The Butcher

Black Widow Cannibal Seeks Parole

http://gawker.com/5845319/

Blood red hat and cherry stilettos

Scarlet lipstick, perfectly applied

Wielding a cleaver

His groping hands fried in scalding oil;

His head baked in the oven, finally devoid of smirk;

His skin clawed away by her nails  lacquered in crimson 

Malignant Tendrils

Man Accused Of Poisoning Toomer's Corner Oaks Apologizes To Auburn

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/29/140934596/man-accused-of-poisoning-toomers-corner-oaks-apologizes-to-auburn?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Green dissolves to black

Proud leaves withering

Curling and crumpling to ash

Regret creeping within me,

Malignant tendrils taking root.

Severed

Five severed heads left outside Mexican school

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15086909?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Heads in a burlap sack

Like Medusa’s, streaming with snakes,

Turning men to statue

Only this is no myth

Mexican faces

Seething with maggots

Rotting outside the primary school

Classes canceled

Children turned to stone

Regret

Hands knotted in prayer,

Frayed fibers braided together

Women reduced to pillars of rope

Chanting until hair becomes flax

Muscles and sinews, twine,

Lips stitched together

Women Hold Up Half the Sky

http://www.halfthesky.org/about/faq.php

Women hold up half the sky

With long, lean fingers and arms that cradle babies,

Or harvest long rows of rice

Women hold down the earth

With balance and poise,

Though the ground quakes beneath them

Women encircle the ocean

With arms that span continents and great depths,

Reaching across the spinning planet

Women nourish the world

One humble meal at a time

Spontaneous Combustion

Spontaneous human combustion kills Irish man, police say

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/spontaneous-human-combustion-kills-irish-man-police-say/2011/09/23/gIQAhki3qK_blog.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

Set himself alight

Dreaming of shining like an asteroid,

Commanding crowds,

Light searing from all-seeing eyes

Burning away on the couch

A pile of ashes in his wake

Last Meal

No More Special Last Meals For Death Row Inmates In Texas

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/23/140735845/no-more-special-last-meals-for-death-row-inmates-in-texas?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

You ignored the fried okra dipped in ketchup,

And chicken fried steak with gravy;

Thinking only of the hunger to come

You didn’t touch the triple bacon cheeseburger;

Steak Fajitas;

Saucy Barbeque or white bread;

Remembering the tang of blood as his body dragged behind your pick-up truck

You couldn’t stomach

The rootbeer;

Old fashioned vanilla ice cream or

Peanutbutter fudge,

Mocked by fleeting sweetness

Cage Fight

Boys' fight in cage 'very barbaric' 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15015790?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Waif-like boys,

Slender and slight,

Fight for supremacy in a metal cage

Filled with rage,

As drunken men cheer

Chant and jeer.

Vulnerable boys

Gnash their teeth,

Pray for relief.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

How to Behave Upon the News that a Satellite Might, Possibly, Hit the Earth Friday

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/09/how_to_behave_u.php

Satellite barreling towards earth

Tunneling through black space and blue sky

What are the chances you’ll destroy my life?

1/3200 apparently,

Yet we’ll have Teddy Bear tea parties and clean the kitchen,

Oblivious to the strange pull of your trajectory

Statistics marching before my eyes like armies of plastic soldiers

Menacing, yet miniscule,

Reckoning with numbers a tormenting game

To keep danger at bay

"It Gets Better"

14-Year-Old Who Made ‘It Gets Better’ Video Commits Suicide Amidst Bullying

http://gawker.com/5842268/

“It gets better”

You promise

As you rake fingers nervously through tousled hair,

Glancing periodically beyond the camera’s view

“It gets better”

You repeat

Treasured mantra for fourteen year old

Taunted and belittled at every turn

“It gets better”

You allege,

As you try to reassure other queer kids marooned in adolescence

 Yet four months later,

You are gone…

Sold Out

Black man in overalls

Wearing Obama campaign buttons

Knowing eyes

Face painted eerily white

Flag waving in the background

Forehead marked “Sold:

http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/Fish_Hedges_SoldOut-1000.jpg

Anonymous Unveiled

Anonymous Comes Out In The Open

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/16/140539560/anonymous-comes-out-in-the-open?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Anonymous peels away his harlequin mask

Claiming millions of salacious paintings

Owning up to thousands of editorials

No longer modest

Anonymous scrawls his name in red spray paint

Prayer Outlawed

Paris ban on Muslim street prayers comes into effect

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14945467?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Thousands roll woven rugs

Onto ancient cobblestones in Paris

Prostrating despite the passersby

Thinking only of Allah

What public servant, what breed of man,

Will forbid their prayers?

My Father is Li Shuangjiang

Detention for road rage teenage son of China general

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14943347?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

How do they dare call the police?

My father is the state,

Crooning patriotic songs on the television each night.

Of course I beat them,

A man like a used tea bag and his sniveling wife.

Defer to my Mercedes,

To my family, to my righteousness

Deliverance

'Wi-fi refugees' Shelter in West Virginia Mountains

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14887428

 What strange misfire

What silent synaptical shudder

Drove you to your cage of wood and glass?

Hiding in West Virginia’s mountains

Doors and windows sealed,

Praying for deliverance from modernity?

