A New Form of Woman

THE ARTICLE:

“Escaping Marriage, But Not Lashes: 2 Girls’ Agony in Afghanistan”

by Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin

May 31, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31flogging.html

THE POEM:
A New Form of Woman

If you don’t I will put if you don’t I will put

a bomb in your body a bomb in your body is it better than

a bomb between your legs a bomb between your legs

Flog and lash flog and lash if you don’t if you don’t I will

make you go boom in the street make you go split in all directions

is it better than bending in all directions than fire between your legs

Dress me up as a boy

Put me on a bus

I’ll sit like a boy ill spread my legs

like there’s something dangling there

I’ll pretend to have power

charging through my veins

Bus. Stop. Halt. Police.

boy girl boy girl

Tick crash don’t make me go

My body is ticking

Make the bus go crash so

I don’t have to go boom

They prayed

after beating us

after lashing us from behind

They videotaped it

I imagine they re-watch it in groups

like pornography

We are too young for the lives we lead

We do not know the touch of a man’s hand

We know the outline of five grenades per fist

The speed of five arrows one per finger

We have seen Western movies

We dream about falling in love

We dream about white dresses

We wake up with the taste of rat poison in our mouths

We wake up with hands around our throats

shaken to the rhythms of grunts and moans

We wake up we wake up we always wake up

Take me up to the mountain

Leave me for dead

After you pray

Good job, mullah, good job sir

Good job, mullah, you can be sure

you broke the blood vessels in my calves

you broke the faith I had in halves

My name is Khadija

My name is Basgol

and I am full I am full I am full

of silent rage that will roll through the snow until it becomes a ball of cold explosive power more than the power charging through your veins and I will rub my legs together until they make fire until they start a desert fire that will turn your fists into ash into five airless stubs that can’t bow and arrow themselves into any body that can’t torment any pound of flesh

My name is Sakhina

My name is Roshana

and I am the law I am the law I am the law

of a new world where there is a wall around my naked body a wall I can build up and take down with my mind with my thoughts with sheer desire a desire I grow inside of me like a new species of plant that doesn’t just use the sun to make its own food it uses the moon and all the stars and all the grains of soil because it’s hungry because it can in this world there is a new form of woman in this world she is her own law 

Miracle

THE ARTICLE:

“Just Don’t Call It A Corset”

by Catherine Saint Louis

May 30, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/fashion/30spanx.html?ref=todayspaper

THE POEM:

Miracle

praise god halleluiah halleluiah

the blind man’s still blind but

now you can’t see his
unsightly bulges

it’s a flesh-compressing miracle

(dontcha know dontcha know)

an amoeba of skin

coming undone at the hands of

Equmen made in the image of God

who has a flat stomach and

well defined pecs (dontcha know?)

and He uses moisturizer too

(which isn’t metrosexual at all)

it’s mainstream by now

streaming down Main Street

just like men will kayak through

the street on the way back to

their bachelor cubes where

disrobing will be like refilling

a pool or feeding a sponge

all that flesh all those cells

all those layers of life coated with beer

forced into themselves

closer to the Glory of God
will come undone at the
hands of a woman

it is always a woman
(dontcha know dontcha know)

The Man Who / The Woman Who

THE ARTICLE:
"As 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Fades, Tactical Concerns Start to Rise"
by James Dao
May 29, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/politics/29gays.html

THE POEM:
The Man Who / The Woman Who 

The man who saved my life
likes it up his ass in his spare time
The woman who taught me to pray
likes to kiss her partner's breasts

But If I don't know
it's a whole lot better
because that girl on girl lesbian love
and that boy on boy bump 'n grind
is a parade i can't deal with
can't march beside 

thirteen thousand dis
charged away from bodies wrapped
in flags folded in four
times the trouble that it's worth to fight
for a nation
state of the union that can't get its act to
day they are beside you today they are near
sighted and far sighted and some have perfect vision
area of a square is base times height and
the area of a country is people times tolerance
prefix zero ground suffix zero prefix nothing
is set in stone nothing is set at all nothing is
sue of the day suit prefix law
(of the land) and home (of the brave[ question mark question mark question mark]) because:

isn't this just glori-fire-fight-ed fear with a capital F
is for Forces is for Fuck that crap about morale
more ale to douse these wounds to toast
the man who saved your life
the woman who taught you to pray

6 Whole Days In Oklahoma

THE ARTICLE:

“In Ultrasound, Abortion Fight Has New Front”

by Kevin Sack

May 28, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/health/policy/28ultrasound.html

THE POEM:

6 Whole Days In Oklahoma

I.

