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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Sorry for the tardy news poem, I'm starting it right now

I only have one more upcoming interruption and then I'll see if I can write two. I really appreciate how many of you checked in twice today and I promise to make your third visit worthwhile (I guess fourth if you returned to read this).

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Today's News Poem: All Three Parts in One Post 2.17.10

At Home, in Room 101: A Poem in Three Acts [Today's News Poem, Feb 17, 2010]

“President Obama defended his year-old economic recovery package on Wednesday, arguing that the package, the major legislative achievement of his presidency so far, has created or saved as many as two million new jobs, lowered taxes for 95 percent of Americans and spared the country a potentially disastrous depression.”
–Sheryl Gay Stolberg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/us/politics/18obama.html

“Other officials, however, appeared worried that dumping mortgage debt into a fragile market might drive up home loan rates, compromising what tentative stabilization has been achieved in housing... Still, there was active discussion on the principle behind it -- that the time might be nearing for a pullback. ”
--Reuters, Feb 17, 2010; 2:39pm ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/17/business/business-us-usa-fed-minutes.html

“Treasurys also saw losses accelerate after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting on monetary policy revealed several members wanted the Fed to sell assets in the near future. ”
--Nick Godt, Marketwatch, Feb 17, 2010
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasurys-drop-after-data-greek-debt-woes-ease-2010-02-17

I)
On live teevee I saw the Head of State
Ascend. The Chairman also lifted off;
They hovered. Doubting what I saw, the late
Or later show at first provoked a scoff;
But moved to tears I saw the clips once more
Online and cursed again my skeptical,
And anti-patriotic—lonely—core.
I'll be a media receptacle
Forever, once I learn to see
What others see on live teevee.

II)
Corruption gnawed my soul; my Lord defragged it clear.
Regrets for past procrastinations wracked my thoughts;
My Lord deleted dreadful files: magnetic cheer!
The now's a one and history's a simple ought.
My Lord, this prayer, I offer lovingly to you:
Please grant us cancer drugs our doctors brew from yew—
Expunge from files all trace of morning air and dew—
May every day become the same and never new.

III)
This gnome, this alter-ego lied.
The misdirection stood as proof
My quest to find a way inside
The tower: not some holy goof.

I told him, “Fuck your lying speech
Your Gods are stones—let's break some now.
There. See how nihilism's reach
Is always short of sacred cows

That you preserve?” He's there today
Repairing that which never worked.
The other self arrived to pray
Before a god he never shirked.

Though sky within and sky without;
Within its ribs, its godly shell—
The dream of truth can't live—I shout:
“Nothing's nothing. Nothing's in hell!”

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Today's News Poem: Part III

This gnome, this alter-ego lied.
The misdirection stood as proof
My quest to find a way inside
The tower: not some holy goof.

I told him, “Fuck your lying speech
Your Gods are stones—let's break some now.
There. See how nihilism's reach
Is always short of sacred cows

That you preserve?” He's there today
Repairing that which never worked.
The other self arrived to pray
Before a god he never shirked.

Though sky within and sky without;
Within its ribs, its godly shell—
The dream of truth can't live—I shout:
“Nothing's nothing. Nothing's in hell!”

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Today's News Poem: Part II

Corruption gnawed my soul; my Lord defragged it clear.
Regrets for past procrastinations wracked my thoughts;
My Lord deleted dreadful files: magnetic cheer!
The now's a one and history's a simple ought.
My Lord, this prayer, I offer lovingly to you:
Please grant us cancer drugs our doctors brew from yew—
Expunge from files all trace of morning air and dew—
May every day become the same and never new.

