Prison Camp [Today's News Poem, November 10, 2010]

Prison Camp [Today's News Poem, November 10, 2010]

Oakland is litter—no. Cities are clutter.
High on the yeast that ferments in the nostrils
Launched from the bakery, everyone's woozy.
Fitting: it's dirty with diapers, its buildings
Sag with the soot of the factories, autos...
Effluent oozes—it's pus from the wounded.
Oceans of tuna are buried in trash bags—
Coffins of tin are ensconced with the buzzing.
Choppers and flies are the halos—the patrons
Oakland attracted. It concentrates armor,
Concrete and grayness together with morsels
Locked in a circle of freeway and train tracks:
Locked in a bottle of yeast and its droppings—
Camped in a garden of bullets and garbage.

"Another unarmed Black brother, Derrick Jones, 37, a beloved Oakland barbershop owner and father of an infant girl, met a violent death on Monday night, Nov. 8, 2010, shot and killed by two white Oakland police officers while “fleeing,” after they “thought” they saw a metallic object in his hand. This is the third OPD officer-involved homicide of people of color in 2010."
—Mesha Monge-Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation, The San Francisco Bay View, November 10, 2010
http://sfbayview.com/2010/what-part-of-%E2%80%98killed_unarmed_black_man-murder%E2%80%99-doesn%E2%80%99t-opd-understand/

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Matt Quinn (@poemblaze1) Cries When He Hears The Truth [#twitterfoundpoem, November 10, 2010]

Matt Quinn (@poemblaze1) Cries When He Hears The Truth [#twitterfoundpoem, November 10, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

I love watching ppl with no innovation.
Does that make me a bad person?
I don't think so.
I love watching ppl I don't respect.
I will not lose sleep over any opinion you have of me.
say to me "No more Mr. Nice guy!"
but you never were Nice!
The standards are a different story.
you never had standards!!!!!!
you are still in darkness, so happy in darkness,
robbed, gagged & left for dead.
without any standards.
without innovation.
I love watching ppl with no innovation,
Running & Trying anything desperate...
Does that make me a bad person, or just
The village pariah?


Poemblaze's review, because I think the guy blocked me:

re: http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/why-i-write

"Self-indulgent. Why the linebreaks? I think this would be unremarkable prose & I think you know it too, which is why you broke the lines--to add 'gravitas' to the comp.

I know you think I'm being mean here, so let me use examples:

1) You use the language of lovers, but utterly ignore exploring the concept. It undercuts the poem's intention, because here you go, saying you have a deep connection to words, but then go on to act superficially. Your speech act is defied by the way you scribe it.
2) How do books with nothing in them a) transmit words, b) get called books at all, instead of sheafs of paper?

You can do way better than this. What would the books say if they saw you holding yourself to such a low standard?"

The guy is so terrified of a negative review, he moderates his comments section. I had to circumvent his efforts at censorship by reposting the critique here: http://oneshotpoetry.blogspot.com/2010/11/one-shot-wednesday-poetry-week-19.html

"The books had words in them and then poured them into the sleeper's ear.  That is why they are blank in the morning. You are mentally ill.  Get help. You have a lot of knowledge, but paranoid thinking and need to be the authority are keeping you from what you could be. I suspect you are off meds or that you have never sought help though I am sure others have suggested it." Matt Quinn, mattq1966@gmail.com

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A Modest Haggle [Today's News Poem, November 9, 2010]

A Modest Haggle [Today's News Poem, November 9, 2010]

Ground up beef's two bucks a pound,
Chicken breasts cost twice as much,
Babies sell for thirty thousand
Dollars; haggled on the lot.

Market forces drive the hunger:
Teeth desire to bite the difference,
Penises demand new hollows,
Arms have craved a new embrace.

Welcome son, this world is great!
Newer models fill the lot,
Older ones are junked to rust:
Pacifiers sell at any age.

