Others of my peers

THE ARTICLE:

“No Jobs? Young Graduates Make Their Own”

by Hannah Seligson

December 12, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12yec.html

THE POEM:

Others of my peers

Most of my peers live in

various academic vaginas:

they crawled back in last year

where it was warm and safe

they protested birth

they like being parasites

Some of my peers are

pretend adults:

mom and dad pay their rent

and they frolic and

flirt in concrete jungles

Others of my peers created their own jobs:

they understood this whole

get-good-grades-and-get-a-job thing

was an empty promise

from a generation of

corrupt educators

My father is a powerful man

and even he hires people

with more plaques on their walls

they he will ever have

The smartest of my peers understand:

with nothing to lose

creativity is a safe gamble

devour

THE ARTICLE:

“As Ants Crawl Over Crucifix, Dead Artist Is Assailed Again”

by Holland Cotter

December 11, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/arts/design/11ants.html

THE POEM:

devour

the fire in my belly

started in my lover’s

when you love someone

you give each other one another’s

every cough and tick and sputtering cell

for every ounce of love you make

a lovecrane swoops in to 

feed another to Eden’s snake

Jesus take on the suffering of my lover

Jesus take on the suffering of myself

Jesus why can I hear you chanting six six six

as you nail us to a crucifix

there is a fire in my belly

eating me from the in to out

Jesus why did you let my lover die

with the ferocity of melting ice

you know it is better to die all at once

ants devour the sweetest parts

of his flesh

my memory lives in

its sour nooks

Jesus why have you forsaken me

these frozen hands

THE ARTICLE:

“On Christmas Lists, No Credit Slips”

by Stephanie Clifford

December 10, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/business/10shop.html

THE POEM:

these frozen hands

people stuck in

snow covered holes

singing fa la la la fuck

here comes the plastic

divorce devil to make

snowmen and angels

this Christmastime

cash is the route

these frozen hands

should have traveled

transmanifest

THE ARTICLE:

“Bold Crossings of the Gender Line”

by William Van Meter

December 9, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/fashion/09TRANS.html

THE POEM:

Transmanifest

singsonging across the universe

trans melody trans bridge trans one mouth in red lipstick

on the face of a usedtobe man that blows smoke into the face of a

nowiam woman on the corner of a transAmerican street you can
flirt in any body

they’re everywhere

they’re hip n cool

they raise the boys who

grow up to be president

it’s transmanifest destiny

a usedtobe man with her flowing brown hair

grips the base of a member

a few inchesdownonpaper from her little breasts

she knows how to work her body

for the camera knows how to

work her body for money

an alwayshasbeen man on the cover of a magazine

in bodydraging himself into the new

main sexstream because he can because why not

because it’s hip n cool because it’s

transmanifest destinhere

Scarlet U

THE ARTICLE:

“The Scarlet ‘U’ of Unemployment”

December 8, 2010

http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/the-scarlet-u-of-unemployment/

THE POEM:

Scarlet U

Brand with an A

Let them say

A huge whore lies beneath these clothes

A loose woman lost in the arms of unmarried men

who learns the tongues of strangers in bars

who lets men inside of her who never promise to stay

A sexual deviant whose body has been hit and scarred

by figures she should have known better than to trust

A single mother in the making

Brand me with an A

The world can forgive an A

A husband can love a woman whose A fades with each day

A priest will bless an A

It becomes Amen at the end of her sentences

But the Scarlet U of unemployment

is not a quick forgive

It gets bloodier in red with each day 

she and he

THE ARTICLE:

“Social Science Palooza”

by David Brooks

December 7, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html

THE POEM:

she and he

She avoids her father’s calls when she’s ovulating

and is relieved to find out her partner left his last girlfriend,

not the other way around

She believes more strongly in God now that

her boyfriend is an atheist

Whenever he’s sad

she recommends he pray,

and when the Knicks lose a game

she swears they should just

touch each other more

He says let’s leave the touching

to us

She’s a beautiful woman and

it distracts him when they play chess

They remember the things

it was difficult to learn

about each other

She studied hieroglyphics to

find his greatest fear

He translated her from silence to read

the past stuck in her throat

She and he together like

social and science

on the ground

THE ARTICLE:

