Playground Equilibrium [Today's News Poem, November 24, 2010]

Playground Equilibrium [Today's News Poem, November 24, 2010]

There's balance in see-saws,
Forgiveness in sandboxes.
Carousel tragedy
Is less than memory,
It's less than the freezing fog,
Less than a ghost—or air.
The problem children play
Too roughly, they're going to
Injure each other. The
Eleven year olds gang
To topple the mountains of
Sand that the babies pushed,
And seven year old kids
Start throwing down gravel, then
Rocks on the older boys,
This battle of playground
Forgotten, a memory
Lost in the winter chill.

"Despite the weeks of preparation and media-hyped anticipation, no massive "Opt-Out Day" protests appeared at Boston’s Logan International Airport on Wednesday. Media reports suggest that the scene at other American airports was no different. "
—Elizabeth Fuller, Christian Science Monitor, November 24, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1124/Opt-Out-Day-fizzles-Air-travelers-say-scans-aren-t-a-big-deal

"Tom DeLay, one of the most powerful and divisive Republican lawmakers ever to come out of Texas, was convicted Wednesday of money-laundering charges in a state trial, five years after his indictment here forced him to resign as majority leader in the House of Representatives. "
—JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr., The New York Times, Published: November 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/us/politics/25delay.html

"With top U.S. officials continuing to declare that help from China will be key in calming tensions between North and South Korea, President Obama is planning to call Chinese President Hu Jintao in the next few days to discuss the critical situation, according to senior administration officials."
—Ed Henry, CNN Senior White House Correspondent, November 24, 2010 8:09 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/24/pol.obama.hu.koreas/

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The Perennial Meaning [Today's News Poem, November 23, 2010]

The Perennial Meaning [Today's News Poem, November 23, 2010]

Goodnight my drowsiness;
Seal off the aperture,
End my awareness:
A little death is all
I ask, but not too much—
An incomplete goodbye.
Victory's wavelength will
Crest and invert and it
Never repeats itself,
Refuses the rhythm,
Recycles the pattern,
Dies, revives back again.

"...the North fired dozens of shells at a South Korean island, killing two of the South’s soldiers... The new clash came just days after an American nuclear scientist who visited North Korea earlier this month said he had been shown a vast new facility built secretly and rapidly to enrich uranium."
—MARK McDONALD, The New York Times, Published: November 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/world/asia/24korea.html


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Like Gone to Like [Today's News Poem, November 22, 2010]

Like Gone to Like [Today's News Poem, November 22, 2010]

The circle of drowning:
Vein equilibrium.
A fountain of solace:
A symbol, a river!
The patterns of silk:
Blood trends to fluttering.
The lights are electric.
The system is burnt-out.
If scared of the water
Emulate firmament;
Purify, verify; clarify, satisfy—
Enough with the medicine, snuff out the fragrance!

"Australian Sean Ngu: "I was in the park, some 30m away from the bridge. There was lots of noise and celebration cheer. Suddenly the cheer became screams, louder and louder. At first we thought people were celebrating, but the screams were different... Others tried to climb onto the bridge, grabbing and pulling loose cables - electric shocks caused many more deaths... No-one saw one single person coming out of the river - all those people must have drowned. ""
—BBC, 22 November 2010 Last updated at 21:51 ET
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11814964

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Toys For Crabs [Today's News Poem, November 21, 2010]

Toys For Crabs [Today's News Poem, November 21, 2010]

At three, I thought the motor car
A badge of blithe maturity.
I took a handful, threw my toys:
They bumped against the windy cliff.
At ten, I seized the glider, used
My mind to grip the handles, jumped
And swam in wind that cast me back
To bounce upon the face of land.
My beard's a cradle for my face,
And seagulls mock my fallen mass.
The floating corpses: fishing boats.
The helicopters: seraphim
With bulging bellies, giant heads
That look like blades that chop the sky,
And frame the contrails greater beings
Emit. And somewhere, God itself
Must ride a satellite—a jet
Of gas from godly aft propels
The eye that orbits far above
The foam of taste, the crabs of touch.

