inspired by Nudging Young Women To Think About Fertility

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/31/136401095/nudging-young-women-to-think-about-fertility

Time marches like a high school band

Horns wailing, drums beating,

Twirling batons, sweating in polyester

Ears stopped with cotton

You turn your back to the parade,

As time,  like a mugger,

Steals gold from your hair

And babies from your womb.

Sacrifice

inspired by Changes in Oregon Law Put Faith-Healing Parents on Trial 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/30followers.html?_r=1&hpw

Holy hands laid

On her small chest 

A tiny bird, a wounded rabbit  

Flesh, blood, bones binding spirit

He anointed our baby with oil

She glistened,

A sacred being, broken, perfect

We waited for burning bushes
Parting seas, fish and loves.

Shunned herbs, poultices.

Murmured prayers
She grew still.

We cursed His Name

Kewpie Doll; Gas Mask

inspired by Chernobyl - 24 years on

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chernobyl--24-years-on-1954969.html

In an abandoned fun park

A rusty carousel spins

In the breeze

Husks of buses and cars

Rot in snow and sun

In deserted classroom

Books remain opened on desks

Sheaves of yellowed paper cover floorboards

Peeling green paint and ripped curtains adorn

A room of toddler beds,

All empty.

Lying in the corner,

a Kewpie doll, a gas mask

Charade

How to spot a psychopath

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/21/jon-ronson-how-to-spot-a-psychopath

In a sea of slovenly men with vacant eyes

I wear pin stripes

My steady, dark eyes

Calculate its effect

Why Broadmoor Psychiatric?

Attacked a homeless man

Kicked him until rage subsided

Into song

Faked lunacy to escape prison

Quoting Clockwork Orange, Blue Velvet,

Ted Bundy

Locked up for twelve years

Away from

Mother, with her gin tears,

Her endless stream boyfriends,

Needles and tie-offs.

Now my name is ‘psychopath’

How do the sane cross their legs?

Interact with the deranged?

Express remorse?

Unbroken

They had 24 minutes to escape the twister

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/26/joplin.tornado.minutes/?hpt=C1

Hiding under a stairwell,

Or in airless closets,

Praying in bathtubs,

Clinging to children,

As walls and roofs peel away

Wind whips

Uprooting oak and cottonwood,

Tossing pick-up trucks and tractors

Fence flying like a

Metal bird

Couch in treetop

Chandelier on sidewalk

Everything inverted

Crystal vase, strangely unbroken

Surrounded by an avalanche of loss

On the Arrest of Ratko Mladic

Executions Were Mladic’s Signature, and Downfall

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/europe/27balkans.html?hp

In Srebenica

Your soldiers gave

Chocolate wrapped in golden foil

To Muslim boys,

Sweets before slaughter.

 

In Sarajevo

You withheld electricity, food, water,

Burned our cathedrals and mosques to ash.

You shot us at soccer games,

Waiting in endless lines for water,

At the market, bartering for bread.

You destroyed our harvest,

Bound our hands and escorted us, still breathing, 

To our graves

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/europe/27ratko-mladic.html?hp

Vagabound

Leather Man, Mysterious 19th-Century Wanderer, Will Remain So

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/leather-man-mysterious-19th-century-wanderer-will-remain-so/?src=twrhp

Leather man

Clad in tall boots,

Soft as Lamb’s Ear

Coat crafted of musty hides,

Pants, a rough patchwork of pelt and skin,

Hat and scarf of suede and buff.

Tramping on railroads,

Favoring sardines and brandy, rough bread and dark beer,

Sleeping in lean-to’s and rock shelters,

Surviving blizzards and twisters,

Smelling of smoke and earth,

Walking 365 miles each month,

Sleeping in a pauper’s grave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherman_%28vagabond%29

6:01

Make My Bed? But You Say the World’s Ending

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20rapture.html

When the apocalypse didn’t come

I knew my life was over.

College fund emptied

By parents who dragged us to Times Square

Bearing garbage bags full of

Bibles with cheap plastic covers

Mother will sit on the calico couch

Too dejected for dishes or showers or paying bills or cooking dinner.

Father ,too listless for working or mowing or speaking or protecting,

Devotes whole days to numerology and prayer

Like overgrown children, or lunatics,

They gave it all away for the rapture

Too witless to realize the sun would still rise,

Shedding light on our diminished future

Blackmarket Blood

In Bulgaria, a black market in blood is flourishing as donors become more and more scarce

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-bulgaria-a-black-market-in-blood-is-flourishing-as-donors-become-more-and-more-scarce/2011/05/23/AFX23b9G_story.html

Black market sales of blood

By bearded men in a haze of tobacco,

Outside of the emergency room.

Desperate relatives count worn bills

Paying dearly for red vials

Life, for a price

Silent Genocide

SKorea, US to investigate veterans’ claims Agent Orange was buried at US base in South Korea

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/skorea-us-to-investigate-veterans-claims-agent-orange-was-buried-at-us-base-in-south-korea/2011/05/22/AFf1s48G_story.html

Working in darkness

Roped muscles straining

Fifty grunts in filthy fatigues

Digging deep hole

A  mass grave

for cardboard boxes of Agent Orange

Seeping through the centuries

Into soil and ground water

Silent genocide

Our parting gift

The Devil You Know

At Hussein shrine, nostalgia for a strong leader

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/war-zones/at-shrine-to-saddam-hussein-in-iraq-nostalgia-for-a-fallen-leader/2011/05/18/AFvW7u7G_story.html

Filing past marble tomb

Festooned with plastic carnations,

Purple and green lights flicker

Children throw sweets

We pay respect to 

a jackal bearing blood drenched fang,

Our fallen leader

(Don’t think of  how Uday and Qusay,

Would select a treasured daughter,

Devour and throw her away,

Predator and prey)

