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