"North Korea for the first time showed a visiting American a lab where it claimed to be processing uranium to make atomic weapons, something that, if true, would confirm that it is using a different key ingredient than the one it agreed to stop using under a deal with the U.S. and other countries. "
—EVAN RAMSTAD, The Wall Street Journal, NOVEMBER 21, 2010, 2:55 A.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704496104575627740592221262.html

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Faith in Faith [Today's News Poem, November 20, 2010]

Faith in Faith [Today's News Poem, November 20, 2010]

Whispers bear the load of confidence,
Elect the candidates, who ride in
Circumstance, measure nothing (weather
Is just the air) and prove the heavens
Mandate leaders leading hissing mouths
Where implication's shrillest, gossip's
Loudest: faith, an empty promise.

"Based on the facts at hand right now, Mr. Obama is likely to win the 2012 election in a landslide. That, at least, is the prediction of Ray C. Fair... In the quarter that just ended, however, the economy was growing at a rate of just 2 percent. If that sluggish pace continued — or, more ominously, if there were a double-dip recession or a steep plunge in the markets — that forecast would change. Under those circumstances, regardless of other issues or the identity of President Obama’s opponent, the model shows the president losing. "
—JEFF SOMMER. The New York Times, Published: November 20, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/business/21stra.html

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CombatWords, November 19, 2010: The Future!

CombatWords, November 19, 2010: The Future!

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/11/combatwords-november-19-2010-future.html

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Monadology [Today's News Poem, November 19, 2010]

Monadology [Today's News Poem, November 19, 2010]

Architect clockmaker synchronized order;
Simplified substance, instruction. The microbes
Changed—they adapted with time, but their essence
Could not evolve—it was singular, perfect:
Slave to the program of codons, encrypted
Everywhere symbol distributes instruction.
Even adaption to circumstance; whether
Letters declaring desire, or the phone call—
Setting the date—or the atoms seducing
Space where the lips will collide, the infection
Sending them both to the hospital—never
Call it complexity. Simplify purpose.
Share the same origin, share the same finish.

"The worm eventually makes the current hit 1,410 Hertz, or cycles per second — just enough, they reported, to send the centrifuges flying apart. In a spooky flourish, Mr. Albright said in the interview, the worm ends the attack with a command to restore the current to the perfect operating frequency for the centrifuges — which, by that time, would presumably be destroyed. "
—WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER, The New York Times, Published: November 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/world/middleeast/19stuxnet.html

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My Warhead [Today's News Poem, November 18, 2010]

My Warhead [Today's News Poem, November 18, 2010]

I've maimed the lawns, split the yard,
Chopped the carrot and basil—
I filled myself, spent my teeth,
Ground to satiate warhead.
Athena; born wise for war,
Blessed the appetite, crafted
The options: maimed, healed, then killed.
"Eat," she said, so we swallowed
The meat and craved more until
Our epiphany bled out.

"President Obama pushed Thursday for ratification of a nuclear-arms treaty with Moscow by year's end despite Republican opposition, calling the pact a "national security imperative" and warning that delaying it would weaken the United States. "
—Mary Beth Sheridan, Walter Pincus and William Branigin, Washington Post Staff Writers, Thursday, November 18, 2010; 12:24 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/17/AR2010111701598.html

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#Twitterfoundpoem is Officially Over

I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. I'll write them as a bonus poem once in a while, but they are no longer going to be a daily staple.

Don't worry, I'm still going to do the News Poem for the foreseeable future.

-KW

9:47pm PST: Let me know if you'd like to be a guest contributor for #twitterfoundpoem.

