces about pulling steel from stone,

As Merlin languishes in the Hawthorne tree

Lady Macbeth scrubs lily white hands

Seeing only divine blood

While her husband longs for holy, restive sleep

Lady of Shallott weaves tapestries in her crumbling tower,

Viewing the world through rippled reflection

Keats's lovers dance on Grecian urn,

Trees forever blooming

Characters under the spell of words

Live on, unbidden
Scops, singing stories

To empty rooms.

Telomeres, The Oracle

The £400 test that tells you how long you'll live

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-163400-test-that-tells-you-how-long-youll-live-2284639.html

I.

Sooth-sayer  tracing lifeline across

Palm unblemished by callous or cut

Searching for breaks, fissures

Teasing out time's tale   

II.

Telomeres,

Chromosomal caps ,

Shortened by cellular division,

Revealing true age

III.

Oracles of future,

Or lack thereof,

We bow to God of science,

Praying for time

Seeking,

Oedipus- like,

Terrible revelation

Tainted Welcome

Chemical Suspected in Cancer Is in Baby Products http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/business/18chemical.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

The new research found that foam samples from more than a third of the 101 baby products that were tested contained chlorinated Tris. Overall, 80 of the products contained chemical flame retardants of some kind, some of which are considered toxic, though legal to use.

Lurking within the first place you rested,

Drinking mother’s milk,

A pillow of softest fleece;

Lining the first place you sat,

A cherry wood high chair covered with flocks of birds;

Padding your car seat,

Pale green and seemingly perfect;

Hidden inside your carrier,

Suspending you, nestled against me,

In a bloom of chemicals.

Struggling to Smile

inspired by Making Parenthood A Reality Through IVF Grants  

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/135358223/making-parenthood-a-reality-through-ivf-grants

I.

In the sunlight, 

A  man and a woman

Swing a child between them,

A slip of a girl,

With bouncing pigtails and rainbow tights.

I sit in the shade watching.

Each month punctuated by blood.

Defective.

Broken.

Barren.

Infertility, a silent sadness,

Struggles to smile at baby showers and birthday parties,

Stutters through prying questions of strangers,

Makes love, knowing nothing will grow.

'Real News. Compelling Stories. Always Positive'

Happy News

adapted from http://www.happynews.com/index.aspx

Yours is the pleasure of secret silliness

“Donkey mascot from Iraq comes to NYC!”

“Tweeting birds join Twitter!”

“Sailor, 85, crosses the Atlantic with friends”

Each headline a chirpy affirmation

Articles are perky cheerleaders and pep squad girls,

Waving neon banners and setting free doves,

A media blitz for happiness

Let me linger a little

Searching for a smile from the daily news

Le Grand Séducteur

Police Seek Evidence From I.M.F. Chief on Sex Attack

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/nyregion/maid-picks-imf-chief-as-attacker-in-lineup.html

$3,000 a night for a hotel

includes whatever I damn well want.

That African ‘maid’ at the Sofitel

Skin black as soil

How dare she accuse me?

She’s lucky I was in her mouth

A powerful man, a man of wealth, has needs

Removed from my first class flight to France

Forced to stand in a police lineup

(Like a common criminal)

Don’t they know I  bailed out Greece?

I stopped defaults in Hungary, Pakistan, and Ukraine?

(So much fuss over one weeping African)

Now they scrape under my fingernails

And pull my hair

I will be exonerated

She will pay

At the end of the day, the poorest – as always – pay the most [1]

---

[1] Direct quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-Kahn

Life in the Margins

Rising as the sun
My husband and daughter still asleep
To read your thoughts on Gandhi and nonviolence

You worked alone, late into the evening,
Wrestling with words, hoping to please me,
Your only reader

Red pen in hand
I scrawl encouragements when I can
Underline emphatically
Write treatises in the margins
Cross out what I must

Upon the essay's return,
You register only a grade in scarlet

My notations, essential as blood,
A transfusion, a life source
Viewed as wounds, marks to disregard,
Acts of violence

Descending

adapted from Chilean miner wants his page of history back http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chilean-miner-wants-his-page-of-history-back-2283892.html

Spotlights are off now

Reporters long gone, in search of the next story

Chilean flags no longer flutter at the mines

Thirty-three men

Emerged from the earth’s tomb

After two months of digging

(We lived in darkness

Prayed in one corner,

Shat in another,

Divided food for thirty-three mouths

Before anyone ate)

When we emerged,

Men from the underworld,

Chile seemed bathed in gold

They promised book deals,

Voyages, health, rest

We have seen the world

But the president silently stopped

Paying our medical bills

Soon we will put on our hats and boots,

To descend again into the darkness.

