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Showing posts with label freeway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freeway. Show all posts

Friday, June 08, 2012

The Proper Way To Fire People [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, June 8, 2012]


The Proper Way To Fire People [Today's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, June 8, 2012]

How to fire people?
Focus a prism of stolen light.
Fahrenheit eight forty two
Burns hair, gasoline, paper.
That number, like all numbers
Came from authority:
The Internet. It is electrons
And anything hot and in motion
Is Fire, so The Internet is Fire.
The Internet is made of stolen fossils—
Just like The Museums, Freeways, Free Trade—
Therefore when I fire people
I first take their planet and pump it dry
And coat its surface with the ocher of my profits.
Only then shall I obtain escape velocity
And from afar, admire the sight
Of stars and nebulae, and Earth
Ablaze and cloudy with everyone I've fired.






The day that I did those layoffs, there was an oddly cheerful atmosphere in the shop.”
Paul Downs, The New York Times, June 4, 2012, 7:00 am

The barbarians were by this time usually corporations, often syndicates from St. Louis, Chicago and other cities,”
—CHRISTOPHER GRAY, The New York Times, Published: June 7, 2012

The earth could be nearing a point at which sweeping environmental changes, possibly including mass extinctions, would undermine human welfare, 22 prominent biologists and ecologists warned on Wednesday.”
—JUSTIN GILLIS, The New York Times, June 6, 2012, 2:39 pm


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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Following Polaris on I-5 [Bonus Poem, Longshot Submission--REJECTED, August 28, 2010]

Following Polaris on I-5 [Bonus Poem, Longshot Submission--REJECTED, August 28, 2010]

Polaris is waiting. She watches the freeway.
And likewise my bride is asleep in our lucky
Oasis, her palm on my thigh as we're speeding
To home. In the back seat our baby is singing
To cattle and purrs at the orchards; delighted
By travel. The chance for a blowout's unlikely.
I've come to believe that my fortunate season
Won't end 'till my purpose is finished; that random
Occurrence is flooding in villages: distant,
Inhuman; a bride to the bullet's intrusion—
And never the northernmost star-beams of glamor
That draw all the drivers together. My baby,
I shout, do you see all the meteors streaking?
I startle my wife from her napping—she lurches
My elbow. The vehicle teeters and threatens
To tumble—I pray in that instant to nothing.
Polaris is sliding through darkness—she's wearing
A tunic of white and she slips through the window
And settles beside her next husband, who's sleeping
By starlight, in car seat; his father correcting
Their path through the valley; in search of true north.

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Saturday, July 17, 2010

Passing Roadkill on New Ganges [Today's News Poem, July 17, 2010]

Passing Roadkill on New Ganges [Today's News Poem, July 17, 2010]

In cradles of metal, on ribbons of concrete,
We're winding the circuit, in search of the impact.
And faster than ever, who's thirsting for water
In rivers of metal on cushions of rubber?
What baptism matches this mikvah? This Ganges
Of ozone—embankments all covered with shrapnel?
A whiff of the gasoline charges the senses,
It spins all the wheels with the throbbing of motors.
And spinning ourselves into lines on the freeway
Where corpses and timber possess alike masses;
We're winding in circuits, in search of the impact
That follows the thrill of rebirth in a cradle
Of plastic and steel—where velocities matter.

“Long Beach police found a man's body Friday off an embankment of the 405 Freeway, but said there was no obvious signs of trauma. ”
– Teresa Watanabe, LA Times, July 16, 2010
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/dead-man-found-on-embankment-of-405-freeway-in-long-beach.html



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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Guidance System by @LordBeelzebub [Twitter Found Poem, May 23, 2010]

Guidance System by @LordBeelzebub [Twitter Found Poem, May 23, 2010]
Tweets+Edits=#twitterfoundpoem

ridin a skateboard on the freeway
On my way back from the forest.
an old volvo driving 95 flies past me.
Car next to me swerving.
I see she is texting
her @LordBeelzebub .

On the highway headin to cleveland
We are all lost.
some seek guidance
from a missile.
Others look for Jesus.
I'm looking for the money tree.

Car next to me gives me
AN ugly look. is the look I have on my face
the look of AN angry face?
I thought I had a common-sense-laden, ugly face.

@LordBeelzebub texts her back.
she gives me AN *evil smile*
she *pulls out pistol & shoots*
at my ugly face.
She swerves into me.
i'm bleeding to death.
she takes so long to kill me
before she takes my map...
my skateboard...
my face...
she is going to get her soul
recharged by the money tree.
I won't Die in the hospital.
I Die On the highway.

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