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Monday, January 31, 2011

Calendar Conspiracy [Today's News Poem, January 31, 2011]

Calendar Conspiracy [Today's News Poem, January 31, 2011]

Scar of a pyramid, open your eyelid.
Silt in the river of calendar rhythm;
Tell us the date, flood all our riverbanks.
Lord of the hives, bite with your mandibles—
Rip a new season and stretch out our wounds.
Sand for a path, or a dune in the wastes;
Dune for a joke, monument, prophecy—
Dates by the flood-banks of desolation.

"As tens of thousands of protesters gathered in central Liberation Square to shout for his ouster, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt reshuffled his government on Monday, a gesture that the opposition has already dismissed as inadequate. "
—ANTHONY SHADID, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK AND KAREEM FAHIM, The New York Times, Published: January 31, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/world/middleeast/01egypt.html




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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Two Diagrams [Today's News Poem, January 30, 2011]

Two Diagrams [Today's News Poem, January 30, 2011]

Are we atoms? A ball in our models—no nuclei, leave out electrons—
Yoked to our fellows in chains that distort our best properties—moles in a tube.
For example, I want to believe we are one, but I fear and divide us:
Whole by the faction and faction; religion, by piety; piety, doubt.
We are balls on the table, we're racked all together and shot by a player
Known by her aim as she shoots us in pockets, depositing each of us down
To unknown—so we cluster together and hope to survive that last eightball.

"But Mr. Suleiman, a former general, is also the establishment’s candidate, not the public’s. His appointment, and his elevation, if it were to occur, would represent not the democratic change called for on the street, but most likely a continuation of the kind of military-backed, authoritarian leadership that Mr. Mubarak has led for nearly 30 years, experts said."
—MICHAEL SLACKMAN, The New York Times, Published: January 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/world/middleeast/30suleiman.html




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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Recoil From Our Infant [Today's News Poem, January 29, 2011]

Recoil From Our Infant [Today's News Poem, January 29, 2011]

The new biology, aware of its nerves,
Flexes and the organism flicks electrons
Across the oceans, where it currents the fish.
Frying the schools with its uncanny wavelengths,
It travels into the indifferent air.
Floppy; an infant that is testing, tasting
We teeter, topple from the playful attack:
Somehow it's growing and already too much.

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he enjoys making banks squirm thinking they might be the next targets of his website which has published U.S. diplomatic and military secrets.
"I think it's great. We have all these banks squirming, thinking maybe it's them," Assange told the CBS television program "60 Minutes" in an interview."
—Reuters, Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:57pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/29/idINIndia-54494520110129

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Friday, January 28, 2011

Come, Run-Away From the Sea [Combatwords Poem, January 28, 2011]

Come, Run-Away From the Sea [Combatwords Poem, January 28, 2011]
From http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-28-2011-waiting-for.html

Life as we know it is supple and bitter;
Life as we know it is vicious and glitter.
We look for our lovers in movies,
At networked computers as psychics,
Unknowable God in our psyches—
Our secrets are obvious vices.
Flows to the heart, ebbs fall apart—we're reaching.
Blows shall impart hesitant starts—stone to sandy beaching.

--
The battle has just started. Try to defeat this poem here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-28-2011-waiting-for.html



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Monsieur Mange Tout [Today's News Poem, January 28, 2011]

Monsieur Mange Tout [Today's News Poem, January 28, 2011]

Swallow your phone if you can't bear to fuck it.
Nibble your keyboard; absorb all the letters.
Arsenic scammers and mercury grifters
Took all your hair and diminished your vigor.
Chomp on the light-bulbs and tear up your palette;
Glass and the vacuum reform in your stomach.
Vomit a circuit, yes, vomit your greeting:
Freedom of trinket, of splinters and ulcers.
Eat and become what you eat, you're the patsy:
Junk's your vocation; your outrage, illusion.

"Our technology editor Charles Arthur has the details on the internet restrictions in Egypt. He writes:
Egypt appears to have cut off almost all access to the internet from inside and outside the country from late on Thursday night, in a move that has concerned observers of the protests that have been building in strength through the week."
—The Guardian UK, 28.01.11, Updated 08.52 GMT
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sqcsls3cjigDe3RtcOrYA_w/view.m?id=15&gid=news/blog/2011/jan/28/egypt-protests-live-updates&cat=world



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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Teeth in the Wind [Today's News Poem, January 27, 2011]

Teeth in the Wind [Today's News Poem, January 27, 2011]

Inside your face a smaller one grins in its chamber of teeth—they are seeds
Of pomegranate red, it is fertile—your mouth is a garden of jaws.
Stamen the wind—you'll bless it with something as small as a sliver of sand.
What swells when there is only the breeze to upset it, what burdens conspire
Windward to sully angiosperms with a blessing of curses and birth?
Don't spill it, you can spread it with smiles in the jaws of your jaws and your breath
Rancid as jasmine; sweet to the brink of the rotten—the breath that you add
To air: if you have prayers, they are psalms of aggression, Persephone, Mars.

