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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