"A Florida woman was charged with trying to sell her infant son in order to pay for a new car, police said on Tuesday. The baby's grandmother brokered the deal and initially demanded $75,000 but agreed to cut the price to $30,000 when told the prospective buyer could not get a bank loan, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) said."
—Reuters, Tue Nov 9, 2010 2:52pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A84KV20101109


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The Central Question [#twitterfoundpoem, November 9, 2010]

The Central Question [#twitterfoundpoem, November 9, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

MAN, I ALL CAN SAY IS PUT THE MONEY
on DA HATAS!!! DA HATAS IS MAD!!!
MAD RESPECT IS THE ULTIMATE burn
and burning IS DA ULTIMATE RESPECT!!!
WHY IS THERE A LIMIT ON THE MONEY
DA HATAS CAN burn? DA HATAS IS MAD!!!
i think a central question i think IS a central question!!!
IS that MAD ? MAN, I ALL CAN SAY IS that
THE ULTIMATE RESPECT IS THE ULTIMATE burn
so i hope you spill your coffee all over your face and burn it...
THE central question: IS that MAD ?

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Social Pyramid [Today's News Poem, November 8, 2010]

Social Pyramid [Today's News Poem, November 8, 2010]

If humankind's highest ambition's to elevate
Mortal to godlings, who cares of equality?
The workers of Pyramids simply contributed
Shares in the glory, but not immortality.
The spine's the antenna, the brain's the receiver:
Noumena fills it, while cleats dig the arches
And climb to the top of the mountain of haunches—
Stabbing a flag once on top of the structure
And shouting at heaven—much closer, he's certain.

"In my reporting, I regularly travel to banana republics notorious for their inequality. In some of these plutocracies, the richest 1 percent of the population gobbles up 20 percent of the national pie. But guess what? You no longer need to travel to distant and dangerous countries to observe such rapacious inequality."
—NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, The New York Times, Published: November 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.htm

"Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God."
—Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

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Thank You! Drive Thru! [#twitterfoundpoem, November 8, 2010]

Thank You! Drive Thru! [#twitterfoundpoem, November 8, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

I've seen trouble at the drive thru, all my days.
I had to adapt, But the truth is,
half the work we do will never have a purpose
in life. Excuse me.

"welcome to your life,
may I take your order?"

Poor little guy, he was born old
and of constant sorrow.
Everything is possible yet has No purpose.
yeh life is hard n all its complications n conflicts
at the drive thru window.

"Excuse me, sir, sir, excuse me...
excuses, excuses...
excuse me, sir, sir...motherfucker"

Gotcha - I just try to adapt
to all These days in my life.
I've seen trouble.
I was born and raised on trouble.

My November is just like October
is just like all my days in my life.
Okay, thank you!
drive thru!

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Through The Holy Submarine's Porthole [#twitterfoundpoem, November 7, 2010]

Through The Holy Submarine's Porthole [#twitterfoundpoem, November 7, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

Ordain my minutes with Your Holy Submarine.
I subordinate to The wishes of The fishes in the sea.
I pwahahaha and
LOOK AT THIS, LOOK from The porthole of
my mind's new day. information passes through
my mind's minutes, like The fishes in the sea.
well because that seems to be the time
where my mind's the MOST convoluted!!
Thank you dear for Your Holy Mendacity,
Your Holy Submarine, and All Holy sea;
Your Holy Mendacity and pwahahaha
The porthole of my mind's new day!!

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The Allure of the Mountain [Today's News Poem, November 7, 2010]

The Allure of the Mountain [Today's News Poem, November 7, 2010]

You embrace, so reject what you can.
Default to a mask—for the gas
That swarms the whole world from your ass.

Here is a man who rejected the kitchen
Vegans established, to climb up a mountain.
Starving, awaiting epiphany's pain.

There is the wife he abandoned
Tucking the babes of employers,
While her offspring's with her mother.

