Found Poem #14/The Demise of THAT Rat

Found Poem #14/The Demise of THAT Rat

Susan Riley, the deputy lord mayor
Of Melbourne, Australia
Dispatched street cleaners to Holier Lane
After residents complained
About squalid conditions in an alley —
Known for its displays
Of public art.

Among the works
Was a stencil
Of a goggle-wearing rat
Created by Banksy
During a visit to Melbourne
In 2003.

The crew — instructed to
Remove all graffiti from the area —
Removed IT.

“Unfortunately the contractors
Were not made aware by us that
THAT was an important piece,”
Said Kathy Alexander, the chief executive of the city.

“And unfortunately, that means
THAT piece is gone.”



Source: The New York Times, April 29, 2010

Found Poem #12/A Man with a Knife or A Failed Romance

Found Poem #12/A Man with a Knife or A Failed Romance

At least 28 children were injured
when a man with a knife
attacked a kindergarten
in east China on Thursday morning.

Most of the victims were 4-year-olds.
Three of the children
were in critical condition.

Police said they have arrested
a 47-year-old suspect.

It comes a day
after a man with a knife
attacked 18 students and a teacher
at a primary school in south China.

Another man with a knife
stabbed eight children to death
and wounded five others
at an elementary school in east China last month

He was executed yesterday.

Authorities said he carried out the attack
because he was frustrated at
"failures in his romantic life."

Source: CNN World News, April 29, 2010

A Rather Ordinary Case

Found Poem #10: A Rather Ordinary Case or Why I Don’t Trust the Interpreters of God’s Word

Convicted of sorcery
And sentenced to death,
Ali Hussain Sibat of Lebanon
Has been held
In a prison in Saudi Arabia,
For more than two years.

His head is
To be chopped off
By an executioner wielding
A long, curved sword.

His crime:
Manipulating spirits,
Predicting the future,
Concocting potions
And conjuring spells
On a call-in television show
On a Lebanese channel, Scheherazade.

He was arrested in a sting operation
Staged by the religious police —
Men with long beards and ankle-length gowns —
Who technically have no authority to arrest
But wield tremendous power
In this conservative kingdom.

He was jailed after agreeing
To give a woman a potion
So that her husband would divorce
A second wife.

Several times in recent months
Mr. Sibat’s wife and his four children
Were told he would be escorted
To a public square…
For his beheading.

There has been little public outcry in Saudi Arabia
Over the case —which is considered
Rather ordinary.

“The judges think they are
The interpreters of God’s word,
And this is the whole problem in Saudi Arabia,”
Said Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb,
Director of Human Rights First Society,
An independent monitoring group in the kingdom.

Mr. Sibat had traveled to the kingdom
On a minor pilgrimage to the city of Mecca.


Source: The New York Times, April 25, 2010

Found Poem #9/Ahead of Her Time

Found Poem #9: Ahead of Her Time

...like a lot of great writers,
Muriel Spark was actually
a bit of a monster —
a charming, appealing monster —
but a monster all the same,
willing to sacrifice
everything
for the sake of her work.

She was
a neglectful mother,
a mercurial and inconstant friend,
a bully to agents, editors and publishers.
She behaved — in short —
like any number of
male writers, including ones
much less talented than she,

but as a woman so ruthlessly and coldheartedly
in pursuit of her art,
she was a little
ahead of her time.



Source: Charles McGrath’s review of Martin Stannard’s Muriel Spark: The Biography in The New York Times Book Review, April 25, 2010.

Found Poem #8/The Problem with Art

Found Poem # 8/The Problem With Art

...the problem with art
is that it incites
irrational passions.

Artistic imagination per se —
regardless of the politics it favors —
stirs people up
and causes trouble.

Source: Ken Johnson’s review of Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters in The New York Times, April 16, 2010

Two Fathers

Found Poem # 7/Two Fathers or He Became Angry

I

On Wednesday,
Larry Greene, 20, was charged
with second-degree murder
in the death of
his 7-month-old son, Xiah Greene.

The police said
Mr. Greene told them that
he became angry
when Xiah began to cry
after his mother, Cassandra Nady, 17,
left for school.

He told the baby
to “toughen up,”
then punched him in the chest,
investigators said.

Officers went to the family’s home,
on 113th Avenue in St. Albans, about 7 p.m. Tuesday
in response to a call about
an unconscious baby.

The boy died
at Queens Hospital Center.

II

In an earlier episode,
Saul Cortez, 24-years old, faces
possible man-slaughter and murder charges
after his eight-month old son, Mario Patrice,
was hospitalized on April 5 for injuries resulting from
shaken baby syndrome, including:
brain injury,
retinal hemorrhages,
laceration to the liver
and acute rib fracture.

The police said Mr. Cortez told them that
he became angry
because the baby was crying
and that he “repeatedly shook the baby
and forcefully and repeatedly
punched the baby in the back.”

Mario was initially placed on life support,
and after his death, last Thursday —
his organs were donated.

