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Thursday, April 08, 2010

Explosive Monochrome [News Poem, April 8, 2010]

Explosive Monochrome [News Poem, April 8, 2010]
“We had a guy shooting... and now he's behind the building.”
“Uh, negative, he was, uh, right in front of the brad. Uh, 'bout there... one o'clock. Haven't seen anything since then.”
“Just fuck it. Once you get on 'em just open 'em up.” [4:34 LISTEN, transcription's wrong]
“I see your element, uh, got about four Humvees, uh, out along this uh—”
“You're clear.”
“All right. Firing.”
“Let me know when you get them.”
“Let's shoot.”
“Light 'em all up.”
“Come on. Fire!”
4:22-4:51
“Well it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle.”
“That's right.”
15:29-15:33

http://www.collateralmurder.com/
http://wikileaks.org

With monochrome eyeballs the whirlybird watches
And likewise we're fixed on the ignorant target;
And both of us think of the black and white movies—
Those cellulose nitrates, those obsolete pictures
Of characters featuring colorless faces,
Of subjects long dead and the lingering stigma
Of monochrome colors in digitized footage:
The murder, it plays out like X-Box Three Sixty.

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10 comments:

The Humanist said...

Call of Duty 4 is a commercial for war
Playing on televisions of the poor
Doing more than recruiters in stripmalls
Could with Phd scholarship promise-alls

Billy plays the game in place of school
It is the only place he has potential to rule
All day long he is pwning noobs
Only taking breaks to masturbate on youtube

Billy gets war wedged in his head
And dreams of combat while in bed
Waking to make a life ending decision
To be an Apache gunner with precision

He ends up in Iraq, flying through the air
Still staring at a screen but with less glare
Because the image is in black and white
Making it easy for Billy to pull the trigger tight

From long distances and with high velocity
Billy sends slugs competantly
They pass through their targets and rip them apart
Draining enough blood to stop the heart

While miles and timezones away
Average people go about their average day
But some people are online watching footage of war
Getting mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore

Khakjaan Wessington said...

Good job dude. Thanks for the impromptu composition.

a female Faust said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
a female Faust said...

NEXT COMMENT IS 'FINAL' VERSION PLEASE DISCARD LAST COMMENT AS WELL AS THIS ONE

a female Faust said...

Response to Wikileaks 'Collateral Murder'

recently men and now women (experience)
uniform strength (dis)
service (sat) and those fronting as (is) such
not yet quite but almost no really
perhaps
or
itchingly (faction)
ready
trained to be eager (no questions)
playing
(have five to six individuals with AK-47s)
video
(request permission to engage)
games
roger that you are free to engage
joystick (quick) button (dead)
is it
is it
is it
easy and effortless as ever it was to
(find out that now)
nice shootin' (now its real) thank you
(over)

Khakjaan Wessington said...

Oops, sorry about that. Didn't see your request 'till after. Just hit publish. I think it's more interesting to see the draft process anyhow.

a female Faust said...

um, there's nothing i can do to prevent you (other than futile under-the-breath sounds) but uh, could you please remove the first, misshapen, deformed one? i would rather it weren't the first version seen...

Khakjaan Wessington said...

Needed to show everybody that I didn't censor of my own accord. Have a problem w/ that, except in extreme circumstances.

Thanks for posting/reading.

a female Faust said...

check out Fox: Military Claims There WERE Weapons in Video: Wikileaks... Agrees?

Khakjaan Wessington said...

Eh, I'm not very interested in knee-jerk reactions to dissemblers. Plays into the whole false consciousness of dualism (duelism). I write news poems to defeat this false binary.

It's like chess. Attack the strong point and you waste your time (and material). The whole problem has to do with the way people are _thinking_ about the news. Knee-jerk obedience and knee-jerk reaction. Did you ever consider that they peddle outrage after outrage to keep people blind to the strategic picture?

They build a narrative. The counter-narrative is bullshit (give peace a chance) and the narrative itself is obvious bullshit. Both fail. To defeat this shit, one must understand how they construct the narrative.

In a Coke v Pepsi world, I drink coffee knowing full well that that means someone works on a plantation for lousy wages. The more attention you give to Fox, the more powerful they become. Attack their lies at the root. That means getting hit w/ 'friendly fire' once in a while (or in my case, all the time).