6 whole days in Oklahoma and on day number 5

I am on a table and she is handing me a photo

of my insides as if I’m going to go home and

frame it or put it in a scrap book

along with all the other nick knacks from my past

that my future-husband will find charming

that will make him love the version of me he

never knew

It’s going to be cold and some pressure too

I’d rather not no please thank you that’s not what I’d like to do

Word fountain spouting syllables to encase

the alien amoeba swimming around in there

so that even a blind woman could see it there

inside my u-haul of a uterus what a word uterus

it’s You turning into an us and it’s not just something

you can snap into the singular again there are forms to sign

and cash to dole out and things to insert and other things

to suck and I didn’t walk in here like I was getting my nails done

they’re already painted my toes too

And when I go home I’m having a beer

And when I’m done with that I’ll help my son with his homework

And maybe this is a form of love did you ever think of that maybe this is an honest to god form of love didn’t God flood the earth and then didn’t he rain us with plagues and nasty shit to make a point and didn’t we say he did it all because he loved us that there was some greater design to everything seeing the forest and not just the trees maybe it’s that kind of thing

II.

6 whole days in Oklahoma and on day number 5

I am on a table and she is handing me a photo

of my insides she says she’s sorry she knows I

didn’t even look while but she has to it’s required

she’s bound by law and I don’t want her to get

fired now do I?

It was cold there was some pressure too

I felt it on my skin and when I walked in

I felt it on my shoulders like there were

babies sitting around my neck in multiples

She tells me she’s sorry again but she has to

describe it in there she has to verbalize what’s

in my hands on paper in my body right on schedule

It doesn’t have a face yet it doesn’t look human

so that’s good she says for you not to have to

but I do and I wish she would just stop talking

I wish I was deaf

And when I go home I’ll have a glass of wine

And when I’m done with that I’ll probably cry

And when I’m done with that I’ll probably just sit

And maybe I’m going to hell maybe I don’t deserve to be happy maybe this was just bad timing maybe it’s one of those all in the timing situations maybe I should have prayed for a miscarriage maybe you’d forgive me that

Oil Fire Debate

THE ARTICLE:
"Results of' 'Top Kill' Effort Remain Uncertain"
by Clifford Krauss and John M. Broder
May 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us/27spill.html

THE POEM:
OilFireDebate

*BY GUEST POET MICHAEL BRIENZA*

Oil.
Fire.
Debate.



 

Someone Else

THE ARTICLE:
"Study Finds Condom Use Is Increasing"
by Gardiner Harris
May 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/health/policy/27contraceptive.html

THE POEM:
Someone Else 

Mary Sue insists she's
a ninety-nine percent virgin
because there was a condom
between her insides
and Rhett Nelson
and since nothing really
technically came
inside of her
she still gets Communion
on Sundays and she
still plans on wearing white
when she marries
someone else

More Like Constellations

THE ARTICLE:
"Spit On, Some Bus Drivers Take Months Off"
by Michael M. Grynbaum
May 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/nyregion/25spit.html

THE POEM: 
More Like Constellations

perhaps people are just
in a collective
bad mood

sometimes those New York
slings and arrows
are just too much to bear
and you have to let your
saliva do the talking
because you want to
drown the man
who's taking you
all the places
you don't want to go

it's spitfire warfare

and yes these weak aerial assaults
are like putting poison in
a sleeping king's ear

but sometimes those avenues and streets
feel more like constellations
than a grid

and sometimes uptown
feels more like downtown

but when it's only the trains you need
that are undergoing service changes
and you want to shoot the train conductor
who's nowhere to be found
you feel more powerful
you stride more briskly
you may even strut knowing you
can spit on the bus driver
tomorrow
instead

Indirect

THE ARTICLE:
"Teenagers Text More Than They Call"
by Teddy Wayne
May 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/24drill.html

THE POEM:
Indirect

the way they talk to each other
is indirect
is safe
is predetermined

time and planning
are filters
are a sort of
hormone checks
and balances

and when they look each other
in the eye
it's with uncertainty
with question marks around
if it counts
the way partners in
one night stand crime
are unsure whether to touch
in the morning

Mixed in with Desire

THE ARTICLE:

