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Friday, February 19, 2010

On the Measure of Human [Today's News Poem, Feb 19, 2010]

On the Measure of Human [Today's News Poem, Feb 19, 2010]
““As you go through a tightening cycle it constricts growth,” said Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial in Boston, which oversees $246 billion. “That impacts future earnings, future profits, future margins. What the market’s doing now is trying to evaluate how quickly and strongly will the tightening be.” The inflation reading “lets the market know the Fed is going to be on the sidelines for a while,” he said.”
Elizabeth Stanton, February 19, 2010, 04:33 PM EST
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-19/u-s-stocks-retreat-after-federal-reserve-raises-discount-rate.html

We've learned to measure everything worth measuring.
The scholars mapped away the space the clergy ruled;
Now science plays the surrogate in pleasuring
The space we've yet to map: remaining time. Who spooled?
And why divide it so? These questions irk no more:
The map's become the turf. Empiricism's goals:
To chart the void of trends until we mark and score
Familiar parts and know the paths through chaos shoals;
Until at last, we've found the way to quell our fear,
And end surprise. Unknowing, true, of our demise—
Its date, its means, the pain, its meaning... still we're near
The final estimate of lives: how money flies
Determines worth of sun and comets—why not kids?
A lien on life to make them work and when it's rid
Emancipated: free—a bit. A final fee
That's used to pick the human from the worker bees.

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The Hypocrite Twin [Bonus Poem]

The Hypocrite Twin
“—Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
--Charles Baudelaire, Au Lecteur

In war, the image graved upon the face of foes
Is long remembered, after he's been slain...
Or she, just think of Chechen widows at that show
In Russia: gas-rebuttals to their pain.
I know enough to know that Hitler liked to rant
And own a room with arms and twitchy hands.
The purse of shouting maws—the same as his I'll grant—
On television: fake-debates with canned
Positions; canned, synthetic talking points
Preserved in fat—in sweat that still anoints
Some man of God and nation—holy—though his eyes
Belie a hungering for flesh. His guise?
A cannibal ex-general who lies
To so-called country-kin
And never cops to spin.
Enemies: they always win.

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