If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

inspired by 70 State Parks Slated to Close

http://www.independent.com/news/2011/may/13/70-state-parks-close/

Sparse juniper and dense redwoods will remain.

Waves will still crash,

With air redolent of salt and eucalyptus.

Mountains and buttes will endure,

Revealing our smallness.

Tree roots will slowly overtake paths,

Leaving knotty wilds in their wake.

Struggling to Smile

Making Parenthood A Reality Through IVF Grants

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/135358223/making-parenthood-a-reality-through-ivf-grants

Man and woman

Swing a little girl between them,

She wears rainbow tights and cowboy boots,

Squealing in delight.

I watch in shadow

Defective

Broken

Infertility struggles to smile at baby showers,

Recoils at the questions of well intentioned strangers,

Makes love knowing nothing will grow.

Past Curfew

adapted from A Second Shot to Have the Best Night of Their Lives

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/us/12prom.html

Mom goes to prom

In an aquamarine dress with golden heels,

Spray-on tan and French-manicure,

Her hair in stiffly sprayed waves.

Dad pins a gardenia on her bodice

Awkwardness of an 18 year old, blessedly absent.

Silver and black balloons float above the bar of

A ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin

Pink punch is spiked

No chaperones in sight

Hits from the eighties provide the soundtrack

Some slow dance

Touching curves,

Free from the gaze of toddlers

And the clearing dishes after dinner.

A gaggle of women

Emboldened enough to go stag,

Now wait to be asked to dance,

Looking forlorn

Trying desperately  not to remember the boy who didn’t ask

Twenty years before.

If you close your eyes

And suck in your stomach,

You may pretend mom and dad are still alive

Waiting up until your curfew,

That life is just beginning.

No limos wait in the parking lot

Just SUV’s with car seats,

Waiting to return to the carpool lane in the morning.

Plastic Totems

inspired by Did Tupperware parties change the lives of women? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13331830

Pink Cadillac and cotton candy colored canary

Brownie Wise, sales goddess,

Rises from a Tupperware bowl like Botticelli’s Venus

In pink gabardine  skirt, sensible hose and white gloves,

Brownie  serves Vodka Gimlets, canapés and Swedish meatballs

Ladies leave bearing jadite green celery crispers,

Neon tumblers with sipper seal lids,

Blue doily holders and rainbow napkin rings,

Bright red juicers and Wonder Bowls

Vegetables divorced from plants,

Meat shunning its animal origins,

All living things rendered stackable

“Tupperware Everywhere” advertisements urge,

Ice boxes filled with perfectly packed pastel plastic,

Totems for an orderly life.

R-E-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E

inspired by Supreme Court Denies Justice to Texas Cheerleader Who Refused to Cheer Her Alleged Rapist

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/06/scotus-texas-cheerleader/

Take back your scratchy polyester skirt,

Take back your cheap shirt emblazoned with school colors,

Red, white, and blue

Take back these absurd pom-pons

Metallic gold, decorative fluff

My muscles and bruises are my own

My arms will remain folded

My  eyes will remain steady

My voice will not be forced

I will not cheer on a rapist

I will not utter his name

Mom's Gifts

Purple irises for my teacher

(From the yard bearing orange day lilies and later,

Fallen apples swarming with bumblebees)

Hot potato pancakes in tin foil for my bus driver

(From the kitchen of chicken divan, perfect omelets

Sticky sweet pineapple upside-down cake,

Truffles in elegant glass brandy snifter)

Light pink dress with white tulips for my Kindergarten picture

(From the closet that still holds Homecoming dresses of velvet and taffeta,

Embroidered wedding gown, and long gauzy veil)

Poetry books and novels for my mind

(From the bookshelf that bears fabric colored journals, high school yearbooks,

College notebooks, and now, perhaps, children’s stories)

Fragrant stargazers for my marriage

(In a marble portrait gallery, amidst stained glass windows,

Tulle covered chuppah, fit for royalty)

A humble poem for mom

(Filled with memories of countless kindnesses,

Too many gifts to name)

Animals of Prey

Face That Screamed War’s Pain Looks Back, 6 Hard Years Later

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/middleeast/07photo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

 Wailing

As the world watched

                                                                              

