Office Jam [Today's News Poem, January 19, 2011]

Office Jam [Today's News Poem, January 19, 2011]

Behold the peanut butter sandwich—
Bread as white as fax machines.
With so many jams to choose, adhere
Anywhere from desk to traffic.
Tomorrow's worth today, I'll stick it
Out and eat my kindergarten lunch,
And color forms inside the margins;
Waiting for promotion, stuck on sweet.

"Stranded drivers chain-smoked, stomped their feet against the chill and cursed the government for failing to come to their rescue. As the night wore on, fuel lines froze and cellphone batteries died.
The residents of Hetaocun, however, saw the unmoving necklace of taillights from their mountain village and got entrepreneurial. They roused children from their beds, loaded boxes of instant noodles into baskets and began hawking their staples to a captive clientele. The 500 percent markup did not appear to dent sales."
—ANDREW JACOBS, The New York Times, Published: January 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/asia/19traffic.html

"Long before they became doctors and lawyers or C.E.O.’s and real estate developers, they played in garage bands and maybe even dreamed of becoming rock stars. That’s why they signed up for Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy Camp,.. “I feel like I’m 18 again,” said Jerry Goldberg, a 60-year-old investment banker and guitar player, "
—LARRY ROHTER, The New York Times, Published: January 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/arts/music/19fantasy.html



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Trickle-Down Dinner [Today's News Poem, January 18, 2011]

Trickle-Down Dinner [Today's News Poem, January 18, 2011]

Porcelain monarchy: wealth trickles downward,
Plumbing foundations—shares shit with mollusks.
Only the purest obtain such positions.
Angle it deeper, inject liquid diets.
Natural predators eat filth and like it,
Writhe in the excrement, crawl ever after.
Cannibals gobble up meat, shit—whatever
Thrones care to flush down the drain, feed me dinner!

"I intend to introduce legislation that would require the Treasury to make interest payments on our debt its first priority in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised. This would not only ensure the continued confidence of investors at home and abroad, but would enable us to have an honest debate about the consequences of our eventual decision about the debt ceiling."
—PAT TOOMEY, The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 19, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954004576089963912388314.html

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The Career of a Savior [Today's News Poem, January 17, 2011]

The Career of a Savior [Today's News Poem, January 17, 2011]

I poked at my self with a needle a while.
Exchanging the needle for scissors,
I trimmed off the landscapes—some flowers, a hedge.
Spade for the scissor; new lamps for old.
I dug for a treasure, or China at least
And slept in my trench, dodging the shells.
The counter-barrage was exhausted. I rose
Out of the dirt like a zombie god
And traded my spade for a mansion with servants.

"On Saturday, church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper is expected to get 30 minutes of air time on a Phoenix talk show hosted by Steve Sanchez. And on Monday, the nationally syndicated Mike Gallagher show will give an hour to Ms. Phelps-Roper. “One hour of radio time on my radio show is quite insignificant compared to [what] the grieving families and the mourning families have to go through,” says Mr. Gallagher, a conservative political commentator."
—Lourdes Medrano, Christian Science Monitor, Correspondent / January 14, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0114/How-Tucson-kept-Westboro-Baptist-Church-protests-out-of-town

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Recurring Digression [Today's News Poem, January 16, 2011]

Recurring Digression [Today's News Poem, January 16, 2011]

My obsessions with history, war, economics
Are sizable, reckless, romantic, unhealthy.
I know this, though death's hand's tremendous,
The deadliest knowledge demands comprehension.
At first they were rubber men, wars in a sandbox.
Then voluminous Britannica featured the portraits distinguished
With color, or text, or as ultimate reference.
I gamed through the pages and chose my adventure
Returning to mushrooms and bomb-laying birds.
So the plane overhead is the sound of my doubt,
And we all agree the mustache is humorless, grim and oppressive;
He belches his jokes which evaporate, hissing a bit,
Digressing the reader and finally halting all progress
In favor of sorting it out in a state of expanding confusion.

