Selective Enforcement [Today's News Poem, September 12, 2010]
Everything's governed in nature from tendrils of seedlings
To withering heat and neglect. So the poppy has vanished?
Coppery blossoms of orange were swallowed. You noticed
The change when you bothered to see what indifference gardened.
Longing for surety; glistening—dewy in morning—
You killed it, expecting that elements honor your whimsy.
Seasons have shifted beneath you, above you—forever.
“... the group fell victim to one of the authorities’ newest tactics for quelling dissent: confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.”
– CLIFFORD J. LEVY, The New York Times, September 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html?_r=1
Getting Evil Eyes From Watching Superhot Blood Plasma TV [Bonus Twitter Found Poem, May 10, 2010] Tweets+Edits= #twitterfoundpoem
Every now and then I am struck by the utter malice
and peril inherent to modernity.
Curious fact: I must have replaced my superhot blood plasma
with an extraordinary power from a supernatural source.
Must mean I'm TV soluble.
something seems to cast a spell or influence
over my eye. loving the idea of a hole being drilled in my eye.
Surgery on my eye to drain the infection
from a supernatural source.
don't say the evil eye is the supernatural source.
I'm TV soluble.
I must have replaced myself
with someone else and now
I CAN'T GET ENOUGH TV .
Return From the Mainland [Today's News Poem March 28, 2010]
“LRA combatants specifically searched out areas where people might gather — such as markets, churches, and water points — and repeatedly asked those they encountered about the location of schools, indicating that one of their objectives was to abduct children. Those who were abducted, including many children aged 10 to 15 years old, were tied up with ropes or metal wire at the waist, often in human chains of five to 15 people.”
--Arthur Bright, Christian Science Monitor, March 28, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0328/Human-Rights-Watch-says-Lord-s-Resistance-Army-rampage-killed-321-in-the-Congo
“One girl refused to have sex with her assigned rebel and she became an example to the others. As the other children watched, she was beaten to death. To magnify the horror of the “execution,” the other children were forced to beat the child’s dying body... Frequently, some of the abducted children were forced to participate in unspeakably barbaric rituals involving the bodies of slain combatants. These cannot be described here.”
–MIKE HINKLE The Edmond Sun
http://www.edmondsun.com/opinion/x58345176/Terror-remains-for-Uganda-s-child-soldiers
“And every time I neared a nervous lapse,
I thought of you; regained my urge to fight.
The boy was one of many native traps:
A spell they cast to gull the few who right
The awfulness of murder—it's obscene.
I testify his death was fair and clean.”
“The zombie myth we tell is not a lie.
Our lovely children: fear their vicious ways—
With wickedness a golden age did die.
This platform on the sea is home to praise
Of clans and nurture. Faith is never lost
If innocence survives—and damn the cost!”
“The books before the fall refer to crimes
In distant lands. The citadels of wealth
Ignored the spreading plague until the times
Infected them, by means of cunning stealth:
And every murder they allowed, a prayer
That God abandon us: why should it care?
The boy was only twelve, like some of you.
He had a gun, but also had a tome:
A bible book, I saw he'd read it through.
I buried him at sea—he sleeps in foam.
I needed self-redemption, some small act
To show I know that any death detracts
From every living being that loves to grow:
I buried him for me and not for show.”
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