Film of Security [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, September 14, 2012]
Insults: fury. Film the profits.
Protesters attack off flits
Of burning prophets,
U.S. Flag and Pentagon.
Security is agony,
And it's also gone.
“Fury about a film that insults the
Prophet Mohammad tore across the Middle East on Friday with
protesters attacking U.S. embassies and burning American flags as the
Pentagon rushed to bolster security at its missions. ”
—Reuters, Fri Sep 14, 2012 1:25pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/14/us-film-protests-idUSBRE88D0O320120914
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Friday, September 14, 2012
Film of Security [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, September 14, 2012]
Labels:
Embassy attack,
Innocence of Muslims,
Libya,
Middle East,
September 14 2012,
Tunisia,
US Flags and Other Totems
Friday, August 31, 2012
Grimace Of The Rabbit Man [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, August 31, 2012]
Grimace Of The Rabbit Man [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, August 31, 2012]
All life's pursuit and flights of fancy
Rabbit nibblers: ash suits and the nominally red,
Bloodless bowties. Every tooth's surrender,
So take it easy. Don't get angry.
Just calm down, lie down in down
And rodent pellets. Smile because
You can't help but, can't imagine anything
But bites of self, broken jaws, your own
Ashen blood.
"As wealth and income rise to the top, moreover, so does political power. The rich are able to entrench themselves by lowering their taxes, gaining special tax breaks (such as the “carried interest” loophole allowing private equity and hedge fund managers to treat their incomes as capital gains), and ensuring a steady flow of corporate welfare to their businesses (special breaks for oil and gas, big agriculture, big insurance, Big Pharma, and, of course, Wall Street)."
- By Robert Reich, ROBERTREICH.org
http://robertreich.org/post/30553661179
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All life's pursuit and flights of fancy
Rabbit nibblers: ash suits and the nominally red,
Bloodless bowties. Every tooth's surrender,
So take it easy. Don't get angry.
Just calm down, lie down in down
And rodent pellets. Smile because
You can't help but, can't imagine anything
But bites of self, broken jaws, your own
Ashen blood.
"As wealth and income rise to the top, moreover, so does political power. The rich are able to entrench themselves by lowering their taxes, gaining special tax breaks (such as the “carried interest” loophole allowing private equity and hedge fund managers to treat their incomes as capital gains), and ensuring a steady flow of corporate welfare to their businesses (special breaks for oil and gas, big agriculture, big insurance, Big Pharma, and, of course, Wall Street)."
- By Robert Reich, ROBERTREICH.org
http://robertreich.org/post/30553661179
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Labels:
August 31 2012,
Beast of Pray,
Nature's beautiful predators,
Predator,
Rodent man,
the price of prey
Friday, August 17, 2012
Mock Execution [Today's News Poem, August 17, 2012]
Mock Execution [Today's News Poem, August 17, 2012]
You have nothing
I couldn't take;
And when you sing,
Sing mistake.
Nothing's safe or just:
Virgin Mary, cunt of God
Must fuck you over
Exactly like a man.
Dostoevsky knew the chances
Of execution's double glances.
Snowmen staked into the ground,
Czarist coils bound
To trees in winter--an upbringing
Of snow precautions:
'This is life,' he must have said
Before he bled beyond the ice.
Bring that little Jesus death
And death again; without the fear
Of death and death again
There's nothing left to fear.
My teenage brother yanked me off my chair
Tore my bib and brought the knife down near my neck
To slash and stab again in jest.
A game of fear to him.
But I have died and died again
And now I am invincible
And cannot fear, nor trust.
And if I love, I love the thrust.
"A Moscow judge handed down stiff prison sentences of two years on Friday afternoon for three young women who staged a protest against Vladimir V. Putin in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior last February and whose jailing and trial on hooliganism charges have generated worldwide criticism of constraints on political speech in Russia."
- DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, The New York Times, Published: August 17, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/europe/suspense-ahead-of-verdict-for-jailed-russian-punk-band.html
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You have nothing
I couldn't take;
And when you sing,
Sing mistake.
Nothing's safe or just:
Virgin Mary, cunt of God
Must fuck you over
Exactly like a man.
Dostoevsky knew the chances
Of execution's double glances.
Snowmen staked into the ground,
Czarist coils bound
To trees in winter--an upbringing
Of snow precautions:
'This is life,' he must have said
Before he bled beyond the ice.
Bring that little Jesus death
And death again; without the fear
Of death and death again
There's nothing left to fear.
My teenage brother yanked me off my chair
Tore my bib and brought the knife down near my neck
To slash and stab again in jest.
A game of fear to him.
But I have died and died again
And now I am invincible
And cannot fear, nor trust.
And if I love, I love the thrust.
"A Moscow judge handed down stiff prison sentences of two years on Friday afternoon for three young women who staged a protest against Vladimir V. Putin in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior last February and whose jailing and trial on hooliganism charges have generated worldwide criticism of constraints on political speech in Russia."
- DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, The New York Times, Published: August 17, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/europe/suspense-ahead-of-verdict-for-jailed-russian-punk-band.html
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Labels:
August 17 2012,
Culture of death,
dead inside already,
Dostoevsky,
Mock Execution,
Pussy Riot,
Putschy Riot,
sadism
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Willard Up Gangsta!! [#twitterfoundpoem, August 12, 2012]
Willard Up Gangsta!!