"Germany faces mounting pressure from the European Commission and its euro zone partners to strengthen a rescue fund for troubled member states, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF)... Der Spiegel reported, however, that the European Commission expected the euro zone crisis to worsen in the first few months of this year. "
—Andreas Rinke, Reuters, MAINZ, Germany | Sat Jan 15, 2011 10:24am EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70E1AQ20110115

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Cartesian Evil Genius Makes You Lose 'The Game' Again [Combatwords Repost, January 14, 2011]

Cartesian Evil Genius Makes You Lose 'The Game' Again [Combatwords Repost, January 14, 2011]
http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-friday-january-14-2011.html

Between identity and reality is paranoia;
A sense of visionary omnipotence is underneath those,
Beyond that, nihilism as knowledge—not as inspiration—
And hope's not opposite to the pessimism we all suffer.
Impose persona, you can impersonate what and whomever
You crave becoming, but it behooves you to be the imposed on.

For example, you're reading this page, uncertain
That this poem is meaningful—now you get it.
For you either reject what it claims, or welcome
Diagnosis, but either version affirms it.

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Villain Farmer [Today's News Poem, January 15, 2011]

Villain Farmer [Today's News Poem, January 15, 2011]

Sing of the barbed-wire and string me along it.
Break but don't bend, you must rake up my organs.
Pass me along to the grass and the insects.
Trade me for orchards—you made me a coffin.
Walk with me; hands graze the stalks of the barley.
Both of us harvest the oath of the planted.
Reap if you must, but to keep what grows wild;
Will it, uncover and kill, you must spill it.

"Shortly after Friday's massive demonstrations in Tunis, which reached a crescendo outside the hated Ministry of the Interior on Avenue Mohamed V, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country, taking refuge in Saudi Arabia. The army and security forces are trying to impose order in Tunis. Tanks and armored personnel carriers have been deployed on one of the capital's main thoroughfares, Avenue 7 Novembre (named after the date when Ben Ali assumed presidential powers in 1987). At midday Saturday I watched as two truckloads of soldiers pulled up on the avenue and began stringing out barbed wire."
—Ben Wedeman, CNN Senior International Correspondent, January 15, 2011 -- Updated 1817 GM
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/15/tunisia.wedeman.scene/

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Combatwords, Friday January 14, 2011: Identity and Reality

Live competitive performance-writing, no net. Can you do it?

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-friday-january-14-2011.html



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Hope Bait [Today's News Poem, January 14, 2011]

Hope Bait [Today's News Poem, January 14, 2011]

Her heels have direction, they've walked from desire
Only because she's too drunk to return
In her Porsche and needs to stay fit so her belly
Can host a new clone, should she meet the right droid.
Anklets of silver; for gold is too gauche
For the shades of her toenails, her modest restraint.
Like dominoes, cocks go erect as she sways—
Climbing the hill to her mansion in fog—
Then they topple and hide disappointed, in trousers.
A clone, she's an actress, a fnord that you missed
Due to your jealousy, fantasy, hope.
They unscrew her prosthetics and download her brain
To the master of scams, to the foundry of fraud.

"Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has left the country, amid the worst unrest there in decades. The Arabic language network al-Jazeera says the speaker of parliament is temporarily in charge. The president was reported to have boarded a flight out of the country Friday evening local time. The military had sealed off the airport and closed Tunisian airspace a short time beforehand."
—Voice of America News, 14 January 2011
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Tunisian-President-Dismisses-Government-Amid-Protests-113607609.html

"Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Friday that the country's rival political factions had no alternative to dialogue after the collapse of his "unity government" this week."
—Reuters, Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:14pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70D46120110114

"The incidents and disruptions continued into autumn, the records said, and college officials became concerned about Loughner's mental health. After an incident in September, a police officer delivered a suspension letter to him and recounted the events that had taken place. When the officer was finished, according to the report, Loughner responded, "I realize now that this is all a scam.""
—Ross Levitt and Susan Candiotti, CNN, January 14, 2011 12:58 p.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/14/arizona.shooting.investigation/

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Tiger Father [Today's News Poem, January 13, 2011]

Tiger Father [Today's News Poem, January 13, 2011]

