Eerie Light

adapted from Low Levels of Radiation Found in American Milk

http://www.theledger.com/article/20110331/ZNYT04/103313012?p=1&tc=pg

Mason jar of milk

Evokes cows grazing in storybook pastures,

Bright eyed babes, sucking on bottles,

Childhood sandwiches of peanut butter and jam

Bone builder,

Ivory elixir,

Emitting an eerie light

Statute of Limitations

inspired by Dieter Krombach, German Doctor, Faces Unusual French Trial Over Slain Girl

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/dieter-krombach-trial-kalinka-bamberski_n_842135.html

Accuser and accused

Both of us seventy years old

Limbs uncooperative

Approaching long slumber

Her father, stubborn bastard, 

wouldn’t leave me

To time’s caprice

He demands Justice, blindfolded bitch,

Unseeing girl

I awakened in blackness

Eyes covered in burlap

Kicked in head, in mouth

In genitals

Gasping for air

Dragged from my bed in Germany

Ferreted to France

Shackled to fence

Overlooking the courthouse

In frigid abyss of night,

Warmed only by the memory of
His daughter's curly blond hair, and shy smile

She grew even more darling in her terror

Second Assassination

Inspired by  Mahatma Gandhi Reportedly Depicted As Bisexual, Racist In New Biography

Ganhi-ji

Shrunken, yet  invincible

Of wizened face and ageless eyes

We remember your

March to the ocean

Making your salt from sea water

Wearing homespun

Fasting in protest’s name

Brahmacharya

Yet purity eluded you

Young girls in your cot

Naked as birth, as truth

‘Despite my best efforts, the organ remained aroused.

 It was an altogether strange and shameful experience.’
Longing to extinguish desire

                

Sending a reedy slip to fetch pumice

For your calloused, dirty feet

into wilds of  forest, where women were prey

She returned, tear stained, shaken

‘If some ruffian had carried you off and

You had met your death courageously,

my heart would have danced with joy.’

Summoning strength 

Bapu,

They warp your words,

a second assassination 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/28/mahatma-gandhi-bisexual

inspired by The New Grave Robbers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/opinion/28madoff.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

Bilie Holiday struts away from the Metropolitan Hospital

Beauty restored, free to score a bag

Charlie Parker up and leaves the Stanhope Hotel

Paying riffs, licks, and blue notes

In swinging bars clouded with cigarette smoke,  of black and white photographic fame

Mark Twain is riding Halley’s Comet

Harbinger of his birth, no longer of his death

Frank Lloyd Wright stares at an empty grave in Taliesin

spring soil runs through his fingers

Amelia Earhart rises from her Electra on Phoenix Island

Ready to fly again

http://www.cmgworldwide.com/corporate/overview.html

Impotent Saviors

adapted from Libyan Woman Struggles to Tell Media of Her Rape 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/middleeast/27tripoli.html?hpw

Eman El Obeidy

Your protectors are lost children

Wielding cameras

Escaping personal apocalypse

You raced to the hotel

Harboring foreign journalists

Face, a blossoming bruise

Thigh  raked with scrapes

Hands and feet ringed with welts

Fifteen of Qaddafi’s men.

Plundered.

Burst open.
Desecrated.

Despoiled.

Dishonored.

Violated.

Invaded.

Ransacked.

Defecated.

Urinated.

Tainted.

Assaulted.

Pillaged.

Ruined.
Outraged.

Screaming your nightmare

As camera shutters snapped and keyboards clicked

You begged reporters for deliverance

Hotel waiters

Actually plainclothes police

Brandished steak knives

Rushed you into unmarked van

Mouth roughly covered

Yet still you screamed

Eman El Obeidy

Your protectors are lost children

Wielding only words

Highway Shrine

Shrines line the speedway

Plastic rosebuds, disintegrating ribbons

Mortality’s valentines

Names unspoken

Spirits rise from the byways

Swimming Upstream

adapted from Jesuits settle NW abuse claims for $166 million

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3TNNLigAb3qQeVpLaBxiu1MQzAA?docId=e43e04558be646299c55ad8bb8990e7f

Robbed of name

Stripped of clothing

Blankets dyed by grandmothers hands set aflame

Rag dolls ripped from small brown fingers

Braids shorn, scalps shaved to stubble

Doused with kerosene, bathed in lye

Native words ripped from our tongues

We languished in cold barracks, prisoners

In Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana , Alaska

Our holy bodies dirtied by priestly hands

We hungered

For blackberries, duck, rabbit

Longed to be salmon, swimming upstream to

Mother and father

Earth and sky

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3TNNLigAb3qQeVpLaBxiu1MQzAA?docId=e43e04558be646299c55ad8bb8990e7f

http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/boarding/keyissues.htm

Blowback

adapted from Drug Wars Push Deeper Into Central America

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/world/americas/24drugs.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

Dream, King’s habit, Her, Peruvian lady, Snow 

Blowing through Central America 

White puff of a spent dandelion 

Flying in Cesnas through rain forest of Honduras

Sailing to Guatemala 

Racing in speedboats through Costa Rican fishing villages 

Tragedy in her slipstream 

Fernando, 24, a carpenter addicted to crack; Miguel, 52, a fisherman addicted to crack; Marvin, 22, Juan, 37, José, 30… 

Candy sugar, Devil’s dandruff, Fast white lady, Uptown, White dragon  

http://www.casapalmera.com/articles/street-names-of-cocaine/

Status Update

adapted from Facebook Linked to Narcissism?
http://www.alternet.org/story/150339/facebook_linked_to_narcissism?akid=6719.137903.YHQ7oS&rd=1&t=12
““There was a significant positive correlation between time spent on Facebook per day and two of the personality variables: neuroticism and total loneliness,” the researchers report…Lonely people passively navigate it, observing the life that is passing them by."

