Taking You With Me [Today's News Poem, March 23, 2011]

Taking You With Me [Today's News Poem, March 23, 2011]

Think of all those dollars saved,
While coasting on an outbound wave:
Farallon Islands your grave,

The seagulls laugh and pitch their wings
Over smoke the city sings.
Release the cremains in charred strings.

Smoking dollar, hear me holler.
Prise my coffin, drop the money
Off; I'll take it with me
Leaving ash behind.

"San Francisco firefighters are paid 18.3 percent above market compared to other fire departments in the region. And when you break it down by hourly pay, they're paid 34 percent over market."
—Heather Knight, City Insider, San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 2011
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=85641&tsp=1


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Dormant Code [Today's News Poem, March 22, 2011]

Dormant Code [Today's News Poem, March 22, 2011]

If blossoms admit it; if jackhammers mutter,
Jackasses sputter it—spring is erection
And promises doused at the summer's discretion.
Spring is the architect, spring is the beauty;
And spring is the whimsy that animates flirting,
Coffee then sex, then placenta in garbage.
The blossoms are falling—they're purple-white falling—
Corpses of salmon are caught in the gravel,
The mushrooms consume what remains of a redwood,
Why won't you bury the afterbirth stillborn
And plant on the grave—if not pear, plant a plum tree?
Look at the city, it's rising; it's falling,
It's built on the efforts of ultimate knowledge.
Calculate will to the decimal spirit,
The programs will find you and activate software
Fucking you, fighting you, flighting and feeding
Your face—you're a robot. My face—I'm a robot.

"The psychologists also measured other factors, including the workers’ general satisfaction with their lives, how energetic they felt, how strongly they endorsed an ethic of hard work. None of these factors was a reliable predictor of their actual performance on the job, as rated by their supervisors. But the higher the workers scored on the scale of belief in free will, the better their ratings on the job."
—JOHN TIERNEY, The New York Times, Published: March 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/science/22tier.html



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Fission Metaphor [Today's News Poem, March 21, 2011]

Fission Metaphor [Today's News Poem, March 21, 2011]

Grasp ever tighter and lose the whole thing.
Springs, sprockets, circuitry slip from the hand.
Squeeze harder, diamonds are possible sand.
Fists fit the world in the palm of one's rage.

"When radiation is released with gas, as it was at the Japanese reactors, the particles are carried by prevailing winds, and some will settle on the earth. Rain will knock more of the suspended particles to the ground. “There is an extremely complex interaction between the type of radionuclide and the weather and the type of vegetation,” Dr. Whicker said. “There can be hot spots far away from an accident, and places in between that are fine.”"
—ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, The New York Times, Published: March 21, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/science/earth/22food.html

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Elbow Room [Today's News Poem, March 20, 2011]

Elbow Room [Today's News Poem, March 20, 2011]

My grandmother's sister would elbow the crowds
Towing her comical entourage—preteen
Befuddled with glasses—through Union Square faces.

Untense for an instant and everything's lost.
Plot by the footstep through Jimmy Choo mazes
Like Tao of the paces; expand through obstructions.

By graphing location in city, one sees
Stages of rage and aggression, discomfort;
The crowd will converse it, will ramble and shout it.

If death is a billboard of home in a condo
Tiny, but private, with views of an island
And bridge that connects it to privacy towers

Ensconced in a crowd with bare feet
And ensconced by the ocean,
Gilded with spotlights in fog,
Where breakers erode
All the edges
Of crowds—

"A rate of 45 percent would apply to taxable income starting at $1 million and rates would increase up to 49 percent for taxable incomes over $1 billion. Citizens for Tax Justice found that the bill would raise at least $78.9 billion if enacted for 2011. This is a little more than the $61 billion that Republicans would like to cut for the rest of this fiscal year from Pell Grants, nutrition, housing and other programs that struggling families rely on, particularly during this recession."
—Citizens For Tax Justice, March 18, 2011 2:50 PM
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2011/03/congresswoman_schakowsky_propo.php

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Kirilian Epiphany [Today's News Poem, March 19, 2011]

Kirilian Epiphany [Today's News Poem, March 19, 2011]

Perception inverted, the light seemed excessive,
Radioactive, relentless,
Its ambiance entered my brain through eye-sockets.
Typing a memo forgotten
To someone forgotten, displaced in a panic.
Plumes fell to thunderstorm raincloud
And smothered my eyes with a radiance leaking,
Blurred with appliances shedding
Electrons: a negative image of dreamscape—
Nothing implied with a halo,
Kirilian opposite, darkness corona.
Microwaved steak made of prion,
A medicine tainted with HeLa immortal,
Particles scintillate, shimmer,
Contaminate; pierce through denial: awaken!