“Lies As Wishes”

by Maureen Dowd

May 23, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23dowd.html

THE POEM:
Mixed in with Desire

it’s a warped sense of things

when memory gets mixed in with desire

these days

that time she felt firefight

mixed in with the sunset

was really just a little girl

reciting a poem in the evening

and that time I fell in love

was more like an intense

desire to feel full

The way a lie feels on your body

is like an extra limb

It changes your posture

It changes your weight

The way it happens

is innocent enough

We want to be better

but we don’t know how

so we bypass that part:

We tell stories that aren’t true

in terms of limbs and air

They're alive in

the better versions of ourselves

The way you lie inside of me

It is not innocent
It is active
It is ugly

I cannot lie to you with my body

My legs fall would fall asleep

if I tried to move them in that way

My eyelashes would stage a coup

These lazy Sundays we can’t be bothered

to be good to each other so we

pretend we were in the space where

memory merges with desire

it is the only way we can
bear the weight of our

own history  

In Lieu of Gifts

THE ARTICLE:

“Moonshine or the Kids”

by Nicholas D. Kristof

May 22, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23kristof.html

THE POEM:

In Lieu of Gifts

In the Congo:

dead malaria babies and

kids kicked out of school

because Dad spent all the money

on booze and cigarettes

In America:

houses without insulation and

slanted floors because

mom’s unemployed and needs her HBO

and Dad needs an ATV to blow off steam

In lieu of gifts, please send accountants

Just Imagine

THE ARTICLE:

“Defiant Judge Takes On Child Pornography Law”

by A.G. Sulzberger

May 21, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/nyregion/22judge.html

THE POEM:

Just Imagine

he had enough pre-pubescent girls

to wallpaper four sides and a ceiling

enough pictures to mark a man insane

or was it all that rape back when he was a boy

that earns a man his crazy

look look see see it’s eyeball socket digestion it’s a visual orgy

soak up those little tits so little they’re practically nonexistent

and those hairless pussies untouched by razors untouched by wax

just homegrown hairless glory

because those hormones haven’t come knocking (just yet)

these girls don’t bleed their insides out (just yet)

he locks away five thousand photos so his five children and wife won’t see

and you’ve gotta fight for your right to look at things these days these days

you’ve gotta fight for your right to look at nude little girls licking their lips on the outside cause on the inside you’d have to imagine it on the insides of your eyelids and that takes more creativity and time but on the inside you’ve got plenty of time five years is a lot of time just imagine all the things you could imagine in five years just imagine

Designed

THE ARTICLE:

“Grown-Up Cyclists Need Helmets, Too”

by Lesley Alderman

May 20, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/health/22patient.html

THE POEM:

Designed

Less and less grey matter up there coming into itself

the way a sponge can get very small

the way a teenage girl can suck it in

Skull suddenly less full

like a woman when she gets hungry

like a woman when she falls out of love

You don’t have to pedal fast to get hurt

No need to rush to feel out of breath

We were not designed to be bullet proof

We were designed to deteriorate after building ourselves up

the way things overflow

the way some ships sink

compartment by compartment

there is an order to it—

it’s horizontal, then diagonal

We were designed to break

the way time is cut up into pockets of space

the way minds can snap  

when the wrong words are said

We were not designed to be permanent

So we designed things to keep ourselves stronger for longer

the way we invented lying to save the people we love

the way we came up with cruelty to protect them too

hiatus

traveling 5/20-5/23
will post from those dates when return 5/24

Dried Up

THE ARTICLE:

“All The Single Ladies”

by Maureen Dowd

May 19, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19dowd.html

THE POEM:

Dried Up

Big white is she or isn’t she

Who cares if she’s never felt the weight of

a gavel in her palm or in

a young man’s eyes?

What about the man we

haven’t photographed

grabbing her tits?

she says she’s

not gay, just lonely

Five decades and the boat has passed (no

no it sank and not by choice)

Advice for the modern woman:

Don’t tell that man you went to Harvard—

slip it in after he’s already inside you,
between moans (his), or, who knows,
fifty could come and you’ll be

all dried up

I’m not going to be unmarried I’m going to be single

Single sipping cosmos fucking young architects teaching them things they can’t learn from young bar sluts who haven’t had a miscarriage yet who haven’t really felt connected to their vaginas in any meaningful way who haven’t learned to use them in peacetime and war time who haven’t felt defined by their collective clitoris because of all that fresh tight flesh raw with inexperience