Source: The New York Times, April 15, 2010

An International Incident

Found Poem #6/An International Incident

A 7-year-old Russian boy
adopted by an American family last year
was put on a return flight to
Moscow this week.

Nancy Hansen, the Tennessee woman
who put Justin Hansen on the plane in Washington,
said she was concerned about her family's safety.

When her daughter, Tory Hansen,
adopted the boy from a Russian orphanage last year,
she asked the doctor there
if he had any physical or mental problems,
Nancy Hansen said.

The doctor answered "'He's healthy,”
and turned and left,
she said.

Hansen said the child had a "hit list"
of people he was targeting, including her daughter.
He threatened to kill her grandson
for a videogame,
she said.

When she caught him starting a fire with papers
in his bedroom last Monday,
she feared the child might burn down the house
and kill her family,
she said.

She then consulted a lawyer.
booked a flight,
paid the fee for a steward to escort Justin through the airport,
hired a driver in Moscow she found online
to pick the child up from the Moscow airport, and
prepared a letter for Justin to present to Russian officials.

Justin had never been happier
than when he boarded the plane for Moscow,
she said.

But Russian child protection officials
were not happy when the child
arrived unannounced at their ministry Wednesday.

Still Hansen said she believed the matter was settled
and the boy was safe,
until she also got a call from the U.S. Embassy.

They told her she had set off
an "international incident."


Source: CNN News, April 11, 2010.

Not for Everyone

Found Poem #5/Not for Everyone

“If my parents knew where I was
Right now —
They wouldn’t have sent me to Israel,”
A very drunk 17-year-old
Confides during a night out
With his school buddies at “Crack Square,”
— a well-known downtown hangout
For thousands of young Jerusalemites
In search

of a good time.

The teen, who says
His father is a very Orthodox American rabbi,
Explains that his parents sent him
To a mainstream Orthodox yeshiva
“To get me back on the derech,”
The Hebrew term for path.

He spent part of the previous year
In the States "drunk
And high...a lot.”

The rabbi’s son comes
To Crack Square
A few nights a week
Where he throws back
“six or seven drinks” a night.

Up to a third of
The estimated 2,000—3,000 yeshiva students
Spending their year before college in Israel
Are dealing with:
Anxiety,
Depression.
Eating disorders,
Overwhelming religiosity — commonly referred to
As flipping out —,
A crisis of religious faith
Or substance abuse.

“It’s the elephant in the room
Nobody’s talking about,”
Said Arthur Poleyoff, principal at
The Torah Academy of Bergen County,
A boys’ yeshiva high school
In Teaneck, New Jersey.

“It’s not popular to say so,” he said
But Israel isn’t for -- everyone."

Source: The Jewish Week, Jan. 15. 2010

Still Under Debate

Found Poem #3/Still Under Debate

A 12-year-old Yemeni bride
died of internal bleeding
following intercourse
three days after she was married off
to an older man.

The girl was married to a man
at least twice her age, said Sigrid Kaag,
UNICEF regional director
for the Middle East and North Africa.

Her death is "a painful reminder
of the risks girls face
when they are married
too soon," Kaag said.

The girl's death is the
latest in a series of child —
marriage cases in Yemen.

In September, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl
forced into marriage
died during childbirth.

Her baby also died.

The minimum age
to tie the knot in Yemen is
still under debate.

An Angry Individual

Found Poem #2/An Angry Individual

Federal agents on Tuesday
arrested and charged a man
with threatening to kill Senator Patty Murray,
Democrat of Washington,
because he was angry about her vote
in favor of
the major health care legislation.

The man, Charles A. Wilson, 64,
of Selah, Washington
made a series of threatening phone calls
to Senator Murray’s Seattle office
between March 22 — the day after Congress
approved the health care law — and April 4,
including a recorded message
in which he said, “I want to kill you.”

“There’s a target on your back now,”
Mr. Wilson said.

“There are many people out there
that want you dead.
It takes only one piece of lead.
Kill the f—king senator!
Kill the f—king senator!
I’ll donate the lead.”

In one message, Mr. Wilson also
allegedly stated,
“I hope somebody kills President Obama.”

Special Agent Frederick Gutt,
a spokesman for the F.B.I. in Seattle,
said that Mr. Wilson
did not appear
to have any prior criminal record
and seemed to have acted
on his own.
“By all accounts,
this is an angry individual,”
he said.


Source: The New York Times, April 7, 2010.

She Didn't Mean To

Found Poem #1/She Didn’t Mean To

Danielle Pickens, 19, showed up
to her cousin's house
in jean shorts and t-shirt
for Easter dinner.
Instead of giving her a side eye
and a scolding,
her cousin, Evelyn Burgess, 42,
shot her to death.
Columbus police Detective Steven Eppert says
42-year-old Burgess told officers
she thought the outfit was
inappropriate and disrespectful.
The women fought.
Police say Pickens walked outside to leave
and Burgess shot her in the head
with a handgun.
Pickens died at a hospital early Monday.
Eppert says Burgess told investigators
she didn't mean to
shoot Pickens.


Source: Detroit Free Press