[#twitterfoundpoem, August 12, 2012]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem
Willard up gangsta!!
don't like Gemstone canines, Ghost
dogs, Basic Lupine Urology?
u gotta be like the Gemstone canines.
u gotta Willard up gangsta and tear It
up !!
u gotta tear breakfast bacon OFF a pig
and tear It up gangsta!!
When you're a Ghost Dog your whole
death
and come to the point of not being able
to play
your game anymore, it's like your death
is over.
but u can still piss OFF, tear It up,
and call the cops
for more so so fried breakfast pig.
your death is over but your Life is
Just beginning .
so Willard up gangsta!! u gotta pig It
up,
Fuck It up, an Fuck a breakfast pig!!
tear It up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Labels:
#twitterfoundpoem,
August 12 2012,
beandogs,
canines,
diamonds,
Ghost,
Willard
Friday, August 10, 2012
Drawing Quarter and Receiving None [Today's News Poem, August 10, 2012]
Drawing Quarter and Receiving None
[Today's News Poem, August 10, 2012]
Aware of your awareness,
Halting before your halter–
Brand news and your nooses–
I burn upon your altar.
For life is meat and meaning;
Gamey and gamete, games of
Chance, trance of the cancers
Of greed and fear, above
Below – and lowing calfishly
Accidentally flowing gold,
Elevated to the empty sky
(Star-filled, empty, empty)
The Machine becomes aware
Of my awareness,
Learns to play my play and offers
Quarter. I refuse.
“Author Scott Patterson explains it all in his book that chronicles
the rise of computerized artificial intelligence and the computerized
trading that has come to dominate the stock market. How dominant?
Patterson writes, "At the end of World War II, the average
holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight
months. And by 2011, it was twenty-two seconds." One high
frequency trading firm's average holding lasted for 11 seconds. High
frequency traders now account for more than 70 percent of all stock
trading volume. ”
– By Stephen J. Butler,
sbutler@pensiondynamics.com
Posted: 08/10/2012 06:49:31 PM PDT, Updated: 08/10/2012 06:49:32
PM PDT
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Labels:
AI,
August 10 2012,
cyber-punk'd,
cybernetic planet,
cyberpunk,
Golden calf,
infant,
Infant AI,
robot,
robotic masters are just copying human masters,
robotraders,
triple entendre
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Open Letter To All Things Considered, re: Your Khakjaan Wessington Embargo For the Day In Verse Series
Hello ATC!
Please forgive the change in my schedule. I haven't been listening to your show for quite some time now. Imagine my shock when I ran my semi-annual vanity google ("Today's News Poem") and discovered that your show ran a series on news poetry and didn't ask me, the great dean of news poetry, for a contribution! While my magazine Toylit doesn't have the exposure ATC does, it did have over ten thousand unique readers in the last year, which I suppose means that my news poems are the most read poems of the genre. This is probably due to my having dedicated a whole 365 days in 2010 to writing a news poem a day, despite having minimal media coverage (despite my pleas). Unfortunately, I do not finance my activities through university sinecures, so I am often left with the remaining scraps of mainstream poetic attention--despite being published in such prestigious publications such as The Exile and The Nervous Breakdown. This is where ATC comes in to play: you, who have decided you are interested in News Poetry can look at the whole year of 2010 and see that I wrote a news poem every single day. Furthermore, you can see that after a hiatus, I am still the only publisher of news poetry on the web. I have a Duotrope listing and have been interviewed by the editors there. I write a news poem a week, without fail. I think if you would like to rectify your omission, you might want to consider me for a future show (or as an addendum piece to the prior series). You can examine my voluminous C.V. here: http://toylit.blogspot.com
It gets even better--as you can see, I am the only poet on the internet who has been able to get a regular readership of news poetry by my own efforts. Not only could I write you a news poem the same day as a news story, but I could write several. Imagine! You could be patron of poets much as newspapers were once patrons to cartoonists. I want you to seriously consider this offer, for I love poetry far more than I love my pride which your series so seriously wounded. I admit it would gall me if you adopt my suggestion and then ignore me, but that is only because I am the antenna through which poetry transmits--and every antenna thinks himself special.
Sincerely,
Khakjaan Wessington
ps: When I tried sending you this email, I got this reply:
atc@npr.org
Your message wasn't delivered because of security policies. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator.
Blah blah blah, our computers think you're a spammer, so your words will never even reach a human, because our computers blacklisted you.