There’s still a KKK you know

Do they still burn crosses in front yards?
Maybe they text each other when to meet and get cloked up

I’m not going to be unmarried I’m going to be single

They don’t burn you for that yet

Matter

THE ARTICLE:

“A New Clue to Explain Existence”

by Dennis Overbye

May 18, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/space/18cosmos.html

THE POEM:

Matter

Ledge step heel over gravity down wind strong

Waist arm pressure pull cry fight why am I here

Big ka- Bang boom

Antimatter < Matter

High jump rise over tower pockets of air that hold the weight of the world inside obese particles that couldn’t make up their minds and I want to choke those fat electrons make them go blue in the face

Before hand yours light not white more like the toe of God in sepia tone

But I you say but I say you say I am light am matter do matter in color

Choose

THE ARTICLE:

“For Rwandan Students, Ethnic Tensions Lurk”

by Josh Kron

May 17, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/world/africa/17rwanda.html

THE POEM:

Choose

I deny half of my body

           half of my blood

I deny my people’s fists

           my people’s guns

           my people’s history

There is a survivor who shares

his bed with a Hutu law student

because the university has a

housing shortage

He sleeps with one fist clenched

The other is too tired to

hate anymore

Do not call me a francophone

Please

Do not even call me by name

Refer to me with your hands as the

thighs parallel to your thighs

as the set of limbs folded into yours

There is a boy they arrested

for wearing the old flag

on a T-shirt

I would have arrested him myself

if I was there—tell your father

These lines you are drawing

in the soil between languages

between veins between our

air supplies…

Let’s plant something else there

Plant yourself in me and

we will grow a new kind of fruit

one that will deny us

one that will deny any history of any kind

it will be a new kind of

fruit that will claim it materialized

out of nothing

out of air

out of kind beautiful air

and after claiming it

for enough time it will

become true because

we can choose

to remember things a

certain way until they

become that way

I choose to deny

and I choose you

My Teacher is a Spy

THE ARTICLE:
"Teacher Held as Spy in Iran Is Sent Home to France"
by Steven Erlanger
May 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/world/europe/17france.html

THE POEM:
My Teacher is a Spy

A-B-C
1-2-3
I want you back
in France
Miss Reiss
Come back
to France

Five times two is
ten years you could have
been gone and then
who would I have given
this picture of a
singing cactus
to?

They said you were a
spy but you're too
nice to be a spy
spies kill people
they wear leather and
sunglasses
but you wear sun dresses

my brothers say you
won't marry me but
there's a word bubble
above the singing cactus
he's singing DO-RE-MI
Will you marry me?
and if you come back to France
Miss Reiss
we can be singing cactuses
together

Foreskin

THE ARTICLE:

“In South Africa, an Unlikely Leader on AIDS”

by Celia W. Dugger

May 15, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/world/africa/15zuma.htm

THE POEM:

Foreskin

King Zwelithini says it’s ok to

peel that foreskin peel it good

cut snip tear ahh cut it off

peel that foreskin ahh snip cut

It has been my style that I don’t hide things

because when you hide your mistress

things can get all HIV up in here

but when your wives know all about it

South Africa is in the clear

Everybody jumped to conclusions

everybody jumped they sure did jumped into bed

without condoms because condoms they break up the flow of things

and if you shower afterwards

just wash that risk right off with water

wash it right off with good clean soap

Mr. President, you once raped a girl?

cut snip tear ahh no no

acquittal four years back

Mr. President, you’ve been tested how many times?

four times four times and that’s a fact

It has been his style

It has been his STYLE

No love child hiding in the closet

Love child’s right here

at the breakfast table

It has BEEN his STYLE

Not to HIDE THINGS

South Africa

South Africa

Don’t you go hiding THINGS

Don’t you go hiding virgins in your beds

to cure what your wife doesn’t know

how she caught

IT has been his STYLE

Mr. President….

His sons are about to

peel that foreskin

peel it good

cut snip tear ahh

ahh snip cut

peel that foreskin
South Africa

peel it good 

Even Jesus

THE ARTICLE:

“Church Crisis Shakes German Town Long Faithful to Tradition”

by Nicholas Kulish

May 14, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/world/europe/15germany.html

THE POEM
Even Jesus

Loincloth slipping dangerously low on

sexy Jesus up there being crucified

for the first time in a decade

and even he’s been thinking about

leaving the Church

ever since they let that Holocaust-

denying bishop back in—

Remember when Hitler praised the

Passion Play in '34, before everything?