"Obama is striking a different strategy than the one deployed by President Bill Clinton after voters gave him a mid-term rebuke in 1994. Clinton got busy slashing spending and it contributed to a decade of historic growth and prosperity. Obama is taking more of a hybrid approach. Tuesday night he promised spending restraint and deficit reduction, and said some very encouraging things about fostering a healthier business climate. At the same time, he is pitching major new spending initiatives and only modest deficit reductions."
—Editorial, The Detroit News, January 27. 2011 1:00AM
http://www.detnews.com/article/20110127/OPINION01/101270343/1008/Editorial—Mixed-signals-in-Obama-speech

"Many of the budget-cutting proposals from Democrats and Republicans focus on a relatively small part of the U.S.'s $3.5 trillion budget: the roughly 15% that accounts for nonsecurity, discretionary spending. But the deficit is being driven by programs that are more politically difficult to cut, such as the Medicare health plan for seniors, military spending and Social Security."
—DAMIAN PALETTA, JANET HOOK And JONATHAN WEISMAN, The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 27, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703293204576105902436635610.html

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Rohypnol Fight Club [Today's News Poem, January 26, 2011]

Rohypnol Fight Club [Today's News Poem, January 26, 2011]

How will we war with no shrapnel to season our bloodiest Marys?
Gunpowder lines on the toilet are wimpy and cordite's last season.
Top what preceded this fashion—imbibe all the newest creations:
Salt for your peter, a clot in your arteries—stroke to the finish.
Addle the placid, obstruct what was clear and get higher than sorties
Bombing the stones into dance-floors and guzzle your tankards of tonic.
Roll all those bills to inhale all that fragrance—those fractions of warheads—
Dance to the sound of machine-guns in seizures of puncture and leaking.
Spike in the drink adds the pleasure of virgins and burns like a monarch:
Mickey, a roofie, a body to ravish then ditch in a dumpster.

"“I cannot say it strongly enough: I will not support any measures that stress our forces and jeopardize the lives of our men and women in uniform,” Mr. McKeon said in an opening statement that followed up on a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urging him not to stop work on the Marines’ $14.4. billion Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a combined landing craft and tank for amphibious assaults that Mr. Gates canceled this month."
—ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER, The New York Times, January 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/us/politics/27pentagon.html


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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Pyramids [Today's News Poem, January 25, 2011]

The Pyramids [Today's News Poem, January 25, 2011]

You have wondered where days go, where sweat lands;
And you ponder the pizza, your best friend
When you're weary and used-up from work days.
You're an animal eating the dry crusts
On the floor, by computer, in light-bulb
Serenade; and you laugh at your tv
And you tumble your beer on the hardwood.
In the night an alarm will awake you
As the safety glass fractures on curbside
And you'll wonder who benefits, who cares
As the shrieking subsides down the hillside,
With a sound like the mornings you hate. Rise!

"It takes a lot to terrorize a Russian. Compared to the truly spectacular acts of terrorism and violence that Russians have suffered over the past two decades, today’s suicide bombing at Moscow’s busiest airport, Domodedovo, is too small-time to have much of an effect besides pissing off an already-pissed-off population.... Back in 2004, two passenger jets that took off from this same airport were blown out of the sky by Chechen “black widows”... Eduard Limonov explained to me what he thought was behind the logic: “They understood that Russians wouldn’t be moved if only one plane was blown up, so they blew up two planes simultaneously, just to get our attention,” he said. "
—Mark Ames, Vanity Fair, January 24, 2011, 6:20 PM
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/01/dead-souls-how-russians-react-to-terror.html



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Monday, January 24, 2011

Pattern of Rapid Decline [Today's News Poem, January 24, 2011]

Pattern of Rapid Decline [Today's News Poem, January 24, 2011]

Sand blasts and water spouts mist:
Elephant charges a whale.
Red foam collides with death groans;
Dissipates under the waves.

In the clouds, there's an eagle
Landing to nest deep in the cliffs.
She has scavenged from battle
Bones of the slain beasts of the beach.

Dragon awakens annoyed
From its sediment coffin,
Cracking the spine of the rock
It is shaking the mountain.

"FOR a superpower, dealing with the fast rise of a rich, brash competitor has always been an iffy thing. Just ask the British, who a century ago were struggling to come to terms with the erosion of their status as the world’s No. 1 empire. It didn’t help that they were being upstaged by a former colony that had turned into an upstart sea-power with money, talent, and a knack for mangling a perfectly good language. Eventually they took the hit to the national ego from those Americans and discovered there were advantages to no longer playing the role of the indispensible power. Or ask Thucydides, the Athenian historian whose tome on the Peloponnesian War has ruined many a college freshman’s weekend. The line they had to remember for the test was his conclusion: “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”"
—DAVID E. SANGER, The New York Times, Published: January 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/weekinreview/23sanger.html




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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Wallet Spirits [Today's News Poem, January 23, 2011]

Wallet Spirits [Today's News Poem, January 23, 2011]

Does it flow like sewage; burn like oven cleaner?
Or closer to lightning in copper on tree trunks?
If it thinks, then who locates the brain on this thing?