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Nazi Architecture [Today's News Poem, November 17, 2010]

Nazi Architecture [Today's News Poem, November 17, 2010]

While swimming in soot, near erections of towers—
Or barrels that seem to be pointed to heaven
But aim at the ground, you might notice the pillars
Are cracking: designed for the failure that's coming.
For nature abhors the incompetence gathered,
And quakes with its rage. While indulgence is stunning,
While fumes are unpleasant, consumption is monarch
Or Fuhrer of desire—while carts sell the breakfasts
And stores sell prescriptions, and monitors promise
That war ends in victory; crabs in a bucket
Are stymied by architects, thwarted by surface
And claws, as the mutiny pinches escape routes;
Until they are steamed and are cracked and then eaten.

"The Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to four manufacturers of alcoholic energy drinks on Wednesday, saying that it was unsafe to include caffeine in the beverages."
—ABBY GOODNOUGH, The New York Times, Published: November 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/us/18drinks.html

"Would-be traveler John Tyner of Oceanside, California, wasn't too happy about the new "enhanced" pat-downs the agency rolled out nationally on November 1. The new guidelines let TSA officers feel passenger's genitals with their hands if they refuse to go through the high-tech body scanner."
—Jen Phillips, Mother Jones, Tue Nov. 16, 2010 1:24 PM PST
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/11/TSA-scan-complaints-grope-tyner

"After a brief delay, the first Dungeness crab cakes of the season should be on Bay Area dinner tables by Thursday."
—Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle November 17, 2010 04:00 AM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/17/MNER1GD43V.DTL



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Reviewing Heller McAlpin's Book Review of 'Exley' in The San Francisco Chronicle: November 17, 2010

re: Heller McAlpin's book review of Brock Clarke's Elxey in the Wednesday, November 17th 2010 edition: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/16/DD4O1FN91M.DTL

I hate this kind of book review. Plot summary does NOT equal a close reading. One would think this is a movie review, given its emphasis on the superficial. How is the symbolism? The prose? Is it funny, flat, or quirky?

What an incompetent review. Did you pay some professional paper writer to write it? Because that's what it looks like: undergraduate twaddle.

Example: If you are expecting the reader to know what 'metafictional pastiche' means, then such a reader will be interested in the WAYS it's a metafictional pastiche. By writing a review which vacillates between targeting an educated audience & a layperson, you fail to do both.

Also, you fall for the marketing ploy of this book & waste too much time glossing over Fred Exley... and then do a TERRIBLE job of summarizing him. Oh, and then the lit tropes, the lit tropes! 'Metafiction,' 'Murakami,' & an unforgivable non-sequitur in the 1st paragraph w/ "Fforde." Relevant HOW? You can't even engage the prose so you cite references.

You spend so much time defending Clarke's pedigree, one wonders if you are even CAPABLE of reading. I personally doubt you read the book. YOU are part of the poison that has destroyed mainstream 'high' literature and you treat craft as if it were a Google algorithm that measures quality by the number of times the content is cited--RATHER than the actual quality of the content.

And after reading reviews for this book all over the lit-mag network (blog is a dirty word), I STILL have yet to see a review that actually engages the text; rather than the social context of the author. So in that regard, this book review is a failure. If you were in my class, I'd flunk you. Dismiss this as jealousy, or a bad mood--you KNOW I'm correct.

-KW

ps: Chron, I challenge you to hire someone who actually knows how to read AND write. My crit of McAlpin's incompetent review is better written AND I did it in minutes.


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The Second Cumming [#twitterfoundpoem, November 17, 2010]

The Second Cumming [#twitterfoundpoem, November 17, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

Turning and turning in the widening trick:
the hoe cannot hear the pimp.
trick ass Things fall apart; self indulgence cannot hold.
Mere prostitutes induced my whiskey grogginess,
my whiskey Semen, my whiskey screams; all loosed upon this world.
You can never Turn a Trick to a Treat
though you can turn a housewife into a hoe;
but it takes Real Conviction
and the center cannot hold your balls as She can.

