Irene you stole the thunder of our grand entrance
And made sure the spotlight was on you
For the first dance
Thanks Irene,
Because of you there will be no Motzi from Uncle Murray
No toast from the best man who was finally going to admit
to my mother, that he is to blame
for the “wrong” turn my life took
Oh so many phases ago.

Thanks Irene,
Because of you there is three quarters of a wedding cake
Sitting on my mothers kitchen counter
Headed for the garbage bin.
My father hording a salvaged platter of chilled shrimp, crab legs and crudite’
For himself, with a plastic cocktail fork keeping us all at bay.

Thanks to you Irene,
There will be no vodka bar, slice meat station, regional wine tasting
Or cheese’s from diverse European nations nibbled upon.
No pigs in blankets, hamburger sliders,
fried calamari in tempura batter or
caprese salad on a skewer.
No cocktail hour small talk
No family secrets whispered over high end whiskey
No past grudges quietly toasted and forgotten.

Thanks Irene,
You imposing blustery bitch,
Because of you the Hora will not be danced
And the ice cream bar will not be scooped.

Thanks Irene,
For not only raining on our wedding day
But for flooding the neighborhood
Causing the bridges and tunnels to be closed
And twisting the power lines into Bavarian pretzels.

Thanks Irene,
The ultimate uninvited guest
Not only did you crash my wedding day
You could have at least given us a gift.

© Joshua Baumgarten

New York recovers as Irene passes
Editor's note: Joshua writes from New York, "Here with my wife to celebrate our marriage with the American side of my family.  Due to Irene it never happened.  The big party was cancelled due to the storm.  Which luckily for us, the hype was worse then her bite."
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Joshua is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

Why is it that I only hear
About the great men amongst us
upon the day
of their slaughter.

Beings who actually
Seemed to understand what it meant
To be
God damned human.

To talk about them
In the past tense
Is pain enough
I don’t need metaphor.

I am angry today
Because murder has stolen
From our mist another
Diamond soul.

Our world seems to spin
On an axis of pain

Some, try to see further
Than the circumference
beyond the difference
of our scattered ways

why are they repeatedly stolen from the world

add another name to list

Facundo Cabral
Juliano Mer Khamis
John Lennon
Martin Luther King
Ghandi

A list that seems to stretch back
to the beginning
of time
a list that reaches out towards tomorrow
As if death needs the angels for his own arsenal

The streets of Argentina tear
For the troubadour who
Sang for the soul
and is now
abruptly still.

The tongue can be silenced
But the song can not
Be murdered.

Today I also feel as if
I’m not from here of there
Or from anywhere.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Final farewell for Argentine folk singer Cabral
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Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.
He says: "Sometimes it is hard to get ones head around the large scale and it is only when it is broken down to the one, the individual do we or at least I feel pulsed. So was it when I heard about the murder of Facundo Cabral. Someone I had never heard of before, but after researching the life of the man and listening the songs and the laughter and cheer from the audience, I realized once again the world has devoured another..."saintly" soul. With no religious overtones."

A cold blooded murder
in the heated sand strewn streets of Jenin.
An execution
in front of the affirming doors
of the Freedom Theater.

God was a blind eyed nonpaying
Member of the audience that day,
Seemingly a critic of his own creation,
It was said that he left after the first and only act.
Which portrayed the slaying of a proud man
who had breathed
and now bled,
struggling through a divided life
with only one want
one artistic vision
to produce peace
upon a ghetto stage.

By pursuing freedom,
through
the release of creation,
the liberation of performance
the safety and sanity of the theater
as a relief from the chaos
and out of control insanity
of the daily drama portrayed beyond
the theater doors.

read more here...

© Joshua Baumgarten
Actor Juliano Mer-Khamis gunned down in Jenin
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Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

Ghosts of past plagues
Swarm between the words
Of printed paragraphs
Portraying pariahs in military boots.
Soles imprinted
Into cracked foreheads and
blood stained soil
Front page black and white
By morning halogen overhead
Lamp light.

Rise, fire drenched slogans
Burn in the shadows
Of oil field infernos!
March down streets pock marked
And scarred
the face of a nation
Scathed and battered at dawn,
Awaken.

On the television screen
Another dictator’s eyes
Attempt to glow omnipotent
Covering up an exasperated impotence
the morning news rattles on
the weatherman shares his forecast
a chance of democracy
with partial clouds
and intermittent showers of bombs.

Protestors take to the streets
A revolutionary sunrise
While western nations scramble eggs
And wonder about capital gains.
Imported coffee brews in the pot
Steam rises and escapes,
while yet another nation swipes
the butter knife blade
back and forth
across the aching neck of another
slice of toasted regime.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Libya: Allied air strikes secure Misrata for rebels
-----------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.