"As Japan struggles to contain radiation leaking from crippled nuclear reactors, many countries, including China, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand have already started to test food imported from Japan for radiation, and the European Union has recommended that member countries do so. "
—ANDREW POLLACK, The New York Times, Published: March 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/business/global/19radiate.html

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The World is Ending! So Play Some CombatWords!

Sure seems like the end of an era to me: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-18-2011-end-of-era.html

Steven Marty Grant http://roomspimp.blogspot.com:

"It is finished

Two thousand years of grace
covered the lower ground
of man’s last temple; Manhattan

Allah Akbar "

Seann McCollum (RToady) http://carrioncall.blogspot.com:

"How could they prohibit our tradition?
Our memories condemned, our past made sin.
Would they deny Marcel his madeleine?
Reproach the kosher Jew for eating brisket? "

Read, play, or critique: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-18-2011-end-of-era.html

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Deteriorating Facsimile [Combatwords Repost, March 12, 2011]

Deteriorating Facsimile [Combatwords Repost, March 12, 2011]
From http://combatwords.blogspot.com

Admit it, you've suffered reversals.
Desire, so the Buddhists declaim,
Is the root of one's woe as if life
Were a trifle. It's huge. It's the only
Certainty, other than death.

But love is as likely as dinner,
As likely as children—they're us
But they're smaller; repeating our lives.
We diminish each time and forget
Failures: we copy and shrink,

Then we're gone
And return
And then vanish.


Catch all the action here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com

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Modern Excommunication [Today's News Poem, March 18, 2011]

Modern Excommunication [Today's News Poem, March 18, 2011]

To: You
From: Me
Re: Unemployment
Body: You cannot imagine beyond it;
You're drawn to the certainties—drawn to yourself,
Aching for service to self, yet you're servant:
Obsequious, fearful of fates worse than death.
Riding the bus, there's perfume; the aroma
Of leather and gym is a blessing. The stench
Derelicts emanate gives you the courage
To guzzle your coffee obsessed with the trifles
Ownership offers. Though briefly you worry
While watching Japan in the news, of disaster,
Nothing has happened and nothing will happen
That hasn't occurred, for nothing remains to be taken.

"Part of the answer may be that while those who are unemployed tend to stay unemployed, those who still have jobs are feeling more secure than they did a couple of years ago. "
—PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times, Published: March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/opinion/18krugman.html

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Evolution of the New Biosphere [Today's News Poem, March 17, 2011]

Evolution of the New Biosphere [Today's News Poem, March 17, 2011]

The pleasure dome of climate: gas and green
Covers the stone and encases the raptures.
The wavelengths soothe belabored jungle scowls:
Monitors radiate myths of consumption.
The beats in buds transmit the wave to brain—
Frequency, farts and emissions aren't garbage
The burger wrapper lays beside the porn
Magazine: fucking the lamb—it's a lion.
Abortions, livers, tumors, foreskins, hands
Settle, deflowered, in celibate brothels.
Radioactivate trash, let Gomorrah
Fertilize biospheres, rot to a forest;
Hoist you from whore to a virgin again.

"But Tokyo Electric said this week that there was a chance of “recriticality” in the storage ponds – that is to say, the uranium in the fuel rods could become critical in nuclear terms and resume the fission that previously took place inside the reactor, spewing out radioactive byproducts."
—KEITH BRADSHER and HIROKO TABUCHI, The New York Times, Published: March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18spent.html



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Riparian Monster [Today's News Poem, March 16, 2011]

Riparian Monster [Today's News Poem, March 16, 2011]

Bounded by freshness, rocks in my middle,
I scuttle through openness carved with my belly.
Maybe I'm boulder instead—I forgot:
Is stiffness within me? Or am I the stiffness?
Focus on aches and you'll lose all your sense.
So launch through the canopy, fill it with excess;
Uproot the timber and swallow their seeds.
If parrots complain just entice them then drown them.
Even the sky lends support to your cause—
Slumber, awaken—sleep and awake.