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Plastic Cyborg [Today's News Poem, November 16, 2010]

Plastic Cyborg [Today's News Poem, November 16, 2010]

Pamela, plastic—a cyborg I've heard.
Silicone titties, that lactate the grease
Pumped from the planet: a mother of earth.
Human they say, though I find that absurd:
Poisoning flesh, she has botoxed the crease
Aging has cracked on her obsolete mirth.

"The artificial kidney is still at least five years away from being tested in a human patient. Researchers have built a large model of the kidney - so big that it filled a hospital room - and used it on human patients to show that the theories behind it will work. And parts of the small kidney have been successfully tested in animals."
—Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 16, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/16/MNKF1GBCRJ.DTL

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You Can't Make A Breakfast Burrito Without Breaking Some Eggs [#twitterfoundpoem, November 16, 2010]

You Can't Make A Breakfast Burrito Without Breaking Some Eggs [#twitterfoundpoem, November 16, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

lastnight a stalker pulled up on me in mcD's drive thr...
i be like Didn't I contact Interpol
this past summer about that? Wot is ur problem?
How can people stand driving like real shit?
I drive this dam bus like its a drag race car
swerving and shit... instead of feeling sad
& depressed, I don't. I just open&close LOL.
my stalker is the police, rain and my
guilty conscience now disturbing ur innocence.
I took the kids to the mcD's drive thr...
we are always close to crashing on the next level
but that's okay, I hit dat shit like a parkd car
and anyhow you can't make a breakfast burrito
without breaking some eggs.

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Cradle of Wonders [Today's News Poem, November 15, 2010]

Cradle of Wonders [Today's News Poem, November 15, 2010]

Sleep through the ashes of mother and father.
Cradle your skull on a pillow of tinder.
Grip your giraffe as the world sets its wonder
Blazing—amazing how scenes seem to vanish.
Faces adored you, now flames are admiring
Ignorance. Torches can send you to dreaming,
Sending you mobiles of smoke as you wonder
How did a world so pronounced with surprises
Conjure a mist in your bedroom. Such splendor!

"A fire at a high-rise building in Shanghai killed at least 42 people and injured more than 90 on Monday, China's state media said."
—CNN Wire Staff, November 15, 2010 12:25 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/15/china.building.fire/



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Rain a Lullaby [#twitterfoundpoem, November 15, 2010]

Rain a Lullaby [#twitterfoundpoem, November 15, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

a napping infant.. Yeah, a great combo
of repetitive rhythm and soft sounds.
The truths turned out to be rain for a sweet lullaby!!
Its over. hum yourself a lullaby.
rain a sweet lullaby for me.



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Nazi Butterfly Effect [Today's News Poem, November 14, 2010]

Nazi Butterfly Effect [Today's News Poem, November 14, 2010]

In the long run that marathon mattered
So little, that only the name of the
Race has survived; with that city of thought
With its temples, philosophy—extinct.
The Nazis defeated the Red Army,
Taught us with chalkboards they inscribed with the
White phalanges from the dead: in the long
Run death will be there, catching our glories
Tucking us, instructing the pupils. Or
If not, then metrics in megatons will.

"A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad. Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with Nazi émigrés."
—ERIC LICHTBLAU, The New York Times, Published: November 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html

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My Manta Ray's Not All Right [#twitterfoundpoem, November 14, 2010]

My Manta Ray's Not All Right [#twitterfoundpoem, November 14, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

Pretty sure I saw a dead shark
by a bunch of dead surfers
preyed upon by a Pretty weird school in general.
a weird school of the Manta Ray.
The Reality of the World we live in today is that
death is certain and the Manta Ray goes blub blub blub
on my morning walk.
a weird school in general.
therefore, thou shalt not grieve for what is unavoidable.