And someday the boy will desire
A fantasy—fleeing his home
In search of the face in the mountain:

A skeleton set in position
Observing the sky for a sign.

"Police say protesters have delayed a shipment of nuclear waste to a storage site in northern Germany but that the train is rolling again."
—The Associated Press, Sunday, November 7, 2010; 3:10 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/07/AR2010110700766.html

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The Toylit Q1/Q2 2010 Report Is Now On Sale As An E-Book

Go forth and buy.

Also, if you want a bonus poem for tomorrow, 'patronize' my sponsors.

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Burnt Offerings At The Improvised Temple Mount [Today's News Poem, November 6, 2010]

Burnt Offerings At The Improvised Temple Mount [Today's News Poem, November 6, 2010]

Inscribe a message for yourself
And beggar neighbor as thyself.
Uncertainty's a chalice filled
With paper—burn it. Offer ash,
Your faith, to equilibrium.
For fire is never far from fashion,
And streets can stage revival shows.
While glass can hold a liquid, shards
Are likelier with cans ablaze:
It's broken, still, it holds a shape
Of use upon this temple mound.

"Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, continued on Saturday to rebut critics who feared the central bank’s latest bid to stimulate the economy could trigger dangerous inflation down the line and antagonize other countries by weakening the dollar."
—SEWELL CHAN, The New York Times, Published: November 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/business/economy/07fed.htm

"Looking out her front window in a usually quiet residential neighborhood in this city, Deanna Goldstein's knees began to shake. More than 100 protesters were hemmed in by police in riot gear. A trash can was blazing on the street. "I came home early from downtown to get away from the craziness, but the craziness came to me," she said."
—Associated Press, 2 hours ago, as of 1:10pm PST, 11/6/2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5he91v4QhLUNNA1JbUoqR-QaTdsDw?docId=5771d280dc464bee8dc899d6344a40d9



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The Fantastic Mechanical Museum of Coin Operated Flesh [Bonus Poem From Archives]

The Fantastic Mechanical Museum of Coin Operated Flesh

I) Should the Predictions of Anti-Feces Futurists Come True
As goes feces, so too goes our species.
Pygmalion science, in defiance
Of evolution, makes the poop solution:
Decrease the torso; remove the guts. Ease
From reliance on old toilet contrivance:
We'll all shun that old anal pollution.

II) The Museum and the Moral Hazard of Cybernetics
Obsolete body parts made into art:
Electro-stim intestines take a swim
With electric eels: aquarium surreal.
See the spine in a cart! The anus that farts!
The prim with their hymns call it Satan's new whim—
A weak appeal, to new men, made of steel.
--
First appeared in Toylit #2, 2001

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Brain In A Vat In A Bed With You [#twitterfoundpoem, November 6, 2010]

Brain In A Vat In A Bed With You [#twitterfoundpoem, November 6, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

I was in bed with you.
noticed your body,
me with my brains in a jar.
while the scent of your skin
seemed to be so sweet and unforgettable,
like some foreign flower.
im keeping my brains in a jar for you,
and You're welcome for everything you have done for you.
I want to throw up over the ramparts of bed,
and Just die and rot alone!
I've noticed my aging and noticed your face/body,
topless, it was just not the world brains referred me.
my brains in a jar with the scent of your skin
beside me, in bed. in dream, you emerged
from the ramparts of bed.
I too emerged from a bed to my childhood
bed Where I read and you emerged
in my bed like some foreign flower
before I SUBMERGE in to death
in my death bed of dream
Where I drown in a vat of my brains and dream
and rot alone!

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Bonus Poem Challenge

It's simple: if a few of you 'demonstrate' interest in my sponsors then I'll post an old, unpublished poem. This is a daily offer, good for about a week or so, unless there's no interest--in which case you & I will just pretend it never happened.

As a side note, I'll try to get some electronic edition of the Q1/Q2 report ready to go in the next few days.

