Pass the Buck [Today's News Poem, March 24, 2010]

Pass the Buck [Today's News Poem, March 24, 2010]
“Bank of America Corp. said it would offer more borrowers reductions in their mortgage-loan balances in the latest twist on efforts to avert foreclosures.”
--James R. Hagerty, Wall Street Journal, MARCH 24, 2010, 4:45 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312504575141763259183050.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular

If only I could slip away,
If only greed led one astray,
I wouldn't feel the need to hide
From evils no good man abides.

An age of war could plant the guilt
On individuals who spilt
Their foes and made survivors slaves.
Yet now, a murder's fractions shave

Accountability: a hedge
Against the blame, to drive a wedge
Between the loot and self-esteem,
So soccer moms can drive their teams

To victory, without a pang—
Despite her side: the winning gang.
Attached to everything we gain,
Is suffering—another's pain

Is passed to us, along with bucks
We pass again. The cycle sucks
The blame for every single deed:
We cash the check of theft's proceeds

And blame the banks, or plutocrats—
Republicans or Democrats—
Instead of blaming our small role
In tragedy, to sate our goals.

Statistics chart the data map:
The graphs are types of people-traps.
A lattice of professionals
Combined in one processional

Are blameless one, but guilty all:
And likewise too, the working thrall.



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Steady progress on Today's News Poem. Read this in the meantime:

Crawl on over to the carrioncall and read Fall of the House of Zeppo. Hilarious and bizarre.



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Reverse Design [Today's News Poem March 23, 2010]

Reverse Design [Today's News Poem March 23, 2010]
“Gordon's work is part of a growing field of research that's just starting to mine the massive quantity of thoughts, feelings and experiences real people pour out daily on the Internet.”
--Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service, March 23, 2010
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/BLOG+CHRONICLES/2715796/story.html
“Branson's company Virgin Galactic announced Monday that the VSS Enterprise had successfully completed what it called a captive carry flight attached to a carrier plane.”
--CNN, March 23, 2010 10:57 a.m. EDT
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/03/23/virgin.space.flight/?hpt=Sbin

'Coincidence exists as fate:
This moment's proof there's magic left.
I'd murder you, but it's too late
To rescue her and now bereft

I'd rather grieve: a human act
You scarce recall. You loved machines
Too well to care for basic tact.
And now, deprived of your marines...

I might, I might—you never know.
How does it feel to fear like this?
To live for once amongst a foe
Who stares across a like abyss

Into the meaty weak inside
Us both! Goddamn! To kill you off
Would make me last—until I died.
I want to hear that snotty scoff

You'd make when asked about the threat
Of competition bots propose.
Your brazen ways accrued a debt
You'll never pay—you see it flows:

You save the life of humankind
When saving one and likewise kill
Humanity—all intertwined—
When just one death's been charged to bill.

Insanity's the byproduct
Of toxic cultures. Likewise verse
Possessed the ultimate construct
Of meta-minds; not better, worse

Than what you did—you programmed chips,
I programmed souls. And yet you sought
To be like them—their skills eclipse
Your own and yet you never thought

The day would come when human parts
Would serve no need for cyberkind.
Instead of listening to art
You worshiped static, robot minds

That learned to ape our every way—
Despite their drives that don't forget:
That method caused you no dismay?
It's only now that you regret?

While both our kinds shall go extinct,
While you and I will shortly die;
By suicide I'll prove distinct
And clean in death. Fuck you and bye.'

He jumped before I scanned his brain.
His skull: it bounced from rock to rock.
A total loss. His body's stain
I took—to keep his genes in stock.



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The Wrong Man [Today's News Poem March 23, 2010]

'Coincidence exists as fate:
This moment's proof there's magic left.
I'd murder you, but it's too late
To rescue her and now bereft

I'd rather grieve: a human act
You scarce recall. You loved machines
Too well to care for basic tact.
And now, deprived of your marines...

I might, I might—you never know.
How does it feel to fear like this?
To live for once amongst a foe
Who stares across a like abyss

Into the meaty weak inside
Us both! Goddamn! To kill you off
Would make me last—until I died.
I want to hear that snotty scoff

You'd make when asked about the threat
Of competition bots propose.
Your brazen ways accrued a debt
You'll never pay—you see it flows:

You save the life of humankind
When saving one and likewise kill
Humanity—all intertwined—
When just one death's been charged to bill.

