Little One, Beware

Afghan woman is killed 'for giving birth to a girl'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16787534

Little one.

Bright eyes.

Soft hair.

Beware.

Little one.

He tied up my feet.

Strangled as I gasped for air.

You napped, unaware,

Little one,

Mother is gone.

Father destroyed me

Because you are a girl.

His is a brutal world.

Unopened Door

Wild Child:  The Remarkable Case Of  Victor Of Aveyron

http://surviving-history.blogspot.com/2012/01/wild-child-remarkable-case-of-victor-of.html

Running through woods in a fraying linen shirt

Hair, a nest of brown knots,

Eyes, like a deer

Child of fresh air

And wind

Snow and earth

Christened “Victor”

Ripped from roots and trees,

Dragged into captivity of civilization

Unable to open a single door,

Learning only two words,

Milk and God.

Mandela's Children

Mandela's Children

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/01/2012123133938467674.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_medium=MasterAccount&utm_term=tweets

Born free but crying

In a land freshly reclaimed from Brits and Afrikaneers

Living in tenements,

Worn clothes hanging in scorching sun,

Like fading flags

We began in droves,

Bleached white shirts and scrubbed  faces

But father needed money, mama lost her job, baby needed milk, grandmother was bedridden…

Only a quarter of us remain to graduate

Half of us will fail exams

Still, we rejoice

One evening of

Taffeta and silk,

Sunglasses and limousines

Papa’s loans are starving  us

But for one night, we shine like newly minted coins 

Lost

Grief Could Join List of Disorders

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/health/depressions-criteria-may-be-changed-to-include-grieving.html

His laughter silenced now

Twinkling eyes dimmed

Curly hair no longer growing shaggier

All turned inward and shrinking

A decaying leaf of a windswept forest floor,

Reduced to grit and bone

Sun still rises despite his absence

Mocking with its promise

I’m driftwood, hollowed out, pulled by memory’s undertow

Hungry Minds

For China's 'Left-Behind Kids,' A Free Lunch

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/24/145521090/for-chinas-left-behind-kids-a-free-lunch

10 miles before dawn

On unpaved mountain path

In Shaanxi Province

Trekking through sleet and mud

To learn

For years

Hunger walked with her,

Clinging to her stomach,

Robbing brain of concentration and body of grace

Now steaming rice, spicy tofu, and green spinach awaits

For 3 yuan, a small blessing

For hungry minds

Speak Cells

With DNA Testing, Suddenly They Are Family

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/with-dna-testing-adoptees-find-a-way-to-connect-with-family.html?pagewanted=2

Swab of cheek

Vials in mail

Tissues sailing across states,

Revealing misplaced identity

Speak, cells

Disclose locked file cabinets

Pry open slammed doors

Sing  the names of relatives

With my blood bright in their veins

Tell me who I am

Mercy

The Abu Ghraib of Los Angeles?

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/abu-ghraib-los-angeles-county-jail-abuses

"Like members of street gangs, these deputies sport tattoos to signal their gang membership," the lawsuit alleges. "They beat up inmates to gain prestige among their peers, and 'earn their ink' by breaking inmates' bones."

I.
Do you remember
Childhood taunts
Fingers forced backward
Until one cried "mercy"?


II.  
Games for grownups
Skin scarred

Inked affiliations

Guards  in gangs

Breaking bones

Kicking inmates with steel toes

Shattering teeth, splitting eye sockets, 

Locking helpless into wire cages

With rapists

Laughing at their shrill screams
For mercy

Holy Men

Lechery, Immodesty and the Talmud

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/opinion/ultra-orthodox-jews-and-the-modesty-fight.html?hpw

Eight year old girl

Skipping down cobblestone streets of Beit Shemesh to school

Twirling her long skirt

Spat upon by bearded men in bowler hats

Wearing tsitsi and tfillin

Men who should be davening in synagogue,

Using their words as praise to G-d

Instead of calling little girls "whore"

Voice

Defriending My Rapist

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/defriending-my-rapist/

Article By DORRI OLDS

I remember

Cold gravestones

Cemetery at dusk

Shimmering shirt

Hoping long hair would cover my blemish

I remember

The burn of Bacardi

How you insulted my face

Complimented my body,

My pathetic pride

I remember all five of you

How you held me down,  took turns

I scrambled to find my panties

Screamed to wake the dead

Found my voice, too late,

Stumbling among unseeing tombs

Costa Concordia

Profile: Capt Francesco Schettino

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16584591

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!" Capt De Falco says.