Look how these weak leaders quake

Without Saddam

(Forget the Kurds he gassed

The thousand daily terrors of his reign)

When he ruled,

Electricity flickered from outlets,

Children walked to school

Knowing whom to fear

On the Cancellation of British Literature

Fighting with only bare hands,

Beowulf  vanquishes Grendel,

Hangs the monster’s bloody arm above the mead hall,

And sails home on ancient seas

Prioress, Wyf of Bath,

Monk and Miller

Ride on palfrey and stallion from

Canterbury, tales all told

Arthur reminisces about pulling steel from stone,

As Merlin languishes in the Hawthorne tree

Lady Macbeth scrubs lily white hands

Seeing only divine blood

While her husband longs for holy, restive sleep

Lady of Shallott weaves tapestries in her crumbling tower,

Viewing the world through rippled reflection

Keats's lovers dance on Grecian urn,

Trees forever blooming

Characters under the spell of words

Live on, unbidden
Scops, singing stories

To empty rooms.

Telomeres, The Oracle

The £400 test that tells you how long you'll live

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-163400-test-that-tells-you-how-long-youll-live-2284639.html

I.

Sooth-sayer  tracing lifeline across

Palm unblemished by callous or cut

Searching for breaks, fissures

Teasing out time's tale   

II.

Telomeres,

Chromosomal caps ,

Shortened by cellular division,

Revealing true age

III.

Oracles of future,

Or lack thereof,

We bow to God of science,

Praying for time

Seeking,

Oedipus- like,

Terrible revelation

Tainted Welcome

Chemical Suspected in Cancer Is in Baby Products http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/business/18chemical.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

The new research found that foam samples from more than a third of the 101 baby products that were tested contained chlorinated Tris. Overall, 80 of the products contained chemical flame retardants of some kind, some of which are considered toxic, though legal to use.

Lurking within the first place you rested,

Drinking mother’s milk,

A pillow of softest fleece;

Lining the first place you sat,

A cherry wood high chair covered with flocks of birds;

Padding your car seat,

Pale green and seemingly perfect;

Hidden inside your carrier,

Suspending you, nestled against me,

In a bloom of chemicals.

Struggling to Smile

inspired by Making Parenthood A Reality Through IVF Grants  

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/135358223/making-parenthood-a-reality-through-ivf-grants

I.

In the sunlight, 

A  man and a woman

Swing a child between them,

A slip of a girl,

With bouncing pigtails and rainbow tights.

I sit in the shade watching.

Each month punctuated by blood.

Defective.

Broken.

Barren.

Infertility, a silent sadness,

Struggles to smile at baby showers and birthday parties,

Stutters through prying questions of strangers,

Makes love, knowing nothing will grow.

'Real News. Compelling Stories. Always Positive'

Happy News

adapted from http://www.happynews.com/index.aspx

Yours is the pleasure of secret silliness

“Donkey mascot from Iraq comes to NYC!”

“Tweeting birds join Twitter!”

“Sailor, 85, crosses the Atlantic with friends”

Each headline a chirpy affirmation

Articles are perky cheerleaders and pep squad girls,

Waving neon banners and setting free doves,

A media blitz for happiness

Let me linger a little

Searching for a smile from the daily news

Le Grand Séducteur

Police Seek Evidence From I.M.F. Chief on Sex Attack

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/nyregion/maid-picks-imf-chief-as-attacker-in-lineup.html

$3,000 a night for a hotel

includes whatever I damn well want.

That African ‘maid’ at the Sofitel

Skin black as soil

How dare she accuse me?

She’s lucky I was in her mouth

A powerful man, a man of wealth, has needs

Removed from my first class flight to France

Forced to stand in a police lineup

(Like a common criminal)

Don’t they know I  bailed out Greece?

I stopped defaults in Hungary, Pakistan, and Ukraine?

(So much fuss over one weeping African)

Now they scrape under my fingernails

And pull my hair

I will be exonerated

She will pay

At the end of the day, the poorest – as always – pay the most [1]

---

[1] Direct quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-Kahn

Life in the Margins

Rising as the sun
My husband and daughter still asleep
To read your thoughts on Gandhi and nonviolence

You worked alone, late into the evening,
Wrestling with words, hoping to please me,
Your only reader

Red pen in hand
I scrawl encouragements when I can
Underline emphatically
Write treatises in the margins
Cross out what I must

Upon the essay's return,
You register only a grade in scarlet

My notations, essential as blood,
A transfusion, a life source
Viewed as wounds, marks to disregard,
Acts of violence

Descending

adapted from Chilean miner wants his page of history back http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chilean-miner-wants-his-page-of-history-back-2283892.html

Spotlights are off now

Reporters long gone, in search of the next story

Chilean flags no longer flutter at the mines

Thirty-three men

Emerged from the earth’s tomb

After two months of digging

(We lived in darkness

Prayed in one corner,

Shat in another,

Divided food for thirty-three mouths

Before anyone ate)

When we emerged,

Men from the underworld,

Chile seemed bathed in gold

They promised book deals,

Voyages, health, rest

We have seen the world

But the president silently stopped

Paying our medical bills

Soon we will put on our hats and boots,

To descend again into the darkness.

If a Tree Falls in the Forest...

inspired by 70 State Parks Slated to Close

http://www.independent.com/news/2011/may/13/70-state-parks-close/

Sparse juniper and dense redwoods will remain.

Waves will still crash,

With air redolent of salt and eucalyptus.

Mountains and buttes will endure,

Revealing our smallness.

Tree roots will slowly overtake paths,

Leaving knotty wilds in their wake.