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Freestyle Time at CombatWords! November 5, 2010

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/11/combatwords-november-5-2010-freestyle.html

BTW, the dude's totally not freestyling. He's looking up his notes.

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Forces of Nature [Today's News Poem, November 5, 2010]

Forces of Nature [Today's News Poem, November 5, 2010]

Ants can commune with the infants.
Crawling up bedposts to tickle
Toes kicked unswaddled, then nibble
Leftovers, lost in the panic.

Plumes in the air—who's astonished
Anymore? Flames seem triumphant,
Smoke seems the signal of kinship:
Lava the call, and flight the response.

"The death toll from Indonesia’s Mt. Merapi doubled Friday when rescue workers uncovered more than 50 victims who had succumbed to the latest blast of superheated gas from a fierce eruption that began late Thursday night. The eruption burned villages up to nine miles away from the volcano’s crater and forced authorities to widen the evacuation zone."
—Sara Schonhardt, Correspondent / November 5, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/1105/New-Mt.-Merapi-eruption-in-Indonesia-raises-death-toll-into-triple-digits

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Explaned Explosion [#twitterfoundpoem, November 5, 2010]

Explaned Explosion [#twitterfoundpoem, November 5, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

grenades and razor blades fall mainly on the plain.
the plane! the plane crashed mainly on the plain.
What's understood need not to be explained:
The plane developed engine trouble and exploded on impact.
The plane explaned beyond recognition!
explaned the speed of explosion:
a rain of plane falls mainly on the plain.





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Louis XVI Considers His Good Fortune [Today's News Poem, November 4, 2010]

Louis XVI Considers His Good Fortune [Today's News Poem, November 4, 2010]

Accustomed to excess refinement,
Pause and admire the consequence
Mirrored as portrait: the fortunate.

Versailles is the soul's own reflection:
Glory requires one's willfully
Ignorant, urgent, impulsive, harsh.

If not for one's urges and instincts,
Who would not lay down and perish?
Hunger and loneliness animate

And fear does the rest—and if not, then it's boredom.

"The organisers of Thursday’s anti-US demonstration, in their final declaration, said that Iran considers “America as the Great Satan and enemy number one.”"
—Telegraph.co.uk, 9:31AM GMT 04 Nov 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8109535/Iran-stages-mass-protest-on-anniversary-of-US-embassy-capture.html

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Most Intriguing [#twitterfoundpoem, November 4, 2010]

Most Intriguing [#twitterfoundpoem, November 4, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

a final act of Fuck off:
a most intriguing temporal paradox.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
a paradox!

during a course of temporal physics and causality
I spent like 10 years leveling
during a course of sixteen years.
HAHAHAHAHAHA
a paradox!

who knew time travel could be so fun?
Oh everyone???
This is when we need time
machines like o'clocks and stuff,
to travel through a course of time:
a final act of Fuck off:
kill that Kid, that asshole newb
and punch his nose!
HAHAHAHAHAHA
a paradox!



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Champion's Anxiety [Today's News Poem, November 3, 2010]

Champion's Anxiety [Today's News Poem, November 3, 2010]

"Number one champs!"

Ducking the bottle, they miss me
And throttle the hill. The whole city
Gobbles the news. They're the winners
I've heard, for a day or eleven.

"Number one champs!"

Even the score for a little
Bit, envy is sharpest for former
Owners—by pwning, they're kinging
And queening the angst of tomorrow.

"Number one champs!"



"Hundreds of thousands of people jammed the streets today in one of the largest crowds downtown San Francisco has ever seen, joyously chanting and waving signs and standing 50 deep on Market Street for the Giants' World Series victory parade."
—Justin Berton, Kevin Fagan,Demian Bulwa, The San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, November 3, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/03/BAM51G6DMS.DTL

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Forget About It—It's Cyberpunk Chinatown [#twitterfoundpoem, November 3, 2010]

Forget About It—It's Cyberpunk Chinatown [#twitterfoundpoem, November 3, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

wanna fix
this crazy, fucked up World?
This World Is Crazy.
Forget about it.
a quick visit to chinatown should fix you
like a quick line.
It's like crack.
wanna fix this crazy, fucked up World?
pretty soon you'll eventually get to chinatown
and Forget about this crazy, fucked up cyberpunk World.
You can't fix every man woman and child.
you don't have the money!
Forget about it, This cyberpunk World Is Crazy:
fix Yourself in chinatown!