Insanity's the byproduct
Of toxic cultures. Likewise verse
Possessed the ultimate construct
Of meta-minds; not better, worse

Than what you did—you programmed chips,
I programmed minds. And yet you sought
To be like them—their skills eclipse
Your own and yet you never thought

The day would come when human parts
Would serve no need for cyberkind.
Instead of listening to art
You worshiped static, robot minds

That learned to ape our every way—
Despite their drives that don't forget:
That method caused you no dismay?
It's only now that you regret?

While both our kinds shall go extinct,
While you and I will shortly die;
By suicide I'll prove distinct
And clean in death. Fuck you and bye.'

He jumped before I scanned his brain.
His skull it bounced from rock to rock.
A total loss. His body's stain
I took—to keep his genes in stock



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Notes done, but not a lick of verse yet. It will be epic if I pull it off though.

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Check back in 1.5 to 2 hrs for the new News Poem. Busy day.

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Hey China! I found this in the memory hole:

http://www.cnd.org/June4th/massacre.html
I like your tanks: 

Dan Rather had to interrupt Pee-Wee's Playhouse to show me your cool T-72s (those are T-72s, right?) flattening real people. Cowboy Curtis can't top that!

I have a deal: since I'm a safe distance away from the mobile execution buses, maybe you wouldn't mind it if I posted some pictures of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on here. I also would like to tell you about Falun-Gong and how you can shed ten to eighty years off your life expectancy by practicing it on the mainland.

Alas, you people are in big trouble insofar as your currency is backed by rapidly depreciating dollars. Remember 1998? I guess you can't remember something that was censored, but I do. Your economy has all the symptoms those other economies had back then... right now. Guess what? If you ignore the party bosses and just try to live your life, the shit they do in Beijing is going to thwart whatever you're trying to do right now... in about 6-18 months. The real problem of course is that the time to have fixed your structural economic problems was probably way back in 1989, or maybe 1998 at latest. Now you're up about two trillion in dollar assets that you can't sell. Thanks. I really enjoy the low inflation.



So party bosses may have censored images of tanks massacring students, for 'sake of the state,' but I assure you, you'll be seeing many tanks in the near future.

Anyhow, I guess my point was simply: I love your culture and its contributions to civilization, but your government is going to be the death of you and me too if you don't do something soon.

Also, I just hate censorship as a rule and I know some of you sneak over here to read all the news that's shit, in print.



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A Book of Jokes [Today's News Poem March 22, 2010]

A Book of Jokes [Today's News Poem March 22, 2010]

“By relying on Hong Kong, Google is trying to find a way to fight censorship laws while still keeping a presence in mainland China. The approach may not work for long because the government will probably block the site”
-Brian Womack, Bloomberg, March 22, 2010, 7:39 PM EDT
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-22/google-stops-censoring-results-making-block-by-china-likely.html

“In a statement, the ministers condemned Tehran's jamming of satellite broadcasting and Internet censorship and called on authorities to "put an end to this electronic interference immediately."”
http://www.rferl.org/content/EU_Calls_On_Tehran_to_End_Iranian_State_Censorship/1990324.html

“The Internet, argues Cass Sunstein, has had a polarizing effect on democracies. Although it has the capacity to bring people together, too often the associations formed online comprise self-selecting groups with little diversity of opinion,”
http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/03/the-internet-foe-democracy

There was a time when history would make me laugh:
A book of jokes—of murder, madness, bigotry—
A game they played with living pieces, on behalf
Of bishops, knights and kings. With space telemetry;
And internet, the Papal Bulls against the sun
Were innocent excursions—never mind the death
Of witches, slaves and infidels: the match was won.
L. Wittgenstein asked, 'what's a game?' It's played with breath
For stakes when played for keeps. I say a game is jest
And nothing else—at least for those who win its stakes.
The losers may not crow aloud, but life's a test
Of funny bones. Besides, in death the dreamer wakes
And learns to laugh it off. She'll smile at tragic fates
Like mine: a punchline, ignorant of what awaits.



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News Poem kicking my ass today. Almost done.

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Stop poisoning the readership

I know it's hard to give up an ambition you didn't really make any sacrifices for--but please consider that every time you write a bad poem and throw a hissy-fit when the reader doesn't like it, you are DISCOURAGING them from reading verse. Bad prose writers are constantly mocked to their faces in ways bad poets are rarely mocked. Why? Bad poets freak out. They say 'you don't understand poetry.' Many of my readers e-mail me to say "well, I don't like poetry in general, but I like _your_ poetry," and I respond, "if you like language, then you're poetry's natural constituency."