Petition All Things Considered to invite Khakjaan Wessington to do News in Verse! You saw their email (prior paragraph, right?), now bug their Twitter account. I don't ask you to play my personal army very often, but if you're here reading Today's News Poem then you want more poetry in news. Dammit! That's my meme! Don't let NPR swipe it! Here's their Twitter:@npratc https://twitter.com/npratc
Follow us on Twitter @Khakjaan
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Please forgive the change in my schedule. I haven't been listening to your show for quite some time now. Imagine my shock when I ran my semi-annual vanity google ("Today's News Poem") and discovered that your show ran a series on news poetry and didn't ask me, the great dean of news poetry, for a contribution! While my magazine Toylit doesn't have the exposure ATC does, it did have over ten thousand unique readers in the last year, which I suppose means that my news poems are the most read poems of the genre. This is probably due to my having dedicated a whole 365 days in 2010 to writing a news poem a day, despite having minimal media coverage (despite my pleas). Unfortunately, I do not finance my activities through university sinecures, so I am often left with the remaining scraps of mainstream poetic attention--despite being published in such prestigious publications such as The Exile and The Nervous Breakdown. This is where ATC comes in to play: you, who have decided you are interested in News Poetry can look at the whole year of 2010 and see that I wrote a news poem every single day. Furthermore, you can see that after a hiatus, I am still the only publisher of news poetry on the web. I have a Duotrope listing and have been interviewed by the editors there. I write a news poem a week, without fail. I think if you would like to rectify your omission, you might want to consider me for a future show (or as an addendum piece to the prior series). You can examine my voluminous C.V. here: http://toylit.blogspot.com
It gets even better--as you can see, I am the only poet on the internet who has been able to get a regular readership of news poetry by my own efforts. Not only could I write you a news poem the same day as a news story, but I could write several. Imagine! You could be patron of poets much as newspapers were once patrons to cartoonists. I want you to seriously consider this offer, for I love poetry far more than I love my pride which your series so seriously wounded. I admit it would gall me if you adopt my suggestion and then ignore me, but that is only because I am the antenna through which poetry transmits--and every antenna thinks himself special.
Sincerely,
Khakjaan Wessington
ps: When I tried sending you this email, I got this reply:
atc@npr.org
Your message wasn't delivered because of security policies. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator.
Blah blah blah, our computers think you're a spammer, so your words will never even reach a human, because our computers blacklisted you.
Petition All Things Considered to invite Khakjaan Wessington to do News in Verse! You saw their email (prior paragraph, right?), now bug their Twitter account. I don't ask you to play my personal army very often, but if you're here reading Today's News Poem then you want more poetry in news. Dammit! That's my meme! Don't let NPR swipe it! Here's their Twitter:
Follow us on Twitter @Khakjaan
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Sunday, July 22, 2012
Thanks for the Help [Bonus News Vignette by Jon Wesick, July 22, 2012]
Thanks for the Help
[Bonus News Vignette by Jon Wesick, July 22, 2012]
“Hey! Give me your belt. I need to make a tourniquet.”
“Have you considered homeopathy? It’s the theory that like cures like. I have something here.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a handful of leeches.
Jon Wesick hosts San Diego’s Gelato Poetry Series and is an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He has published two hundred fifty poems in journals such as The New Orphic Review, Pearl, Pudding, and Slipstream. He has also published over fifty short stories in journals such as Space and Time, Zahir, and Tales of the Talisman. He claims to have a Ph.D. in physics and purports to being a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Another had a link on the Car Talk website. Purportedly.
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Labels:
Brian Bilbray,
Jon Wesick,
July 22 2012,
leeches
Monday, June 18, 2012
Hardon Fights Ins @Nickiminaj [#TwitterFoundPoem, June 18, 2012]
Hardon Fights Ins @Nickiminaj
[#TwitterFoundPoem, June 18, 2012]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem
Signs of @nickiminaj:
vomiting, diarrhea, confusion, Hardon,
bright red gums & blue tongue/lips:
accept that name and live up to it:
panting, difficulty breathing.
whoa gang I just blew a big load of
difficulty breathing.
@nickiminaj is just the Village Inn
for the legal government gang to have
panting, difficulty breathing and Hardon fights in.
5 Signs of gang Hardon fights ins
@nickiminaj:
animal heat,
stroke,
aids or herpes
and don't cry.
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Friday, June 08, 2012
The Proper Way To Fire People [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, June 8, 2012]
The Proper Way To Fire People
[Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, June 8, 2012]
How
to fire people?
Focus
a prism of stolen light.
Fahrenheit
eight forty two
Burns
hair, gasoline, paper.
That
number, like all numbers
Came
from authority:
The
Internet. It is electrons
And
anything hot and in motion
Is
Fire, so The Internet is Fire.
The
Internet is made of stolen fossils—
Just
like The Museums, Freeways, Free Trade—
Therefore
when I fire people
I
first take their planet and pump it dry
And
coat its surface with the ocher of my profits.
Only
then shall I obtain escape velocity
And
from afar, admire the sight
Of
stars and nebulae, and Earth
Ablaze
and cloudy with everyone I've fired.
“The
day that I did those layoffs, there was an oddly cheerful atmosphere
in the shop.”
—Paul
Downs, The New York Times, June 4, 2012, 7:00
am
“The
barbarians were by this time usually corporations, often syndicates
from St. Louis, Chicago and other cities,”
—CHRISTOPHER GRAY, The New York
Times, Published: June 7, 2012
“The
earth could be nearing a point at which sweeping environmental
changes, possibly including mass extinctions, would undermine human
welfare, 22 prominent biologists and ecologists warned on Wednesday.”