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At Home, in Room 101 [Today's News Poem, Feb 17, 2010]

At Home, in Room 101 [Today's News Poem, Feb 17, 2010]

“President Obama defended his year-old economic recovery package on Wednesday, arguing that the package, the major legislative achievement of his presidency so far, has created or saved as many as two million new jobs, lowered taxes for 95 percent of Americans and spared the country a potentially disastrous depression.”
–Sheryl Gay Stolberg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/us/politics/18obama.html

“Other officials, however, appeared worried that dumping mortgage debt into a fragile market might drive up home loan rates, compromising what tentative stabilization has been achieved in housing... Still, there was active discussion on the principle behind it -- that the time might be nearing for a pullback. ”
--Reuters, Feb 17, 2010; 2:39pm ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/17/business/business-us-usa-fed-minutes.html

“Treasurys also saw losses accelerate after minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting on monetary policy revealed several members wanted the Fed to sell assets in the near future. ”
--Nick Godt, Marketwatch, Feb 17, 2010
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasurys-drop-after-data-greek-debt-woes-ease-2010-02-17

On live teevee I saw the Head of State
Ascend. The Chairman also lifted off;
They hovered. Doubting what I saw, the late
Or later show at first provoked a scoff;
But moved to tears I saw the clips once more
Online and cursed again my skeptical,
And anti-patriotic—lonely—core.
I'll be a media receptacle
Forever, once I learn to see
What others see on live teevee.

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Heads Up: Two Part News Poem Today.

I'll probably write and finish part two by 8pm PST, but maybe sooner.

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

War Correspondent In a Junkyard [Poem]

War Correspondent In a Junkyard
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8519354.stm


The vet with reddish laser-eyes
Possessed a sign: “Will kill for fuel.”
A tragic end for flying spies
And rifle-bots we don't retool.
I asked the bots about the war.
The Predator? Its circuits smoked—
His pal explained his hardware core
Just broke, his combat role revoked.
The Talon spoke in monotone,
It whirred; it said that war was great—
It knew in war that one must hone
The soldiers pliant, not with hate
Or love—just routine death and gore.
And now we mostly can't stand war,
But bots enjoy what we abhor.
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One more click and I'll do a bonus news poem tonight

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And Then They'll Nuke the Stars [Today's News Poem, Feb 16, 2010]

And Then They'll Nuke the Stars [Today's News Poem, Feb 16, 2010]

“Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a military strike to arrest Iran's nuclear progress remains an option but that the United States prefers to see doubts about Iran's intentions resolved through diplomacy. ”
--By ROBERT BURNS (AP) – 1 hour ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jZl0ZHDPBByIKpxXAI3NcI39Wb8QD9DTENMO0



In space someday a child will play
With micro-nukes: she'll waste her toys,
Her nanite town of buckyballs.
The goddess scorns the dots that pray
She'll spare their lives—she looks for boys;
Forgets the pain of beings as small
To ants, as ants to us.
They die, she makes no fuss.


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Where's the love?

Over 200 hits in 24 hours and not one click? Tsk. You pay the homeless guy more for his godawful newspaper. How am I supposed to pay guest columnists so you folks have more stuff to read when you don't feign interest in the annoying (and free to you) ads? Alas, I am an asinine slave to poetry, so it's not like I have an ultimatum to give you. The only thing I can promise is that if you are consistent with support and promotion of Toylit, I can be consistent with my efforts to improve its content and promote it (thus enhancing the street-cred of early readers).

Oh yeah, you can spread the word about Toylit by going to these social promotion sites to promote us: Digg, reddit, propeller, and you can retweet the day's news poem on twitter. We're there as 'toylitpaper'

So anyhow, my mistress calls. She wants her pound of ink again and I'm not one to deny her. But yes, you are my other master.

Your servant,

-KW


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Monday, February 15, 2010

Survival Instinct [Today's News Poem, Feb 15, 2010]

Survival Instinct [Today's News Poem, Feb 15, 2010]

"But this president was determined to go to war. It was more theology than it was anything else. That's pretty hard to deal with. Now, when Scott says we were complicit enablers, two pages later he then says that in retrospect we went to military confrontation on weapons of mass destruction because we couldn't sell the real reason for it, which was an idealistic, democratic Iraq in the post-9/11 world. "
--Tom Brokaw in an interview with Brian Williams, on MSNBC, May 28, 2008
http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=906210