The last time I saw you, you raved at my mother
And called her a bitch, but you never did eat her.
You said in Korea that dogs were for dinner
To justify kicking my puppy down stairwell.
You held up a knife, but I cried—yes the weakling
You thought you had sired—so disgusted, you left us
For weeks on a mission for pussy and Mah Jong,
But managed to keep your position at Bechtel.
I thought I'd gain insight by reading your bookshelf,
A mess of the titles they'd banned in Korea.
There's Nietzsche, there's Marx; both extremists and honkys:
One said to conform—said the other, "surpass them."
You drove to the beach with us, promising closure.
You closed it, you bought me a motorized tchotchke;
A GI Joe tank made of plastic—a motor
Of nothing—though later I'd learned from my brother
Your father disowned us, as hybrids and mongrels.
And later, I'd learn from my mother, your daring—
An expert at leaping through trains that were moving.
A master of running—you ran from the commies
At eight, up and down the peninsula fleeing
Explosions and bullet-brained leatherneck soldiers.
At eight, I had run near the cliffs with my brothers—
A fatass with glasses and fists full of pebbles
I threw at some kids—did I gain your approval
That day on the cliffs near the city of Francis?
If not, I am waiting; I'm eight and I'm waiting
For black and white you with a face that looks haunted.
A black and white you in an album that faded;
That stood at attention with classmates and teachers.
You left me a message all scribbled with Hangul,
Your face in a war-zone—so gaunt from you starving:
It cannot get worse than this—life is just cruelty.

"Then I saw a tweet by Jen Wang, who blogs at Disgrasian about her own "hardass Asian mom," in which she also noted a disconnect between the Journal story and the book from which it was supposedly excerpted. When I reached out to her for details, she explained, "The book isn't a how-to manual, as the Journal excerpt would have you believe -- it's a memoir. As such, you'll see some truth in it, and you'll also see glaring blind spots and a sometimes-woeful lack of self-examination. That truth, instead of making you hate Chua, will cause you to reflect on your own upbringing -- and your own parenting style, good and bad. And I think this is especially important for Asian Americans who feel that they were parented Chua-style, and are bitter about it -- that is to say, most of us.""
—Jeff Yang, Special to SF Gate Thursday, January 13, 2011
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/13/apop011311.DTL

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Invisible Servant [Today's News Poem, January 12, 2011]

Invisible Servant [Today's News Poem, January 12, 2011]

Rubble up and rubble down:
Castles gone to ruined stone,
Cane is swaying breezily;
Ships of sweetened blood and brick
Passed the coral reefs to drown.

Pass another packet dear,
Chatter needs a sugar boost.
Idle hands gesticulate.
Coffee: meal of black and bone
Animates the cafe cheer.

All this news can drive you mad;
Drink another cup of joe,
Eat another slice of pie—
Help your gut digest the cause:
Service makes the heart grow glad.

"Tuesday marked the first anniversary of the earthquake that changed the face of a nation. "
—Ivan Watson and Moni Basu, CNN, January 12, 2011 -- Updated 1834 GMT
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/01/12/haiti.earthquake.anniversary/

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Addressing Future Folk-Demons [Today's News Poem, January 11, 2011]

Addressing Future Folk-Demons [Today's News Poem, January 11, 2011]

Careful with dreams—you'll be forced in a corner.
Die by the minute, get paid by the hour,
Live in the moment—be animal instinct.
Children, your dreams are not useful; your homework—
Sloppy—you're headed for sorrow; your crayons
Useless as play—so be careful and care less.
Register cash and put dreams in a dumpster.
Learn to adapt, for you're surplus—unneeded.
Grimace, survive, be a fan just like Exley—
Watch all those brutes—first as bullies, then bosses:
Excellent mouths can impersonate laughter.
Why won't you learn that they freeze in position?
Why not accept that you're born for no purpose
Other than service as demon, and moron?

"Most of us get up in the morning assuming we will not be the victims of some horrific tragedy that day."
—Editorial, Des Moines Register, January 11, 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-01-11-ariz-shooting-giffords-main_N.htm

"My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream—sadly."
—Jared Lee Loughner (classitup10), youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10

"You forced me in a corner and gave me only one option"
—Seung-Hui Cho, youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyalPi1GeDY

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Glandularia Gooddingii [Today's News Poem, January 10, 2011]

Glandularia Gooddingii [Today's News Poem, January 10, 2011]

The springtime in taxicabs, spring in the pistol;
Spring will arrive and the vervain is ready.
It's purple and handles the winter, it's perfect
Now that the sun has diminished; its pollen's
Alert and its stamen is quivering—something
Comes on the wind and, transforming the pistil,
The ammo of seedlings will fill up the flower.
Median herb; the perennial landscape
Of parking lot pistols, of taxicab meters,
Tombstones in deserts, assassins of leaders.