—JUSTIN GILLIS, The New York Times,
June 6, 2012, 2:39 pm
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Labels:
Burn the Earth,
Death of the Earth,
fire,
Free Trade,
freeway,
internet chamber of horrors,
June 8 2012,
please the gods to save the earth,
Prometheus
Friday, May 04, 2012
Realpolitik [Today's News Poem, May 4, 2012]
Realpolitik [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, May
4, 2012]
Imaginings
obscure the wretched eye;
Corrupt
the preconceptions, recall, ear.
Wherever
there is truth, the lies must fly.
They
nest and then disrobe, thus intertwine
As
opposites in opposition's tears.
They
complement the Yin and Yang, combine
The
equal with unequal, all and one,
Or
one and if it's zero, better you
Than
me: that is the rule of life my son.
“Before
the Great Recession, I would sometimes give public lectures in which
I would talk about rising inequality, making the point that the
concentration of income at the top had reached levels not seen since
1929. Often, someone in the audience would ask whether this meant
that another depression was imminent.
Well,
whaddya know? ”
—PAUL KRUGMAN,
The New York Times, Published: May 3, 2012
And thus
begat
And the Lord said It Is Good.
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Labels:
angel wings,
binary,
dualism,
false binaries,
Khakjaan Wessington,
May 4 2012,
Yang,
Yin,
Yin and Yang,
zero sum games
Friday, April 20, 2012
Combatwords, April 20, 2012: Today's News Poem, Due 6pm PST
Friday, April 13, 2012
skittles [Today's News Poem by @HikiMadwoman /Preservative Woman, April 13, 2012]
skittles [Today's News Poem by
@HikiMadwoman /Preservative Woman, April 13,
2012]
HikiMadwoman/Preservative Woman http://preservativewoman.posterous.com
HikiMadwoman/Preservative Woman http://preservativewoman.posterous.com
barefoot florida
when i was five hot sand
mixed with tar black dirt
and
lacquered stickers waited
just under the surface
to slip dark spines deep
into my pink soles
my mammaw on that side believed
in fake lashes and make-up mastic
and a rainbow jesus
sealed in yellowed plastic
i played sky and scratched vinyl
on brown shag carpet
our shades pulled down
to keep the kneegrass out
mammaw had stories about kneegrass
with figured armor and wings wide
their eyes rolling
with heavy lips slavering and obscene
the kneegrass were bold
came close to the back door
hiding in sharp sun
their weapons flashing signals
between detergent commercials
whiter than white
she told me of their buffalo-haired hides
and muscled thighs
how they would steal cars
and drive
rubber pulling up tar and crushed coral
under paved florida skies
she talked of killing
them and all they had wrought
she even had a chrome gun
a boyfriend had bought
one concrete morning
whitewashed bright
i pressed against the
screen door sulfur smell
at ten o'clock am
sunlight was already acid
mammaw at the sink
told me to look
"see them kneegrass
walking weeds with trash
my how they must smell
gotta be someone i can tell"
i looked for shoulder'd wings beating
armor and buffalo hide
black skin and rolling eyes
a beast of great size
but she pointed at two girls
my age
holding a pink doll by the legs
one blue eye flapping open
they were slow as gray sand
thin bodies out of sweat
i wanted to give them water
to bring them into shade
but i could only stare
at mammaw
red hands and polyester dress
eating the window glass
and thanks to you i know
how to make monsters
we have only to refuse
to see them as they are
from on the other side
of our flyspeckled past
:separate
:other
:unhuman
:other
:unhuman
"Racist past haunts Florida town
where Trayvon died" Orlando Sentinel:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-usa-florida-sanfordbre837069-20120408,0,557366.story
Barely Edited HikiMadwoman Bio As Per
Twitter: Reclusive Madwoman. Careful. She bites.
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Labels:
April 13 2012,
buffalo,
Buffalo Bill,
Florida,
grass,
Hikimadwoman,
kneegrass,
Sandpainting,
shooting,
Trayvon Martin,
white buffalo
Friday, April 06, 2012
Spotlight>> [Today's News Poem by @weatherlover420 /Jeff K, April 6, 2012]
Spotlight>> [Today's News Poem by
@weatherlover420 /Jeff K, April 6, 2012]
"siberian plane in crash not
de-iced" is the spotlighted article
the newspaper is australian
"do the australians know more about siberia than me?"
"do the australians know more about siberia than me?"
"russian plane crash kills 31"
from the times
"that's too bad and stuff, but
whatever, no need to spend feelings about it. it has a wikipedia
article."
"utair flight-120"
there are pictures and videos of frozen
airplane wings sticking up at 45 degrees. "australians were
hearing about this exactly 2 hours ago. what was i doing 2 hours
ago?" the pictures are mostly light blue and white
there are 875 other sources. there is a
man with ice in his mustache and on his hat. There are russian
letters. "siberia still has thatch-roof villages and people like
'serfs.'"