"Mr. Jaczko’s testimony, the most extended comments by a senior American official on Japan’s nuclear disaster, described what amounts to an agonizing choice for Japanese authorities: keep sending workers into an increasingly contaminated area in a last-ditch effort to cover nuclear fuel with water, or do more to protect the workers but risk letting the pools of water boil away — and thus risk a broader meltdown."
—DAVID E. SANGER, MATTHEW L. WALD and HIROKO TABUCHI. The New York Times, Published: March 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/world/asia/17nuclear.html

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Exclusive Toylit Interview With @RadioactiveHair: The Man Who Infiltrated North Korea

Exclusive Toylit Interview With @RadioactiveHair: The Man Who Infiltrated North Korea

It was an amazing time to be alive: North Korea entered the international community by creating an account on Twitter called @Uriminzok (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/08/north_koreas_propaganda_playgr.html). A /b/tard declared it the end of history. Public radio in the US was abuzz with the possibility that Kim Jong-Il would lay down his arms if he got enough followers. Sadly, optimism tends to trend to pessimism and Portly Asian Elvis stood in the corner, sullenly brandishing nukes and cognac. Pyongyangologists were excited to see NK break this trend when it increased the number of accounts it followed to 13 (auspicious number indeed!) (http://www.reviewmylife.co.uk/blog/2010/10/07/north-korea-13-twitter-friends/). Was this a sign that North Korea was ready to break out of its shell? Perhaps! @Uriminzok didn't seem to think names were very important when it started following @RadioactiveHair nor did it seem uncomfortable with @RadioactiveHair's rapist history either... at least at first.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-gonna-get-raped

All good things must come to an end and after a ruthless Twitter purge, as of March 16, 2011, @Uriminzok follows just 2 people on Twitter: @Pyongyang_DPRK and @JimmyDushku.

I caught up with @RadioactiveHair on Twitter and asked how he felt about his historic role as The Man Who Infiltrated North Korea.

How did you find out about North Korea's Twitter account?

"I wasn't quite sure when I found out about Best Korea's twitter account, but after searching a chat log I can pinpoint an exact date and time. 13:29 Aug 18 2010. "

How did you get North Korea's Twitter account to follow you?

"They followed me on September 16th 2010 after I praised the Dear Leader and Best Korea. September 16th was also 5 days after Collapsing Yankee was supposed to be carried out. This was delayed."

Can you make any sense of the regime based-off its Twitter behavior?

"As I do not speak Korean, I am unable to make any sense of Best Korea's twitter behavior. However, I can understand their propaganda pictures against USA and the other Korea as they did what they could to rape Best Korea in the 50's. Being threatened with nuclear weapons is never pleasant."

Who do you think was really reading your tweets in North Korea?

"I don't know who in Best Korea read my tweets, maybe some of the 10.000 with cellphones they have acquired illegally? For the sake of epicness, I hope it was Kim Jong Il himself. He did say in 2007 that he is an internet expert, so the possibility is there."

When did North Korea stop following you on Twitter?

"You enlightened me about Best Korea unfollowing me on March 8, while it may not be the correct date let's just say it is. When I do find out the date, it shall become a national day of mourning."

Do you think anyone was executed or sent to a labor camp for their role in following you?

"Of course they executed someone for following me, Best Korea doesn't have the time to feed everyone."

When dealing with such a volatile regime, do you worry that trolling them might incite a real war? Or is this what you're hoping for?

"Best Korea is always threatening the south with attacks, so of course I will help bring that forward. Even if it could escalate to a World War if China was to become involved like the last time. If they are smart, they'll make their move now as the crisis in Japan is still ongoing."

Would you like to visit North Korea even though it's probably too late to safely do so now?

"During the period that Best Korea did follow me, Kim built me a mansion outside of Pyongyang, which I visited. At the moment though I will not go back."