Five year old

Mouth in animal terror

Mother shot, father shot

The camera shutter clicked,

Their blood still wetting her cheeks,

Matting her hair,

Dripping from her hands,

Splattering a clean white sheet, and a pair of army issue combat boots

She is a tufted clump of feathers

A mass of fur and claw

Scratching at Iraqi soil

Now, six winters later,

You show a child her own horror,

Intimate moment,  private grief,

Shared with Western world

You return to visit her remains,

To tell her story,

To feed on bones picked clean

Fatal Myth

inspired by Tanzania Albinos Murdered or Raped as AIDS Cure

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/tanzania-albinos-murdered_n_857962.html

Skin light as a lamb’s fleece,

Whiter than sharp teeth,

Or goat’s milk,

Pale as a chicken’s egg,

Or purity,

Like bone bleached in sun.

Too light for burning rays

They used to taunt me.

Now I’m the hunted,

Witch doctor's magical cure,

Cursed by skin of alabaster.

2100

adapted from World population 'will top 10 billion by 2100'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-population-will-top-10-billion-by-2100-2279136.html

10 billion hearts

Beating on this bright blue globe

Graced with oceans and sun,

Breathing, rejoicing, suffering

10 billion hopes

Aching to thrive

Ocean Life

inspired by Bodies Found After 2009 Air France Crash
http://www.euronews.net/2011/04/04/bodies-found-after-2009-air-france-crash/

Seaweed wreaths her head,
A living crown of flowing green fronds

Schools of silver minnows
Race through the bony arch of her ribs

Anemones undulate on the tips of her fingers
Algae covers her, a mossy blanket

May her skull find rest on silt and sand

Shifting Narrative

adapted from Narrative on Bin Ladin Raid Collapses
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/05/narrative-on-bin-laden-raid-collapses/


Under a storm of bullets,
Bin Laden used his wife as a human shield
She perished, riddled with bullets
He clutched his ubiquitous Kalashnikov, ready to defend his life
In a million dollar mansion
Stockpiled with weapons.

Collateral Damage

inspired by “USA! USA!" is the wrong response

http://www.salon.com/news/osama_bin_laden/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/02/osama_and_chants_of_usa

Students clad in Polos and khakis

Bump fists and slap hands

Celebrate in packed hallways.
They ask my opinion on the murder of Bin Laden.
I sputter:
Thousands upon thousands dead in a decade.
Our minds see terror in turbans and prayer.
We’ve spent billions killing innocents.
They listen respectfully, turn their backs,
 And join in the chant.
                                                                                

Scale and Skull

Adapted from The Most Wanted Face of Terrorism

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/02osama-bin-laden-obituary.html?hp

Hydra lurks in deep waters

Guarding the entrance to the underworld

For every head severed

Two more burst from serpent’s skin

Bin Laden shot in the forehead

Then thrown deep into the ocean

Denying followers a place to grieve him

Crowds chant “USA” in the streets of cities

Beautiful teens draped  in flags pump their fists

Sing the “Star Spangled Banner” near Ground Zero

Honk late into the night in DC

Cheering for death

Hoping one murder

Will erase memories of buildings in flames,

Humans jumping from burning skyscrapers,

Of airplanes turned to grit and dust

Men in flowing robes will mourn him in the streets

In desert markets and on verdant hilltops

Already new heads are sprouting

Ripping through scale and wasted skull

Ten years of slaughter

Will not bring safety

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra

Sweet Penelope

Off we ride

In your turquoise cozy coupe

You hold your little sneakers in the air,

Ready for adventure,

As I push the clownish car down the street.

We stop for fuzzy dogs,

Puffy yippers who cover your hands with licks.

We coax aloof cats, lazing in the sunshine, to come over for a pet,

Keep our eyes peeled for frogs in wet ditches.

You dictate the route.

First we’ll trek down a rocky driveway to visit

The lime green turtle, festooned with a halo of butterflies

(You insist on hugging lawn ornaments).

Next, we visit the plaster little dog and big dog,

Crossing lawlessly over an expansive front lawn,

You gallop to greet sculptures,

Kissing them recklessly, despite my pleas.

You eagerly await puppies decorating mailboxes,

Bunnies waving on flags,

Candy colored eggs hanging from boughs of blossoming cherry tree,

And the porcelain duck whose outfit changes each holiday,

Frilly pink apron and beret for Saint Valentine

Green galoshes and windbreaker for Saint Patrick.

Back in the coupe,

You wave at pansies and moss roses,

Say good morning to fat bumblebees,

Tweet at blue jays and sparrows,

Sniff at blossoming lilacs,

Greeting each delight by name.