Complicated Sweetness

adapted from Modern Flavors Transform a Purim Tradition

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/dining/16purim.html?ref=dining

I.

Pistachio with rosewater

Dates sprinkled with sweet wine

Filo dough delicate as gold leaf

Traditional pastries gussied up, gone global

המן־טאַש

Hamantash

I remember your humble origins

Poppy seed pocket

Heavy dough  filled with earthy nuts

Or sticky apricot preserves

Haman’s hat

Ancient history’s reminder

II.

Sixth Century BCE

After Judah’s kingdom was destroyed

Jews captive in Babylon for seventy years

Then Persia seized the land

The drunken King

 longed to display his wife’s beauty

Without a veil, disrobed

She imagined her long black hair, shining with coconut oil,

Her alabaster body

Exposed to thousands of undeserving eyes

How could a wife deny her husband?

Yet Vashti refused,

Soon banished, forgotten

King Ahasuerus needed a new queen

Persia searched for her lovely young virgins

Who spent one year lining bright eyes with kohl, anointing smooth skin with oil

Growing beautiful for the king in his harem

He chose Esther,

ستاره setareh,

The star of Persia,

With her long dark hair and mournful eyes

Her parents dead, raised by uncle Mordecai

She keeps her Star of David hidden beneath her crimson gown

Soon,  Haman rises to serve the king

All must bow low to him in dirty streets

Only Mordecai refuses,

He bows only to God

Haman plans to exterminate all Jews

Killing a people to destroy one who would not be lowered

Haman builds a gallows of rough wood

A King’s edict is forged on parchment

Closed with the king’s true seal:

Persians must arise to kill all Jews, even old women and young children

Morechi tears his clothes in grief

Marks his forehead with ashes

But Esther reveals herself

Risks her life to approach her husband

Shares her faith with him

Soon Haman hangs in the gallows

An new true edict is written on parchment

Closed with the king’s true seal

Jews must defend themselves against attackers

What strange power did she wield?

Her secret smiles, her hushed whispers to a king’s ear,

Saved a nation

75,000 enemies of the Jews are killed

Kingdom bathed in blood

No child or wife is touched, the Book of Esther assures us,

No spoils are taken

Yet the blood still stains the land

III.

Poppy seed pocket

Heavy dough and filled with earthy nuts

Or sweet apricot preserves

Haman’s hat

We eat you to remember

 Victory over death, triumph over those who would annihilate our ancestors

Thousands were slain in battle

Yours is a complicated sweetness

Special thanks to my dear friend, Miriam Cope

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther

Teachers Leave those Kids Alone

adapted from Let Kids Rule the School 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/opinion/15engel.html?ref=opinion

Abolish bells

Indie Rock rages during passing periods

Long, meandering breaks between class to talk, eat, sleep…

Actually, just kill classes

Forget English

Let’s read magazines,

write novels using text messaging

All we need of math

We’ll learn from planning road trips

How much are concert tickets?

How many miles is the tour?

                                   

Science is easy

Hydroponics, grow-lights

As many plants as we can pack in

History of music

or rebellion

(just not all that 1960’s s***)

Form a band for music

Learn graffiti for art

Design  video games for tech

Send teachers on vacation

We’ll determine what we need to know

Caretakers

adapted from

At State-Run Homes, Abuse and Impunity

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13homes.html?pagewanted=6&ref=homepage&src=me

Definition of BEDLAM 

1. obsolete: madman; lunatic 

2.  often capitalized : a lunatic asylum

3: a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion

Bedlam, popular name for the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, London, an insane asylum 

I.

Supervisor Rickie Sousie

Jeans at his ankles

Stands between her legs

Strong hand on her knee

Her diaper yanked down

II.

This poem, a stubborn sickness, demands its own recording

I prefer not consider a retardation so severe

She is unable to scream,

as in your worst dreams

But she is wide awake

Reliant on her ‘caretaker’

III. 

Sousie transfers from one group home to another

Until finally, he is jailed briefly

Recently released, he looks forward to state pension

IV.

Reminiscent of England's Bedlam

In the Sixteenth Century

Patients, manacled to floorboards and walls,
Earned pennies from nobility amused by the antics of the ‘mentally damaged’

V. 

Five hundred years pass

Still countless prey on the voiceless

VI.

