Misrata

Gaddafi will retake Misrata in days without Nato help, say rebels 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/18/gaddafi-misrata-nato-rebels

Twelve families

Live, breathe, pray, wait

In a tumbledown house near the sea

Others live in open air

In shipping containers

In filth and hope

Misrata,

Bombs rain on you,

Unceasing days, nights without rest

The sea taunts, the only hope of escape

Water surrounds, but may not save you

Your children have haunted eyes and empty bellies

Your mothers are killed waiting in line  

For bread

You have no baby formula

No diapers

No anesthesia

Your hospitals, reduced to Medieval scenes

Of carnage and need

Gaddafi

The Brother Leader, The Guide

sends only

mortar bombs & tank shells

Everywhere his soldiers menace 

With machine guns

With cluster bombs

With hunger and fatigue

With despair

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135524577/libya-agrees-to-give-u-n-aid-access-to-misrata

Outliving Their Lives

adapted from Language at risk of dying out – the last two speakers aren't talking

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/13/mexico-language-ayapaneco-dying-out

Nuumte Oote

The True Voice

Remains unspoken

Only two wizened men in Mexico

Still dream in Ayapaneco

Words, which once sang from a village of tongues,

Planted and harvested,

Now lie fallow.

Scholars, let them be.

Your dictionary and institutes

Will not bring back 

A chorus of voices

Haggling at the market, sharing the news,

Hushed whispers of lovers.

A culture, a universe,

Dies inside these men.

Forgetting Her Name

adapted from Every Parent's Worst Nightmare: How Ketamine Killed our Daughter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/apr/17/louise-cattell-parents-ketamine-campaign

Her hair the color of tangerines,

Wearing black glasses, and a daisy covered smock

Smiling in sunlight

Her hair, lemon yellow,

Robed in rainbow, clad in combat boots

Faux pout with laughing eyes

Her hair the bright green of leprechauns

Mouth smirking, winking at the camera

Day-glo life,

Painting in the afternoons

Dancing euphoric trance in darkness  

Kandi Kid

Ketamine* hallucinations

Falling, flying,

Seeing the thread that binds all living things,

Talking to God,

Forgetting her own name,

Drifting off to sleep

In a deep K tunnel

Turning her back to the party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine#Recreational_use

*Ketamine is used a horse tranquilizer, and as an anesthetic for humans

Snogless

 adapted from Hundreds attend kiss-in outside John Snow pub after venue closes its doors 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/15/john-snow-kiss-in-london

Surrounded by 1,000 embraces

Only I remain solitary

Men kiss and touch

Whiskered cheeks brush

Smiles seduce

Eyes alight

Lips linger

In a crowd of 1,000 kisses

I purse my lips, and pray

Rite of Passage

adapted from The midwife on a mission to stop female genital mutilation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/15/female-genital-mutilation-midwife-kenya

In the Cherangani Hills of Kenya

Surrounded by trees

Men turn their backs,

Women hold hands, grit strong white teeth.

Removing pleasure

Cuts away childhood

Slitting clitoris

Insures virginity

With slash of dull blade

Girl becomes woman

Who must scream in silence

Sewed tightly shut

They are gifts to be opened by husbands,

Or by the curved horn of an animal,

Or by a bloody infant,

Ripping its path into the world

Goodwill

Inspired by 'O, Miami' Celebrates Verse With A Poem Per Person

http://m.npr.org/news/Arts+%26+Life/135221964

Frost hides in the pocket of a soft red flannel

Blake's tucked in the seam of faded Levis

Whitman's secretly sewn into a thick camel hair coat

Dickinson in the lining of a battered suitcase
Words to warm even the loneliest traveler

Streak of white pinpricks

On black ultrasound

Fade to darkness

Unknowable cosmos within

Starry white overtaken by inky black

Statistics

One hundred women

Playing musical chairs

Dancing nervously

Giddy with tension

Eyes darting

Waiting for band to stop

Who will scramble to happiness?

Who will be left 

Standing in silence?

Patience

Felling virgin forest with butter knife

Digging tunnel with silver spoon

Doggie paddling across Atlantic

Counting blades of grass in prarie 

Waiting for news.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

adapted from France's Veil Ban Goes into Effect on Monday

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Frances-Veil-Ban-Goes-into-Effect-on-Monday-119587889.html

“Under the legislation, women wearing the face veil in public risk fines of up to $200 and taking re-education classes.” 

Wearing sun drenched African fabrics

Or candy colored saris

Or jeans tight as snake's skin

Bright as tropical birds

Women fly through Parisian markets

Buying dates and figs, baguettes and brie

Brush tanned shoulders with others enveloped in

Deep black silence of the Burka

Soon, blackbirds will be skinned

Faces will strain against sunlight,

Shrinking from hungry gazes of foreign men,

Longing for the quiet shade of cover,

Desiring only to know God

Ode to the Maxwell House Haggadah

adapted from Giving a Haggadah a Makeover

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/nyregion/09haggadah.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

Spotted with matzo crumbs, speckled with wine

We return each year

To savor your stilted translation

Your ‘dung heaps’ and your ‘vermin’

 Your dismissal of sons

'the wicked; the simple; the one who doesn’t ask’