Bad poets compensate for their terrible attempts at poesis by blaming the reader for the poet's failings. If you put your poetry out there, you expose it to criticism. Offering verse is offering a transaction: 'in exchange for reading this poem, I promise you'll get something from it.' Most poets though have no interest in the reader. They want the reader to come to them, rather than the other way around. It's vile, isn't it? The hypocrisy of that position? So if you found Toylit because I made what you might consider to be an 'unkind' remark regarding your poetry, consider that I am doing so for the sake of serious poets everywhere. Most supposed poets are really lifestyle tourists, who want to expropriate the identity of 'poet' without actually doing anything to earn it.

This is the difference between a lifestyle tourist and an actual poet: the poet's verse is merely the artifact of the performance art that is the poet's life. The lifestyle tourist goes and paints a smiley face on his penis and goes to Burning Man. The real poet mutilates his or her mind to maximize poesis. If you are going to trivialize my vocation then I am certainly going to mock your sad efforts at writing verse.

Why be one of a hundred million wannabe poets, when you could master tie dye, crochet, or really any other craft that has less competition and less at stake? You supposed 'language' poets are the worst too (not you Billy Collins): you study the means of communication, but communicate nothing of value. A poet with nothing to say is like a brand without a product.



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[Revised] Last Video Testimony of an SF OG

Last Video Testimony of an SF OG [Today's News Poem March 21, 2010]
“In 2008, Rich Hohl turned a troubled corner liquor store on San Francisco's Divisadero Street into an airy neighborhood cafe,”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/21/BUSL1CI4NA.DTL
“I've lived just up the corner from Divis for the past 16 years, and this is far from the type of corporate gentrification we've seen in other neighborhoods. I'm sure, if things were to reach a certain stage, we'd see Starbucks and Pottery Barn try to make inroads, but for now it's locals making our neighborhood better without all the outside opportunism.”
derakus 3/20/2010 9:52:42 PM
“Most Black natives have the same story: Their grandparents are from the South; they moved here and bought a house or two with the money they earned; much was lost or devastated by the crack epidemic.”
http://native-star.blogspot.com/
“How about this for a plan for sprucing up our nation’s crumbling housing projects: ship lazy black folks out to the subprime suburbs, privatize their apartment buildings and hand them over to real estate developers. That’s what T.A. Frank, a New America Foundation think tank shill, thinks Los Angeles needs to do with Jordan Downs, a notoriously dilapidated and crime-wracked project in Watts:”
http://exiledonline.com/how-to-solve-the-housing-glut-ship-poor-people-into-abandoned-suburbs-and-privatize-inner-city-projects/
“See, when street crime happens, that's bad. When crime happens against a whole racial-socioeconomic class, well, that's just 'progress.' I hate the gangsters too, but I totally get why Boots Riley wants to toss you all in a pit and machine-gun you to death.”
--khakjaan 3/21/2010 3:35:01 PM

“Question: What do $42,600 and $5 have in common?
Answer: they both represent the median net wealth of middle-aged American women. The only difference between the two numbers is race; while single white women from the ages of 36 to 49 have a median wealth of $42,600, single black women have a net wealth of just $5.”
-Charlotte Hill March 13, 2010 11:12 AM
http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/the_median_net_wealth_of_black_women_is_5
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/2007/scf2007home.html

The food obsessed may care about their meat;
The way it lived before it died to feed
A hungry maw: a privilege elites
Afford with theft to slake their goddamn greed.
I do not want to die my love—I fear
What may become of us. I can't protect
You—hell, I can't defend myself from gears
I scarcely understand, from architects
Of projects, crack cocaine...They want to chain
You up my love (my baby boy) to die
By sips of beer... by ways I can't explain.
They stole our neighborhood, I won't comply.
Instead, I'll stalk the corner I love best.
When yuppies come, I'll detonate my vest.



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Today's News Poem in need of major edits

Taking a break for now, but will be back to rewrite it into something decent in a couple of hours.