“Gay Teens Face Harsher Punishments”

by Tara Parker-Pope

December 6, 2010

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/gay-teens-face-harsher-punishments

THE POEM:

on the ground

control for different be or she haviors

the shes that go home with shes

the hes that look for hes in the crowd

find themselves on the (non-jagged) ground

more when they want more

find themselves on the (jagged) ground

more when they want less

Laptopistan

THE ARTICLE:

“Destination: LAPTOPISTAN”

by David Sax

December 5, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/nyregion/05laptop.html

THE POEM:

Laptopistan

I write poems on my MacBook in Starbucks.

I sip on a small Passion Fruit Tea and watch people passing by the window. 

Their bodies are imperfect rhymes. 

Mine is a cliché in eyeliner that cares

and curls that don’t. 

Moody music plays overhead. It does not drown out the autistic man who never stops speaking.  He is unlike the silent Asian who conducts the music on his ipod for the audience that pays him no mind.

They talk to other people on their laptops,

private people in this public place.

numbers go down

THE ARTICLE:

“Treating Eating Disorders and Paying For It”

by Lesley Alderman

December 4, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/health/04patient.html

THE POEM:

numbers go down

her body is all spine

so her mother feeds her

like when she was

not a year old

but the numbers go down

on the square she steps on

his body is all collarbone

so his father visits him on weekends

to pay the bill for the

four walls and four hands

that make sure for all the hours

he can't

and the numbers go down

in accounts to live on

mom and dad don’t talk like they used to

they don’t sleep together anymore

too many numbers going down

the basic elements of life

THE ARTICLE:

“Microbe Finds Arsenic Tasty; Redefines Life”

by Dennis Overbye

December 3, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/science/03arsenic.html

THE POEM:

the basic elements of life

a door cracking to reveal

the fixed constants of life

are not so planted in the earth

car bon-bon I need something sweet to live

and there’s an ox there pulling a gentle man along the cobblestone

nice try guy in the suit your backs are green your spine is strong

hi dry oh generous soil to build my thoughts into before they mix with water

sultan for the people of arabi uh it takes a leader to show the people how to be themselves

but

people can live without

the things they think

they need

the basic elements of life

Jesus in the desert without food or water

or a microbe in a lab without phosphorus

it’s not for us

we could battery ourselves around

still (in motion) with arsenic

food

shelter

love

the basic elements of life

people can live without

the things they think

they need

core

THE ARTICLE:

“Runner Crawls to Finish to Win Title for Her Ailing Coach”

by Katie Hafner

December 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/sports/02runner.html

THE POEM:

core

a man whose body will stage a slow coup

for three to four years until

only his eye muscles will

flex or not to

tell or not tell

the things he

means to say

a girl used to being in front

her torso bent more than usual

as bodies pass hers

kicking it in to where

less is more on paper

but more is more

in muscle mass

in mind over matter

heart to ground pounding too fast and a

memory that won’t chart this part

a body that takes this moment and

crawls through it

in three to four years a pair of eyes

will blink in some pattern or not

for the torso that carries its memories

in its core

A man needs

THE ARTICLE:

“Keeping Romance Alive in the Age of Female Empowerment”

by Katrin Benhold

December 1, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/europe/01iht-letter.html

THE POEM:

A man needs

When he could fuck her three times a day—

make her scream so the whole house could hear—

when he could print business cards and

point to his name on a mailbox in the city,

things were great.

But when he couldn’t talk about how great the hours between 9 and 5 were—

when he couldn’t go a day without bouncing alternate realities off her tired heart—

when he couldn’t see beyond the things he didn’t have,

the things she wanted to help him find,

things fell apart. 

A man needs to feel powerful.

The female ego is used to abuse.

A woman does not stop loving her man

when she is down.