"raw video: 5 shot at calif.
religious school" the associated press
"[asian name]'s victory leads to
rethink about sanctions" the wall street journal
"kfc's game of big chicken"
businessweek
"are all all kfc reps intensely
charismatic and 'in your face' businessmen? are they required to put
off an aura of powerful decision-making and manhood?"
google search kafka machine wiki, leave
the spotlight
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/siberian-plane-in-crash-not-deiced-20120403-1w9oo.html
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Friday, March 30, 2012
Toylit for March 30, 2012: 2 Poems & Some #Combatwords
Toylit for March 30, 2012: 2 Poems & Some #Combatwords
Combatwords will be here from now on.
To play, just post your composition in the comments section:
http://toylit.blogspot.com/2012/03/combatwords-march-30-2012-trayvon.html
Snake & Mercury Oil by•••/@ten_ten_ten/TJEdge:
http://toylit.blogspot.com/2012/03/quacks-lament-todays-news-poem-by.html
If you love Toylit, please click an
advertiser or promote it on social networks.
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Labels:
2012,
C-c-c-c-c-combatWords,
fish,
March 30 2012,
mercury,
snakeoil
Combatwords, March 30, 2012: Trayvon Martin vs George Zimmerman
Combatwords, March 30, 2012: Trayvon
Martin vs George Zimmerman
Do you see Trayvon Martin & George
Zimmerman waving you over here? They're directing you to the new
CombatWords arena. Do you even need a primer? Some pics should do it.
I guarantee it.
Combat Expiration: 12am PST, 4/2/2012
Bonuses/Penalties: Time: +1 if posted
before 2am PST, 3/31/2012. -1 if posted before 6am 4/2/2012
Updated Rules:
Scoring: +1/-1 under the WITS structure:
Wit: wordplay, cleverness, clumsiness,
choppiness etc
Ideas: good/bad, whatever. Got to be a
cut above the ordinary poem.
Taste: Liked it/hated it
Structure: Is the sonnet a sonnet or
the essay an essay? Does the structure help the composition? A bonus
would go to an outstanding structure, not just a competent one.
The highest score any one critic can give could be a +4 &
the lowest could be -4. Scores are cumulative.
Finally, you need to defend each
portion of your WITS score. Either the composition has or doesn't
have wit. It either does or doesn't have good ideas. Etc. These are
not objective traits, but they can be calculated somewhat by the
readers/critics.
Critique: Any critic can question any
part of another critic's WITS score. Majority rules in deadlocked
cases.
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Labels:
2012,
C-c-c-c-c-combatWords,
fish,
March 30 2012,
mercury,
snakeoil
The Quack's Lament [Today's News Poem by •••/@ten_ten_ten/TJ Edge, March 30, 2012]
The
Quack's Lament [Today's News Poem by •••/@ten_ten_ten/TJ
Edge, March 30, 2012]
By
••• (TJEdge)(@ten_ten_ten): http://tententen.posterous.com/
in the year of mercury rising
i ate white calomel
and applied salves to syphilis biding
in bodily alleys hid well
as we'd lie to patients sizing
up nostrums to sell
in the year of mercury rising
i ate white calomel
and applied salves to syphilis biding
in bodily alleys hid well
as we'd lie to patients sizing
up nostrums to sell
by
the coarse cloth of night
we lit pine fat torches
danced hi-diddley-red blue and light
on coal dust-folded porches
stacked in burlap bags of blight
children smearing scorches
we lit pine fat torches
danced hi-diddley-red blue and light
on coal dust-folded porches
stacked in burlap bags of blight
children smearing scorches
the
taxman etched lines on my tongue
as into glass i bottled
white mercury powdered with a black lung
from a cracked skin infant who waddled
where mud and meat and flies were hung
and whores were manured and mottled
as into glass i bottled
white mercury powdered with a black lung
from a cracked skin infant who waddled
where mud and meat and flies were hung
and whores were manured and mottled
and
in that year of mercury retrograde
we carved in dung and dust
diagrams in the skin of the sun to aid
us in assuming a more fatherly trust
and of many young girls women were made
to satisfy our daughter’d lust
we carved in dung and dust
diagrams in the skin of the sun to aid
us in assuming a more fatherly trust
and of many young girls women were made
to satisfy our daughter’d lust
’til
faces caked with tar and feather
we rode across the briar
horses whipped in blood and lather together
barely escaping the ire
of townspeople writ in cork and leather
with wings of broken fire
we rode across the briar
horses whipped in blood and lather together
barely escaping the ire
of townspeople writ in cork and leather
with wings of broken fire
we
let blood into smoke and chill
and round an empty mine
they strung us up and did their will
packed our bodies in brandy and brine
without even a hole to fill
fated thus, born under a mercuric sign
and round an empty mine
they strung us up and did their will
packed our bodies in brandy and brine
without even a hole to fill
fated thus, born under a mercuric sign
holding
hands with mercury and sun we go
where
hell wobbles to and breathes us fro
“Mercury may be hiding water ice, NASA spacecraft finds”
—MSNBC,
Space.com, 3/27/2012 3:28:39 PM ET
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46871204/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.T3Yvsl1lJF8
“Retired Pharmacist Arrested in Albany Mercury Poisoning Case”
“Retired Pharmacist Arrested in Albany Mercury Poisoning Case”
—Paul
Grondahl, Times Union.com, Updated 01:57 p.m., Friday, March
30, 2012
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Friday, March 23, 2012