Wallet spirits bless and curse, informed by whimsy:
The angels are sucking the breath from one baby
And then hiss in a nose for another to take.

Watch it flow from cargo hold to corner office;
It falls like the calendars ripped all asunder
And then tossed out a window for winds to collect.


"But a policy can be bad for us without being good for China. In fact, Chinese currency policy is a lose-lose proposition, simultaneously depressing employment here and producing an overheated, inflation-prone economy in China itself. "
—PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times, Published: January 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/opinion/21krugman.html

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

You're missing something...

... like a good fight!

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-21-2011-simpletons.html




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El Niño La Ley [Today's News Poem, January 22, 2011]

El Niño La Ley [Today's News Poem, January 22, 2011]

Southern Pacific, a child is reborn
Out of the tropical heat and depression
And moves to LA where he washes the dishes.

Christ! Have you tried to commute to your work
Riding a bus in the Golden State's traffic
With dozens of cripples? They're broke and they're reeking.

Finding the places where money's concealed
Takes tenths of days—a third spent asleep,
A third in the effort—a life as a robot.

Sometimes rebellion's inaction and talk:
Flickers of cigarette ash in the roadway,
A liquor store temple attracting the worship

Bacchus demands—there's a god who rejects
Progress and drinks to the bottom of barrels,
Negating the vineyard and engines of harvest.

Save if you care to sustain the machine,
Neon your path, all the lights give permission;
Your Porsche, Toyota, they're ready and racing

Selves and each other, erasing the miles,
Puffing a smoke of their own, they've exhausted
All patience and grind what remains in their axles.

"A man crossing a busy Los Angeles-area boulevard was twice struck by hit-and-run drivers, a woman who tried to help him was hit by yet another car, and the driver who tried to help her was beaten and robbed by a mob, police said Friday. "
—The Associated Press, 1 Hour ago, as of 1/21/2011 at 10:23pm.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h39u5bGJyP7Ak-pXXCZLRUQwDqFw?docId=904e7e2f7ea44fdab40e14968cef698f

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The Daily News Poem is One Year Old and Looks as Ugly as its Dad

I want to allocate more writing time to other projects, but I enjoy writing the daily News Poem. I hope that it defrags your mental hard drive as much as it does mine. Exploring the news through poetry has become a way for me to examine my own prejudices and false consciousness, because poetry is the core of my being and news is something grafted on to that like some prosthetic. It's a meta-narrative that probes for vulnerable parts of one's psyche and exploits them for the sake of its wielder. Personally, I'm stunned how much bullshit I accepted--if only because new bullshit is predicated upon old bullshit. So for me, the news poem serves as an anti-Medusa mirror or a laser-pen I can shine at the black helicopters. So I'll see how long I can sustain this. Running Toylit is enervating. Not just the writing, but also the promotions and associated performance art. It's probably not worth all this effort, but I'm a writer which means that I already don't have a practical bent of mind.

In short, buy my book and nominate me for a Shorty Award: http://toylit.blogspot.com/2011/01/nominate-toylit-for-shorty-award-in.html

Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:

You can get it as an E-Book at Amazon as well http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004AYDHXY

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Nominate @toylitpaper for a Shorty Award in #Poetry

Why?

You've got 99 problems, but News Poetry ain't 1.
You're saving your money for the Toylit 2010 Report and this is how you're going to thank me in the meantime.
Because you think it's hilarious to throw a dog a bone.
You recognize my authority as a deacon of evil and the power of Satan compels you.
You don't want some hack to win and gloat about it.
You've been waiting for the chance to use Twitter to do something useful.
You genuinely enjoy Toylit.

Steps:
1) Copy: I nominate @toylitpaper for a Shorty Award in #poetry because...
2) Finish the sentence.
3) Paste to [LINE REDACTED] http://twitter.com

Greed Incentive: If I win, I'll make the Q1/Q2 report free to download.
Guilt Incentive: I'm already working on a free book for you.

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Mantra for Sunset [Today's News Poem, January 21, 2011]

Mantra for Sunset [Today's News Poem, January 21, 2011]

Call for your mistress, she's marching away.
There goes her green; her sandals and toes
Ripple the undertow, stagger the sand.
Distantly, gulls scribe 'm' on the sun.
Ponder the letter then hum it aloud.
"Mmm" is the rattle liberty makes
Inside your skull, which was stretched by ideas—
Sadly, your brain's back down to the size
Prior to freedom—it's smaller in fact.
Hum for the seagulls; call for the sun—
Everything's shrinking and even the torch
Fades and the light hisses on water.