You've managed to do what professional espionage agencies as of yet have been unable to do: infiltrate North Korea. Any tips for spymasters reading this?

"Just pay some corrupt folks in China and you'll get instant access to Best Korea. Who to pay I shall not reveal further, nor the sum."

Do you think Kim Jong-Il knew he was gonna get raped? Did that have anything to do with him unfollowing you?

"I hope Kim knew he was gonna get raped, and if he did I sure hope he likes rape."

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Cannibalizing the Giant [Today's News Poem, March 15, 2011]

Cannibalizing the Giant [Today's News Poem, March 15, 2011]

All the ruling beasts align together:
Canis and Catus; Homo and Capra.
Each imagines self in starry patterns,
Fixed in perspective: parallax shiftless.
Stars like these consume a billion comets,
Chlorophyll feeds on waves—radiation.
Mammoths ate the leaves and haunted paintings:
Apes with their spears on tundra surround them.
Lonely giants trumpet loss, extinction.
Only their bones outlast our worshiping.
Hurtle, herd the herds, as herd of herders:
Mineral, vegetable, cannibal
Eating their own; in the end, eating self.

"Australian student Casey Heynes became the latest YouTube sensation—and unofficial anti-bullying PSA posterboy—when he was captured on video bodyslamming a bully that had hit him in the face."
—Brad Cohen, Sports Grid, 3:47 pm, March 14th, 2011
http://www.sportsgrid.com/media/video-of-bully-victim-body-slamming-his-antagonizer-goes-viral-media-firestorm-clouds-form/

Bully FAIL w/ Commentary from John Morgan on Vimeo.

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Pet Apocalypses [Guest News Poem by Mark Kerstetter, March 14, 2011]

Pet Apocalypses [Guest News Poem by Mark Kerstetter, March 14, 2011]
By Mark Kerstetter http://markerstetter.blogspot.com

When not stricken dumb
The tongue turns to teleology
In a churning tide not of waves
But faces, each a cipher
Of any number of pet apocalypses

And so I invoke the Great Mother
Who cares not for end time rhetoric
For whom poems are but sighs
On a chill wind from cracked
And quivering lips

She will call her children home
And scatter at whim
Blankets and robotics her mulch
Be they sardine dolphin or human baby
She doesn’t give a Great Tsunami Fuck

When her skies smile down again
On the nuclear stuff inside
Will there be time to sacrifice a virgin
Or a Sony to turn
on a tumbling shore?

"Radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned anyone nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure."
—ERIC TALMADGE and SHINO YUASA, Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

"The millions of sardines that were found floating dead in a Southern California marina this week tested positive for a powerful neurotoxin, researchers said Friday. "
—Associated Press, 03/12/11 02:17 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/12/redondo-beach-dead-fish-t_0_n_834958.html

"In the Gulf, record numbers of dead baby dolphins are washing onto the shores of Mississippi and Alabama, creating frightening spectacles for families and their kids prowling the beaches. Tourists are bewildered by scientists slicing tissue samples from the lifeless baby mammals."
—Rocky Kistner, Media associate, NRDC, March 2, 2011 10:12 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rocky-kistner/as-dolphins-die-gulf-rest_b_830200.html

"A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline Monday, overwhelming crematoriums, exhausting supplies of body bags and adding to the spiraling humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after the massive earthquake and tsunami."
—The Associated Press, 12:30 PM, Mar. 14, 2011
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110314/WDH0101/303140075/1207&located=rss



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Final Garfield Strip: The Censored Original! (And Announcements Enclosed)

Shocking, isn't it? But the redacted original is even more stunning and hints at a tantalizing thesis that demands further investigation:

We have a guest News Poem by the talented & e-lovely fellow (didn't check the Megan's Law registry for Florida, but since he doesn't seem to live under a freeway [at least according to his pics], I think he's okay...) Mark Kerstetter. I'm really fond of the guy. He doesn't meet your context, he makes you enter his context. He's a huge idea-cloud full of symbols and images and artistic torsion. Go to his page http://markerstetter.blogspot.com to more carefully examine his artistic vision.