In night’s dark silence
I search you
Scanning images of parties
I didn’t attend

In tree filled yards on sunniest of days
Women with shiny hair clutch
children in smocked dresses, wearing monogrammed ribbons
Open mouthed grins 
Reveal sparkling straight white teeth

Everyone everywhere
Sipping wine in Napa, skiing at Sugar Bush,
Arm-in-arm atop the Rockies,
Surrounded by tulips in Amsterdam,
Dancing at weddings, covered in tulle

All of you
Radiating sunlight
I sift through your lives
In my unlit room

Taken

adapted from Freed Times Journalists Give Account of Captivity

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/africa/22times.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Golden sedan, in the blackness of night

Sneaking into Adjabaya

Dusty, wind-swept.

Arabic signs punctuate the journey

Checkpoint emerges too quickly

Quaddafi loyalists bearing rifles

Car doors flung open

Then rebel bullets rained.

We flew, all four of us,

Crouching in dirt, hiding behind a stone wall

Taken

A man punched my face

Laughed at my tears

Punched me again

Another squeezed my breasts

A third stroked my hair tenderly

“You will die tonight”, he said

Vapor

adapted  from China Takes Hard Line on Activists, Many Missing

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/03/21/world/asia/AP-AS-China-Crackdown.html?ref=world

100

Vanished, as smoke in heat

Or breath in winter

Dissipating

Flesh and bone to vapor

Silence, the only safety

Yet they held truth on their tongues

Spoke

As if tens of sparrows were rushing from their mouths

Choking later on claw and feather

Not In My Name

A found poem adapted from the captions of photographs

Qaddafi Pledges ‘Long War’ as Allies Pursue Air Assault on Libya

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world/africa/21libya.html?hp

Tornado warplanes

Fighter jets

Stealth bombers

Cruise missiles

Mustard gas

Snipers

Human shields

Tracer bullets streaking across midnight sky

Navy destroyers firing Tomahawk missiles

Enemy plane enflamed

Rebel fighters interrogated

Soldiers awaiting identification

At the morgue

'The Rest is Silence'

adapted from Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/fashion/20Cultural.html?src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB


Frenzied ringing, pleading urgently
High-tech pest
Peddler of endless interruption
Encourager of solipsism
Essential yet obsolete


As antiquated landline
Of curling cord and oversized numerals
Bulbous handle strangely toy-like
Plastic relic


Gangly or sleek
Your ring, finally silent
Our voices, unused

Lickety Split

adapted from Staten Island Ice Cream Truck Sold Oxycodone Too, Officials Say

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/staten-island-ice-cream-truck-sold-oxycodone-too-officials-say/?hp

Twinkling bells of the Lickety Split Ice Cream Truck

Sing summer’s melody

Across scorching  asphalt, kids with scraped knees

Run to catch fleeting  sweetness

Fudgsicles

Strawberry sundae crunch

Dreamsicles

Sitting on sun scorched grass or weedy corners

Licking sticky delight, staining tongues  

Savoring sugary snow cones painted red, white, and blue

Junkies arrive more slowly

Flat eyed, furtive

Crumpled bills in hand

 http://www.chillybillysicecream.com/ChillysChoices.html

Reality Television

adapted from SAT’s Reality TV Essay Stumps Some

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/education/17sat.html?scp=2&sq=SAT&st=cse

Up until 2:00 am again

AP Government; AP English; AP Calculus; AP Chemistry; AP Latin

Lacrosse after school , then Stanley Kaplan

Homework requires reams of paper, oceans of ink

Vocabulary flash cards the last objects I see each night

College applications loom in the corner of my bedroom

A hazy storm rages in my mind, threatening another migraine

Every waking second

Devoted to future success

Parents demand it; teachers demand it; I don’t refuse

I’m reading Plato, Dante, Shakespeare

Study the New York Times every morning

My television, an unwanted distraction,

Never summoned

Now I’m asked to comment on reality television for my SAT?

My reality is unceasing work

Swallowing Western Civilization

Course by course

The Writing Prompt as Provided by the College Board:

Reality television programs, which feature real people engaged in real activities rather than professional actors performing scripted scenes, are increasingly popular. 

These shows depict ordinary people competing in everything from singing and dancing to losing weight, or just living their everyday lives. Most people believe that the reality these shows portray is authentic, but they are being misled.

How authentic can these shows be when producers design challenges for the participants and then editors alter filmed scenes?

Do people benefit from forms of entertainment that show so-called reality, or are such forms of entertainment harmful?