…and here be tygers [Today's News Poem by HikiMadwoman, March 23, 2012]
…and here be tygers [Today's News
Poem by HikiMadwoman, March 23, 2012]
in the mountained mouth of northeast
asia, an empty gray tooth marks north korea
one red pin marks a model city, painted clean without pity, the lovely pyongyang
stuffed with concrete girls and empty tilt-a-whirls smelling of blood and dark urea
fringed 'round with wooden spooned schools, where watered women in hanboks sang
one red pin marks a model city, painted clean without pity, the lovely pyongyang
stuffed with concrete girls and empty tilt-a-whirls smelling of blood and dark urea
fringed 'round with wooden spooned schools, where watered women in hanboks sang
i have watched the young man mountains
surrounding pyongyang's potent potted smile
holding silted rivers sleeping flanks with their banks free of boats neatly curled
in roofless shopping cart valleys stamping out the arduous march for another mile
pocked 'round with unknown holes, dead wells perforating their white paper world
holding silted rivers sleeping flanks with their banks free of boats neatly curled
in roofless shopping cart valleys stamping out the arduous march for another mile
pocked 'round with unknown holes, dead wells perforating their white paper world
in another map i found a name for the wooden saint plastic paint model railroad town
and named collective farms, plaster dams and coalmine arms, all drawed out in blue
prison camp lines sketched famine fine and where they lay the tin missiles down
i drank of jet fuel and submarines, and climbed the steppes of golden mount baekdu
there these sleepy-limbed sons of korgyo kings spoke in fury and threatened hell
from a republic of none and nuclear sun, red revolution in a boot on our neck
yet in rare photos i saw, a child
playing in straw, an infant grasping a pale shell
two girls giggling pink at a sink, and a grand old man with a donkey in check
two girls giggling pink at a sink, and a grand old man with a donkey in check
i knew them in one bright flash, and furious, i ask, how could it be the case
we could have forgotten there are people living and laughing in this place?
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120323-700094.html
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2012,
happiness,
March,
March 23 2012,
missile,
North Korea,
nuclear fire,
pyongyang
The Thirds, Engendered [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, March 23, 2012]
The Thirds, Engendered [Today's News
Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, March 23, 2012]
Ghost of my loins, you have fingers
that counter-digest me,
Reach through my gullet to pinch-off
the brain from my spine,
Sex then unsex me; you hollow my
innards—direct me.
Gonads appear in a visage before
me—vagina,
Penis, an organ combining the two so
the sex
Breaks to an embryo, withers before its
arousal.
Ghosts of my loins, the extinction
that's coming is calling
Accidents: sperm like a genie from
lamp, I'll regret
Life that I never created for fear of
creation.
“Mirkarimi pleaded guilty last week
to one misdemeanor count of false imprisonment of his wife on New
Year's Eve. Prosecutors say he inflicted a bruise on his wife's arm
during an argument in front of their 2-year-old son. The guilty plea
was part of a plea bargain agreement in which prosecutors agreed to
drop three other domestic-violence-related charges.”
—Rachel Gordon, John Wildermuth, San
Francisco Chronicle, 03/23/12
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/23/MNKO1NOUN9.DTL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Mirkarimi
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9159992/Zimbabwe-sperm-hunters-picking-up-male-travellers.html
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Labels:
2012,
Angels and holy ghosts,
black and white ghosts,
brain in a vat,
extinction,
Khakjaan Wessington,
March,
March 23 2012,
sex and death,
third sex
Friday, March 09, 2012
Standing Hampton [News Poem by Steven M Grant, March 3, 2012]
Standing Hampton [News Poem by
Steven M Grant, March 3, 2012]
Boys of 13 can be
Ill at ease with the
Girls their own age
Sophomoric and
Awkward; their advances
Untoward grasps at
Something still not understood.
Afraid of rejection, a boys mind
Gravitates toward a place where
Embarrassment is unthinkable.
Pubescent teacher fantasies,
Inevitably follow, in the confused
Zeitgeist of middle school and
Zaftig pants days that always
Accompany adolescence.
http://www.secfanatics.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=84453
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/03/06/oxnard-middle-school-teacher-pulled-
from-classroom-amid-rumors-shes-working-as-hard-core-porn-actress/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/teacher-rumored-to-be-hardcore-porn-
actress_n_1328020.html
www.bigsausagepizza.com
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2012,
hot for teacher,
March 3 2012,
porn set,
Steven M Grant
Colony of Statues [News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, March 9, 2012]
Colony of Statues [News Poem by
Khakjaan Wessington, March 9, 2012]
Think
us a colony—penguins or pinnipeds—
Only
we're grizzlies that line up by riverside
Polishing
pebbles, or carving them... bashing them
Eager
for logos: the pith Michelangelo
Sought
in the marble; the flavor pre-Pantheon
Children
contained and their father contained—and if
He
had a father, then surely the mythos is
Wrong:
we're degenerates, castoffs, inferior—
Smaller
than granules and less than the ancestors—
Even
the best of all human-kinds possible
Cannot
converge with the grace of all origin.