“At issue is a ballot purge by a government committee of more than 400 candidates from the March 7 parliamentary elections for alleged ties to Saddam's now-outlawed Baath Party. Saleh Al-Mutlaq is among those who were blacklisted, meaning that he cannot run for re-election for the seat he now holds. The Shiite-led blacklist is seen as targeting Sunnis, though some Shiites are also on the list.”
-AP, Lara Jakes, Feb 15, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD9DSLH2O0


3:30-3:52

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040719/19iraq.htm

In fantasy, we're heroes—all—
But life has ways to make us small.
With trite resistance, malcontents
Will insubordinate to vent
Their wounded pride: it's ego's love,
And not ideals. They're not above
A sycophant's ass-kissing ways.
A wise one knows true power slays
Whomever speaks: in jest, or not,
The joker's tortured, then he's shot;
And woe to him too much a fool
To change alliance when the rule
Of state has altered course: who once
Was known for principle's a dunce.
The brave and lucky killers win:
They think that victors cannot sin.
And woe to all the dinosaurs:
Who saved their skins, instead of war.

Though smart enough to live as tools,
They're smart, too smart to know the rule
That history loves only fools.

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

Tragedy of the Commons [Today's News Poem, Feb 14, 2010]

Tragedy of the Commons [Today's News Poem, Feb 14, 2010]

“The crisis in Greece poses the most significant challenge yet to Europe’s common currency, the euro, and the Continent’s goal of economic unity. The country is, in the argot of banking, too big to be allowed to fail. Greece owes the world $300 billion, and major banks are on the hook for much of that debt. A default would reverberate around the globe. “
–The New York Times, Louise Story, Landon Thomas Jr., and Nelson D. Schwartz.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/global/14debt.html?hp

The tragedy of common spaces
Reveals itself in urban texting—
In cars and trucks and bikers: laces.
They're graphed as rays and find it vexing
To foil themselves for other faces.
'Fulfill the self,' a form of hexing:
A fear from all inspires their races—
They're paranoid, except for sexing.

We strive for freedom, hence we seek a yield.
While money stores our work as energy—
It plays security in trade, a shield
From naught—it also fuels our liturgy-
Anxieties. In excess, wealth can wield
Itself and needs no other synergy:
So wealth exaggerates the jagged field;
The poor lose hope and fail to lethargy.

Karl Marx once wrote that capital's a vampire sucking work from living hosts.
We've many dooms to choose: unseen and mighty hands we pray are God's;
Or atheistic Bolsheviks; just call on revolution's ghosts—
Or fuck it all and everyone, this world was made to pit us all at odds.

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Zoology [Today's News Poem, Feb 13, 2010]

Zoology [Today's News Poem, Feb 13, 2010]

“It didn't happen. There's no way .... they are still alive.”
--Amy Bishop

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jFo5VigoTH0_SUARIYqoUf7P9ziwD9DRIE501

“The shootings on the university campus opened a window into the pressure-cooker world of biotechnology start-ups, where scientists often depend on their association with academia for a leg up.”
--Shaila Dewan and Liz Robbins, NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/us/14alabama.html

http://www.thugreport.com/

A pressure cooker, right? A princess takes
The world by right—her flesh is good: it's white.
She's not an animal. The 'black man' fakes
His decent traits, but her, she fakes her fight—
“It didn't happen,” right? “They're still alive”
She said—that's right. Just ask the news—like you
It wants to know how snow can act like jive-
Ass darkies. Whites with burdens tend imbue
Their sacrifice for darker folks with tragedy.
The blacks just suffer less: their pains are comedy.

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Chickening out on a word choice for Today's News Poem

And I want to know if not using a certain word diminishes Today's News Poem, so please leave responses or e-mails. After "What Men Want" was posted to some anti-abortion website, I don't want this poem to be seriously misread. But it's a pretty angry poem, as you'll see.

Brace yourselves, Today's News Poem's extra-angry and direct.

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Friday, February 12, 2010

CombatWords has Replaced CombatVerse and CombatProse

Wage war with words, using something like mob rules.

http://combatwords.blogspot.com

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New Feature. Toylit Taste: A Refreshing Drink From the Porcelain Throne

Enemies of distaste, rejoice, for Brad Neely (more likely his operatives) has reactivated Creased Comics.

