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/

Return to Toylit
Subscribe to Toylit

Counterpoint Epiphany [Today's News Poem, November 12, 2010]

Counterpoint Epiphany [Today's News Poem, November 12, 2010]

I open my eyes, and by seeing, am seen;
Leverage circuitry, witness the outbreaks
Of rekindled relationships: cholera.

The names of diseases appear on my screen
Lacking a meaning beyond definition.
I am watched as I voyeur the monitor

Considering menace. Computers are dry,
Likewise myself: we both share dispositions.
We are pulling the themes from polyphonies

Of history, memory. Everything old,
New, in-between is an echo, a counter
To the trend and all lead to epiphanies.

"Medical workers in Haiti on Friday called the upward trend in deaths and illnesses in the cholera outbreak "alarming" as the earthquake-devastated nation's already strained health system overflowed with the sick. "
— Moni Basu, CNN, November 12, 2010 3:34 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/12/haiti.cholera/

Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:

Return to Toylit Subscribe in a reader

Fen Trolls Haunt the Bell [Today's News Poem, October 24, 2010]

Fen Trolls Haunt the Bell [Today's News Poem, October 24, 2010]

The death tolls
of bell trolls.
Let's march to hell.
Pave it. We'll dwell
where the stone-parches
will match our fine arches.
Listen, this hellhole of stairs
and the best view of a world, which fares
like a fen,
was drained and surrounded with pen,
coated with rubble from vats
then crushed until flat:
it was rushed
and a haunting of will o' wisps brushed
off our pavement of sand
to ring the bell proudly and to strike up the band.

"The death toll from a cholera epidemic in Haiti topped 250 Sunday, and a handful of cases in the country's capital were confirmed, as government officials and aid groups prepared for what they call an inevitable spread of the disease. "
— BETSY MCKAY, The Wall Street Journal, OCTOBER 25, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303864404575572691625613642.html

Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:

Return to Toylit Subscribe in a reader

One of Us [Today's News Poem, February 21, 2010]

One of Us [Today's News Poem, February 21, 2010]
“At least 40 people have been killed in the floods, and more than 120 others hurt - a "small number" British.“
--BBC, 21:32 GMT, Sunday, 21 February 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8527446.stm

“The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has 700 refugee children in foster care, has asked states to prepare to foster more international refugee children like Majok, whose parents either have disappeared or been killed by war or natural disaster. The need is heightened by continuing armed conflicts in Africa and recent events such as the earthquake in Haiti.”
--Russell Contreras, AP, February 21, 2010, 3:41 p.m
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-refugee-orphans,0,268446.story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_boy_hoax

For all the talk of loving fellow humankind,
A hoax balloons when children trap anxiety
We feel as tribal instinct. Cameras, as blind
As us record the sleight of eye society
Maintains is truth. The things we watch are things that count:
An earthquake pricks me less in Haiti—more Malay.
Where coffee's grown, and spice; the scale of death amounts
To higher prices at the store. The kids: away,
By sea--submerged. We grieve as an employer grieves.
The Haitian quake incites the pity workers feel
For beggars. Suffering in them? Let's say it weaves
If only slightly with our vanity's appeal.
To prove that wealth should come to those who spend responsibly:
That any one of us is better: good, demonstrably.


Subscribe in a reader

Haitian Fright Song [Today's News Poem]

Haitian Fright Song

By Khakjaan Wessington

The Haitian Fight Song
Is curious, because of whom they might fight.
The French,
The Americans,
But mostly themselves
And their denuded dirt.

They were liberated into poverty
As the White Man unburdened himself
Of the people,
While keeping the plantations
And conspiring against voodoo.

A man interviewed said that only the Haitians screamed
During the aftershocks. He said he wanted to emulate
The foreigners. It's not easy to divorce one's self from one's
Animal instincts. To be reptilian where others are mammalian.
To be pitiless in work and to pitilessly extract work.
To fight man and soil
And child and woman
And most of all to fight the self.
To be better than human
To be inhuman.
To dry the ducts of pity
So that when our turn comes
And we are smothered with rubble
And we are trapped beneath our own excrement
Nobody will save us.
Not even ourselves.
And nobody should save us.
I didn't save anyone.
They shouldn't save me.

--

The edit to this poem, in full metered verse, can only be read in the print edition, on sale here:




Subscribe in a reader