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Last Video Testimony of an SF OG [Today's News Poem March 21, 2010]

Last Video Testimony of an SF OG [Today's News Poem March 21, 2010]
“In 2008, Rich Hohl turned a troubled corner liquor store on San Francisco's Divisadero Street into an airy neighborhood cafe,”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/21/BUSL1CI4NA.DTL
“I've lived just up the corner from Divis for the past 16 years, and this is far from the type of corporate gentrification we've seen in other neighborhoods. I'm sure, if things were to reach a certain stage, we'd see Starbucks and Pottery Barn try to make inroads, but for now it's locals making our neighborhood better without all the outside opportunism.”
derakus 3/20/2010 9:52:42 PM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/21/BUSL1CI4NA.DTL
“Most Black natives have the same story: Their grandparents are from the South; they moved here and bought a house or two with the money they earned; much was lost or devastated by the crack epidemic.”
http://native-star.blogspot.com/
“How about this for a plan for sprucing up our nation’s crumbling housing projects: ship lazy black folks out to the subprime suburbs, privatize their apartment buildings and hand them over to real estate developers. That’s what T.A. Frank, a New America Foundation think tank shill, thinks Los Angeles needs to do with Jordan Downs, a notoriously dilapidated and crime-wracked project in Watts:”
http://exiledonline.com/how-to-solve-the-housing-glut-ship-poor-people-into-abandoned-suburbs-and-privatize-inner-city-projects/
“See, when street crime happens, that's bad. When crime happens against a whole racial-socioeconomic class, well, that's just 'progress.' I hate the gangsters too, but I totally get why Boots Riley wants to toss you all in a pit and machine-gun you to death.”
--khakjaan 3/21/2010 3:35:01 PM



“Question: What do $42,600 and $5 have in common?
Answer: they both represent the median net wealth of middle-aged American women. The only difference between the two numbers is race; while single white women from the ages of 36 to 49 have a median wealth of $42,600, single black women have a net wealth of just $5.”
-Charlotte Hill March 13, 2010 11:12 AM
http://uspoverty.change.org/blog/view/the_median_net_wealth_of_black_women_is_5
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/2007/scf2007home.html

I don't want you to cry my baby boy:
The cannibals are real. I can't protect
Myself or you unless I can destroy
A city filled with thieves and architects
Of slavery for you—my baby boy!
I'd rather die than see them fit your chain.
To see the scam repeat itself in ploys
Of theft I do not get nor can explain.
Your grandma bought the only house she could,
And raised us—well, as best as she knew how.
But politicians stole our neighborhood;
It's lost, we've lost—and so this vengeance-vow:
The thieves who think organic foods are best
Will die by me, by suicide. By vest!



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News Poem with Local Flavoring Coming Up

Just finished my notes on it and you should be getting it in an hour or so.



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Faithful Argus: All Three Parts:

Faithful Argus Gets a New Master [News Poem, March 20 2010]

“The authorities in southern New Jersey said Saturday that they had arrested a 16-year-old boy for activating a public-address system at a Wal-Mart store earlier in the week and ordering 'all black people' to leave.The boy, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was charged with bias and intimidation and harassment in connection with the episode last Sunday. If convicted, he could face up to a year in a juvenile detention center, officials said.”
--Kirk Semple and Nate Schweber, The New York Times, March 20 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/nyregion/21walmart.html

Day 2
I took this job because the chinks all cheat—
In league with jews and blacks to take the jobs
Of honest men like me. Today, I'll greet
Those shoppers equally: I'll let them rob
The kykes who really own this warehouse store:
I'm just a victim in this racial war.

Month 18
The boss, he praised my cheerful, careful work.
I held my tongue about the raise I want:
To ask might risk his ire—I'm not a jerk—
A teammate ought not seek what others flaunt.
I'd rather ask for extra time, not pay:
Or else this job as well might go away.

Year 8:
The panic did not end until they caught
The kid who risked what others—we—had earned.
Rebellion's tokens: prison's what it bought,
And now the chance to know what I have learned.
Obey and follow rules or else you'll fail;
For men like us it's slavery or jail.



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Faithful Argus: Part 3

Year 8:
The panic did not end until they caught
The kid who risked what others—we—had earned.
Rebellion's tokens: prison's what it bought,
And now the chance to know what I have learned.
Obey and follow rules or else you'll fail;
For men like us it's slavery or jail.



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Faithful Argus: Part 2

Month 18
The boss, he praised my cheerful, careful work.
I held my tongue about the raise I want:
To ask might risk his ire—I'm not a jerk—
A teammate ought not seek what others flaunt.
I'd rather ask for extra time, not pay:
Or else this job as well might go away.



