FIDDLING WHILE NIGERIA BURNS

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

“Nigeria has ordered the closure of all secondary schools in Yobe state after Islamic extremists massacred 42 people at a boarding school in the region.” --The Independent (UK), 8 July 2013

Do you smell the stench, America?  in the vessels of fuel by Islamic extremists, in their vessels  of dried and fresh blood?  of burning flesh? of children at school? of wounded skin and bone? of ruptured tissue? of spilled brains? of a father's torment?  of seeing his two sons? who,  fleeing  fires of  Hell  are shot to death? hacked to pieces? do you hear their cries? smell embered hearts?  or is it a headline? buried with children? in fireworks of a different sort? the kind of American explosion in the sky? on the fourth of July? when we shoot the stars in bursts? when stepping  over ashes of Western civilization, we light our fires? fiddle with grills?  barbecue ribs buried in  smoky sauce? and  sniff the stifled air?   

 
Lucille Gang Shulklapper is a poet, fiction writer, workshop leader mother, and grandmother.

SHELL OIL IN NIGERIA

by B.Z. Niditch

Mixed Decision for Shell in Nigeria Oil Spill Suits --NY Times, January 30, 2013;
Image source: Aljazeera January 31, 2013

In gutted morning
of the Ogoni villagers
the poor wake up
as we earth friends
of the Niger delta
hold faithful pencils
and write
of your struggle,
knowing each bruise
on the assembled
gathering to hear
the radio
with battered lilies
from years of pollution
in the injustice
of acid rain
dulled by hunger
without fishing grounds
under the rope
of tar skies
oil once filled
the delta
as Aaron's beard,
in the name and life
of Ken Saro-Wiwa
you are not abandoned
to the huge profits
of yet another
international corporation.


B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest);  Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.