"For now, the fear of destabilizing the municipal bond market with the words “state bankruptcy” has proponents in Congress going about their work on tiptoe. No draft bill is in circulation yet, and no member of Congress has come forward as a sponsor, although Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, asked the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, about the possiblity in a hearing this month. "
—MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, The New York Times, Published: January 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/business/economy/21bankruptcy.html



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Thursday, January 20, 2011

A few more minutes until your 365th day of news poems

It has been a year that started off with iambs, switched to trochees, fell into iambs & pyrrhics before committing deeply to anapests and dactyls. Oh and some horrible shit happened, but you already read about it in all the news in witty print... no? See that crazy looking baby on your right? That's called a memory brick. If you buy it, a big brick of paper will help jar not only your memories of 2010, but also your emotions. Poetry's a mnemonic device that encodes more than phonemes, symbols and rhythms... uh, did I say poetry? I meant to say memory brick. Buy your own today!

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Energy Conversion [Today's News Poem, January 20, 2011]

Energy Conversion [Today's News Poem, January 20, 2011]

Energy's lost with every conversion.
Entropy rules us, dominates cycles.
Parents: the link to ancestors—frenzied
Idiots, cavemen, monsters and wildcats
Somehow created life as we know it.
Cudgels for fathers, pimps for our mothers:
Marriage and murder—willingly brutish.
Moments spent gazing into the water,
Sleeping in grass as thunderheads gathered
Transferred to heirs: the dew of the tranquil
Gilded with bloody drops then transmitted;
Mixed with the sperm and ova that bonded—
Echoes of bite and nothing like parents.

"As state governments struggle with the fiscal damage caused by the recession, an income tax increase has become a rarely used remedy. "
—MICHAEL POWELL, The New York Times, Published: January 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/business/economy/20tax.html

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Office Jam [Today's News Poem, January 19, 2011]

Office Jam [Today's News Poem, January 19, 2011]

Behold the peanut butter sandwich—
Bread as white as fax machines.
With so many jams to choose, adhere
Anywhere from desk to traffic.
Tomorrow's worth today, I'll stick it
Out and eat my kindergarten lunch,
And color forms inside the margins;
Waiting for promotion, stuck on sweet.

"Stranded drivers chain-smoked, stomped their feet against the chill and cursed the government for failing to come to their rescue. As the night wore on, fuel lines froze and cellphone batteries died.
The residents of Hetaocun, however, saw the unmoving necklace of taillights from their mountain village and got entrepreneurial. They roused children from their beds, loaded boxes of instant noodles into baskets and began hawking their staples to a captive clientele. The 500 percent markup did not appear to dent sales."
—ANDREW JACOBS, The New York Times, Published: January 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/asia/19traffic.html

"Long before they became doctors and lawyers or C.E.O.’s and real estate developers, they played in garage bands and maybe even dreamed of becoming rock stars. That’s why they signed up for Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy Camp,.. “I feel like I’m 18 again,” said Jerry Goldberg, a 60-year-old investment banker and guitar player, "
—LARRY ROHTER, The New York Times, Published: January 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/arts/music/19fantasy.html



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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Trickle-Down Dinner [Today's News Poem, January 18, 2011]

Trickle-Down Dinner [Today's News Poem, January 18, 2011]

Porcelain monarchy: wealth trickles downward,
Plumbing foundations—shares shit with mollusks.
Only the purest obtain such positions.
Angle it deeper, inject liquid diets.
Natural predators eat filth and like it,
Writhe in the excrement, crawl ever after.
Cannibals gobble up meat, shit—whatever
Thrones care to flush down the drain, feed me dinner!

"I intend to introduce legislation that would require the Treasury to make interest payments on our debt its first priority in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised. This would not only ensure the continued confidence of investors at home and abroad, but would enable us to have an honest debate about the consequences of our eventual decision about the debt ceiling."
—PAT TOOMEY, The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 19, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954004576089963912388314.html

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Monday, January 17, 2011

The Career of a Savior [Today's News Poem, January 17, 2011]

The Career of a Savior [Today's News Poem, January 17, 2011]

I poked at my self with a needle a while.
Exchanging the needle for scissors,
I trimmed off the landscapes—some flowers, a hedge.
Spade for the scissor; new lamps for old.
I dug for a treasure, or China at least
And slept in my trench, dodging the shells.
The counter-barrage was exhausted. I rose
Out of the dirt like a zombie god
And traded my spade for a mansion with servants.

