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Showing posts with label killer whale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label killer whale. Show all posts

Monday, January 24, 2011

Pattern of Rapid Decline [Today's News Poem, January 24, 2011]

Pattern of Rapid Decline [Today's News Poem, January 24, 2011]

Sand blasts and water spouts mist:
Elephant charges a whale.
Red foam collides with death groans;
Dissipates under the waves.

In the clouds, there's an eagle
Landing to nest deep in the cliffs.
She has scavenged from battle
Bones of the slain beasts of the beach.

Dragon awakens annoyed
From its sediment coffin,
Cracking the spine of the rock
It is shaking the mountain.

"FOR a superpower, dealing with the fast rise of a rich, brash competitor has always been an iffy thing. Just ask the British, who a century ago were struggling to come to terms with the erosion of their status as the world’s No. 1 empire. It didn’t help that they were being upstaged by a former colony that had turned into an upstart sea-power with money, talent, and a knack for mangling a perfectly good language. Eventually they took the hit to the national ego from those Americans and discovered there were advantages to no longer playing the role of the indispensible power. Or ask Thucydides, the Athenian historian whose tome on the Peloponnesian War has ruined many a college freshman’s weekend. The line they had to remember for the test was his conclusion: “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”"
—DAVID E. SANGER, The New York Times, Published: January 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/weekinreview/23sanger.html




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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Orca Uncorked! [Today's News Poem, Feb 24, 2010]

Orca Uncorked! [Today's News Poem, Feb 24, 2010]
“...in 1999, authorities discovered the body of a naked man across his back. Authorities concluded that the man, who had either sneaked into SeaWorld after hours or hidden in the park until it closed, most likely drowned after suffering hypothermia in the 55-degree water.

They also said it appeared that Tilikum had bitten the man and torn off his swimming trunks, probably believing he was a toy to play with.“
--Jason Garcia and Susan Jacobson, LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-seaworld-death25-2010feb25,0,7841436.story

In ceremony unobserved by spectators
The orca Tilikum intoned the vengeance song:
He sang a pitch they could not hear. The dictator
Of whales appeared—they cheered. She thought she did no wrong

She risked her life and knew she did—the whale to her?
A stupid kid that weighed twelve thousand pounds. A bribe
Of fish bought loyalty. She thought of treats as spurs
With which she'd tame the whale. So why does she imbibe

The sea? And why reward her faith in him like this? She pleads.
He eats her—teaching her the slave will ever seek secede.

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