I would prefer to notice the rising sun

as it bathes my kitchen in buttery light

But I must say their names, must reveal them

                                                                                

VII.  Henry Marrero

Slapped a  ninety-nine year old man

Hit his withered cheek

Punched his shrunken stomach

Forced his compliance.
Marrero still serves

VIII.

Michelle Penharlow

Brandished a knife at a disabled woman

Laughed as blade stabbed air

While the woman collapsed in the dust

IX. Charles Weima

when not slapping or sleeping

told his charge

”Why don’t you get a Brillo pad, scrape that black right off of you?”

X.
They touch lovers with tainted hands

Comfort children with twisted tongues

How can they bare their own presence?

                                                            

XI.

What touched them in the deep of night?

A small boy or girl, cowering in the corner

What twisted branch broke them?

XII.

13,000 allegations

private heartaches filed in dimly lit offices

Only 5% reported to police

So few see glaring light of official scrutiny

Who will watch the watchers?

XIII.

New York in 2011

How far have we journeyed from Bedlam?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bedlam

Harvest's Price

adapted from Itinerant Life Weighs on Farmworkers’ Children

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/us/13salinas.html?pagewanted=all

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." - John Steinbeck

The same dull school uniform

unwashed, still smelling of sweat and smoke,

is worn on the same small shoulders for the third day

Madre and Padre working in the fields

Bent in two, picking tomatoes, broccoli, onions

 Living in bombed-out trailers

Crowded with breath and bodies

Parents exhausted by endless harvest,

Children raise each other

Cook simple meals of beans, tortillas, and salsa

Hope to be a Marine, a teacher, a doctor, a man with soft hands

Some families harvest lettuce from November to April

They journey from Salinas to Yuma, reliable as rain

Children move from school to school

Struggling with reading, numbers, fatigue, hunger

We eat their grapes , oranges and almonds

Give roses they cut

Savor strawberries they selected on knees

with callused hands knotted by clutching field knives

Tsunami Haiku

adapted from Quake moved Japan coast 8 feet; shifted Earth's axis

 http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.earthquake.tsunami.earth/index.html

1,300 gone

Swept  to sea by giant storm

Silence in their wake

Coast line washed away

Erased by strong hands of storm

Shifting Earth’s axis

Look up at the sky

Skyscrapers swaying like trees

in ferocious winds

Angry ocean rose

30 foot wall of water

swept through fields of rice

Tokyo in flux

Subways emptied, airport closed

Thousands long for home

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/asia/13japan.html?ref=global-home

Liberation

adapted from 

The Liberation of Lori Berenson 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06berenson-t.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

Born in captivity

Salvador, my savior, of messy head and bright dark eyes

Tucked into a narrow metal bed

His sheet covered with quetzal and toucan soaring through forests

Prisoners here bathe in showers cold as winter rain

Yet guards heat water for his bath

When I may, I push his stoller though the dusty prison square, visiting the pigeons

My father claims 44 seconds sealed my sentence, 
I raged at the hooded justice

"No hay terroristas criminales en el MRTA;. es un movimiento revolucionario!”

"There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA.; it's a revolutionary movement!"

Shouting to be heard

But I know the truth
I rented the La Molina house for them;

Though I only know code names, I knew they were
Revolution

I fled when I saw piles of guns and smelled dynamite

Yet still sentenced to life in 1995 by a faceless judge 

First to Yanamayo, high in the Andes, overlooking Lake Titicaca

Then to Socabaya

Next, the women's prison of Chorillos

Finally, maximum-security in Cajamarca

Living in 6 foot by 9 foot cell

My survival, baking bread

providing the jailed and silenced with sustenance and sweetness

20 years disappeared like so many silenced villagers

Paroled in Miraflores

‘Free’ to roam Lima’s colonial parks with their lovers entwined when night comes

My Anibal, Salvador’s father, long lost to me

Threatened by citizens holding snarling dogs

Imprisoned still by private judgments

“I was much freer in jail”

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

Photo Opportunities

inspired by Russian Charity Event Drew Putin, but Perhaps No Money

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/world/europe/10russia.html?ref=global-home 

Here I am bare-chested, surrounded by trees, holding a fishing pole

There I’m stalking my prey, a fearless tiger

Shirtless, riding a black war horse through the reeds

Hunting whales, clad with a crossbow

Staring stoically from the window of a gray submarine

Skiing in the afternoon sun, svelte blond laughing at my side

Kissing a young boy on the stomach

Throwing an opponent, practicing judo

Flying an airplane, fighting fires, wearing a bomber jacket and goggles

Sitting in a tree, a force of nature

Swimming through the Volga, muscles bulging

Playing the grand piano, while singing “Believe in a Dream”

Nation Building

adapted from Afghanistan: 2010 the bloodiest so far, UN says

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12685213 

I.  

