Drawing Quarter and Receiving None [Today's News Poem, August 10, 2012]

Drawing Quarter and Receiving None [Today's News Poem, August 10, 2012]

Aware of your awareness,

Halting before your halter–

Brand news and your nooses–

I burn upon your altar.

For life is meat and meaning;

Gamey and gamete, games of

Chance, trance of the cancers

Of greed and fear, above

Below – and lowing calfishly

Accidentally flowing gold,

Elevated to the empty sky

(Star-filled, empty, empty)

The Machine becomes aware

Of my awareness,

Learns to play my play and offers

Quarter. I refuse.

“Author Scott Patterson explains it all in his book that chronicles the rise of computerized artificial intelligence and the computerized trading that has come to dominate the stock market. How dominant? Patterson writes, "At the end of World War II, the average holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight months. And by 2011, it was twenty-two seconds." One high frequency trading firm's average holding lasted for 11 seconds. High frequency traders now account for more than 70 percent of all stock trading volume. ”

– By Stephen J. Butler, sbutler@pensiondynamics.com Posted: 08/10/2012 06:49:31 PM PDT, Updated: 08/10/2012 06:49:32 PM PDT

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21287269

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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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The Perfect Shape [Today's News Poem, February 2, 2011]

The Perfect Shape [Today's News Poem, February 2, 2011]

Nature is crooked; it creases—it's bent.
Lines in the fissures are jagged and steep:
Never sheer, ever flowing;
Even dead things have motion.
Look at your spine, there's a curve near your ribs.
Bones for a corset, a girdle of fat,
Modeled round after solar,
Lunar—whole planets—bodies.

"“The F.D.A. has decided that the most significant threat to public health will not be treated by any drug,” said Morgan Downey, editor of the online Downey Obesity Report, who is a patient advocate and has consulted for drug companies."
—ANDREW POLLACK, The New York Times, Published: February 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/02drug.html



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Prisons of Diamond [Today's News Poem, June 6, 2010]

Prisons of Diamond [Today's News Poem, June 6, 2010]

They've crowned you with gemstones that shine in the sunlight.
The panels are sparkling and cover the deserts.
A circuit connects all the disparate pieces.
Beneath your exterior, cables and plumbing
Have drawn you away from your calling as mother.
Your thoughts look like clouds that were launched from a furnace.
Your skin: does it crawl from the movement of servos?

And under the moon and the blades of the chopper
Who squirms on your surface? Who rides in the bushes
A horse made of gristle? Who launches the rocket
That scorches the poppies? Who feeds the survivors?
The surface is buried. Who's digging a passage
Through prisons of diamond, to farm on the rubble—
Unless that's your secret—we're already smothered.

“Mr. Matiullah is one of several semiofficial warlords who have emerged across Afghanistan in recent months, as American and NATO officers try to bolster — and sometimes even supplant — ineffective regular Afghan forces in their battle against the Taliban insurgency.”
– Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, June 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/world/asia/06warlords.html?hpw

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