Omens of Predestination [Today's News Poem, August 12, 2010]
If a notion to flee from the pavement
And the hydrants possesses you, drive
To the suburbs—beyond! To arraignments
With the meteors over this hive
With its labyrinth-roads—with no exit.
If the omen should fail with a blaze
And the sputtering pieces of flecks hit
And erupt—if the signal is haze;
Then the deity Science commissions
An assault on these roaches and mites
Who still cling to their God of contrition,
Who is helpless to save them from night—
Or from murder and lunacy. Parsons
In the meteor glow scream as arson—
Or let's call it our mother—rejects
Them to favor her killer-Elect.
“A suspect in the killings of five people and the stabbings of 15 others in three states was arrested at the airport here as he tried to board a plane to Israel, the authorities said Thursday morning. The police say the attacks fit a common profile: A tall, stocky man, often in an S.U.V., usually in a deserted area late at night, asks a black man for directions or help with a broken-down car, then attacks them quickly and drives away.”
– Robbie Brown, The New York Times, August 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/us/13stabbings.html?_r=1
“In June alone, a doctor was stabbed to death in Shandong Province by the son of a patient who had died of liver cancer. Three doctors were severely burned in Shanxi Province when a patient set fire to a hospital office. A pediatrician in Fujian Province was also injured after leaping out a fifth-floor window to escape angry relatives of a newborn who had died under his care... Four years ago, 2,000 people rioted at a hospital after reports that a 3-year-old was refused treatment because his grandfather could not pay $82 in upfront fees. The child died.”
– Sharon LaFraniere, The New York Times, August 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/world/asia/12hospital.html?src=me&ref=general
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