"On Saturday, church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper is expected to get 30 minutes of air time on a Phoenix talk show hosted by Steve Sanchez. And on Monday, the nationally syndicated Mike Gallagher show will give an hour to Ms. Phelps-Roper. “One hour of radio time on my radio show is quite insignificant compared to [what] the grieving families and the mourning families have to go through,” says Mr. Gallagher, a conservative political commentator."
—Lourdes Medrano, Christian Science Monitor, Correspondent / January 14, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0114/How-Tucson-kept-Westboro-Baptist-Church-protests-out-of-town

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Sunday, January 16, 2011

Recurring Digression [Today's News Poem, January 16, 2011]

Recurring Digression [Today's News Poem, January 16, 2011]

My obsessions with history, war, economics
Are sizable, reckless, romantic, unhealthy.
I know this, though death's hand's tremendous,
The deadliest knowledge demands comprehension.
At first they were rubber men, wars in a sandbox.
Then voluminous Britannica featured the portraits distinguished
With color, or text, or as ultimate reference.
I gamed through the pages and chose my adventure
Returning to mushrooms and bomb-laying birds.
So the plane overhead is the sound of my doubt,
And we all agree the mustache is humorless, grim and oppressive;
He belches his jokes which evaporate, hissing a bit,
Digressing the reader and finally halting all progress
In favor of sorting it out in a state of expanding confusion.

"Germany faces mounting pressure from the European Commission and its euro zone partners to strengthen a rescue fund for troubled member states, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF)... Der Spiegel reported, however, that the European Commission expected the euro zone crisis to worsen in the first few months of this year. "
—Andreas Rinke, Reuters, MAINZ, Germany | Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:24am EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70E1AQ20110115

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Cartesian Evil Genius Makes You Lose 'The Game' Again [Combatwords Repost, January 14, 2011]

Cartesian Evil Genius Makes You Lose 'The Game' Again [Combatwords Repost, January 14, 2011]
http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-friday-january-14-2011.html

Between identity and reality is paranoia;
A sense of visionary omnipotence is underneath those,
Beyond that, nihilism as knowledge—not as inspiration—
And hope's not opposite to the pessimism we all suffer.
Impose persona, you can impersonate what and whomever
You crave becoming, but it behooves you to be the imposed on.

For example, you're reading this page, uncertain
That this poem is meaningful—now you get it.
For you either reject what it claims, or welcome
Diagnosis, but either version affirms it.

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Saturday, January 15, 2011

Villain Farmer [Today's News Poem, January 15, 2011]

Villain Farmer [Today's News Poem, January 15, 2011]

Sing of the barbed-wire and string me along it.
Break but don't bend, you must rake up my organs.
Pass me along to the grass and the insects.
Trade me for orchards—you made me a coffin.
Walk with me; hands graze the stalks of the barley.
Both of us harvest the oath of the planted.
Reap if you must, but to keep what grows wild;
Will it, uncover and kill, you must spill it.

"Shortly after Friday's massive demonstrations in Tunis, which reached a crescendo outside the hated Ministry of the Interior on Avenue Mohamed V, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country, taking refuge in Saudi Arabia. The army and security forces are trying to impose order in Tunis. Tanks and armored personnel carriers have been deployed on one of the capital's main thoroughfares, Avenue 7 Novembre (named after the date when Ben Ali assumed presidential powers in 1987). At midday Saturday I watched as two truckloads of soldiers pulled up on the avenue and began stringing out barbed wire."
—Ben Wedeman, CNN Senior International Correspondent, January 15, 2011 -- Updated 1817 GM
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/15/tunisia.wedeman.scene/

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Friday, January 14, 2011

Combatwords, Friday January 14, 2011: Identity and Reality

Live competitive performance-writing, no net. Can you do it?

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-friday-january-14-2011.html



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Hope Bait [Today's News Poem, January 14, 2011]

Hope Bait [Today's News Poem, January 14, 2011]

Her heels have direction, they've walked from desire
Only because she's too drunk to return
In her Porsche and needs to stay fit so her belly
Can host a new clone, should she meet the right droid.
Anklets of silver; for gold is too gauche
For the shades of her toenails, her modest restraint.
Like dominoes, cocks go erect as she sways—
Climbing the hill to her mansion in fog—
Then they topple and hide disappointed, in trousers.
A clone, she's an actress, a fnord that you missed
Due to your jealousy, fantasy, hope.
They unscrew her prosthetics and download her brain
To the master of scams, to the foundry of fraud.

"Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has left the country, amid the worst unrest there in decades. The Arabic language network al-Jazeera says the speaker of parliament is temporarily in charge. The president was reported to have boarded a flight out of the country Friday evening local time. The military had sealed off the airport and closed Tunisian airspace a short time beforehand."
—Voice of America News, 14 January 2011
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Tunisian-President-Dismisses-Government-Amid-Protests-113607609.html

"Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Friday that the country's rival political factions had no alternative to dialogue after the collapse of his "unity government" this week."
—Reuters, Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:14pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70D46120110114

"The incidents and disruptions continued into autumn, the records said, and college officials became concerned about Loughner's mental health. After an incident in September, a police officer delivered a suspension letter to him and recounted the events that had taken place. When the officer was finished, according to the report, Loughner responded, "I realize now that this is all a scam.""
—Ross Levitt and Susan Candiotti, CNN, January 14, 2011 12:58 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/14/arizona.shooting.investigation/





