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Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Slave Meme [Today's News Poem, February 23, 2011]

The Slave Meme [Today's News Poem, February 23, 2011]

Calculate value with margins of error:
Rome had its slaves who rebelled and destroyed it;
We have computers to operate, process
Assets, authority; ever our servant.

Rome was the peak of the body as weapon,
Masters of iron and bronze for the export
Of edges to fringes to chip off the forests,
And skewer the lion and lamb in their turn.

Enslavement as industry; slaving the farmer,
Enslaving a continent's people who feuded
And built a machine with no center for labor;
To slave and be slain in their turn as the master.

Heirs to the empire of crumbling marble,
Sacrifice blood in arenas of numbers.

"The political turmoil sweeping the Arab world drove oil prices sharply higher and stocks much lower on Tuesday despite efforts by Saudi Arabia to calm turbulent markets."
—CLIFFORD KRAUSS and CHRISTINE HAUSER, The New York Times, Published: February 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/business/global/23oil.html

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

We Just Want To Be Free [Today's News Poem, February 15, 2011]

We Just Want To Be Free [Today's News Poem, February 15, 2011]

Dinner has vanquished the evening,
All the dishes oppress the night,
The fridge is the banquet, banker;
Sleep is betrayal—effortless
Allocation—hours to night.
The traffic nibbles the edges:
Days in boxes and yearning for
Revolt as our life disappears.

"Protesters chanted: “We’re not Sunni. We’re not Shiite. We just want to be free.”"
—MICHAEL SLACKMAN and J. DAVID GOODMAN, The New York Times, Published: February 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16bahrain.html

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