Traveling carnival

Glittering village on ocean

Gleaming as glacier,

What lies below your calm waters?

Hidden shoals threatening thousands,

Forcing this floating fortress,

This house of cards,

Into the deep.

Of course, I left them

What would you have done?

Listen to the howl of 4,000 lost lambs?

Separate women and children, like some modern Titanic?

Stand there and drown, a heroic bloated corpse?

In inky night, blind stuff of nightmare

I commandeered a lifeboat and saved my own skin

Wormwood

For Intrigue, Malaria Drug Gets the Prize

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/health/for-intrigue-malaria-drug-artemisinin-gets-the-prize.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=health?src=dayp

Sweet wormwood

Benefits discovered in China

By Mao Ze Dong’s scientists

Racing to help North Vietnamese conquer malarial jungles

Doctors shunned by Cultural Revolution

Hidden on remote mountains,

Plucked from banishment to seek the cure

Qinghao

Etched on ancient tombs,

Praised on palimpsest scrolls

Languished unused for decades

As countless poor prayed for deliverance

Dreaming of Home

Day Care Centers Adapt to Round-the-Clock Demand

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/us/day-care-centers-adapt-to-round-the-clock-demands.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw

Fuzzy pajamas with footsies

Glass of milk

Goodnight Moon

And a kiss from your teacher

Mommy works overnights

Daddy, just a memory,

Little cot on industrial carpet

Wrapped in blanket

Dreaming of home

Omniscient

The Hacker is Watching

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201201/luis-mijangos-hacker-webcam-virus-internet?currentPage=2

Spinal cord burst by bullet

From my wheel chair throne

I hacked into your bedrooms

Web cam light flickers as

I watch you sleeping,

Stripping,

Smiling in private ecstasy

Bank statements,

Social security number,

Every keystroke or image

Is mine

They claim I am paralyzed

Yet I pull your strings

The Problem with Math Education

The Problem with Math Education

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-problem-with-math-education/2012/01/12/gIQAbhx5vP_blog.html?wprss=linkset&tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

Green chalkboard

Emblazoned with hieroglyphs

Dust rises,

Choking clouds of confusion

Only one answer will be correct

All other symbols fall away,

Useless, as so many hours of tutoring

Numbers,

Petty tyrants,

Demand exactitude,

Tireless drill sergeants,

Enforcing every rule.

Do Some Cultures have their own ways of going mad?

http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-08/ideas/30596717_1_mental-illness-cultural-sensitivity-appendix

Only Latin Americans

Suffer from susto,

Terror of soul departing body

Only Inuits of Greenland

Face pibloktoq,

Stripping off clothing, running madly into Arctic snowdrifts

Only Malaysians

Run amok,

Murderously creating chaos

Only  Mediterraneans

Face mal de ojo, or “the evil eye,

Causing endless streams of tears

Only Japanese are

Inflicted with

taijin kyofusho,

Fear of displeasing or offending others

How much of madness is simply geography?

Unwelcome Guest

Fears of 'Taliban Video' Backlash

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16524978#TWEET60840

We occupy your country,

Mock your beliefs,

Hunt you through your mountains,

Rob you of life,

Throw your lifeless bodies in a ditch,

And piss on the remains,

All in the name of democracy

The Lesson

The Lesson

I.

In Iran, under the Shah,

Scorching irons burned the back,

Whip marks scarred the shoulders,

Cigarettes stubbed skin,

Freezing water soaked the cell,

All lessons from the CIA.

II.