"Few outside his home state will have heard of Clarence W Dupnik before this weekend, but if world reaction to the Arizona shootings has focused on inflammatory rightwing rhetoric, it is largely down to the Pima county sheriff's pronouncements."
—Jon Henley, guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 January 2011 18.14 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/10/giffords-shooting-sheriff-rightwing-rhetoric

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Bone Seed [Today's News Poem, January 9, 2011]

Bone Seed [Today's News Poem, January 9, 2011]

I had a little bone and I planted it
Bloodied it daily, it grew into a skull
Beneath the summer dirt and the nectar dried,
Jasmine unwound and the blossoms fell to mud.
As dry as any skeleton. Brittle. Brown.
Winter made cairns with its snow and froze the grave,
My bone had also blossomed and drank the ice.

"The 22-year-old man suspected in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and at least 17 others outside a Tucson grocery store was suspended from a local community college last October for code of conduct violations and ultimately withdrew from the school voluntarily. He was suspended in late September after the college police found a video on YouTube in which Loughner claimed the college is "illegal" under the U.S. Constitution, officials said. "
—Ashley Powers, Maeve Reston and Rick Rojas, Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0109-gabrielle-giffords-web-20110109,0,5602549.story

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Sociogeopolitical Art Project [Today's News Poem, January 8 2011]

Sociogeopolitical Art Project [Today's News Poem, January 8 2011]

Start with some pencil, a blank sheet will do.
Draw just the measurement, draw it to scale.
Fill it with people, some animal parks.
Color a smile on the sun, on the cattle.
Don't like a city? Then crush it to rubble.
Sketch on your picture an 'x' for the blindness
Of death, draw a skull to denote what's been wasted
By bored rulers drawn to make scribbles in margins
On blank pages—forcing out options with image.

"Southern Sudan, on the eve of a historic referendum for independence from the north, faces a future with a fundamental difficulty: Finding southern Sudanese trained to run a fledgling country.
When Sudan's last civil war ended in 2005, the leaders of the southern rebellion against the north rewarded many of its soldiers with jobs in the south's ruling party. Now the south's finance ministry, on the verge of overseeing a budget for a new nation, has a surfeit of rebels-turned-bureaucrats who can barely read."
—SARAH CHILDRESS, The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 8, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704739504576067790998188326.html

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Insist An If [Combatwords Poem, January 7, 2011]

Insist An If [Combatwords Poem, January 7, 2011]
From: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-7-2011-splitting.html

She doesn't know, she said she doesn't know
And so an extra pint, a shot of gin—
And pinball through the jukebox techno pop.

Pick a fight—what makes that eightball special?
Grab it, throw it where the music (music?)
Emanates and break the sound of fuckers.

She says she doesn't know, so disagree
And jump the curb—she's fists: his hair and keys.
At last she's driving somewhere definite.

"God does not exist you crazy bitch,
Why withhold your judgment, nothing's there.
Say it might be so, I dare you, say it,"

Might be so. She married mighty soul,
A frantic drunk she shouldn't love—
Mostly doesn't anymore—
But drives him back to sheets;
Rolls the extra bed
And lays her head
Under moon
And asks
'If.'

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Combatwords for January 7 2011: Splitting Hairs

Bring your belligerent streak to http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/01/combatwords-january-7-2011-splitting.html

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Fissioning Techne [Today's News Poem, January 7, 2011]

Fissioning Techne [Today's News Poem, January 7, 2011]

Come to us, cling to our structures;
Change our molarity, Atom.
Burst through our skin, you're invited,
Dig in our tissue and match us.

The hidden things summon you,
For like is the alchemy
Of like, gone to likeliness.

We've antagonized mysteries
Of invisible universe,

Self-destruct, strong-force, and poison.