Are you being a cheap bastard? Yes you are! Buy my book, or click an ad. Otherwise it starts with you bullying me and it ends like this:



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Psychicphrenic Sensitivities [Today's News Poem, March 14, 2011]

Psychicphrenic Sensitivities [Today's News Poem, March 14, 2011]

Every moon has its current.
Only the wisest of schizos acknowledge
It's nerve and it's nervousness.

Every action reacts to the first of all actions:
Explosion, orgasm, whatever you call it
Remember to whimper.

It's not wave, it's not current; it's possible
Is what it is—haecceity—
And nothing could be otherwise.

All the schizos could feel all the nerves
In the earth; they were twitching and bruising
Their knees on the hydrants.

My cat almost died for Japan—
He's connected as well by this feeling of nerves.
His organs unseized and he leaped to my lap

Knowing his death comes much later,
And watched as I watched the tsunami
On teevee, surprised I surprised myself.

I'm laughing. I died in Japan yet I'm typing
A poem. I died in a styrofoam avalanche,
Died in my cradle, died in the ocean;

I died, yet I'm here and the schizos declared it;
They gobbled tobacco and tuned for the station
That everyone hears—it's static: absolute static.

"Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday after an explosion damaged the vessel containing the nuclear core at one reactor and a fire at another spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to the statements of Japanese government and industry officials."
—HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, Published: March 14, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15nuclear.html

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Tsunami Riptide [Today's News Poem, March 13, 2011]

Tsunami Riptide [Today's News Poem, March 13, 2011]

Unravel the surface and peel off the ceilings.
Reveal, repeal, uncover, then exile.
Start up the truck as the water's delivery
Peels the lampposts, borrows the vehicles.

We play while we live with our toys and our tools,
The buildings worth a life of unceasing work.
Nothing in history rhymes with disaster—
Past it, patterns form—they're etched beneath our feet.

"Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a quickly escalating nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors, and that they were bracing for a second explosion, even as problems were reported at two more nuclear plants."
—HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times, Published: March 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14nuclear.html



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Combatwords Wants YOU

I know your kind: your hollow fealty to words. You claim you'd die for literature, yet you fear to be slain in the arena. Well Combatwords ain't your uncle and it ain't Sam neither... but it wants you. It wants you to fall on your face and break your dainty nose. It wants you to scream for blood between the lines and it wants a final, wordless yet implied 'fuck you' as you lie defeated in the sand.

http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-11-2011-reversal.html

RToady (Seann McCollum) http://carrioncall.blogspot.com March 12, 2011 2:20 AM :
"A modern Salome, or Magdalene,
all she had to do was grin;
gripped between her perfect teeth, the blade
she emancipated bananas with,
flinging them up to the grubby gamins
begging at the edge of the pier."

I was late to the game March 12, 2011 9:58 PM :
"Admit it, you've suffered reversals.
Desire, so the Buddhists declaim,
Is the root of one's woe as if life
Were a trifle. It's huge. It's the only
Certainty, other than death."

Go forth and fight:



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Debunking the Myths of Japan [Today's News Poem, March 12, 2011]

Debunking the Myths of Japan [Today's News Poem, March 12, 2011]

The dolphins are laughing, the bigot applauds;
Maguro, unagi salute in the ocean.
Even Poseidon must chuckle; Hephaestus
Wins far too often, inhales the emissions,
And must be extinguished and trade his position.
Japan had it coming: the oni predicted,
Fat Man predicted, Nanking predicted,
Wako, Yamato, Toyota, Pearl Harbor,
Godzilla, Naruto and Rapeman predicted
Japan as a story, as myth and Atlantis.

"A quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant reeling from an explosion at one of its reactors has also lost its emergency cooling system at another reactor, Japan's nuclear power safety agency said on Sunday. The emergency cooling system is no longer functioning at the No.3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, requiring the facility to urgently secure a means to supply water to the reactor, an official of the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told a news conference. On Saturday, an explosion blew off the roof and upper walls of the building housing the facility's No. 1 reactor, stirring alarm over a possible major radiation release, although the government later said the explosion had not affected the reactor's core vessel and that only a small amount of radiation had been released."
—Reuters, Sat Mar 12, 2011 4:17pm EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-japan-quake-nuclear-cooling-idUSTRE72B3GI20110312

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Eye Big In Japan [Today's News Poem, March 11, 2011]

Eye Big In Japan [Today's News Poem, March 11, 2011]

Where wave meets reactor; where blaze floats on foam,
Where old circuits die where the tide gores the bull,
Where eye met the image of screen-shot and shoots
The skyscrapers full of its cracked vision scorn;

Where bored meets the keyboard and sleep joins the show,
Where dreams fuse together with flames surfing seas,
A glass made in Tokyo holds sea (drowning cup)
That falls down the throat of a fool: scared to sleep.