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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Tiger Father [Today's News Poem, January 13, 2011]

Tiger Father [Today's News Poem, January 13, 2011]

The last time I saw you, you raved at my mother
And called her a bitch, but you never did eat her.
You said in Korea that dogs were for dinner
To justify kicking my puppy down stairwell.
You held up a knife, but I cried—yes the weakling
You thought you had sired—so disgusted, you left us
For weeks on a mission for pussy and Mah Jong,
But managed to keep your position at Bechtel.
I thought I'd gain insight by reading your bookshelf,
A mess of the titles they'd banned in Korea.
There's Nietzsche, there's Marx; both extremists and honkys:
One said to conform—said the other, "surpass them."
You drove to the beach with us, promising closure.
You closed it, you bought me a motorized tchotchke;
A GI Joe tank made of plastic—a motor
Of nothing—though later I'd learned from my brother
Your father disowned us, as hybrids and mongrels.
And later, I'd learn from my mother, your daring—
An expert at leaping through trains that were moving.
A master of running—you ran from the commies
At eight, up and down the peninsula fleeing
Explosions and bullet-brained leatherneck soldiers.
At eight, I had run near the cliffs with my brothers—
A fatass with glasses and fists full of pebbles
I threw at some kids—did I gain your approval
That day on the cliffs near the city of Francis?
If not, I am waiting; I'm eight and I'm waiting
For black and white you with a face that looks haunted.
A black and white you in an album that faded;
That stood at attention with classmates and teachers.
You left me a message all scribbled with Hangul,
Your face in a war-zone—so gaunt from you starving:
It cannot get worse than this—life is just cruelty.

"Then I saw a tweet by Jen Wang, who blogs at Disgrasian about her own "hardass Asian mom," in which she also noted a disconnect between the Journal story and the book from which it was supposedly excerpted. When I reached out to her for details, she explained, "The book isn't a how-to manual, as the Journal excerpt would have you believe -- it's a memoir. As such, you'll see some truth in it, and you'll also see glaring blind spots and a sometimes-woeful lack of self-examination. That truth, instead of making you hate Chua, will cause you to reflect on your own upbringing -- and your own parenting style, good and bad. And I think this is especially important for Asian Americans who feel that they were parented Chua-style, and are bitter about it -- that is to say, most of us.""
—Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 13, 2011
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/13/apop011311.DTL


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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Invisible Servant [Today's News Poem, January 12, 2011]

Invisible Servant [Today's News Poem, January 12, 2011]

Rubble up and rubble down:
Castles gone to ruined stone,
Cane is swaying breezily;
Ships of sweetened blood and brick
Passed the coral reefs to drown.

Pass another packet dear,
Chatter needs a sugar boost.
Idle hands gesticulate.
Coffee: meal of black and bone
Animates the cafe cheer.

All this news can drive you mad;
Drink another cup of joe,
Eat another slice of pie—
Help your gut digest the cause:
Service makes the heart grow glad.

"Tuesday marked the first anniversary of the earthquake that changed the face of a nation. "
—Ivan Watson and Moni Basu, CNN, January 12, 2011 -- Updated 1834 GMT
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/01/12/haiti.earthquake.anniversary/

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Addressing Future Folk-Demons [Today's News Poem, January 11, 2011]

Addressing Future Folk-Demons [Today's News Poem, January 11, 2011]

Careful with dreams—you'll be forced in a corner.
Die by the minute, get paid by the hour,
Live in the moment—be animal instinct.
Children, your dreams are not useful; your homework—
Sloppy—you're headed for sorrow; your crayons
Useless as play—so be careful and care less.
Register cash and put dreams in a dumpster.
Learn to adapt, for you're surplus—unneeded.
Grimace, survive, be a fan just like Exley—
Watch all those brutes—first as bullies, then bosses:
Excellent mouths can impersonate laughter.
Why won't you learn that they freeze in position?
Why not accept that you're born for no purpose
Other than service as demon, and moron?

"Most of us get up in the morning assuming we will not be the victims of some horrific tragedy that day."
—Editorial, Des Moines Register, January 11, 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-01-11-ariz-shooting-giffords-main_N.htm

"My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream—sadly."
—Jared Lee Loughner (classitup10), youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10

"You forced me in a corner and gave me only one option"
—Seung-Hui Cho, youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyalPi1GeDY

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Glandularia Gooddingii [Today's News Poem, January 10, 2011]

Glandularia Gooddingii [Today's News Poem, January 10, 2011]

The springtime in taxicabs, spring in the pistol;
Spring will arrive and the vervain is ready.
It's purple and handles the winter, it's perfect
Now that the sun has diminished; its pollen's
Alert and its stamen is quivering—something
Comes on the wind and, transforming the pistil,
The ammo of seedlings will fill up the flower.
Median herb; the perennial landscape
Of parking lot pistols, of taxicab meters,
Tombstones in deserts, assassins of leaders.