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Mendel's Strain [Today's News Poem, November 13, 2010]

Mendel's Strain [Today's News Poem, November 13, 2010]

A German pea was a credit to master
Races; grooming the soil for the interest.
Its tendrils have strangled the grasses, seedlings:
Fascist, an army of plunder, punishing
What should starve and recycle itself to mulch.
When pumpkins invade and their giant, spiny
Leaves take possession of sun, all pray if they
Can imagine an architect for this war
Of season and pleasure sometimes, though fading.
Light is a sliver; scarcity's permanent
And we kill to live, for the hour will fade.

"Mr. Sarrazin says his book can be boiled down to a few main ideas. To begin, ethnic Germans are having too few children, while Muslim immigrants are having too many... Second, Mr. Sarrazin believes that intelligence is inherited, not nurtured..."
—MICHAEL SLACKMAN, The New York Times, Published: November 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/world/europe/13sarrazin.html

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Bearing North With Bare Arms [#twitterfoundpoem, November 13, 2010]

Bearing North With Bare Arms [#twitterfoundpoem, November 13, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

the Lord of the Ringtones
where the bearing is pain
and North. goin back to basics.
goin North to Limit
the Size of the Arms that i Bear.
the bears at the Pole will Limit
my basics. try my Arms
on for exploding taste!
i arm the bears on for Size
and Limit my right to my Arms!

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Counterpoint Epiphany [Today's News Poem, November 12, 2010]

Counterpoint Epiphany [Today's News Poem, November 12, 2010]

I open my eyes, and by seeing, am seen;
Leverage circuitry, witness the outbreaks
Of rekindled relationships: cholera.

The names of diseases appear on my screen
Lacking a meaning beyond definition.
I am watched as I voyeur the monitor

Considering menace. Computers are dry,
Likewise myself: we both share dispositions.
We are pulling the themes from polyphonies

Of history, memory. Everything old,
New, in-between is an echo, a counter
To the trend and all lead to epiphanies.

"Medical workers in Haiti on Friday called the upward trend in deaths and illnesses in the cholera outbreak "alarming" as the earthquake-devastated nation's already strained health system overflowed with the sick. "
— Moni Basu, CNN, November 12, 2010 3:34 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/12/haiti.cholera/

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Manic Affirmations [#twitterfoundpoem, November 12, 2010]

Manic Affirmations [#twitterfoundpoem, November 12, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

It's so hard surviving now.
so hard to dare to do yesterday, today, tomorrow,
the things you never had, have, will have-
whatever. TO THE EXTREME critics:
I HOPE EBULLIENCE MEANS E-BULLYING
TO THE EXTREME!
I HOPE today is a secret!
I HOPE enthusiasm MEANS
enjoying yourselves today,
and EBULLIENCE MEANS jumping off a cliff
tomorrow!

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Lament of a Scythian King [Bonus Poem from the Archives]

Lament of a Scythian King [Bonus Poem from the Archives]

Why must they find my body and booty?
Why excavate, only to desecrate?
Though we sacrificed a beauty
To ensure my burial gate, looters sate
Their wicked curiosity in my tomb.
They: indifferent to my sacred room.

When I lived we cared about the way we'd die--
Though we never fathomed our own extinction.
Where are my Scythian heirs to deny
Those thieves who rob my royal distinction?
Are sacred moments easily forgotten
By the ungrateful fry that we've begotten?

Is sacredness tied to living worship?
If so, then descendants know: my fate is yours.
You should forget the burial and skip
Straight to the lab and formaldehyde stores.
My venal seed ensconced by technology;
Knowing death only by archeology.

Science mines for meaning it cannot make.
They scratch the earth, the sea, the dead: to scope
Each thing, they break it. This is their mistake:
They kill off gods, but still they look for hope.
We ancestors wait in the firmament
For our sons to ascend toward punishment.

--
Circa 2004 or so.

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Someone Clicked Yesterday, So Have a Bonus Poem Today

Express enough interest in my sponsors & I'll put up an epic poem that Ploughshares & Poetry both rejected.

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