WHHUU

by Paula Schulz

Rodney Todd cared for his seven children, running their Princess Anne household, preparing meals and then working in dining services at a nearby college. For his five daughters, "he did their hair," said Lloyd Edwards, Todd's stepfather. All of them — Todd, 36, and his children ages 6 to 15 — were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in their modest, one-story, yellow-siding home on Antioch Avenue on Monday. Police said Tuesday that they died in bed and a power generator with an empty gas tank was found inside the house. "It appears as though they were sleeping," Princess Anne police Chief Scott Keller said. "Probably it was bedtime and they decided they needed some light and probably some heat. ... Even though it was spring we were having some pretty chilly nights." Edwards said Todd had a generator because the electricity had been shut off at the home. —Jessica Anderson, Colin Campbell and Catherine Rentz, The Baltimore Sun, April 7, 2015

When the winter is long and you are cold,
when the calendar says “spring” but the air
won’t keep heat, when even your bones feel old
and you haven’t enough blankets or clothes to layer--

your father’s face is pain.  He must find a way
to beat back chill misery that has crept
into you, the furniture, the walls  . . .  may-
be a generator.  So while eight sleep

(seven children and their father at last
blessed by a late-August harvest-heat)
the terrible machine eats away their last
oxygen.      I see you now as husks of wheat,

golden, rising against a summer sky,
twin to the sun that sparks you alive:
windmill, water wheel, tilt-a-whirl glide.
Carousel, Ferris wheel, carnival-ride-

happy.  Electric slide, boogaloo moving

and endless, in a burnished moment
warm as human breath.


Author’s note: whhuu - onomatopoeic for last breath  Unvoiced, as in blowing out a candle but without force.

Paula Schulz is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, a recent Pushcart nominee and an educator.  She is hopeful, blue.

RIGHT TO WORK FOR LESS

by Paula Schulz

Gov. Scott Walker Monday signed so-called right-to-work legislation banning requirements that private-sector workers pay union fees, prompting one business to say it will add workers in Milwaukee and another to say it will expand in Minnesota instead. --Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel, March 9, 2015

Earliest morning, the moon a mirror,
the sky that deep, hopeful blue.  And for those
few moments all plans are possible.

You feel it--to walk into the world is
to walk into a fairy tale where the king
is a good man who loves the beautiful.

All the old witches grow backward into joy,
straighten up, fly right, drop glittering
educators in Wisconsin schools.

Every child is beautiful, strong, well-nourished:
factory and government jobs pay
a living wage.  Police and protesters

carry potato guns.   After they face
off, all gather ammo, take it to their
local soup kitchen, cook up a rich

chowder, pass warm bread, talk of family.
Governor Walker goes to Washington,
takes his dislike of the arts with him where,

despite his best efforts, a new WPA
is formed and funded and we learn again
each others stories, paint new portraits

of dignity, sculpt a strong citizenry,
paint with bright colors, polka to a new
American song.


Paula Schulz is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, a recent Pushcart nominee and an educator.  She is hopeful, blue.

I AM

by Paula Schulz

Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped at least 30 boys and girls from a village in northeast Nigeria during the weekend. The abductions appear to be the latest in a string of recent kidnappings by Boko Haram that dims hope for the anticipated release of 219 schoolgirls ‎held by the group since April following a controversial ceasefire declared by Nigerian authorities. --CNN, October 27, 2014

Women and girls abducted by the Islamist group Boko Haram are forced to marry, convert, and endure physical and psychological abuse, forced labor, and rape in captivity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The group has abducted more than 500 women and girls since 2009, and intensified abductions since May 2013, when Nigeria imposed a state of emergency in areas where Boko Haram is most active. Human Rights Watch, October 27, 2014

I am

forgotten by all but a few wasp-like
men, evil by design, who live only

to make more evil. And now their evil
is in me. I feel it. Daily I am

hollowed out as they build their lair
beneath my ribs, one cell at a time.

Fear buzzes in my brain. To my body
also they do what they want. 100

days and more of doing. They want
to remake me in their image, fill me

with mud and crumble. I spend my days
sweeping them away, cleaning all

the paper chambers of the heart.

Paula Schulz works daily in a 3K setting, sits for grandchildren and grieves for these children and their families.

3 MONTHS, 200 NIGERIAN SCHOOLGIRLS

by Paula Schulz

In the 3 months since 200 schoolgirls
were kidnapped, 11 parents have died.
The town of Chibok is just 1 village
cut off from the world, from all mercy,
by Boko Haram. What Haram’s taken--
how to imagine the wear on parents,

the misery of loving fathers
who could not keep their own girls
safe from violent men. The taken
have taken others with them to death’s
doorway. And beyond. 7 fathers could not escape the merci-
less attack on Kautakari village.

4 more have died of heart failure or illness. A village
themselves, they are the grief-broken parents
of the missing. Life showed no mercy
to the father, coma-like and repeating his girls’
names “until life left him”. Until he died,
to say it plainly. So much has been taken

from these families. The school girls taken,
their fathers taken. Powerless villages
of Nigeria pray for life, expect death.
Waiting is hardest for the parents:
all they can think of is their little girls,
children who are merciful, gentle. No mercy

seems likely for them. What kind of mercy
can be found in mobs who burn cars, have taken
airlines out of service. The 57 girls
who ran home found help in their villages.
Grief and rape counselors for themselves, their families.
Now will food shortages mean death?

Chibuk village, the taken girls, their parents:
it can’t be told in numbers, this story
of impending death, this story without mercy.


Editor’s note: This poem is based on reporting in the AP story 11 “Parents of Nigeria’s Abducted Girls Die" by Michelle Faul, July 22, 2014.


Paula Schulz works daily in a 3K setting, sits for grandchildren and grieves for these children and their families.

BOKO HARAM APOLOGIZES

by Paula Schulz

We have taken your children.
We needed something humble to terrorize,
something weak to push around, break like toys.

We have taken your daughters from school.
They shouldn't have been there. We never
went. Yes, the world cannot understand

that we have taken your worthless daughters
from school. Western education is
sinful. And a smart ox does no more work

than a stupid one. We can sell them as whores,
feed them or not, trade them for men of value.
Any grief in us is cold: a chill blade

to stab the hateful. We are not men
who cry womanish tears. We will fire
the bullets of our anger into the future.

We are not peaceful men.


Paula Schulz has taught children for nearly twenty years and joins many others who are saddened and appalled by this kidnapping.