Why should you be excited by such a hive of villany and brain-shoes? Because Kenny Winker knows how to cook.



Because you can burn your house, it's okay to go crazy.


Because being aggressive separates fail from win.



Would you like to know more about Cat People? Brain Fucklers? Secret Wizards? Loving Dead Women? Need to understand America now?

So there. Go fuck your head up and then come back here for refreshments when you're done. I'll see how long I can keep you folks entertained this evening (we'll see if I can cook up another News Poem today).

Warning: Rated Arr!

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You and Google Are My Publishers Now

I see the web-hits and I know that many of you have discovered Toylit through random circumstance. I also know that many of you have subscribed to all the news that's shit, in print. I am trying to be braver here: so for now, so long as you incredibly hip people support me, I will give you as many freebies as I can. In exchange for this, I would like to see some appreciation once in a while. Comments on threads give me better page-impression $ rates. Likewise, any crap you'd ordinarily buy on Amazon, I request you do here (the salesman who recites poetry to close the deal, ha!). And if you have any idle curiosity whatsoever and a moment to spare before navigating away from this page, please check out some of my (gag) fine advertisers on Google. I have faced the facts: Google will destroy the publishing industry as surely as it destroyed the recording and newspaper industries. I anticipate this and as a result, have committed to web-publishing most of my material. Please reciprocate the faith I have in you. Many of you like Toylit enough to subscribe, which means I think you approve of the culture-jamming and general shit-stirring I'm doing. If you all just took the seven or eight minutes to promote Toylit to all your lit-loving friends, well, I'd show my appreciation by writing more verse for here.

Thanks for reading this open-letter.

Your faithful servant,

-KW

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The Nazis Won [Today's News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]

The Nazis Won [Today's News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]
Khakjaan Wessington

“For the second time in less than five weeks, China’s central bank has moved to limit lending to consumers and businesses by ordering big commercial banks to park a larger share of their deposits at the central bank. The step, announced late Friday, came earlier than most economists had expected and was aimed at forestalling a rekindling of inflation by controlling a rapid expansion in bank loans. Families, real estate developers and industrial companies have been borrowing heavily and have started paying more for everything from food to apartments.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/business/global/13yuan.html

The dictionary's buttressed—scholars, publishers,
And interests determine how its read, applied
And otherwise abused—despite how language-roots
Grow deep within the common use. These thought-fissures
We see in words like 'Fascism:' it's oft denied
In case right here. America has tax jackboots

And threats of killer debts because the contractors
Can cover loans by governmental guarantee
Of pay: they borrow all the cash—we can't compete.
Who risks on tiny business? Nuclear-reactors
Will generate a yield for sure, the bourgeoisie
Are safer allocations unlike most main-streets.

Main Street: a flow of cars—of bars, electric wires.
To squash the meats without a shell; to keep the thieves
Away from Mine, to burn the birds to death: with tires
Or current, desperation sells: it hurts, it weaves

The means to close the deal: the cars will sell,
And suicide's against the law, so profits swell
At burger joints that own this land: don't call it hell.

Okay, I'm sorry for not posting the News Poem the other day, here's a freebie

Today's News Poems are free for download on lulu. I'll do the same for Amazon later.

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The Tourist From Syracuse Has Friends [Bonus News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]

The Tourist From Syracuse Has Friends [Bonus News Poem, Feb 12, 2010]

“Her article said that President Obama's budget amounted to a backdoor tax increase for middle-income and even lower-income people, based largely on the scheduled expiration of income tax cuts passed in 2001. But the president had actually proposed keeping those cuts in place for all but high-income families... some prominent conservatives had seized on the article, and a few — notably Rush Limbaugh— insisted that the retraction meant simply that the media were protecting the president. ”
--Richard Pérez-Peña

For those we can't corrupt nor stymie nor coerce:
We fool. A hint of yearning smells to us like chum.
We'll file her taxes, clean his house—be babe's wetnurse—
To close the spaces keeping us apart and numb.

