Hot,
Hotter,
Scorching.
Temperatures spike,
Engulfing the country,
Expect a heat wave.
Excessive,
Extreme,
Little relief in sight.
Summer has not been able to escape.
Source: “Another Major Heat Wave Sweeps the U.S.,” The New York Times, August 2, 2022.
Scientists
Are not opening a portal to hell.
Scientists
Restarted their accelerator—
The world’s most powerful accelerator—
To learn more about the origins of the universe.
Social media suggest a different purpose:
That scientists are using the machine to open a doorway
For demons,
Wicked spirits,
High Evil Principalities.
The claim is baseless.
Scientists are engaged in scientific-related activities.
Experts use the collider to study
Unexplored energies,
Microscopic particles,
The creation of the universe,
Dark matter.
Scientists are engaged in scientific-related activities.
The collider cannot open up portals to other dimensions.
Found poem from “Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a ‘portal to hell’,” USA Today, July 26, 2022.
Variants run freely
Around the world.
Countries grapple with fatigue.
New waves,
Rising cases,
Straining systems,
Apathy.
The virus pushes at us.
We must push back.
Found poetry from “WHO warns covid ‘nowhere near over’ as variants spike in U.S., Europe,” The Washington Post, July 13, 2022
No contrition
Or regret.
The mob?
Stormed lives?
Totally appropriate.
Sidestepped questions?
Deadly riot?
Totally appropriate.
Defiance.
Assault.
Violence.
Ransacking.
Anger.
Violence.
His mob.
His anger.
He should leave.
Leave everyone alone.
Found poetry from “In first public appearance since the Capitol siege, Trump expresses no contrition for inciting the mob,” The New York Times, January 12, 2020
Hostile Trading
I’m not a fool.
We want to do business with them.
Obliteration like you’ve never seen,
I’m not looking to do that.
I may, I may,
If you’d like me to, I’ll do that.
No, no,
I have the right to do that.
But I haven’t.
Poem found in “Trump Shrugs Off Khashoggi Killing by Ally Saudi Arabia,” The New York Times, June 23, 2019
Split Borders
Parents are property,
Children an immediate danger.
Mean, this humanitarian crisis.
The democratic republic
Separating parents from children—
Families fractured by policy.
Unconstitutional,
Cruel,
Unlawful,
A violation
Of due process and
Equal protection.
Vexing.
The administration appeared
Unprepared for the fallout
“The child has rights,” a spokesman conceded.
“This is a complex situation.”
Amid the chaos,
The president continued to rail against
Those fleeing danger and persecution,
Asylum claims,
Our land,
Judges,
Laws.
An unmistakable message:
“You can’t come in.
“Don’t come at all.”
Respond, lawmakers.
Shift focus,
Keep families together,
Lean into that vote,
Cross that bridge.
Take action.
Poem found in “Federal Judge in California Halts Splitting of Migrant Families at Border,” The New York Times, June 26, 2018.
Unprecedented
A choreographed
Freewheeling wager.
Flattery,
Cajolery,
And a slickly produced video.
A bulletproof confrontation.
Diplomatic language,
Recycled statements,
Verifiable missiles.
Sleep well tonight!
A showdown with diplomacy:
Three hours of meetings
Plus a lunch of prawns and crispy pork.
Provocative vague details,
A thumping soundtrack
Of benevolent peacemakers:
An inspirational view.
Aides fidgeted.
Reality TV?
Science fiction?
A buddy movie.
At ease with each other,
They walked on a balcony,
Smiled occasionally,
Heaped praise.
Human-rights abuses?
Hardly a priority.
It is a rough situation over there.
It’s rough in a lot of places.
Poem found in “The Trump-Kim Summit Was Unprecedented, but the Statement Was Vague,” The New York Times, June 12, 2018
Surprise Performance
Melody
Drama
Teacher
Students
Classroom
Stone
A massacred education
A defining moment
The goodness and tragedy
Will never be erased
Tears
Light
Life
Hurt
Rage
Sorrow
Art
Every day
In every class
Students shine
Get up
Take action
Through passionate honesty
Poem found in “Parkland Students Give Surprise Tonys Performance After Teacher Gets Award,” The New York Times, June 10, 2018.
War Crimes Honored
The camp,
Holding 32,000 Union soldiers—
The fifth largest city in the Confederacy—
Was dire.
The prisoners,
Never issued clothing,
Wore their uniforms until the pieces fell off,
Lived in holes they dug in the ground.
One reportedly used a pocket knife
To amputate his own gangrenous feet.
The death toll reached 13,000.
The man who presided over their deaths,
Captain Henry Wirz,
Was put on trial for war crimes.
Stories began flooding the Northern newspapers:
Photographs of survivors starved into living skeletons,
Like nothing the world had seen before,
And would not see again
Until the end of World War II.
Wirz was found guilty of
Cruelty,
Shooting,
Beating,
Turning dogs loose on prisoners,
Such nameless blasphemy and ribald jest,
As to exhibit him rather as a demon than a man.
So why erect a monument to a demon?
To recast him as a martyr.
To rescue his name from the stigma attached to it
By embittered prejudice.
Poem found in “Weekend Read: Executed for committing war crimes—then honored with a Confederate monument,” Southern Poverty Law Center, June 8, 2018
Newly Minted
It was simple, pure, and sweeping,
It was haute couture,
It was everything people had hoped.
It was not Cinderella,
Not fantasy or old-fashioned fairy tales.
Independence
While respecting tradition
And keeping her covered up.
It celebrated strength in the substance of its silk.
It had an edge of Hollywood, a Hepburn feel.
Wintersweet,
Held in place by a flexible band
And rigid creativity—
Such smart symbolism.
Yellow and new grass green,
Optimism, happiness, and a new dawn,
Let them shine.
Poem found in “Meghan Markle’s Wedding Dress Was Made for a Person, Not a Princess,” The New York Times, May 19, 2018.
