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Spain Confronts Decades of Pain Over Lost Babies

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/world/europe/07iht-spain07.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Where are you now,

Flesh of my flesh,

Bone of my bone?

Child of shadow

Crib crocheted in cobweb

Stolen by nuns

In the name of God

Mexico Rising

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html?ref=mexico

Our sons will no longer die like dogs in your desert

They will not scuttle around your barbed wire

In blinding night

Or fear La Migra as they build your cold houses and

Harvest your loveless fields

Mexico is rising

Like a young man standing on the earth of his ancestors

Peace Corps

Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/us/11corps.html?_r=1

I came to breathe clean air

To live in a one room home with a thatched roof,

To sleep on earth,

To plant and harvest with soft hands

Women here carry water in clay urns

From dying creek bed to parched village

Faces placid as stones smoothed by rushing water

They looked away

When I crawled back

Sarong smeared with blood

Gathered babies in their arms,

Turned their backs to stoke dinner fires

As if to say

Our sons, brothers

Fathers, husbands

Act as men do

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/video/peace-corps-gang-rape-12613898

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42988397/ns/us_news-life/t/volunteers-peace-corps-mistreats-victims-rape-sexual-assault/

July 4

Wave little flags

Dress your children in stars and stripes

Drape your porch in banners

Celebrate freedom

Close your eyes to Afghanistan

Stop your ears to bombs falling in Iraq

Special ops in Pakistan,

Know nothing of Drones in Yemen, Somalia, Libya

Thousands of miles from main street

Our boys clutch guns in far off lands

Restored

Some With Histories of Mental Illness Petition to Get Their Gun Rights Back

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/us/03guns.html?pagewanted=5&hp

Voices hum in trees,

As you lie face down, in the prairie

Talking to bears

Discerning language in growls

Shot gun in hand

Demons in walls

Phone bugged by CIA

Guarding the perimeter in fatigues,

Bearing MAC 90

Longing to hang from the chandelier

Or free fall from a bridge

Gun rights restored

Discarded

The War Against Girls

Since the late 1970s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by parents seeking sons

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576361691165631366.html

Ringlets, soft as eiderdown, will not be pulled into bows

Pink blankets will not be knit

Dolls will not be sewn 
Trusting eyes will not open

She will never feel the sunlight,
Or take a deep breath  

Daughter discarded

Slow News Day

Some days imagination,

Like a lazy teenager, wants no part in poetry

Scanning paper after paper

Lap top growing hot

Searching for a spark

In  a world of protest

And sorrow,

Rape and drowning,

Slain children

Tortured activists

Some days, I wish to read about

Late strawberries peeking under floppy leaves

Elderly dogs madly chasing squirrels and

Kids earnestly peddling lemonade.

Unspoken

Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness.html?scp=3&sq=shy&st=cse

Not broken or flawed

Just enraptured with silence

Profound quiet, the flight of thought,

Companionship of books

Or voyage of music,

Staccato dreamscapes,

Classical reverie,

On long drives through sandy dunes and twisting trees,

You conduct symphonies with knowing hands

Your privacy, a necessity

Your love, an unspoken gift

Release

In pictures: The art of Guantanamo's inmates

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13967341

Roughly hewn doors with battered lock

Brass samovar atop intricate tapestry

Skeletal trees of eggplant and evergreen

Full moon from a small window

Prison cell, luminous with sunlight

Tortoise

Madagascar's 'tortoise mafia' on the attack 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13799205

Whorls striate primeval shell

As if painted by master craftsmen

Prehistoric, they crawl from Indian Ocean

Ambassadors of another existence

Poachers wield machetes and rifles,

Stealing flesh for meat

Spirit for sexual potions

Forsaken tortoise shells litter beaches in Madagascar

Bare

Miru Kim Confronts Her Fears
http://weirdnews.aol.com/2011/06/24/nude-artistmirukim_n_883110.html#s297221&title=Nude_Artist_Mirukim_n_883110.html#s29722title=Nude_Artist_Miru

Naked woman
Poised atop a roof in Istanbul

Spine curved,

A featherless bird

Disrobed,

As we are in dreams,

She descends a staircase of stones

Into darkness

Bare, she perches inside a rusty clock’s machinery,

Folded as paper crane

Elemental as mineral

Exposed, she balances on a subway rail

Feeling cool steel and

Quickening hum of an oncoming train

Haunted

Year After a Drowning, New York Schools Chief Tightens Rules for Field Trips

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/nyregion/new-york-city-tightens-rules-for-school-trips.html?src=rechp