"The tests at the plant in northern Germany where the contamination happened revealed levels of dioxin at 77 times the permitted level... The source of the problem seems to be a plant in northern Germany which makes a wide variety of material to be used in animal feed, but also in industrial processes like paper-making. Somehow, a substance containing dioxin which shouldn't have been used in food for animals found its way into (on the current reckoning) 3,000 tonnes of feed. Prosecutors are investigating whether that was by design, perhaps to save money, or by accident."
—BBC, 7 January 2011 Last updated at 13:17 ET
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12139407

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Meat [Guest Political Cartoon by Seann McCollum, January 6, 2011]

Seann McCollum's origins are shrouded in mystery and conspiracy. Satellite imagery suggests he writes books and sells them here: http://www.lulu.com/antvsant. According to our Top Men, he goes by @syntaxidermist on Twitter and maintains a gallery of frequently updated art and writing here: http://carrioncall.blogspot.com. He's not one to gloat about past achievement, thus inducing others to gloat on his behalf. See how crafty he is?

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The Midrash of Faxes and Feces [Today's News Poem, January 6, 2011]

The Midrash of Faxes and Feces [Today's News Poem, January 6, 2011]

In the hills of Carmel where the dust coats the carobs
There's a parchment of dung, there's a fax in the grass;
And the cypress boughs fertilize foothills of worship,
And the goats drop their pellets for herders to salvage.
It's the place where the priests wrote their poems with feces
On the coprophage flesh of the lambs of the desert.
From the droppings of sheep to the mouths of the rabbis
Through the grass, in the dirt, in that rapture of pasture.
They have gilded uncleanliness, called it a Torah,
And have culled from their flocks just the skin of the scapegoat.
Should one study the excrement; study the shepherd
And his he-ass, his she-ass—his breath and his writing?

"And let it be said, on this second day following the convening of the 112th Congress, newly sworn members of the House shall stand and read aloud the Constitution of the United States. And so it was Thursday, as lawmakers took turns reciting each verse and article of the document. Republicans in charge of the chamber rattled it off with missionary zeal, as if in a school civics class. Democrats pitched in, but with seemingly less ardor."
—JIM ABRAMS, The Associated Press, Thursday, January 6, 2011; 11:23 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010602566.html

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Acid Bath [Today's News Poem, January 5, 2011]

Acid Bath [Today's News Poem, January 5, 2011]

Pity the frog, it is senseless to gradual boiling.
Also, it misunderstands the whole concept of liquid.
Nietzsche had said that when headless and splashed by an acid
Nerves from the corpse will still twitch from the pain of exposure.

The frog is in you, in your genitals, inside your skin
As ghost of your instincts; it croaks for the freedom it lost.
Indulging the whimsy, you lay in your bathtub and wait
For heat to subside; and you nap in a soup of yourself.

"Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants like Ms. Vasquez stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called “anchor babies.” "
—MARC LACEY, The New York Times, Published: January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/politics/05babies.html

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Die For Friday Night Football [Guest News Poem by RL Greenfield, January 4, 2011]

Die For Friday Night Football [Guest News Poem by RL Greenfield, January 4, 2011]
By RL Greenfield

Wanted: red white & blue boys & girls
for Afghanistan
Go to the desert & die for Jesus Allah & Exxon.
Die for Halliburton & the Carlyle Group.
Lie down & croak for General Electric.
Die for J. Updike’s skinny anemic god, Rabbit Angstrom.
Die your ass off for Dow C. Jones & for Binny the Laden
& Starbucks, International. Die for all-American spaghetti,
Die for Chinese food made in America by white dudes---
Yeah, die a little bit for a tank full of gasoline at nine bucks
a gallon & on the up & up: die for the death of the American
penis, circa, 2009---finally got that out of the way
Shut up & die like a good little pussy-whipped cowboy
who wears sandals to church every Sunday morning
Die so you can have a ninety-nine cent funeral paid for by
Blackwater, Inc. free coffee & donuts
Die for China that owns the USA lock stock & candlestick
Die for A & W Root Beer high school football & unrequited love
Die for The New York Times The Wall Street Journal &
Time Magazine
Die for David Letterman Jay Leno Bill Gates & Viagra
Do you need another reason? Die for white bread
& call it a day.



RL Greenfield lives in & loves Los Angeles, California.
 
Recent work online Stride Magazine ( poems, Aug. 2010), Poetic Matrix ( poems Dec  2010).   9 January & 1 December 2009---Charles Wright’s Littlefoot and Russell Edson’s See Jack.  Forthcoming poems The Denver Quarterly, Chiron Review, Nether,  Eunoia Review, & Sein und Werden.  Review of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road online  November, 2010 Gently Read Literature.  Numerous other publications in national reviews such as The Wormwood Review, The New York Quarterly, The Minnesota Review.
 