"A devastating tsunami hit the coast of northeast Japan on Friday in the aftermath of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake about 80 miles offshore, killing at least five people and injuring dozens. "
—MARTIN FACKLER and KEVIN DREW, The New York Times, Published: March 11, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12japan.html



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Banana Slug Nazar [Today's News Poem, March 10, 2011]

Banana Slug Nazar [Today's News Poem, March 10, 2011]

At first it was God's Eye: a charm of protection
We made with two sticks and a colorful yarn.
Crafts of our youth went to trash, yet the talisman

Survived with its crudeness—its innocence, crudeness—
And stupidly watched from its perch near the stove
Warding off something far worse than our bickering.

I'll miss it and throw it in trash while I'm cleaning
My mother's possessions and sorting her will;
Stunned at my ignorance—mother my mystery.

And somewhere between, back in college, a woman—
A schoolmate who kissed and forgot me—had kissed
Someone who tore off his pants and excitedly

Began to undress her. She gazed at the nazar
And pushed him away. There were eyes all around,
Spitting their blessings or semen on comforters.

I batter my shoulders in doorways and rarely
Avert when I gaze. I have missed all the cues,
Broken the spell that coordinates offices—

The pace on the sidewalk—deflected the daggers
They've launched from their eyes, so the eye of the slug—
Pattern of spot it may be—might examine me

And stay me from clumsiness, grant me her rhythm
Amidst all the traffic just meters away,
Grant me her slime and remove my revulsion.

"McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) announced a far-reaching sourcing policy that could significantly reduce the fast-food giant's impact on the environment, including global forests. Yesterday McDonald's unveiled its Sustainable Land Management Commitment (SLMC), a policy that requires its suppliers to use "agricultural raw materials for the company's food and packaging that originate from sustainably-managed land". The commitment will be monitored via an independent evaluation process, according to the company. "
—Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com, March 11, 2011
http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0310-mcdonalds.html

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Deducing Induction [Today's News Poem, March 9, 2011]

Deducing Induction [Today's News Poem, March 9, 2011]

Fourteen billion pairs of eyes
Gazed at their seventy billion toes;
Saw a trillion hairs on feet,
Prayed to quadrillions of deities.
Life is one. The earth is one.
Hope is quintillions, a googolplex.
Hope is any set plus one.
Hope is the infinite self
Or the incomplete other.

"Young men in hooded jackets smoke cigarettes and await transfer to the mainland — a prospect that is striking fear in many European hearts."
—RACHEL DONADIO and SUZANNE DALEY, The New York Times, Published: March 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/world/europe/10europe.html

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Lies In The Firmament [Today's News Poem, March 8, 2011]

Lies In The Firmament [Today's News Poem, March 8, 2011]

I think I felt a spark beneath the moon;
It was crushing, tremendous—I felt like the tide.
My heart transmitted burning waves
As I saw the long meteor strips with an oak.
I heard the owl adjust her perch
Beneath the summer's nighttime noon.
It is funny to think that we feel we'll abide
Decaying cells; that feeling saves
And that feeling survives when rebirth is a joke
Beneath the false and sparkling church.

"In a potential advance in the field of tissue engineering, researchers report that they've been able to repair injured urinary systems in boys by using bladder cells grown in a laboratory."
—Randy Dotinga, HealthDay Reporter, March 8, 2011
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/digestive-disorders/articles/2011/03/08/lab-grown-urethra-used-to-replace-damaged-tube

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Excuseman Misses Quota [Today's News Poem, March 7 2011]

Excuseman Misses Quota [Today's News Poem, March 7 2011]

The pencils for closers, the door for excuses;
Go to the door my excuseman, with Willie
And get drunk and go driving and fall off
A bridge in the water; it's careless.
Who gives a shit for excuses?
Did they ever meet quota?
Award me a trophy?
Suck off my penis?
Can they grovel?
Promote me?
Feign love?
No.