Apartments filled with books and chess can serve as well—
A confidant or friend can sway as well as threats.
For meatheads, take your pick: you've Rush's glottal yell—
Opinion pages full of spies absolve regrets

For middlebrow elites; for bread and circus freaks
Deranged beyond repair, we sell them fantasy:
A porno wife, a football team, and once a week
A lotto game, or games of war: an ecstasy

For every rube or brain, who thinks s/he rules
But can't control the poll or power's tools.

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Posted wrong story, here's the correct one from Carrion Call:

No Succor in Teaneck

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Pick up the phone, it's for you

You're just pre-carrion and you know it. R_Toady (of CL litfo fame) shows that even the border patrol can't keep a good monster out of America.

Read: Watch Us As We Streak Across the Sky

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War By Wires and Liars [Today's News Poem, Feb 11, 2010]

War By Wires and Liars [Today's News Poem, Feb 11, 2010]

“Germany's ruling coalition is considering using state-owned development bank KfW to buy Greek government bonds to ease Greece's financing problems...”

--Matthias Sobolewski and Patricia Uhlig, Thu Feb 11, 2010 8:21am EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBAT00511520100211

“The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, was quick to dismiss Iran's claim Thursday that it has produced higher-enriched uranium, calling it nothing more than "speechifying." But the record shows a series of intelligence reports spanning almost 20 years that have warned of a nuclear Iran. ”

--Greg Palkot and the Associated Press

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/11/iran-nuclear-weapons-history-predictions/

“President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. ”

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

"we recommend that the Secretary [of Defense] task both the Under Secretaries of Defense for Policy and Intelligence, and the Joint Staff, working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to create a tiger team to lay out courses of action and a way ahead for establishing a standing strategic surprise/deception entity. Once the initial work has been completed, all parts of the interagency should be brought into this effort."

http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2010-10-Capability_Suprise_Vol_2.pdf

No, atoms aren't the only building block
Requiring nuclear-force to bind what seeks
To free itself. Take enterprise and stock:
Those rogues—like particles— need wise techniques
To bind what otherwise would break—subvert—
Conjoined alliance. Murder's still a crime
So bind them tight with lies and let covert
And able agents sway the greedy slime:
So war becomes a suicide. And wealth?
That war by other means. With trade, the way
To kill is starve the foreigner by stealth,
And take his land, her kids: they're simply prey—
A profit center needs the casualties.
Without the gore—no war PTSDs.

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Due to unavoidable circumstances

... I lacked time to do Feb 10, 2010's News Poem. It's true, I wasted one and a half hours today and I probably could have managed my time better, but I think I spent my day well. I don't take the commitment to do the Daily News Poems lightly, therefore, I promise to catch you up on yesterday's news (at the speed of newspaper), as well as the day's news. If possible, I will try to generate a third poem, for negative conditioning's sake, so I don't waste even a moment until the Day's News Poem has been completed. Until twoish tomorrow then...

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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Apologia to Earth [Today's News Poem, Feb 9, 2010]

Apologia to Earth [Today's News Poem, Feb 9, 2010]

“The extent of agricultural waste could prove a more intractable problem than the many factories dumping effluent into China’s rivers and lakes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/asia/10pollute.html?hp

We're flattered, why aren't you flattered
By farms of fish, of beasts—our grain?
We live! Extinction has battered
Our cousins not us. It's our brain
That raised us here: now death cannot
Usurp our rule, as once before.
We've claimed the soil—what we allot
Are gleanings. Otherwise, ignore

Our flaming rivers, filth-soaked bays
Of condoms, diapers: residue
Of hardy reproductive ways.
Don't mind the current trash we spew,
We're bound for better lands than here.
We're reaching star-ward—we'll be gone
And trade our colonies of fear
On earth for the Olympus Mons.

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News Poems coming... here's an explanation in verse

Though poetry's a thoughtful craft
The pay it brings comes from the aft
Of horse-like fiends called editors--
Most spared the wrath of creditors
Because they sought their pay by book
(Like diners who pretend they cook).
They scorn the man who lives by trade,
Preferring loot obtained by raid
Of funds, endowments: lucre's fount.
The rider? No. They're money's mount.

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