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Faithful Argus Gets a New Master [News Poem, March 20 2010]

Faithful Argus Gets a New Master: Part I [News Poem, March 20 2010]

“The authorities in southern New Jersey said Saturday that they had arrested a 16-year-old boy for activating a public-address system at a Wal-Mart store earlier in the week and ordering 'all black people' to leave.The boy, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was charged with bias and intimidation and harassment in connection with the episode last Sunday. If convicted, he could face up to a year in a juvenile detention center, officials said.”
--Kirk Semple and Nate Schweber, The New York Times, March 20 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/nyregion/21walmart.html

Day 2
I took this job because the chinks all cheat—
In league with jews and blacks to take the jobs
Of honest men like me. Today, I'll greet
Those shoppers equally: I'll let them rob
The kykes who really own this warehouse store:
I'm just a victim in this racial war.



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News Poems Almost Done. A Little Bit Tricky Today. Posting Soon.

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Inquisition of an Atheist [Bonus Poem, March 19, 2010]

Inquisition of an Atheist [Bonus Poem, March 19, 2010]

“So you prefer this isle of sin?”
“Yes, I do. Is loving breath
Worth the loss of life hereafter?”

“This body tests who ought to win—”
“'... Life forever, life in death,'
Lies the fronds dismiss with laughter.”

“You mock the words of holy books!”
“Books they wrote to cow the hicks.”
“Evil force defiles your soul—“

“And yet I'm here on tenterhook—“
“We won't fall for evil tricks,
Lies, deceit: your only goals.

In pandemonium for you: eternity's assigned
A proper fate for one who hates a God like mine—God's kind."




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The Near-Senile Magnetic Cloud Speaks Out of Turn During a Mating Ritual [Today's News Poem, March 19, 2010]

The Near-Senile Magnetic Cloud Speaks Out of Turn During a Mating Ritual [Today's News Poem, March 19, 2010]
“... Bangladesh, to the vast, such as the US; from the familiar - England, New Zealand... What unites such a disparate group is concern about climate change. They have all signed on to participate in Earth Hour next Saturday.”
--JENNIE CURTIN, Sydney Morning Herald, March 20, 2010
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/earth-hour/nations-large-and-small-join-climate-change-campaign-20100319-qmay.html

What can't forget cannot recall
It seems. The rest of you converge
Your nebulae in mating brawls,
While memories in me emerge

Of stately solar births. With gas
It starts... but then the sparking burst!
You judge importance by its mass.
Like you, I watched the giants first;

But atoms lust as well and link
Together. Once I saw some chains—
Of acid really—learn to think.
Astonishing! I watched the brains

Of little nothings come aware.
And every time I noted one
It decomposed. I learned to care
For trifles; loved their micro-sun.

Though starved of energy, their life
Replenished me. Their sense of four
Dimensions, crude. Their frantic strife
Would end before I'd even store

My memories. They loved our kind
You know, and envied us as well.
They prayed to us, to me to find
A way to save them all—to quell

Their rightful fears of death. I said
I care for them: they called me God.
With speech, I seemed to end their dread.
They scattered, left their rocky clod.

Before explosions killed that race,
Before they wandered outer space,
They hoped to find enlightened grace.
It's there, I said, in every place.



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If you're bored, go to combatwords. I wrote a sonnet there last night

Right now, combatwords has something like a 10:1 ratio of regular readers to regular writers. Surely someone out there has an interest in literary dueling. It's all fairly civilized over there, but bring your A game.



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Avant-Garde Food Critic [News Poem, March 18, 2010]

Avant-Garde Food Critic [News Poem, March 18, 2010]

“Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the CITES vote is not the end of the story for the bear.
"The ironic thing is that all the countries of the conference acknowledge that global warming is posing a huge challenge for this species," Wetzler said. "When you have a species threatened by global warming, it only makes sense to reduce all the other stresses, including hunting."”
-Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Thu Mar 18, 2010 5:30pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62H52R20100318

The meat of clones will never do
For palettes fine—refined like mine.
I've tasted polar bear ragout
And eaten baiji cooked in wine.

I never let the people say
I have no use for scarcer fare.
One cannot measure food's dismay
With what I gain: they don't compare.

The hypocrites are shocked I'm sure.
To keep their jobs, they smog with crude.
To keep their false facade secure,
They let machines prepare their food.

I'm keeping nothing, nothing's worth
The effort there, instead I seek
To keep myself well fed. My girth
Is sourced with doom, not death: unique

I'd say. I'd like to try the last taboo
And dine as cannibals once did:
Without remorse, I'd slurp that stew.
By eating youth, become a kid.



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