"Check this one out. The employee does in fact have the skills and talent to do the job, but lacks the passion, enthusiasm and commitment to execute. In many cases, he is not going to tell you that, because what would it sound like? "Boss, I hear you, but I need to tell you that I’m just not feeling it. This job stinks. I can’t quit because I’ve got a family to support. I need this stupid job." Such communication would be refreshingly honest, but don’t hold your breath expecting it to happen. "
—Steve Adubato, NJ.com, Sunday, March 06, 2011, 6:44 AM
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2011/03/dealing_with_poor_performance.html

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Bird of Coffins [Today's News Poem, March 6, 2011]

Bird of Coffins [Today's News Poem, March 6, 2011]

It started in grass and it ends in the sand.
It glided the thermals, its droppings exploded.
I saw how it hatched from a box, how it fanned.
Debris that unbound, disinterred and unloaded
The mineral arrows, the cylinder coffins
That fall from the wings of a bird made of coffins.

"And rebels near Ras Lanuf said they shot down a Libyan air force plane, a Soviet-made Sukhoi Su-24MK that crashed in the desert, on Saturday. CNN located the plane's debris, spread over a kilometer (about half a mile), with the headless bodies of two pilots at the site."
—CNN's Nic Robertson, Ben Brumfield, Arwa Damon, Ben Wedeman, Salma Abdelaziz, Jomana Karadsheh and Jill Dougherty contributed to this report, CNNMarch 6, 2011 3:14 a.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/06/libya.conflict/?hpt=T2

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Buried Alive In A Grave For Pagan Gods [Today's News Poem, March 5, 2011]

Buried Alive In A Grave For Pagan Gods [Today's News Poem, March 5, 2011]

'Shafted,' the veins call. Shafted in ore.
Shafted like oak trees they whittled to beams.
Abandon the forest, salvage the timber
Concealing—not God of the pagans, not Odin,
Nor the glory of mist on leaves in the morning—
Just a buttress to stave off the ruin of matter.
Stakes that were stabbed in the caverns, entropy unifies
Corpses, inertness, a profit, a loss, though it's purposeless.

"A priest has given last rites to a man who fell into an abandoned Nevada mine shaft so deep and treacherous that rescuers have abandoned efforts to reach him,"
—(AP), Mar 5, 2011 11:55 AM CST
http://www.newser.com/story/113448/rescuers-abandon-man-trapped-alive-in-nevada-mine.html

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Tales From the Combatwords Arena: Randomness

Anton Gourman (http://forpuck.wordpress.com/) won last week's Combatwords, so he selected this week's topic. You can see him win here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/02/combatwords-february-25-2011-friendship.html

Read this week's combat here: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/combatwords-march-4-2011-randomness.html

Valerie Valdes http://candleinsunshine.com/asthemoonclimbs/:
""When the time comes, choose
the top one." Lucky numbers
six, nine, forty-two."

Amalia Dillin http://blog.amaliadillin.com/:
"I am Europa, and this bull is my god. Zeus, Poseidon, Jehovah, Allah, Odin, Thor, or Amun-Ra. He leans into my touch, and I am blessed. I am alive. I am electric."

Seann McCollum http://carrioncall.blogspot.com/:
"Instructions tumble from your unclenched fist.
Each word can be interpreted six ways..."

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The Golden Termite [Today's News Poem, March 4, 2011]

The Golden Termite [Today's News Poem, March 4, 2011]

It's always back and forth between deduction, induction, reduction, seduction; always a slip of the while to recover one's footing; capture one's balance to throw it akilter again. And we slither on tightropes; we slither as tightrope: slivers of quicksilver. Silver; everything bright is a gem or a metal refined to its limit; a thing to explore and deplete and discard. The object dissolves as we breach to the center of things—hear the ring of the harmony latent in spheres? Eve of our prayer to atom, we played in our garden of tin and its blossoms of soot; we reduced our perspective and drilled to the core, which exploded of course and enthralled us. It called us a name we have kept ever since: something like element, shapeshifter—termites that watch for their God in the timber, in cellulose. God of the termites. God as a termite.