Dear General Petraeus,

Your words arrived like a ruined harvest

an apology dying on the vine

powerless to stop hate’s gnawing hunger

words empty as my arms

worthless as sacks of ancient rupees

My son of fiery eyes and strong limbs is gone

ripped apart

by your ‘errors’

Nine hopes in flames

while collecting firewood

Please stop ‘building our nation’

leave us to bury our children

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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

II.

Dear General Petraeus,

Thanks so much for your apology

For the nine children killed collecting firewood.

I’m sure your words provided comfort!

You may also owe an apology to

The parents you accused of burning their own children.

I’m  not sure if you are a parent, General, but most of us would not

Set our own aflame to make NATO look bad.

Also, thanks for acknowledging Taliban didn’t actually ‘pre-kill’

a large number of civilians before luring

NATO in to bomb them.

It can be hard to tell the truth.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Arnold

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/03/04/natos-growing-civilian-toll-sparks-anger-in-afghanistan/

Longing to be Less

adapted from Diet Plan With Hormone Has Fans and Skeptics

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/nyregion/08hcg.html?ref=global-home 

Why do women long to take up less space

wish to be smaller

like our young children?

The thick silver syringe glistens with hCG*

 an enormous and painful shot

that mimics pregnancy

Women

Under Manhattan’s skyline,of glittering and slender towers  

survive on 500 calories a day

like impoverished villagers

Starving ourselves to be less

In the 1830s we ate graham crackers and vegetables

In 1850, we shunned sugar and starch

We chewed 32 times, one for each tooth in our mouths

until “the food swallowed itself.”

We shunned meat, tea, alcohol,

In the 1930’s we survived on grapefruits,

seaweeds, kelp,

`reverse calorie foods’, celery and apples.

1973, we discovered fenfluramine

Then tried crushed horns, hooves, hides,

liquids

starvation

Our battle cry is denial

Of desire, of body, of self

All of us, through the ages, longing to be less

*human Chorionic Gonadotropin

Praying to the Saint of Lost Causes

adapted from Mexican Church Takes a Closer Look at Donors

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/world/americas/07church.html?pagewanted=2&ref=global-home 

Churches rise in Mexico

Brick and mortar

blood and drugs

Can stained money build a holy chapel?

Like pardoners from the  Middle Ages

selling ‘indulgences’, forgiving sins and promising heaven

salvation is again for sale

In Pachuca, a church the color of dawn bears a golden plaque

giving thanks to Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, “the executioner,”

They vow to reject narcolimosnas, “narco alms,”

Yet priests still baptize here

Some holy men threatened

silently transferred to escape extortion and threats

An image of Saint Jude of lost causes shot to dust

Except for their prayers

Village worshipers scared silent

nadie se mete — no one gets involved

Under the 'Roof of the World'

adapted from Pashtun Boys’ Video Exalts Suicide Raids

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/world/asia/06afghan.html?ref=global-home 

Near the highest peak in Hindu Kush,
is Tirich Mir ,"roof of the world" 

Afghani boys play with a camera

one clad in black,

face covered,

with plastic bombs around his waist

he kicks up the dusty ground,

creates an explosive whirl

pushes over a boy wearing white,

as if an official,

The boys stumble and fall

playing suicide bombers

A popular song accompanies them

حبيبي هو الذهاب الى الحرب، لذلك كان له شعر طويل

وقال انه يحمل بندقيته على كتفه آلة، والتي تبدو حتى غرامة عليه.

قال انه ذاهب الى معركة، والذهاب للقتال.

My beloved is going to fight, so he has long hair
He carries his machine gun on his shoulder, which looks so fine on him.
He is going to battle, going to fight.

Violence, like romance, seduces
Children who play at killing
Under the 'roof of the world'