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Saturday, July 03, 2010

Astral Projection to the Tropics [Today's News Poem, July 3, 2010]

Astral Projection to the Tropics [Today's News Poem, July 3, 2010]

Relax and take fantasy. Ride on the ether
Across the dull ocean and land in the jungle.
A village, a garden of smoke and green timber
Awaits you. The orphans are playing with garbage.
A tee-shirt you donated: legible, ragged.
“All meat comes from MURDER!” You linger above him—
That boy with the shirt that you got as a joke that
You pledged on a whim. He is banging on rusted
And emptied out drums, with a stick, as a lorry
Collides with a car and the driver is screaming
To run—and the urchins are racing to gather
Their plastic containers and rush to the gusher
Of dollars, of dinners, of medicine; school fees—
The suction of air from the fireball erupting
That shatters the windows and heartbeats of children.

“A fuel tanker overturned, caught fire and exploded in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday evening, killing more than 200 villagers, some of whom had been trying to gather fuel from the leaking truck, officials in Congo said Saturday... United Nations-sponsored Radio Okapi in Congo said more than a quarter of the victims were children. ”
– Adam Nossiter, The New York Times, July 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/world/africa/04congo.html?_r=1&hp



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