RLG received NEA fellowship literature mss of poems 1995.  Created television program  The Greenfield Code & produced & hosted 150 one-hr shows in Santa Barbara featuring writers & artists.  It was terrifically successful & a thrilling experience that transformed his esthetic forever.

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Prayers Blow Back [Today's News Poem, January 4, 2011]

Prayers Blow Back [Today's News Poem, January 4, 2011]

We've been blowing our fumes for so long
The sky thinks we deserve a reward.
We've spit sacraments into the mouth
Of God, doubting it sips what we've breathed.
If prayer works, then I ask why don't storms?
Why ice, asteroids, rainbows and sun?
We blow back on your breath with a curse,
You send us the collateral birds—
We shout down all the flight and they're stunned
By bad breath and embittered, foul tongues.

"At most recent count, up to 5,000 birds fell on the city. Sixty five samples were sent to labs, one of which is at the Livestock and Poultry Commission and the other in Madison, Wis. "
—CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, The New York Times, Published: January 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04beebe.html

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Possessed by Sherlock [Today's News Poem, January 3, 2011]

Possessed by Sherlock [Today's News Poem, January 3, 2011]

In a deerstalker cap, with a pipe, he is Sherlock
Of the bench by the bus-stop. I have seen him before
As he sleuths on the corner, observing the junkies
Who have shame as he watches, but jimmy the keyholes
Regardless.

He's Chinese or German; he's gray like an ashtray
And watches the buses—forgetting, recalling—
In search of a schedule; of doing—undoing.
He stakes out his claim as detective of sidewalk
And paces.

He ages, reverses in thought, then returns with the buses;
Inhabits the bachelors, elderly, lonely; disguising
Himself with possession—he haunts them with archetype bookmarks.
Omnipotent Holmes, California is worthy to rent you
Our castoffs.

The land of the future is past and the present, collapsing
Itself. It's the complement suiting a man of his era
Of logic, deduction—a will to control all the factors
Surrounding a person—of industry, steam-powered heartbeats,
Impending doom.

"House Republicans plan to start the New Year with a splash: they say that they’ll vote to repeal President Obama’s signature health-care overhaul before his upcoming State of the Union address."
—Peter Grier, The Christian Science Monitor, January 3, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/0103/GOP-push-for-repeal-of-health-reform-Is-it-politically-wise

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Rock & Roll [Guest News Opinion By RL Greenfield, January 2, 2011]

Rock & Roll [Guest News Opinion By RL Greenfield, January 2, 2011]
By RL Greenfield

Rock & Roll set the tone by demolishing all criteria. Pierced the sound barrier. It busted
open the secret worlds. It crushed the universe of nic-nac convention & papier-mache
façade. It blew the roof off explanations. It smote the beast “esthetics.” No explanations
but in orgasms. If you write it on the page you are history. History is about the dead.
Rock & Roll is the Unceasing Sun. Eternal explosion & forever consummation. The
one & only Eternal Subject. Art can never be “objectified.” Every critic is a mortician.
To speak of “the object” is to be confined to the cemetery. Dylan, The Beatles, Rolling
Stones, You Name It----Hard Rock is already past tense putty, ground dust, or ashes
between the fingers & syrup on the tongue---endless de-tumescence & absence of sexual
dynamite. It repeats the formula: instant insipid baby food for chatter-box
regressionaries & anemics waiting for The Reaper in their laptops & cell-phone
megalomania. Piss-up-a-rope Intellectuals salivate in cyberspace concerning
the critique of Israelo-Fascism by Norman Mailer in the crypt. Rock & Roll burns
destroys & comes like the Lord Jesus Christ Mohamet. It is eternal orgasm itself The
Ecstasy unidentifiable by academic harlots peeping through their recipe books. Throw
away your dictionaries, literary critics, re-viewers & re-views. Art Happens. Get rid of
your brain-dead cell-phone clamp-on clichés & your syllabus-capsule oatmeal lectures:
Clean the tracks. It’s morning, Idiots: Sun & Sky are here----get out of the wood-work:
Resurrect your ass from the tomb & shake rattle & roll!

RL Greenfield lives in & loves Los Angeles, California.