50 New Planets

New ‘super-Earth’ is 36 light-years distant, might hold water, astronomers say

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-super-earth-is-36-light-years-distant-might-hold-water-astronomers-say/2011/09/12/gIQA4nN6MK_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

Godlike, we see them

Glistening in far reaches of inky galaxy

50 new planets 

Luminescent in loneliness

Orbiting stars, circling beyond our sun

Failed Flights

Ten years haven’t dimmed the memory

Of bodies careening in free fall

Diving to their deaths in wordless failed flights

From ruined scrapers of the sky

Murdered in the Promised Land

Sacrificing Their Lives to Work

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/sep/05/migrants-sacrificing-lives-work-united-states/

"We are citizens of heaven"

Yet undocumented on earth

Crossing the dessert with coyotes,

Clutching empty water bottles and hope

We come from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, across the fence

Saving for food carts and modest plots of land

Finally reached Los Estados Unidos

Massacred by Los Zatos

Murdered in the Promised Land

Mysterious Invader

A majority of Afghans have no idea about the September 2001 terror 

attacks against the US

https://rt.com/news/911-afghans-al-qaeda-taliban-089/

What is this “nineleven”

Of which you speak?

We struggle to purchase donkeys

To make a parched land bloom

To grow poppies instead of the wheat

You’ve foisted upon us

You line our streets

With machine guns and fatigues

What is this “nineleven”

Of which you speak?

Cow Funeral

Funeral held for cows reflects Chinese farmers’ woes

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2011/09/video-funeral-held-for-cows-reflects-chinese-farmers-woes/

Starved and lowing

Your stolen milk left to sour, curdling in the heat.

The government took your grain, your water,

Leaving me with empty, trembling hands.

Haunted by your deep bellows,

Your resigned eyes.

I hung parchment prayers

Stark Chinese characters to guide your path,

Hired monks to chant for your souls,

To find a peaceful pasture.

Justice in Ruins

Eleven Killed, 66 Injured in Delhi Terror Attack

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576555690461844986.html?mod=e2tw

Bodies and bones

Line courthouse steps

Smoke rising

Justice in ruins

Widening Gyre (Draft)

Beyond swirling gyre

Refuse clots the ocean

Where strong circular currents give way to placid blue

Refrigerator doors, shopping bags, discarded beach balls

Bob endlessly in miles and miles of water

Billions of plastic bottles of h20

Floating in endless sea

Plastic sand, like dunes of pastel confetti,

Outlives us all

Ghost fishing nets

Floated away from sure hands,

Catching and killing all in their wake, always

Albatross chicks found dead

Pile of dun gray feathers

Hungry bellies filled with brightly colored bottle caps

Untouchable

Wikileaks: India's Mayawati 'sent jet to collect shoes'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14784228

They long for paved roads

Instead of dirt rising in the sunlight 

And clean wells

Not mornings spent walking to the polluted river

She scorns humble garlands of jasmine,

Demanding rupees.

Building only statues of herself

House Calls

Before the First School Bell, Teachers in Bronx Make House Calls

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/nyregion/before-the-first-school-bell-teachers-in-bronx-make-house-calls.html?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

I remember the hours in traffic

Driving unfamiliar streets

Boarded up buildings with shattered windows,

Forested roads lined with evergreens

Meeting each of you, at home

Cameo poised at the edge of the couch, clutching a purse,

As her brothers wrestled on the floor and the dog growled;

Alan, in a manicured backyard, with the baseball cap your mother kept insisting you remove;

Amichi, surrounded by Nigerian textiles, deep in the suburbs ,

Shea, beautiful and bright, in a cramped apartment north Minneapolis

Glen, how your father flashed his golden teeth and told you to behave,

Crystal, in a room filled with Native American drums and sunlight,

Lily, sleepy and blooming, surrounded by orchids.

Not in my Name

 Cables Reveal 2006 Summary Execution of Civilian Family in Iraq

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/29/cables-reveal-2006-summary-execution-of-civilian-family-in-iraq/

Draped in our flag

They cuffed your legs,

Put a bullet through each head.

Perhaps you were guilty

Mr. Faiz Hratt Khalaf, father, twenty eight

Sumay’ya Abdul Razzaq Khuther, mother, twenty four

Ms. Iqtisad Hameed Mehdi guest, twenty three

Ms. Turkiya Majeed Ali, seventy four

But what heinous crime would justify

The murder of

Hawra’a, five years,

Asma’a Yousif Ma’arouf, five years,

Usama Yousif Ma’arouf, three years

Aisha, three years,

Husam, five months,

Cloaked in our flag

They set your house aflame

NOT IN MY NAME

30 Mosques, 30 Days

Ramadan road trip: 30 mosques, 30 US states, 30 days

30 mosques in 30 days

Morning prayer before sunrise

Bowing toward mecca

Driving from town to town

To meet the turbaned and bearded,

The tattooed and baseball capped

Arabs, East Africans, Bosnians, Americans

Fasting yet fulfilled

http://30mosques.com/archive2010/

Diane Arbus

A blurry view of the life of Diane Arbus

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2011/09/02/a_blurry_view_of_the_life_of_diane_arbus_in_an_emergency_in_slow_motion_by_william_todd_schultz/

Identical twins in matching black velvet pinafores

Stare at the camera, in double resignation

Black women, office workers of the 1950’s,

Faces knotted in disapproval

Latino boys smoke cigarettes

Furtively

Elderly king and queen,

Bearing shiny scepters and cheap ermine

Gaze glumly

Man with curlers and painted nails

Blows smoke into the camera

Fair infant sleeps with eyes closed

As if in death

http://diane-arbus-photography.com/