“Who believes teaching torture is morally justified?” I ask

My students, clear eyed and vibrant,

Hailing from football fields and country clubs,

One by one, raise soft hands

Calls to Prayer, Unanswered

Iran Sentences Former US Marine to Death, Accused Him of Spying

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/09/144891556/iran-sentences-former-u-s-marine-to-death-accused-him-of-spying?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Iran

The drums of war

Like the beats of heart,

Are constant

They say you will kill a US Marine

Visiting his grandmothers

They say you enrich uranium

To build a nuclear bomb

Your billboards read “Death to America”

You refuse our fast food chains and tawdry clothes

Distracting your citizens from God

War will not be declared

Yet blood will stain your streets

Missiles will destroy your minarets

Leaving calls to prayer unanswered

ANC at 100: Thousands Attend Celebration Rally

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16459513

Banners of green, gold and black wave

In South African sunlight

Children in Pretoria

No longer wearing rags, praying for primers and uniforms,

To learn to be maids and servants

Bantu Education

Where all is separate, but not equal

Land of passbooks and endless lines,

Fines and violence,

Boys whoring themselves to ward off endless hunger

From what sweet well,

Did they find the courage,

To brave the lathi and demand their rights?

Banners of green, gold and black wave

In South African sunlight

(Inspired in part by my recent reading of Kaffir Boy, Power of One, and Master Harold and the Boys)

Siege

Fallujah babies: Under a new kind of siege

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html?utm_content=tweets&utm_campaign=Trial3&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_term=twitter&utm_medium=ExperimentMasterAccount

Soldiers departed

Humvees vanished

Camouflage and machine guns no longer decorate our streets

Yet babies of Fallujah are dying

Born without eyes, limbs, teeth

Strange sea creatures

Who perish after birth

Bombs no longer fall

Yet uranium lurks in our soil

War is over,

Yet the massacre has just begun

Free at Last

Texas Prisoner Burials Are a Gentle Touch in a Punitive System

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/texas-prisoner-burials-are-a-gentle-touch-in-a-punitive-system.html?_r=1&hp

Inmate 327320 

Acres of headstones and crosses

But no guard in site

Forgotten by family

Grave dug by prisoners

Who carry your coffin,

Bow their heads,

And cover you with earth

Wearing dirt stained jump suits,

They carve your name in marble,

Forgive the misspelling.

Inmate 327320 

Acres of headstones and crosses

But no guard in site

Gordon Hirabayashi

Gordon Hirabayashi Has Died; He Refused to go to WWII Internment Camp

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/01/04/144684260/gordon-hirabayashi-has-died-he-refused-to-go-to-wwii-internment-camp?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Choosing jail

Instead of Internment

Refusing years of razor wire camps,

Picking beets on dusty farms,

Or living in evacuated animal pens at fairgrounds,

Land and homes stolen.

Rights of a citizen stripped away

You remained

Small yet mighty,

Polite yet  invincible

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/us/gordon-hirabayashi-wwii-internment-opponent-dies-at-93.html?_r=1

Princes in the Tower

Princes in the Tower

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

Bones found encased under stairs,

Ground to powder by ravages of time

Imprisoned deep in the Tower of London

Awaiting coronation that never arrived

Child pawns in brutal succession

Whose large hands placed the pillow over your sleeping mouths?

Found in wooden casket, filed with velvet and grit

All that remains of the future King

Triptych

Marked

http://www.clairefelicie.com/category/marked

Black and white triptychs

Young men before war

Suppressing smiles 

Center photograph

Men at war, eyes alight

Radiating energy

After war

Sullen, hardened, jaws set

Eyes averted from the prying lens

Progressive

Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/

Shut your eyes

Tamp down your conscience

And vote.

Navigating shoals of Scylla and Caribdas.

Around the cave of Hypnos, on the Lethe,

Sailing past oblivion.

Remembering how we wept at your election,

How we danced and welcomed dawn

Yet your cluster bombs mow down Muslim children;

Black men snatched from your streets, locked in prison in an endless drug war;

Your citizens may now be assassinated

Or held indefinitely without trial;

Those who dare blow whistles will be locked away

Wealthy banks will receive corporate welfare

As your middle class works harder and harder for less

Your opponent will be demonized

He will cut education/ school lunches/ health care/ women’s rights/ religious freedom/tolerance

He will banish sun, uproot forests, silence laughter

Tribal drums will beat, and I will dance,

Shutting my eyes

Tamping down my conscience

And casting my vote.