Something about those guilty Jews
really revved his engine

[When I think about the Holocaust

I think about art school and how

if they’d only sent him one of the

big envelopes maybe it would have been 
just clay to go in the kiln]

Down the street a hundred boys and girls’

bodies touched

Not in the Name of God

We speak about it at rehearsal

We whisper about it in between

exits and entrances—

Some of us don’t know if we are

coming or if we are going

ourselves

and it’s not just the priests we no longer trust

It’s that we see His face on

mouse pads and coffee mugs

and we measure His love

in the pounds we make by

sandwiching his hands

between nail and wood

every night twice on Saturdays

It’s that we can’t make out the features
of our faith on his wooden face

on Sundays

Our director does not even go to mass

He goes to the skateboarding half-pipe

He points at young boys and says

“You are an Angel” “You are an Apostle”

Two thousand of us playing to

sixty thousand seats bare

In ten years there will be more
who do not come

We will be adding by subtracting

Attack Of The Negative Integers—

put that on a mouse pad

Because if even Jesus leaves us

what will be left except for

Resurrection Blues?

We need a good crucifixion in Oberammergau

It is how we avoid the Plague

Please

THE ARTICLE:
"China: Confession Obtained by Torture"
by Edward Wong
May 13, 2010 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/world/asia/13briefs-confess.html

THE POEM:
Please

Made him drink that poison punch
roughed him up good more than once
ten years and four ugly walls
make a man forget how to stand tall

now the man's gotta confess
admission was less
of a yes than a beg or plea
please man please please don't kill me

Emergency

THE ARTICLE:
"Egyptian Emergency Law Is Extended for 2 Years"
by Michael Slackman
May 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html

THE POEM:
Emergency

Twenty-nine years of
constant emergen--
see the protesters who say
this is some serious
systematic lying

because nobody quite buys
it's only confirmed terrorists
and certified drug lords who'll be
put behind bars without charge
indefinitely
and nobody quite has faith that
it's only professional car bombers
and tax-paying dealers
whose freedom will
take a hit

it's hard, you see, to balance
protecting Egypt with
preserving its people's
civil liberties

Surely you, America, can understand

what a delicate balance
this business of high alert

Fuck Genetics

THE ARTICLE:

“The Science of a Successful Marriage”

by Tara Parker-Pope

May 11, 2010

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/tracking-the-science-of-commitment/?ref=science

THE POEM:

Fuck Genetics

The day I found someone else’s thong underneath your pillow was the day I consulted a genetic counselor who told me your levels of vasopressin were incompatible with your wedding vows and that this was really a genetic default I couldn’t blame entirely on you

So we went to therapy

We filled in the blanks:

I said LOYAL and you said LOCAL

I said THREAT and you said THROAT

Dr. Roberts said we should try taking a cooking class together

I chop onions and tell myself that’s the only reason I’m crying

A committed husband walks into a bar

He sees an attractive woman

He finds out she wants to meet him

He tells his buddies she’s not that good looking

You walk into a bar

You see an attractive woman

You find out she wants to meet you

You take her back to our apartment and screw her in our bed

Fuck genetics

I want a divorce

Everything is Goodbye Today

THE ARTICLE:

“Businesses Come Together for When Marriages Come Apart”

by Elisabetta Povoledo

May 10, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/world/europe/10milan.html

THE GIST:
Italy held its first "divorce fair" this May, offering a one-stop destination for divorcees in need of lawyers, real estate agents, paternity testing, and dating services.  The presence of the Vatican has made divorce particularly taboo in Italy, where it only became legal in 1974.  But the landscape of marriage is changing in Italy.  In 2007, the Italian population included were 50,000 divorces and 81,000 separations among its 59 million people, compared to under 12,000 three decades earlier.

