Double Death

Elie Wiesel: Mormon baptism of Holocaust victims ‘scandalous’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/elie-wiesel-mormon-baptism-of-holocaust-victims-scandalous/2012/02/15/gIQApRtpFR_blog.html

Murdered by the millions

רַבָּא שְׁמֵהּ וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ יִתְגַּדַּל

They recited the Mourners Kaddish

Over their own living corpses

Broken bodies long turned to ash

Jewish souls  

Newly baptized to Mormon faith

Fast Eddie's Son

19 Years and £1 Million Later, a Past Catches Up

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/us/british-robbery-suspect-edward-maher-arrested-in-missouri.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Not long after the white veil and dress were cleaned and stored

His words began to slur

His father made millions vanish from an armored vehicle

Childhood on the run

From England to America,

Cosmopolitan cities to the Ozarks

His mother fell from fancy dinners to cleaning houses

His family name King,

Tattooed on each of our wrists,

Just another fiction masquerading as truth 

Red Stained Silence

NATO says found Afghan children dead after air strike

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-afghanistan-airstrike-idUSTRE81C0MU20120213

Dense snow fell like tufts of cotton

As boys  herded flocks of sheep

White on white

Until bombs ricocheted like fireworks,

Yielding only red stained silence.

Amazonia

The river traders of Brazil

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/05/201153142852595854.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_medium=MasterAccount&utm_term=tweets

Air grows thin

At the lacy peak of Inga trees

30 meters above forest floor

A handful of fruit

Brings glittering change, and silence of the belly’s pleading

A village of children

Canoe down the Tajaparu

Scramble up ferries,

Desperate to avoid propellers,

Selling fruits and bowl of beans and rice

Before night falls

Inequality

Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/education/education-gap-grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html?_r=1&hp

I.

Off to ballet wearing a pearly tutu,

Mother and father watching every twirl from behind the two-way mirror

Playing a pint sized guitar at the School of Folk Music,

Painting and sculpting with Nanny in art class,

Play date at the private academy,

Overseen by teachers with clip boards.

Consultant promises it will improve her profile

Essays and interviews

Applications and strategies

Almost three years old,

Seeking an elite pre-schools.

II.

On good days,

Mama will talk about the foods as she puts them in the cart,

Labeling fruits and vegetables,

Revealing their names.

Most weeks

She is distracted,

Tallying the items, deciding what necessity to live without.

War is Peace

Report: Pentagon 'Beginning Review Of Syria Options'

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/08/146568390/report-pentagon-beginning-review-of-syria-options?ft=1&f=1001&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"We should start considering ... arming the opposition. The bloodletting has got to stop," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said.

5,000 dead

Now he wants to arm masses with machine guns

To stop the flow of Syrian wounds

Bodies will litter the streets

Blood will run like rivers

Children will ache for lost parents

Panic and terror, the only certainties

The bloodletting has to stop

Dark Lessons in Daylight

School Linked to Abuse Claims Will Replace Entire Faculty

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/education/parents-protest-los-angeles-school-after-teachers-sex-abuse-arrests.html?_r=1&hp

Mouths covered with duct tape

Eyes obscured by blindfolds

Cockroaches skitter across perfect cheeks

In his classroom

What dark lessons taught

In daylight?

We passed in linoleum lined hallways

For 30 years

Commented on weather under the same florescent lights

Languished in the same droning meetings

Bemoaned identical meager checks

What happened behind your closed door?

Amidst fading bulletin boards and outdated text books

What dark lessons taught

In daylight? 

Homeless

Homeless Families, Cloaked in Normality

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/nyregion/ordinary-families-cloaked-in-a-veil-of-homelessness.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=rechp

Hours stolen on endless bus rides and train stops

Metro cards and transfers

Hauling baby and diaper bag

Praying for deliverance

Shelter to work to daycare to work to shelter

Cold city blurs past the window

Head between knees, gasping for air

Searching for home

Hama=Homs (Revised)

Defiant Syrians Speaking Out About 1982 Killings

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146300890/defiant-syrians-speaking-out-about-1982-killings

I .  1982  

The walls have ears

For many years

We would not speak of it

As if lips sewn shut ,

Tongues ripped from their roots,

Wordless beasts of burden.

Streets  emptied of our fathers

Brothers and uncles pulled from their homes

Husbands dragged away, disappeared.

40,000 vanish

Voiceless, we grieve 

II. 2011

Red graffiti drips from school house walls:

"Freedom, freedom and freedom, only."

As paint dried

Boys rounded up, beaten, raped.

Parents searching for sons told, “Forget that you have these kids. Go and make other ones.”

And if they refused,

“Bring us your wives, and we will make children for you.”

III. 

Raw screams rip through parched mouths

Suppressed words escape from clenched teeth

Riots in the roads

Fists face machine guns

Tanks and bullets will not silence us again 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/syria-undercover/transcript-12/

Hama=Homs (Part I.)

Defiant Syrians Speaking Out About 1982 Killings

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146300890/defiant-syrians-speaking-out-about-1982-killings

I.  The walls have ears

For many years

We would not speak of it

As if lips sewn shut ,

Tongues ripped from their roots,

Wordless beasts of burden.

Streets  emptied of our fathers

Brothers and uncles pulled from their homes

Husbands dragged away,  disappeared

Magnificent Bastards

The Hard Way Out of Afghanistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/magazine/afghanistan.html?_r=1

On windswept road

Near Ugly Mountain

A young American sweeps for mines

Detonates one

Then another

Steps on a third 

Left leg explodes

Flesh vanishes

Leaving only shattered bone

And dangling foot, bereft of combat boot

All this in exchange for the modest Afghan flag

Waving on rough timber

Above a formerly Taliban stronghold

In Spanish Village, Everyone’s a Winner, Almost

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/world/europe/tiny-village-of-sodeto-wins-big-in-spains-lottery.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

Round cage covered in flaking gold paint

Revealed our fortunes

The whole village win

Winding streets will be overrun with bankers

and peddlers, selling fancy cars and shiny appliances

Fields will be plowed by plump farmers

Carafes of Spanish wine poured for everyone

Wives run to the hairdresser to celebrate

But she won too, isn’t working today

Perhaps children will stay in this blessed village

The siren’s song of the world, stifled by such luck

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"