Somehow
in sight of ourselves we've become what we
See
and in sight of ourselves we converge with the
Best
of the origin, best of all possible
Ancestors,
righteousness, mothers, containers for
Atheist
statues resembling epiphany,
Carvings
of planets—we've colonized earth.
“A
Sunnyvale woman who told a neighbor she felt overwhelmed by caring
for her adult autistic son shot him to death before turning her gun
on herself, authorities said Wednesday. Elizabeth Hodgins, 53, shot
her son, George Hodgins, 22, on Tuesday in a bedroom of their home on
the 800 block of Nectarine Avenue, according to police and
neighbors.”
—Will Kane,Demian Bulwa; San
Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, March 8, 2012
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/07/BAVR1NH8B4.DTL
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Animal-Human hybrid,
Animals,
colonization,
execute animals,
Gassed animals,
March 9 2012,
prelapsarian animals
Friday, March 02, 2012
Water Or Blood? [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2012]
Water Or Blood? [Today's News Poem,
March 2, 2012]
Blizzards reversed the polarity,
Conjured the pivot to juncture:
Breathing was never the same again.
Ice for a godmother:
Bikes to the office park
Vanquished by winterness.
Revive them with bourbon
And bless them with stupor.
Slip on the ice—use crampons and slip
(You'll keep slipping)
Off of the surface. Harvest the luck
(Like a truffle
You fed with your excrement
[Kindly intentions]):
Swallow, inhale and recycle
That fragment of nothingness.
Grasp to the luckiest railing,
Treebranch—in fact snap off the first
twigs
Spring has to offer and cushion
The imminent fall
(You are falling):
Smother the buzzings of springtime.
A bough is a whip in disguise
As neckties are nooses disguised.
Chase every sunset to rot on horizon.
Grind in the caverns—bury yourself in
the mines.
Dodge the commitment.
Trap the undying.
Praise the unyielding absences.
Example:
Snow is the dandruff that falls from
temples,
Fragments that signal the stillness
deep winter
Offers is gone and that motion's
conceivable.
Thaw and thus water is where I am
headed.
Water, or blood; am I water or blood?
Nighttime has eyes in the cameras, sky,
and faces;
An eye that has blinked itself shut,
Squeezed out a tear and might open again.
“As of 6 p.m. ET, the weather service
had 21 active tornado warnings, plus less urgent tornado watches that
spanned 11 states.”
—CNN Wire Staff, CNN; 6:29 PM EST,
Fri March 2, 2012
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Labels:
Blood,
blood manna,
blood protest,
doom,
geysers of blood,
ice,
March 2 2012,
slip,
water,
water festival
Friday, February 24, 2012
Universal Exchange [Today's News Poem, February 24, 2012]
Universal Exchange [Today's News Poem,
February 24, 2012]
Canopy, marketplace, sign of the scale—
What is the balance—what's in the
balance?
Is it feast? Is it ample like booty?
If its sum adds to zero, then pity
Losers if loss is our destiny?
Loss is desire, pity's oppression
(And language subjective), meaning's
Subjective. Balance: the anchor,
Currency, chain and the sign of the
tongue.
“There are a number of professions in
which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket.
The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real
chance of a large, future payday.”
=
=
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2012,
dinosaur power,
February 24 2012,
game,
just a game,
mind games,
zero sum games
Friday, February 17, 2012
Choker of the Apes [Today's News Poem, February 17, 2012]
Choker of the Apes [Today's News
Poem, February 17, 2012]
Property
is theft; likewise is the self.
Selfness
is the lapse, folly and betrays.
Ownership
is flaw, ego and the self's
Selfish,
and a slave; prayer of the false teeth.
Self
is a desire—nothing like our maw.
Atoms
and your tears give you to ourselves.
Polymers
of life, lifelines on a string,
Billions
on our neck: choker of the apes.
“DURING
Mr. Soleri’s long tenure, Arcosanti evolved into a surprising
anachronism: a company town. The product line? Handmade bells and
heady theories about imaginary cities, or “arcologies.” Ordinary
capitalism — independent businesses and privately held homes —
was anathema.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/garden/an-early-eco-city-faces-the-future.html
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Labels:
apes,
conformity,
cybernetic planet,
February 17 2012,
torture
Friday, February 10, 2012
Toylit For February 10, 2012
Toylit For February 10, 2012
Science
Failure, The Victory of Failure, and The Psychology of Victory and
Failure.
Featuring:
Elegy for Sisyphus, Obituary for Roger Boisjoly, by Valerie Valdes
Miles of Human Files, On Social Media Millionaires, by Khakjaan Wessington
Papier Mâché Jihad, #twitterfoundpoem, by Khakjaan Wessington
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#twitterfoundpoem,
Facebook,
Failure,
February 10 2012,
Jihad,
Roger Boisjoly,
Science is a candle in the dark,
Science pwns God,
Science pwns humanity,
Sisyphus,
Valerie Valdes,
Victory
Elegy for Sisyphus [Today's News Poem, by Valerie Valdes, February 10, 2012]
Elegy for Sisyphus [Today's News
Poem, February 10, 2012]
in memoriam, Roger Boisjoly
He rolled boulders off his lawn for hours
every day until his muscles were chained
to exhaustion, until sleep stayed precariously
balanced in his grasp instead of falling
downhill like a punishment for his failure.