"Few outside his home state will have heard of Clarence W Dupnik before this weekend, but if world reaction to the Arizona shootings has focused on inflammatory rightwing rhetoric, it is largely down to the Pima county sheriff's pronouncements."
—Jon Henley, guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 January 2011 18.14 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/10/giffords-shooting-sheriff-rightwing-rhetoric




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Sunday, January 09, 2011

Bone Seed [Today's News Poem, January 9, 2011]

Bone Seed [Today's News Poem, January 9, 2011]

I had a little bone and I planted it
Bloodied it daily, it grew into a skull
Beneath the summer dirt and the nectar dried,
Jasmine unwound and the blossoms fell to mud.
As dry as any skeleton. Brittle. Brown.
Winter made cairns with its snow and froze the grave,
My bone had also blossomed and drank the ice.

"The 22-year-old man suspected in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and at least 17 others outside a Tucson grocery store was suspended from a local community college last October for code of conduct violations and ultimately withdrew from the school voluntarily. He was suspended in late September after the college police found a video on YouTube in which Loughner claimed the college is "illegal" under the U.S. Constitution, officials said. "
—Ashley Powers, Maeve Reston and Rick Rojas, Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0109-gabrielle-giffords-web-20110109,0,5602549.story

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Saturday, January 08, 2011

Sociogeopolitical Art Project [Today's News Poem, January 8 2011]

Sociogeopolitical Art Project [Today's News Poem, January 8 2011]

Start with some pencil, a blank sheet will do.
Draw just the measurement, draw it to scale.
Fill it with people, some animal parks.
Color a smile on the sun, on the cattle.
Don't like a city? Then crush it to rubble.
Sketch on your picture an 'x' for the blindness
Of death, draw a skull to denote what's been wasted
By bored rulers drawn to make scribbles in margins
On blank pages—forcing out options with image.

"Southern Sudan, on the eve of a historic referendum for independence from the north, faces a future with a fundamental difficulty: Finding southern Sudanese trained to run a fledgling country.
When Sudan's last civil war ended in 2005, the leaders of the southern rebellion against the north rewarded many of its soldiers with jobs in the south's ruling party. Now the south's finance ministry, on the verge of overseeing a budget for a new nation, has a surfeit of rebels-turned-bureaucrats who can barely read."
—SARAH CHILDRESS, The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 8, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576067790998188326.html

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Insist An If [Combatwords Poem, January 7, 2011]

Insist An If [Combatwords Poem, January 7, 2011]
From: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-7-2011-splitting.html

She doesn't know, she said she doesn't know
And so an extra pint, a shot of gin—
And pinball through the jukebox techno pop.

Pick a fight—what makes that eightball special?
Grab it, throw it where the music (music?)
Emanates and break the sound of fuckers.

She says she doesn't know, so disagree
And jump the curb—she's fists: his hair and keys.
At last she's driving somewhere definite.

"God does not exist you crazy bitch,
Why withhold your judgment, nothing's there.
Say it might be so, I dare you, say it,"

Might be so. She married mighty soul,
A frantic drunk she shouldn't love—
Mostly doesn't anymore—
But drives him back to sheets;
Rolls the extra bed
And lays her head
Under moon
And asks
'If.'

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Friday, January 07, 2011

Combatwords for January 7 2011: Splitting Hairs

Bring your belligerent streak to http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-7-2011-splitting.html

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Fissioning Techne [Today's News Poem, January 7, 2011]

Fissioning Techne [Today's News Poem, January 7, 2011]

Come to us, cling to our structures;
Change our molarity, Atom.
Burst through our skin, you're invited,
Dig in our tissue and match us.

The hidden things summon you,
For like is the alchemy
Of like, gone to likeliness.

We've antagonized mysteries
Of invisible universe,

Self-destruct, strong-force, and poison.

"The tests at the plant in northern Germany where the contamination happened revealed levels of dioxin at 77 times the permitted level... The source of the problem seems to be a plant in northern Germany which makes a wide variety of material to be used in animal feed, but also in industrial processes like paper-making. Somehow, a substance containing dioxin which shouldn't have been used in food for animals found its way into (on the current reckoning) 3,000 tonnes of feed. Prosecutors are investigating whether that was by design, perhaps to save money, or by accident."
—BBC, 7 January 2011 Last updated at 13:17 ET
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12139407




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Thursday, January 06, 2011

Meat [Guest Political Cartoon by Seann McCollum, January 6, 2011]


Seann McCollum's origins are shrouded in mystery and conspiracy. Satellite imagery suggests he writes books and sells them here: http://www.lulu.com/antvsant. According to our Top Men, he goes by @syntaxidermist on Twitter and maintains a gallery of frequently updated art and writing here: http://carrioncall.blogspot.com. He's not one to gloat about past achievement, thus inducing others to gloat on his behalf. See how crafty he is?

