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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When the Kitten Shall Lie Down With the Gosling [Today's News Poem, August 8, 2010]

When the Kitten Shall Lie Down With the Gosling [Today's News Poem, August 8, 2010]

A baby is born and discovers her talents
Slowly—she notices stories in pictures:
The goose will be caught and the kittens will triumph.
'Catholic twins' is the joke that her mother
Has made more than once, for the sisters are equals.
Different, still they compete with each skill they
Accrue—and what one learns the other attempts to
Master: in archery, dance and the names of
Minerals; taking each instant that's frozen
Decision and owning the purpose of living:
Will in the moments of stillness. So goslings
In flight from a litter of catlings are captured
Ever, as prey in that instant of terror;
While felines themselves are enslaved to the cycle:
Blood on the feathers; alone when the playtime
Has ended and yowling beside a full platter.
Older, one sister imagines the kittens
Were punished by parents with beaks; while the other
Thinks that they rolled in the sand by the lakeside
Until they were sleepy; and cuddled together.

“Karen Woo travelled to the remote Nuristan region of northern Afghanistan with hopes of making a difference, with undimmed passion to help others, and with no little trepidation for the physical and mental challenges ahead. One thing she would not have travelled with was a Bible... Our loving and talented daughter/sister Karen Su Ying (Cori) Woo has been tragically taken from us. She was due to be married on her return to the UK. Her motivation was purely humanitarian. She was a humanist and had no religious or political agenda...She was a true hero; whilst scared she never let that prevent her from doing things she had to do. She would not want this tragedy to overshadow the ongoing plight of those still in the greatest of need... Karen, you were an inspiration to everyone you met. You combined brains and beauty, intelligence, drive and kookiness in equal measure. You led an intensely packed and rich life: dancer, model, stunt plane walker, doctor and aid worker…”
– Caroline Davies, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 8 August 2010 22.09 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/uk-medic-afghan-murdered-christian-group

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MOUNTAINS of SHIT In Millions of Crocks [Twitter Found Poem, June 25, 2010]

MOUNTAINS of SHIT In Millions of Crocks [Twitter Found Poem, June 25, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

There is no Constitutional authority. There is no law.
This meltdown was sponsored by Financial regulation FLAW.
what Are We? turkey pastrami on squaw?
r u tellin me ur gonna bite US with yo new dentures? neuter and spay
drunk ass prey
like US? MANNNNNNNNNN what a concept: seduce n fillet
THE WORKING CLASS with @SarahPalinUSA.
It takes 250,000 bullets to bite one enemy in Iraq
but It takes Financial regulation meltdown to lock
military personnel In #Dishonorable contracts to Stalk stalk stalk
and bug spray the enemy in Afghanistan & Iraq
and bite the enemy WHILE THE RADIOS talk talk talk
MOUNTAINS of SHIT In millions of crocks crocks crocks.

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Asleep Behind the Wheel [Today's News Poem (Sonnet), April 6, 2010]

Asleep Behind the Wheel [Today's News Poem (Sonnet), April 6, 2010]

“A former U.N envoy to Afghanistan on Tuesday questioned the "mental stability" of Hamid Karzai and suggested the Afghan president may be using drugs... "He’s prone to tirades. He can be very emotional, act impulsively. In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports," said Galbraith, in an apparent reference to opium or heroin.”
--MSNBC, 12:28 p.m. PT, Tues., April 6, 2010
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36196464/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
“The United States suggested on Tuesday it might cancel a meeting between President Barack Obama and President Hamid Karzai in the White House next month if the Afghan leader persisted with anti-Western comments.”
-Sue Pleming, Reuters WASHINGTON Tue Apr 6, 2010 5:57pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6355CG20100406
“... the peak oil theory has nudged its way further into the mainstream and was widely publicized around the 2008 price spike, but it is hotly contested by many in the oil industry, including OPEC, which argues the world will rely on fossil fuels for decades to come.”
--Barbara Lewis, Reuters, Tue Apr 6, 2010 1:16pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63539420100406

Though Hades sends his gifts to surface lands
Do not consume the produce from his realm.
The food of death—it's said—will ever brand
The eater dead in life—it overwhelms.
The poppy—face of graves—it tastes of sleep;
And blurs the act of life with one of ash.
The grave itself—a fuel that drives the creep
Of shuddering machines that dart and crash.
We cultivate the cultivars of flame
To take the edge off life's absurd attacks—
To fertilize the sorrows that we claim,
And dream a life that's lived—and yet relax
Upon a cushion on a frame of steel.
We drive, asleep in life, behind a wheel.



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