Already an old man in 1930’s

Dragged into our century

by errant English teacher

Who plucked your ‘thees’ and ‘thous’,

So many fussy flowers,

And stripped you clean to bone,
Dry as unleavened bread 

Now you sit at our table

Politically correct as a sophomore in college

Modern as Starbucks

Pages coldly clean

Awaiting High Tide

inspired by Thousands Of Starfish Wash Up On South Carolina Beach

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/dead-starfish-south-carolina-pawleys-island_n_846298.html

Generation of sea stars

Line the shore

As if pinpricks of light tumbled from night sky

Calcified voyagers  from deepest blue

Piled upon each other

Awaiting high tide

Psy Ops

inspired by Sesame Street comes to Pakistan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/07/sesame-street-pakistan?INTCMP=SRCH

Elmo parachutes down

Over the Arabian Sea,

Treks the Khyber Pass

Khaki fatigues cling to his bright red fur

Called upon to rescue 3 million children

Ernie and Bert study Urdu, and contact their agents

Cookie Monster snacks on Galab Juman, biding his time

Untethered

adapted from Georgian woman cuts off web access to whole of Armenia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman-cuts-web-access

Bent-backed, arthritic

Raisin-faced, shrunken

Old woman wields axe

Not to sever a chicken’s head

Nor to fell a tree and haul branches

She scans scrubby ground for copper cable

Golden coils, buried bounty,

Mean hearty dark bread and meat on her table

Bringing the axe down hard

As if to slaughter a lamb or goat,

All of Armenia free-falls into itself

Untethered    

Imagine, if you will,

If an axe’s swipe  could reverse time itself,

Diaspora inverted

8 million Armenians journey home

Rapture

adapted from The Truth About Sex and Exercise 
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/the-truth-about-sex-and-exercise/

Christmas, for instance, has been identified as a heart attack trigger, as have overeating, waking in the early morning, Mondays, job strain, air pollution, using cocaine and living through an earthquake.

White lights twinkling

Roughly cut tree, cranberry garland

Brightly wrapped gifts

Filled with heartache

Beef bourguignon

Bottle of Shiraz, blackberries and oak

Cake layered with chocolate mousse

Dense as darkness

Awakening at first light

Buttery yellow sunrise

Heart singing, then suddenly, silence

Earth shaking

China cabinet clattering

The world trembles

And so do we

Flotsam

adapted from 'Moby-Duck': When 28,800 Bath Toys Are Lost At Sea

http://www.wbur.org/npr/134923863/moby-duck-when-28-800-bath-toys-are-lost-at-sea

World’s largest flock of rubber ducks

Bobs across the Pacific

Floating with plastic beavers to Alaska

Blue turtles swim

Day-glow green frogs 

Jump across the world’s most immense tub

To Japan

Nikes run across the ocean

Floating partner- less, each shoe without his match

Walking on water

From California to Queen Charlotte Islands

http://beachcombersalert.org/index.html

Enflamed

adapted from Afghan protests continue against Qur'an burning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/04/quran-burning-protests-continue-afghanistan

Kerosene

Noxious

As hatred

Aggressive

As stupidity

Koran in flames

Pastor,

Your only power?

Turning Kerosene turn to blood

Let your name

Remain unspoken  

Let our silence

Smother fire

Burning across oceans

Made in China

inspired by Chinese police detain artist Ai Weiwei

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/china-ai-weiwei-detained-police-beijing

I.

Marble floor of

A vast room

Blanketed with porcelain pumpkin seeds

Each of millions, delicately detailed

In Jingdezhen

Hundreds of hands

Working as one

Teenage boys, old women

Meticulously miming nature

II.

9,000 children’s backpacks

Candy colored

Arranged in Chinese characters

'她幸福地生活了七年在這個世界上

'She lived happily for seven years in this world'

In memory of

Sichuan earthquake

When China’s schools crumbled like cheap toys

III.

His father, Ai Qing, a poet,

Whose hands grew hard in forced work camps

of Mao’s Cultural Revolution

Yet still, he is unbowed

IV.

Studio demolished

To create ‘cultural corridor’

Attacked by police

Brutalized while filing complaint

In custody, again

V.

What government breaks the fingers of its artists?

Ai Weiwei

We wait for you

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/11/tate-modern-sunflower-seeds-review

Whitewash

adapted from The Mural Vanishes

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/the-mural-vanishes/?partner=rss&emc=rss

 

Whitewash

White paint

Hides our history

Diego Rivera’s

“Man at the Crossroads”

Beckons

Somber blond worker,  strong,

Eyes upturned to God

Cog in machine

At his feet, crops bloom

He is body, sun, sky, cells

Stern-faced Lenin governs one corner

 Hailed by workers

John D Rockefeller rules the other corner

Single malt scotch in hand

The painting strains to be seen

Singing beneath layers of thick white paint

Judy Taylor’s

“History of Labor in the State of Maine”

Beckons

Young  workers, children in grays and blues

Hold buckets

Tired women clutch handkerchiefs

Earnest men stare at ballot box

Proud laborers wave bright yellow flag,

The painting strains to be seen

Gasping beneath layers of thick white paint

Listen

adapted from Whale Songs and Elephant Loves

http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/whale-songs/index.shtml

Whales are singing

Composing chants, moans

Otherworldly hums

Melodies evolve

Oceanic symphony in deepest blue

Throughout each life

Subtle re-imagining of community’s song

Elephants are speaking.

Sense the throbbing.

Off centered eardrums

Straining against silence,

Struggling to hear.