Recent work online Stride Magazine ( poems, Aug. 2010), Poetic Matrix ( poems Dec 2010). 9 January & 1 December 2009---Charles Wright’s Littlefoot and Russell Edson’s See Jack. Forthcoming poems The Denver Quarterly, Chiron Review, Nether, Eunoia Review, & Sein und Werden. Review of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road online November, 2010 Gently Read Literature. Numerous other publications in national reviews such as The Wormwood Review, The New York Quarterly, The Minnesota Review.

RLG received NEA fellowship literature mss of poems 1995. Created television program The Greenfield Code & produced & hosted 150 one-hr shows in Santa Barbara featuring writers & artists. It was terrifically successful & a thrilling experience that transformed his esthetic forever.



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The Second Bell [Combatwords Poem Repost, From Jan 1, 2011]

The Second Bell [Combatwords Poem Repost, From Jan 1, 2011]
From http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/12/combatwords-december-31-2010-new-year.html

Leave your gonads at home,
We'll ride on the trolly
Switch the ding for a bomb.
For now we'll make do
Walking the first minutes
Of a year we don't need.
Brace all your nonsenses
For the streetcar will come.
Take vitamins, subways;
Take kisses on Market—
Cute strangers might cure you,
Could give you their herpes.
You could wander and want,
You might listen for lore
When the armpits of crowds
Have a radium glow.

They roar
On streetcars—new
Because the year is new—
And sip their brandy laughing, packed.
They stink of cigarettes, of coke and weed
And semen, pussy goo or danker smells—like shit.
Your friend can smell like that sometimes—he's only twenty two.
His mother called you up to say another friend of his just died.
That's two this year; the first one shot inside the park at night while deejays spun.
You saw the poster walking home: it said 'Reward' and showed a smile you met one time,
While juxtaposed beside that pic, a smiley face with neutral mouth and three eyes looking blank.
The second one got flu and stayed at home, too broke to call the hospital, too scared
To call his friends to ask for loans. I heard he slept instead and only when
He missed his pool-hall league event did someone send the cops to check
His pulse, to check his bottles, check his dog and see what makes
It possible—at forty one—to die amidst
Such wealth and liquify for several days
With Daily Show, Colbert Report.
It's time to hear the bell,
The second bell:
Ding Dong.



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The Financial Revolution [Today's News Poem, January 2, 2011]

The Financial Revolution [Today's News Poem, January 2, 2011]

Did you check inside your pocketbook?
I have heard the revolution's there
And that Al Capone and Stalin share
An affinity for decimals.
Go rebel against alarm clock buzz
And ignore the morning birdsong.
The worst will atrophy and spend
And leave you with the parts you use:
The debtor's prison's walls are one,
But all the zeroes are for you.

"White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said on ABC's "This Week" that the administration wants to "juice" the economy, which is gradually improving after a deep recession. While allowing that the U.S. will have to make "tough choices" in the budget, he said that it would be a "mistake" to "skimp on important investments that we need to grow." But Republicans focused on cutting spending. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that voters want Congress to "stop spending money that you don't have.""
—The Wall Street Journal, JANUARY 2, 2011, 1:36 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704735304576057881249711492.html

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The Golden Year or Two [Guest News Poem by Jack Granath, January 1, 2011]

The Golden Year or Two [Guest News Poem by Jack Granath, January 1, 2011]
By Jack Granath

After forty-five years of work
in a manufacturing plant,
I finally retired
to the Floating Island of Plastic.

I’ve got a beach chair,
a supply of disposable
novels, and earphones
made of leatherette—
whatever that is—
a cooler for my cola,
and a collection of stuffed
birds on crucifixes. I bask
in what my doctor calls

“the enemy,” synthetic
beach togs revealing a grilled-cheese
tan beneath grizzled chest hair.
I’ve earned this. My wife
Evangeline would have loved it,
had she lived.

And I’ve got the Internet.
I’m a gentleman scholar now
(from the Greek for “leisure”)
and know that plastic comes from
plastikós, from plássein: to
shape or mold. I’m shaping it,
Angie, if only by watching it go.