She thrashes through my dreams

Bobbing and weaving

Frantically waving small black hands

Riptide drags her tiny body underwater,

As the indifferent sun continues to shine

Stonewall Riots, 1969

A Sense of Euphoria Settles on the West Village

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/a-sense-of-euphoria-settles-on-the-west-village.html?hpw

Today's poem was inspired by a passing reference to Stonewall Inn, the tavern where many New Yorkers gathered to celebrate the legalization of gay marriage.  The Stonewall, the scene of a legendary riot in 1969, is considered the birthplace of the Gay Pride Movement.

Young hustlers

Black eyed boys

Beatnik beauties

Tired queens

Down and out 'faggots'

Raided by police

For being 'queer'/beat/lonely/thirsty for company

Belittled, arrested, spat-upon, abused

Until thousands came

Men in suits,

Architects and lawyers,

Shop keepers and construction workers

Rallying at Stonewall

http://manhattan.about.com/od/glbtscene/a/stonewallriots.htm

Incandescent

Out of Tiffany’s Shadow, a Woman of Light

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/arts/design/25kast.html?ref=arts

Her hands, once hidden by history,
Crafted cerulean dragon flies

Beating black filigree wings

Across iridescent oceans of glass

Her hands, once hidden by history,
Built dappled lavender wisteria vines, 

Blooming jewels

Her hands, once hidden by history,

Spun daffodils in vermillion and ocher,

Fluted and fluttering, incandescent

Her hands, once hidden by history
Transformed silica, soda and lime

Into sunlight and blossom

Institute of Living

Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&hp

Fading scars, like ruby bangles dearly bought, ring your wrists

Now hallowed expert

Once hidden in the bowels of

Institute of Living

Heaving head against unyielding floor

Thrashing indifferent walls

Thorazine.

Librium.

Electroshock.

Yet still seduced by suicide

Until, on knees bruised with bending,

Gold alighted the hospital chapel,
Deus ex machina,

Your deliverance

Sometimes, though,

Driving through brightly lit tunnels,

You’ll hear the siren’s song still,

Grip the wheel with palsied hands.

Undocumented

My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB

Beneath official words

My truth stirs

Behind masthead and bylines

In white margins

Unfathomable

Mysteries of A Nazi Photo-Album

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/mysteries-of-a-nazi-photo-album/?hp

Tree stripped of branches,

A single black brush stroke.

Stone fortress fallen.

Bombed spires like broken filigree rise above

White crosses.

Prisoner wrapped in lumpen wool

Soldier in starched uniform

Share gaunt cheeks, unfathomable eyes

"Save Money. Live Better."

Justices Rule for Wal-Mart in Class-Action Bias Case

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/business/21bizcourt.html?hp

Groped in anonymous storerooms,

Earning $6.10 an hour,

Denied raises,

Mocked by yellow smiley faces,

Drowning until payday

Making jeans in El Salvador,

.15 cents a pair,

Surviving in shanties in Nicaragua,

Sleeping 12 to a room in China,

Sweltering in sweatshops in Saipan

You come each week to fill your cart

Save money. Live better.

http://www.now.org/issues/wfw/wm-facts.html

Remember

I remember

Blue eyes, squinted in laughter

Lined forehead, furrowed too young

I remember

Shiny gash on leg

Long scar across stomach

I remember

Convertibles blaring oldies

Ball games on the radio

Backyard and barbeques

I remember

Hospitals and waiting rooms

Chemotherapy, radiation

Eighteen years gone

I don’t remember enough

Dignitas

adapted from  Murky truth behind Swiss suicide ‘clinic’ Dignitas

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5006805.ece

At the confluence of Acheron and Styx,

He of keen gaze  

Demands a coin

To ferry bodies to oblivion

Death is furtive in dirty rooms,

Personal effects fall under bug ridden beds

Blue lights of the ambulance

Cast watery glow on chop shops and brothels

Trash bags of cell phones, car keys, jewelry

Sifted through, pawned treasure

Shards of bone and bits of grit

Float in Lake Zurich

Scant remains of dignitas

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/a-week-in-the-death-of-terry-pratchett-2299287.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_%28mythology%29