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The Midrash of Faxes and Feces [Today's News Poem, January 6, 2011]

The Midrash of Faxes and Feces [Today's News Poem, January 6, 2011]

In the hills of Carmel where the dust coats the carobs
There's a parchment of dung, there's a fax in the grass;
And the cypress boughs fertilize foothills of worship,
And the goats drop their pellets for herders to salvage.
It's the place where the priests wrote their poems with feces
On the coprophage flesh of the lambs of the desert.
From the droppings of sheep to the mouths of the rabbis
Through the grass, in the dirt, in that rapture of pasture.
They have gilded uncleanliness, called it a Torah,
And have culled from their flocks just the skin of the scapegoat.
Should one study the excrement; study the shepherd
And his he-ass, his she-ass—his breath and his writing?

"And let it be said, on this second day following the convening of the 112th Congress, newly sworn members of the House shall stand and read aloud the Constitution of the United States. And so it was Thursday, as lawmakers took turns reciting each verse and article of the document. Republicans in charge of the chamber rattled it off with missionary zeal, as if in a school civics class. Democrats pitched in, but with seemingly less ardor."
—JIM ABRAMS, The Associated Press, Thursday, January 6, 2011; 11:23 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010602566.html

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Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Acid Bath [Today's News Poem, January 5, 2011]

Acid Bath [Today's News Poem, January 5, 2011]

Pity the frog, it is senseless to gradual boiling.
Also, it misunderstands the whole concept of liquid.
Nietzsche had said that when headless and splashed by an acid
Nerves from the corpse will still twitch from the pain of exposure.

The frog is in you, in your genitals, inside your skin
As ghost of your instincts; it croaks for the freedom it lost.
Indulging the whimsy, you lay in your bathtub and wait
For heat to subside; and you nap in a soup of yourself.

"Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants like Ms. Vasquez stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called “anchor babies.” "
—MARC LACEY, The New York Times, Published: January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/politics/05babies.html

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Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Die For Friday Night Football [Guest News Poem by RL Greenfield, January 4, 2011]

Die For Friday Night Football [Guest News Poem by RL Greenfield, January 4, 2011]
By RL Greenfield

Wanted: red white & blue boys & girls
for Afghanistan
Go to the desert & die for Jesus Allah & Exxon.
Die for Halliburton & the Carlyle Group.
Lie down & croak for General Electric.
Die for J. Updike’s skinny anemic god, Rabbit Angstrom.
Die your ass off for Dow C. Jones & for Binny the Laden
& Starbucks, International. Die for all-American spaghetti,
Die for Chinese food made in America by white dudes---
Yeah, die a little bit for a tank full of gasoline at nine bucks
a gallon & on the up & up: die for the death of the American
penis, circa, 2009---finally got that out of the way
Shut up & die like a good little pussy-whipped cowboy
who wears sandals to church every Sunday morning
Die so you can have a ninety-nine cent funeral paid for by
Blackwater, Inc. free coffee & donuts
Die for China that owns the USA lock stock & candlestick
Die for A & W Root Beer high school football & unrequited love
Die for The New York Times The Wall Street Journal &
Time Magazine
Die for David Letterman Jay Leno Bill Gates & Viagra
Do you need another reason? Die for white bread
& call it a day.



RL Greenfield lives in & loves Los Angeles, California.
 
Recent work online Stride Magazine ( poems, Aug. 2010), Poetic Matrix ( poems Dec  2010).   9 January & 1 December 2009---Charles Wright’s Littlefoot and Russell Edson’s See Jack.  Forthcoming poems The Denver Quarterly, Chiron Review, Nether,  Eunoia Review, & Sein und Werden.  Review of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road online  November, 2010 Gently Read Literature.  Numerous other publications in national reviews such as The Wormwood Review, The New York Quarterly, The Minnesota Review.
 
RLG received NEA fellowship literature mss of poems 1995.  Created television program  The Greenfield Code & produced & hosted 150 one-hr shows in Santa Barbara featuring writers & artists.  It was terrifically successful & a thrilling experience that transformed his esthetic forever.


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Prayers Blow Back [Today's News Poem, January 4, 2011]

Prayers Blow Back [Today's News Poem, January 4, 2011]

We've been blowing our fumes for so long
The sky thinks we deserve a reward.
We've spit sacraments into the mouth
Of God, doubting it sips what we've breathed.
If prayer works, then I ask why don't storms?
Why ice, asteroids, rainbows and sun?
We blow back on your breath with a curse,
You send us the collateral birds—
We shout down all the flight and they're stunned
By bad breath and embittered, foul tongues.

"At most recent count, up to 5,000 birds fell on the city. Sixty five samples were sent to labs, one of which is at the Livestock and Poultry Commission and the other in Madison, Wis. "
—CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, The New York Times, Published: January 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04beebe.html


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