Toylit

Friday, January 11, 2013

Influenza Allegory [Week's News Poem, January 11, 2013]

Influenza Allegory [Week's News Poem, January 11, 2013]

Influenza love story:

An epidemic allegory.

A child vomits virus cloud;

Recovers, fades into the crowd.

Influenza tragedy,

Is nothing more than comedy

That has lasted too long

And has the same corny song:

No no no!

Inside the subway car the millionaire

And the schizophrenic beggar share

A vent, are going in the same way,

Share destinations, the crowd, the sway.

“Influenza has officially reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with 7.3 percent of deaths last week caused by pneumonia and the flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.”

—Sharon Begley, Fri Jan 11, 2013 5:57pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/11/us-usa-flu-idUSBRE9080WD20130111

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Friday, January 04, 2013

Things We Know To Be True [Week's News Poem, January 4, 2013]

Things We Know To Be True [Week's News Poem, January 4, 2013]

Internet owner's manual:

Pages of rage,

Filled to the Brin with sin.

Don't be evil,

Be aggressive.

““Don’t Be Evil,” the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, proclaimed in their 2004 “Owner’s Manual” for prospective investors in the company. Despite widespread cynicism, criticism and even mockery, the company has never backed down on this core premise, reiterating in its most recent list of the “things we know to be true” that “You can make money without doing evil.”...On Thursday, after nearly two years of investigation, the Federal Trade Commission rendered a verdict: Google isn’t evil. ”

—The Line Between ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Evil’ by JAMES B. STEWART, The New York Times, January 4, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/business/google-finds-a-line-between-aggressive-and-evil.html

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Friday, December 28, 2012

Fundamentalism [Week's News Poem, December 28, 2012]

We proselytize apocalypse;

worshiping doom

or its salesman.

“U.S. consumer confidence fell more than expected in December, hitting a four-month low as a looming fiscal crisis sapped what had been a growing sense of optimism about the economy.”

—Jason Lange, WASHINGTON, Reuters, Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:30pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/27/us-usa-economy-jobless-idUSBRE8BQ08P20121227

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Friday, December 21, 2012

The Sculptor Resists [News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, December 21, 2012]

Marble tears pollinate the tongue of boot,

Drift away, fertilizing every route

The Sculptor treads.

He cannot stop

Himself and stomps

The dust, his dread.

“In a rare appearance before national media, leaders of the National Rifle Association called on Americans to protect their children by putting armed guards in every school in the country. ”

—Linda Feldmann, Staff writer / December 21, 2012

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/1221/NRA-press-conference-Put-armed-guards-in-schools-video

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Friday, December 14, 2012

Dance of the Waterspout [Week's News Poem, December 14, 2012]

A gunman shot the kids away

To ride-off on the waterspout.

And every time the news obtains a tear,

I lift my arms and spin, then fall.

The world keeps spinning,

Nothing's free, not even sorrow.

I'll spin to see things clearly:

Swirling down the drain,

Nauseating (nauseous with migraine).

Just like DNA, a whirlpool,

A galaxy's edge, everything—

And I mean everything—

Is spinning out of control.

Of course I'll cry.

I am a waterspout.

“The gunman, who was believed to be in his 20s, walked into a classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where his mother was a teacher. He shot and killed her and then fatally shot 20 students, most in the same classroom. He also fatally shot five other adults, and then killed himself inside the school. One person was also injured in the shooting.”

—JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NYT, Published: December 14, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school.html

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