Jack Granath is a librarian in Kansas City. His website is www.jackgranath.com

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The Architecture of Degrees and Commands [Today's News Poem, January 1, 2011]

The Architecture of Degrees and Commands [Today's News Poem, January 1, 2011]

Order your magnitudes, multitudes—bind them with language;
For even the hex is a shape that recurs through creation,
Blessing the matter and gracing phenomena, matter
Or form with a union of life and unlike; with persona,
Person... a pure equilibrium—all algorithms
Expand in the vacuums of emptiness; marking the options,
Banishing voids with degrees of perception, so order
Your magnitudes—know and be known, you must own and be owned.

"Dominique Buttitta wanted to get married in style, so she spared no expense on her upcoming nuptials: $30,000 to reserve a banquet hall outside Chicago; $11,000 for flowers and spot lighting; $10,000 for an orchestra; $5,000 on her wedding dress and veil... As Buttitta excitedly continued preparations, the costs kept mounting. Then, four days before the big day, her fiance called the Oct. 2 wedding off... With such short notice, she could not recover most the money she had spent — so the 32-year-old lawyer is suing... seeking more than $95,000 in damages, plus the costs of filing the suit."
—Hugo Kugiya, Todayshow.com , updated 12/29/2010 10:12:54 AM ET
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40821215/ns/today-today_people/

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If Bozo the Clown Were President [Today's News Satire by Kevin Brown, December 31, 2010]

If Bozo the Clown Were President [Today's News Satire by Kevin Brown, December 31, 2010]

By Kevin Brown

What is satire? Satire’s the truth toned down.

Anonymous

     If Bozo the Clown were President, he’d be sworn in with a BANG! At the Inauguration, he’d Rocky Balboa the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and shadow box for the press. He’d take the official oath with his fingers crossed behind his back: “I do solemnly swear, yadda, yadda, yadda,” he’d say. “…and defend the Constitution of the United States, oh help me God.” Then, he’d smack the Chief Justice in the face with a cream pie. This would be followed by a 21 cap-gun salute and the Big Top Band playing, Hell, Here’s the Chief. And Cooky would be Vice President. Wizzo and Cuddly Duddly cabinet members. They’d cartwheel down Pennsylvania Avenue. Throw candy like a real parade.
     If Bozo were President, he’d start an arms race, where all the weapons are toy flag guns that say, POP! POW! Or: KITOWW! He’d have all airplanes built with the same material as the black box. He’d put treadmill belts in front of fast food registers, so patrons could burn calories while waiting for their food. Speed them up if the orders are Super-sized. Instead of food drops to starving countries, he’d drop the starving off at Chuck E. Cheese.
     President Bozo would then change the type of element that backs the world’s currency. Instead of gold and silver, he’d make it water and see how fast we’d drain the oceans. Class separation would be levels of dehydration. Next, he’d make everyone from each country pick up and move to another—Britain to Africa, Japan to China, Germany to Israel. Move America to Iraq and see if we’re really so advanced or if it’s just location, location, location. He’d stop worrying about life on Mars and focus on death on Earth. He’d settle all wars by having each side play the Grand Prize Game. Each bucket made is another battle won.
     If he were leader, he’d say, “Ask not what your country has done to you, but what you have done to your country.” He’d make diamonds worthless. Make gravel precious stones. Then, the streets would be paved with jewels. He would institute a reversal of celebrity. Make movie stars, sports icons, and rock gods pay outrageous ticket prices to watch teachers teach children, maids scrub toilets, and mechanics fix cars. He’d improvise his speeches and give the world a reason to laugh. He’d text message the State of the Union Address: M-S, V-P-C, M-O-C, etc., etc., and it’d be the easiest to understand in years. He’d put humans on the endangered species list, because we’re all one nuclear pissing contest away from extinction. He’d bring ice cream to NATO meetings and say, “I scream, you scream, we all scream.” He’d squirt water in Queen Elizabeth’s face. Pull a rabbit from Hu Jintao’s ear. Give a balloon to Kim Jong Il. He’d make the world a fun place. Make the world a better place.
     If Bozo the Clown were President, he’d be assassinated with a smile.


Kevin Brown has had work published in over seventy journals and was nominated for a 2007 Journey Award and a Pushcart Prize. His first book Ink On Wood is scheduled to be published in the summer of 2010. His website is: www.InvisibleBodies.com

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The Last CombatWords For 2010 Is Also The First CombatWords For 2011

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/12/combatwords-december-31-2010-new-year.html



Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:

You can get it as an E-Book at Amazon as well http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004AYDHXY
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