Declining Momentum [Today's News Poem, April 3, 2011]

Declining Momentum [Today's News Poem, April 3, 2011]

The concrete is cracking and punctures your tires,
Yet celebrate roots pushing pavement apart.
The birds are returning, they nest in the alder,
And shit on the sidewalk you hate—do not hate;
It's time for renewal—the wheels must stop spinning.

"Tokyo Electric Power is struggling to block a crack discovered in a pit that is leaking highly radioactive water into the ocean at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, and said it had discovered the bodies of its two missing employees at the stricken plant. "
—Lindsay Whipp in Tokyo, The Financial Times, Published: April 2 2011 17:09 | Last updated: April 3 2011 08:34
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9d7b6070-5d40-11e0-a008-00144feab49a.html

"As Southwest Airlines canceled 300 flights throughout the country after one of its jets developed a hole in its roof during a flight, Bay Area travelers Saturday had hit-or-miss experiences getting to and from their destinations."
—Lisa Fernandez and Doug Jastrow, Bay Area News Group, Posted: 04/02/2011 09:37:19 PM PDT, Updated: 04/02/2011 10:20:22 PM PDT

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Time Machine [Today's News Poem, February 22, 2011]

Time Machine [Today's News Poem, February 22, 2011]

Los Angeles twists on Sierra—
A snow-melt from faucet to desert—
And gargles the fossils with toothpaste.

The mountain is boundary, sentry;
And distance is measured in pipelines
We lay like a path to the future.

The future is now and it orbits
A tribe in Brazil in an airplane
And photographs warriors fleeing.

The past is around us, it threatens
The girder with rust and the freeway
With sinkholes; turns water to sewage.

Machines are the network: they've processed
The distance with diesel, computed
The time with those nerves of connection,

And mingled—yet mingle the present
With infinite loops where the t-shirts
And bottles go drift in the ocean

That links all with shorelines and current
And plastic and ink made of pixels
With past to the future, with present.

"Four Americans taken hostage after their yacht was hijacked by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa last week were killed early Tuesday when gunfire erupted during attempts by the United States Navy to negotiate with their captors, American military officials said. American officials had opened a channel of communication between the pirates’ financier as well as elders from their village to help negotiate the hostages’ release."
—J. DAVID GOODMAN. The New York Times, Published: February 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/world/africa/23pirates.html



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Skipper De-Jaded [Today's News Poem, February 20, 2011]

Skipper De-Jaded [Today's News Poem, February 20, 2011]

If I chose revolution and salvaged compassion
From my island of shipwreck, my computerized jail;
Would it fit in its place in my chest if I swallowed
That original cast-off, or would its reaction
Summon the bile of the years and erupt through my ribs?

It was breeze from my fingers that blew it to skerries
Of electrons—that voyeur of fiber and flicker.
We had sailed on my ego through oceans of info:
We saw thousands of murders, a million transgressions;
Billions of people and trillions of dollars depart.

I had come to believe my compassion a weakness,
So I left it exposed on a rock while I traveled
Through the internet, paralyzed gawker of horrors.
It's the game of the world; it enriches, imprisons,
Battens the hatches—we're planted on asses and watch

As the currents run swifter, the water much colder;
And an enemy lurks in the depths—it's a monster
That is ancient, too awful for morbid obsessions.
It is nerves and it sounds like a bus: it is bullet,
Plastic and prayer—it is servant and master in one.

"Chinese authorities detained dozens of political activists after an anonymous online call for people to start a "Jasmine Revolution" in China by protesting in 13 cities—just a day after President Hu Jintao called for tighter Internet controls to help prevent social unrest. But Chinese authorities seemed to take it seriously, deploying extra police to the planned protest sites, deleting almost all online discussion of the appeal, blocking searches for the word "Jasmine" on micro-blogging and other sites and temporarily disabling mass text-messaging services."
—JEREMY PAGE , The Wall Street Journal, FEBRUARY 20, 2011, 2:10 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703498804576156203874160350.html

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Remorseless Code [Today's News Poem, December 24, 2010]

Remorseless Code [Today's News Poem, December 24, 2010]

It's clearer now.
Spots in the road
Separate vehicles:
Faith is a roadblock
Of conscience.
Eye the divider:
It's porous and even.
A pattern repeating
Itself with a dot and a dash—
In the day or the night,
Under overpass,
Over underworlds.
"Help us, please help us,"
The pattern repeats
In obsolete code
Its plea to the remorseless.

"A man being pursued by police drove into a security roadblock near President Barack Obama's vacation home in Hawaii on Thursday, the U.S. Secret Service said."
—Reuters, Fri Dec 24, 2010 3:01am EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BN0NK20101224

Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:

You can get it as an E-Book at Amazon as well http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004AYDHXY
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New Gods Scrap All of Creation [Today's News Poem, July 20, 2010]

New Gods Scrap All of Creation [Today's News Poem, July 20, 2010]

Know every thing and charge up the static:
Blade bath for birds; the air flows—erratic.

Clip off their wings. Farm planets for profits.
Death comes for herds. Kill totems and prophets.

Dice all the beasts and gifts from the stars:
Scrap-meat for feasts and wind sparks in jars.

“Google Inc's energy unit has entered into a deal to buy wind power from NextEra Energy Inc for the next 20 years to power data centers. ”
– Poornima Gupta, Reuters, Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:44am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66J3BL20100720





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Harmonic Divergence [Today's News Poem, May 9, 2010]

Harmonic Divergence [Today's News Poem, May 9, 2010]

The shadows exposed to the halogen lighting
Dissolve into streetcars. Together they're praying;
Emitting transcendence: electrical wiring
And ships in the darkness are chanting the mantra
Of faith in the hallows of vascular pathways.
Deliver my shuttle of cargo to surface
And elevate passengers higher and higher
To space if you can—for beyond the top office
Our faith must ascend. If nothing can catch it
I'll stretch in the nothingness, spreading my darkness
Where voids once prevailed and then Jupiter likewise
Will kneel to the 'om' of harmonic convergence
With Heaven and stars—both accompany—singing.

–

“Neanderthals mated with some modern humans after all and left their imprint in the human genome, a team of biologists has reported in the first detailed analysis of the Neanderthal genetic sequence.”
– Nicholas Wade, The New York Times, May 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html

“The European Central Bank, in an aggressive move announced after European governments unveiled their latest response to a spreading sovereign-debt crisis, said it will buy European government and private bonds "to ensure depth and liquidity in those markets which are dysfunctional."”
– JON HILSENRATH, NINA KOEPPEN And BRIAN BLACKSTONE, The Wall Street Journal, MAY 9, 2010, 11:47 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704307804575234553125502696.html

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