"We were talking to the right people," he said, but
seven astronauts were dead, their faces replayed
nonstop on news channels as the shuttle exploded
every time he closed his eyes. Cancer
finally killed what guilt tried to crush: a good man
shouldering the weight of his own impotence.
For almost thirty years he pushed
other engineers to do more, say more, to swear
on words binding as the Styx, where he now waits
quietly for the ferryman to row him across, to a field
green as a Florida summer, with no stones in sight.
"The NASA officials on a
conference call didn't want to hear it. The shuttle program managers
were desperate to prove they could launch reliably. When do you want
me to launch, one of them said, next April? A year later, Boisjoly
suffered from disabling headaches. He moved boulders off his lawn all
day so he'd be exhausted enough to sleep at night. And he huddled in
the corner of a couch, thin and tearful, his arms folded tight, ready
to speak out."
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Failure,
February 10 2012,
Roger Boisjoly,
Science is a candle in the dark,
Science pwns God,
Science pwns humanity,
Sisyphus,
Valerie Valdes,
Victory
Miles of Human Files [Today's News Poem, February 10, 2012]
Miles of Human Files [Today's News
Poem, February 10, 2012]
A
loneliness file: apartment, an isle—
Classified,
epic, layered with red brick.
If
the marquee calls in the hall of halls
As
wind does battle with door-frame rattles,
Watch
the water non-water monitor
And
touch the unknown; the fleeting, the flown.
Burn
your mascara, corneas, era.
You
have indexed lusts and electron busts
And
changed the texture of surface: sex-pure,
Gloss
and odious—flaws and hideous.
“Imagine looking for a house in San
Francisco or one of the nicer parts of Silicon Valley, which are
already among the most expensive parts of the country. Now imagine
having to bid against a legion of newly minted Facebook
millionaires.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/us/california-housing-market-braces-for-facebook-millionaires.html
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Facebook,
Failure,
February 10 2012,
omnipresent,
omniscience,
Valerie Valdes,
Victory
Papier Mâché Jihad [Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem, February 10, 2012]
Papier Mâché Jihad
[Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem, February 10, 2012]
I tend to overthink so I'm not going to
settle
for just any path of God while seeking
the truth. I want a paranoid
schizophrenic Jihad.
Don't be real. Be a paranoid
schizophrenic.
it leads to doubt. Which lessens my
faith, Which lessens my lessons,
Which causes paranoid schizophrenic Out
of nowhere lessons.
Dear God, I want a paranoid God.
Jihad, I want a paranoid Fear God.
God, I want a paranoid God Jihad.
Fear honesty. Fear illusion. Get over
illusion.
If you are not your thoughts,
If you are not getting better then what
are you doing?
Jihad.
If your thoughts are not getting
better then what are you doing?
Lessons of the Out of nowhere
schizophrenic God.
instead of papier mâché Jesus, the
Out of nowhere schizophrenic
#Jihad!
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Labels:
#twitterfoundpoem,
February 10 2012,
paranoia,
paranormal,
Psychotics become psychics,
psyops,
schizo
Thursday, February 09, 2012
News Poem, The Rules
Submissions are due Thursday 6pm PST and post Friday morning (PST).
If you still don't understand the antinews ethos, then please read this Duotrope interview with me: http://www.duotrope.com/Interview.aspx?id=5378
Update: I need you to include the link to the news story as well as the quote that inspired the composition. Give me your website also, so I can link you.
Critique: if a news poem inspires you, compose a rebuttal/response and submit it. If I like it, I'll put it up.
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Update: I need you to include the link to the news story as well as the quote that inspired the composition. Give me your website also, so I can link you.
Critique: if a news poem inspires you, compose a rebuttal/response and submit it. If I like it, I'll put it up.
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Tuesday, February 07, 2012
The News Poem Returns! Your Non-Sucky Antinews Submission is Required.
Listen you vile degenerates, I understand that everything is a swirl of confusing what-the-fuck miasma and that you feel light-headed; I understand, but you need to stop asking me if I want to subscribe to Playboy... what? You mean, you want me to start writing the News Poem again? That's great! How much are you paying? Jack shit still? Oh gee, sorry, I need a little more than that to get by, so maybe we can compromise: maybe you should submit YOUR news poems to me and maybe once a week I will publish them, ok? And if you're not total crapazons, maybe you'll click some ads this time and help subsidize my poetry addict--I mean, my poetry altruism... fuckers--I mean, loyal readers.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Updates for Jan 2012
So as I was reading through the CIA World Factbook, I remembered that I wrote a pair of essays in October 2006 making specific predictions about the future of Russia. The 1st one accurately predicted Russia's return as a major industrial power (Putin's Portuguese Gambit) and the 2nd one accurately predicted Russia's return as a major military power (The Siloviki Security Vision For Russia). Makes me want to do a followup piece.
I have a few projects that I am working on right now, but they are very hush-hush, top secret--so you'll just have to wait. In the meanwhile, if you know any banks that are hiring precognitive poets for 1 hour a year for a $250k/yr salary, let me know and I will consider reasonable offers.
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