Universal Exchange [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2012]

Universal Exchange [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2012]

Canopy, marketplace, sign of the scale—

What is the balance—what's in the balance?

Is it feast? Is it ample like booty?

If its sum adds to zero, then pity

Losers if loss is our destiny?

Loss is desire, pity's oppression

(And language subjective), meaning's

Subjective. Balance: the anchor,

Currency, chain and the sign of the tongue.

“There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/why-are-harvard-graduates-in-the-mailroom.html

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Choker of the Apes [Today's News Poem, February 17, 2012]

Choker of the Apes [Today's News Poem, February 17, 2012]

Property is theft; likewise is the self.

Selfness is the lapse, folly and betrays.

Ownership is flaw, ego and the self's

Selfish, and a slave; prayer of the false teeth.

Self is a desire—nothing like our maw.

Atoms and your tears give you to ourselves.

Polymers of life, lifelines on a string,

Billions on our neck: choker of the apes.

“DURING Mr. Soleri’s long tenure, Arcosanti evolved into a surprising anachronism: a company town. The product line? Handmade bells and heady theories about imaginary cities, or “arcologies.” Ordinary capitalism — independent businesses and privately held homes — was anathema.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/garden/an-early-eco-city-faces-the-future.html

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Toylit For February 10, 2012

Toylit For February 10, 2012

Science Failure, The Victory of Failure, and The Psychology of Victory and Failure.

Featuring:

Elegy for Sisyphus, Obituary for Roger Boisjoly, by Valerie Valdes

Miles of Human Files, On Social Media Millionaires, by Khakjaan Wessington

Papier Mâché Jihad, #twitterfoundpoem, by Khakjaan Wessington

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Elegy for Sisyphus [Today's News Poem, by Valerie Valdes, February 10, 2012]

Elegy for Sisyphus [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]

By Valerie Valdes

in memoriam, Roger Boisjoly

He rolled boulders off his lawn for hours
every day until his muscles were chained
to exhaustion, until sleep stayed precariously
balanced in his grasp instead of falling
downhill like a punishment for his failure.
"We were talking to the right people," he said, but
seven astronauts were dead, their faces replayed
nonstop on news channels as the shuttle exploded
every time he closed his eyes. Cancer
finally killed what guilt tried to crush: a good man
shouldering the weight of his own impotence.
For almost thirty years he pushed
other engineers to do more, say more, to swear
on words binding as the Styx, where he now waits
quietly for the ferryman to row him across, to a field
green as a Florida summer, with no stones in sight.

"The NASA officials on a conference call didn't want to hear it. The shuttle program managers were desperate to prove they could launch reliably. When do you want me to launch, one of them said, next April? A year later, Boisjoly suffered from disabling headaches. He moved boulders off his lawn all day so he'd be exhausted enough to sleep at night. And he huddled in the corner of a couch, thin and tearful, his arms folded tight, ready to speak out."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/06/146490064/remembering-roger-boisjoly-he-tried-to-stop-shuttle-challenger-launch

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Miles of Human Files [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]

Miles of Human Files [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]

A loneliness file: apartment, an isle—

Classified, epic, layered with red brick.

If the marquee calls in the hall of halls

As wind does battle with door-frame rattles,

Watch the water non-water monitor

And touch the unknown; the fleeting, the flown.

Burn your mascara, corneas, era.

You have indexed lusts and electron busts

And changed the texture of surface: sex-pure,

Gloss and odious—flaws and hideous.

“Imagine looking for a house in San Francisco or one of the nicer parts of Silicon Valley, which are already among the most expensive parts of the country. Now imagine having to bid against a legion of newly minted Facebook millionaires.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/us/california-housing-market-braces-for-facebook-millionaires.html

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Papier Mâché Jihad [Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem, February 10, 2012]

Papier Mâché Jihad [Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem, February 10, 2012]

I tend to overthink so I'm not going to settle

for just any path of God while seeking the truth. I want a paranoid

schizophrenic Jihad.

Don't be real. Be a paranoid schizophrenic.

it leads to doubt. Which lessens my faith, Which lessens my lessons,

Which causes paranoid schizophrenic Out of nowhere lessons.

Dear God, I want a paranoid God.

Jihad, I want a paranoid Fear God.

God, I want a paranoid God Jihad.

Fear honesty. Fear illusion. Get over illusion.

If you are not your thoughts,

If you are not getting better then what are you doing?

Jihad.

If your thoughts are not getting better then what are you doing?

Lessons of the Out of nowhere schizophrenic God.

instead of papier mâché Jesus, the Out of nowhere schizophrenic

#Jihad!

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News Poem, The Rules

Submissions are due Thursday 6pm PST and post Friday morning (PST). If you still don't understand the antinews ethos, then please read this Duotrope interview with me: http://www.duotrope.com/Interview.aspx?id=5378
Update: I need you to include the link to the news story as well as the quote that inspired the composition. Give me your website also, so I can link you.
Critique: if a news poem inspires you, compose a rebuttal/response and submit it. If I like it, I'll put it up.
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The News Poem Returns! Your Non-Sucky Antinews Submission is Required.

Listen you vile degenerates, I understand that everything is a swirl of confusing what-the-fuck miasma and that you feel light-headed; I understand, but you need to stop asking me if I want to subscribe to Playboy... what? You mean, you want me to start writing the News Poem again? That's great! How much are you paying? Jack shit still? Oh gee, sorry, I need a little more than that to get by, so maybe we can compromise: maybe you should submit YOUR news poems to me and maybe once a week I will publish them, ok? And if you're not total crapazons, maybe you'll click some ads this time and help subsidize my poetry addict--I mean, my poetry altruism... fuckers--I mean, loyal readers.

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