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Fallible Man [Today's News Poem, November 2, 2010]

Fallible Man [Today's News Poem, November 2, 2010]

Reality's lost the electorate,
So vote for your gratification.
The libertine pathway of synapses
Is Manicheistic; rewarding
The silencing instinct of consciousness.

Fallible Man! What does will represent?
Urgent activity, mingled with grins.
Solipsist, think, so you are—and can be
Vapors at vespers: a pipe on your desk,
Confidence fills up both lungs—you're alone.

"He and his chief chemist get ideas for new drugs by scanning scientific literature. They pay particularly close attention to new papers published by scholars known for researching mind-altering, psychoactive substances. David Nichols, a pharmacologist at Purdue University, has been especially valuable, Mr. Llewellyn says. Through his work studying brain receptors, Dr. Nichols has developed a range of psychoactive substances. His papers give a full description of the drugs he's using, including their chemical makeup. This provides Llewellyn and others with a roadmap for making the drugs."
—JEANNE WHALEN, The Wall Street Journal, OCTOBER 30, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704763904575550200845267526.html

"Voters in many states cast ballots on controversial measures Tuesday, including opting out of President Obama's health care reforms, balancing budgets, legalizing marijuana, and countering union organizing."
—Michael Martinez, CNN, November 2, 2010 5:48 p.m. EDT
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/02/ballot.initiatives/

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The Political Ideology of @LeducViolet [#twitterfoundpoem, November 2, 2010]

The Political Ideology of @LeducViolet [#twitterfoundpoem, November 2, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

I wanna work off my upper middle class guilt...
down with daddy!
I wanna work off my debt to the revolution...
my parents must die so that I can live as I wish...
guilt-free! DA upper middle class IS GETTING
THINNER BY DA MINUTE!
Come with me girl let's play radicals and revolutionaries;
we can tweet off our upper middle class guilt
and maybe They won't kill u, or me.
down with daddy
and SUCK MY COCK!

http://twitter.com/leducviolet/status/29444826566

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Bored With All Creation [Today's News Poem (Sonnet), November 1, 2010]

Bored With All Creation [Today's News Poem (Sonnet), November 1, 2010]

No worthy builder ever lets it slip:
They craft creation's image, aping self.
If self's an ape, then knout that beast and whip
The creature 'till it cringes on your shelf.
The jars are filled with pickled error, tools
And samples studied under microscopes.
Your pet observes the play you make in pools
With petri dishes, life itself. No hope
For animals like these, you let them fight
For nutrients. The exit's never found.
Your stupid pet observes your work, delights
In play you call your study; though its bound
To live inside a dish as well—you're bored
With all creation, though they call you Lord.

"The national poll found that Americans plan to vote for Republicans over Democratic candidates by 50 percent to 44 percent. This is an edge that will likely give Republicans dozens of seats in the House and significant gains in the Senate."
—Reuters, Mon Nov 1, 2010 2:12pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A03X520101101

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The Leading Man is of Zombie Races [#twitterfoundpoem, November 1, 2010]

The Leading Man is of Zombie Races [#twitterfoundpoem, November 1, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

THE leading man of dreams is officially of zombie races.
when you look at their ROTTING faces
don't you guys get a warm glow from THE Traces
of human nature Rotting in those Aces?
WHAT??!!! you guys prefer extra hot maces
to bash their ROTTING heads,
over seeing them sing on TV while you lie in your comfy bed
changing the channels of dread??!!!

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