Ciao Amore is a divorce planning agency that was
represented at the "divorce fair"

THE POEM:

Everything is Goodbye Today

Ciao Amore

Hello goodbye

an end the end is here

Ciao he says

Ciao she says

We’re saying it more

and more

At the fair I said Ciao to the man

who will help me move away from you

My new house will have a room full of pillows—

pillows covering every wall—

and another room that I keep empty

on purpose

I said Ciao to the expert who will help me

replace your body with another body

I hope she has smaller hands than you

I hope she will let me read over her shoulder

It will take five years
to untangle myself from you

One of the layers of my skin

regrows itself underneath
one of the layers of your skin

every day

There is something scientific

about cell growth after marriage:

It is no longer something that happens

in just one body

Divorce will make our bodies awkward

I expect it will feel something like
having too many bones in one place
or not enough hair in another

We are not too old to meet someone new

We have not lived too much just yet

I hope my new wife will talk in her sleep like you

I hope she will love our children

The butcher gave me pity meat today

A homeless man told me to smile

I feel my skin coming undone

Everything is goodbye today

Perfect Little Idiots

THE ARTICLE:

“The Moral Life of Babies”

by Paul Bloom

New York Times Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html

May 9, 2010

THE POEM:

Perfect Little Idiots
 

perfect little idiots

know there’s something off

with your physics

because things don’t

just disappear

or hover mid-air

miniature fists reach for multi-colored

specks of geometry

helping or hindering

punishing or rewarding

telling us if knowing good and bad

bled out with the placenta

amid screams

they see faces everywhere

and they’re a little bit racist

there’s a lady that makes her face look sad

to see if her baby will comfort her

and he does

Facebook Official

THE ARTICLE: 
“Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline”

by Laura M. Holson

May 8, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/fashion/09privacy.html

THE POEM:

Facebook Official

we were friends before we met

we saved up our wittiest bits for

public comments and

stared at each other

afraid to improv

in real time

our connection could be measured in

emoticons

the world didn’t believe that we were in love

until there was an electronic link between you and i,

until the physical one was tagged

"Grandmothers Against The Wars"

THE ARTICLE:

“On 5^th Ave., a Grandmothers’ Protest as Endless as the Wars”

by Clyde Haberman

May 7, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/nyregion/07nyc.html

THE POEM:

“Grandmothers Against the Wars”

Do not call them cute

They don’t like that

They’re not here to be cute

They’ve let tourists take their picture

and pat them on the head

for three hundred and twenty-nine

consecutive Wednesdays

Rage, Rage that’s the way they feel

They wave their canes

They wear their signs

They soak their wrinkles in the rain

They perspire through the heat

And unfortunately they’re

still here

Laurie Leon is a very senior senior

and she won’t stop till she drops, she says

They understand the art of the

Attention Span

They remember when students protested for real

They remember when people marched for real

They remember when signing a petition

wasn’t just something to do

They do not think war is adorable

They do not think war is cute

You can find them on 5^th Avenue,

the eastern entrance to Rockefeller Center

Exhale

THE ARTICLE:

“On Israel, U.S. Jews Show Divergent Views, Often Parting From Leaders”

by Paul Vitello

May 6, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/us/politics/06jews.html

THE POEM:
Exhale

Benjamin has not been inside a synagogue

since his Bar Mitzvah forty years ago

but he punched someone in a bar

last weekend for Israel

Most of us don’t believe in this instead of that

It’s smudged, like the ends of a contour

when drawing with charcoal

Benjamin says Israel lives in his blood

It runs through his veins

For me, it is less biological

For me, Israel is not like the soil

It lives in the exhale between us

As we become less Jewish over here

they will still be fighting over there

and peace is not something to shove

down a throat

My wife is a Quaker

We agreed to raise the children

without affiliation

But at night when we undress each other

and I breathe on her back

Israel is in the space between our bodies

It is in the air between our mouths

How to Swallow

THE ARTICLE:

“More Wander Off in Fog of Age”

by Kirk Johnson

May 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/us/05search.html

THE POEM:

How to Swallow

We hide his baseball caps

because he won’t

leave home without them

He looks at my mother and

says She takes very good care of me

but can’t sound out her name

He says I want to go home

standing in the living room

He says I have to dust the crops

but we sold the farm years ago

The night we picked him up in the

Formers’ fields he was

clutching a watermelon

like a baby

We try to anchor him here

with signs that say “Stop!” on the door

and a GPS around his wrist

but I found him in the attic last week—

he can could get lost inside, too

Mom switched sides in their bed

to be closer to the door and

if she could sleep with one eye open

she would

She only makes his favorite foods

because he still remembers what he likes

and she’s counting down until the day when

he forgets how to swallow

He’s forgetting himself in reverse

I am the oldest of my siblings

He will forget me last

Origami Children

THE ARTICLE:

“A Russian Orphanage Offers Love and Care, but Few Ways Out”

by Clifford J. Levy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/world/europe/04adopt.html

May 4, 2010

THE POEM:

Origami Children

They send them back to us—

the mothers, the fathers.