"Gold futures rallied and silver hit its highest point in nearly 31-years Friday as jitters about rising oil prices amid Middle East tensions boosted the metals as refuge investments."
—Matt Whittaker Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES, The Wall Street Journal, MARCH 4, 2011, 2:38 P.M. ET
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110304-710448.html

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They Will Take It From Us [Today's News Poem, March 3, 2011]

They Will Take It From Us [Today's News Poem, March 3, 2011]

I don't embrace
you yet—I will, so tarry.
Bless us, extend our duration. Delay

another day
and let me bed upon—not
under—the grass and in sunlight's gold trace.

"in 1856 when, barely a year into his reign, Alexander II announced to an assembly of noblemen, “I’ve decided to do it, gentlemen. If we don’t give the peasants freedom from above, they will take it from below...” Northern leaders, on the other hand, pointed with shame to the fact that the world’s greatest democracy and its most infamous autocracy stood alone among major Western powers in retaining slavery."
—ADAM GOODHEART, The New York Times, March 2, 2011, 8:30 pm
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/the-other-emancipation-proclamation/

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Commanded To Surrender [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2011]

Commanded To Surrender [Today's News Poem, March 2, 2011]

Law is stone and God is brazier:
Bronze, unyielding, burning razor.
Time is bone, a crystal rock:
Fossil lost to gemstone features.

Love our eyes for eyes, and seek
Blind surrender, yield as weak.
Gradations have vanished in binaries:
Perfect, defective, and perfect
Again.

Surrender, surrender; it's envy, surrender—
God is the captain of every surrender.

"Sirhan made his first appearance before a California parole board since 2000, supported by two psychologists' reports saying he no longer poses a threat to society, his attorney said... On occasion, Sirhan flashed a gap-toothed smile, but as Prizmich announced the parole denial, Sirhan bit his tongue.
Prizmich said that Sirhan's assassination of Kennedy marked a national loss, prompting Sirhan to make a startling assertion.
"That was not my responsibility," Sirhan blurted out.
Sirhan's attorney, William Pepper, expressed "disappointment" over the parole board's decision and said Sirhan will appeal the matter to the courts. The parole board "ignored every thing we had to say, and they went on the emotional kick of a loss of a presidential candidate," Pepper said. "The magnitude of the crime has nothing to do with his suitability of being released from prison after 43 years.""
—Michael Martinez, CNN, March 3, 2011 12:01 a.m. EST
http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/03/california.sirhan.parole.hearing/

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False Etymology of Western Modernity [Today's News Poem, March 1, 2011]

False Etymology of Western Modernity [Today's News Poem, March 1, 2011]

Pass through the root of a word:
It resembles enchanters of blaze,
Medicine wands made of paw
And the pelt of a Nemean Lion.

Passion: an animal zeal.
The religion of sunrise and rays
Sniffs for and snuffs out the source
In the soil, in the catgrass—the cornstalks.

Compassion: the dream of a mouse
Covered in paws; and compassion—the taste
Of blood is the flavor of rain,
Pity and love: the communion of famished.

Romance: desire is a sword
Or wound, or the wounded—the wounding
Passing unbreakable flesh
To memories, hopes, expectations.

Roman: the letters and laws.
Imperial characters slaying
Wilderness, making the peace
With weaponry, ownership, commerce.

Roma: a cairn made of bones
For saints and salvation. Religion
Vanquishes beast and its praise,
Compassion and conscience—the wilderness.

"They are not God, yet they act as though they have all power and authority to determine the day and hour of a baby's death and also the manner in which he dies."
—Jennifer Hartline, Catholic Online, 3/1/2011
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=40526

"Animal control officials are concerned that they have had to put down too many dogs and have developed a plan to curb the euthanasia rate."
—Kevin Valine, The Modesto Bee, Feb. 28, 2011
http://www.modbee.com/2011/02/27/1576232/oakdale-tryingto-reduce-rate-of.html

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