They send them back.

I felt guilty with a baby

in my belly three years ago.

They say we want to

preserve ourselves,

that I want them to come back

so I can feed my own child,

so I can nurse my genetic ego.

But I like it when they leave.

This year we whispered

do svidaniya to just one

out of fifty.

When the others ask

When will a Mama

come for me?

I cannot say

so I just kiss their

foreheads.

My daughter asks me

when will she have a

brother or a

sister but I

cannot say

so I just kiss her

forehead.

I want to fold fifty children

into little pieces

like origami

and carry them inside myself.

Little origami children

who would grow by

unfolding, uncreasing

themselves. 

I would let them go

when they were ready to leave,

the way paper cranes

can fly in the right wind.

Jesus In My Fingers

THE ARTICLE:

“The Other Porn Addicts: Church Counsels Women Addicted to Pornography”

by John Leland

May 3, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/us/03addiction.html

THE POEM:

Jesus In My Fingers

God created sex

but the enemy has twisted it

so we blow up balloons that

say things like “self-gratification”

and we make them go pop

just like cherries pop

[It’s a metaphor,

like teach a man to fish]

and maybe Jesus would have

liked porn

since God created sex

and everything,

you know,

in a narcissistic way,

like

look what bodies

can do—

maybe it was a

bragging rights

kind of

thing

My accountability partner

thinks I’m going to hell

since I’ve been

slipping my hand down

my self

to make nerve cells that

only my future husband

should be touching

ripple

because if I’m better at

pleasing myself

than he is

That’d be terrible

She says purity lives inside

the ring on your left

fourth finger

not inside your vag

or the folds of

your clit

Her uncle used to touch her

down there

so when her husband gets it up

she gets shy

unless there are strangers

moaning in the background

[there’s something about

a stranger’s sounds that makes

everything so...]

so she’s following nine weeks

of lesson plans

to correct herself

for him

They tricked me into

saving myself

[I wanted big dicks

in little holes

and big tits

wet with cum

but I typed in

“XXX”

and found

the Church has

found itself a

url and

somebody’s starting

a Church

on The Strip

which is pretty

exciting]

I used to think maybe it was

Jesus in my fingers

doing those things

that

maybe Jesus wanted to make me

happy

when no man wanted to

I said so at Confession

to a priest

who just resigned because

he likes to touch boys

down there

but he never touched himself

he made sure to say

I said four Hail Marys and

four Our Fathers

and I think forgiveness

can be a

sexual thing—

asking and receiving

pleading and begging

and all that

Terror in the Trunk

THE ARTICLE:

“A Dread Revived: Terror in the Trunk”

by Ray Rivera
May 2, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/nyregion/03threat.html

THE POEM:

Terror in the Trunk

I can still smell the way

smoke filled my lungs

that September

My daughter is three—

I think she inherited my fear

It’s just a matter of time

Peter rented a safe deposit box

outside the city

He keeps things there

just in case

Because

You know it’s coming

and

It’s in the back of your mind

All the time

I drive over water

holding my breath

I wade through currents of

apprehension

I get nervous in tunnels

because cars can carry the

weight of mayhem

Cars can deliver 

clocks to Times Square

that tick to the beat of

Boom

On Sunday the shows went on

because the shows must go on

We have avoided terror in

the trunk

all these years

and

we refuse

to bow down

but I can still feel the way my

insides shook

the way that insides shake

when flesh burns by the

thousand

I take my daughter to the park

I push her on the swings

Behind her silhouette in the sky

I see clouds on fire

It is in the back of my mind

All the time

Moundless

THE ARTICLE:
"Ex Worker Says Her Firing Was Based on Genetic Test"
by Steven Greenhouse
May 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/01gene.html 


THE POEM:

Moundless

I amputated my breasts

dislodged my sex

from my chest

a preemptive strike

underneath my skin

just in case

double dismember

because I saw my sister’s hair

revolt against her scalp

self-mutilation because

meanwhile

my other sister

barricaded her pain all day

then rolled joints all night

while her sons’ chests

moved up

and down

—the way mine does too

Moundless

slabs of skin

rising and falling rising

and falling

My husband used to

tease my nipples with

his tongue

He used to bite them for

half-seconds at a time

Now he runs his hands up my sides

and kisses my twin scars

with soft precision

He does not write me love letters

He sent flowers to my surgeon