What ever happened to all the talk about IM as a form of poetry?
Ishmael Reed was there first.
Lazy (efficient?) typists unite.
Here is an excerpt from his badman of the guest professor, showing he was not only ahead of his time in form, but in commentary on politics as well:
listen man, i cant help it if
yr thing is over, kaputs,
no matter how you slice it dick
you are done. a dead duck all out
of quacks; d nagging hiccup dat
goes on & on w/ out a simple glass
This poem by Langston Hughes (1902-1967) struggles to have a voice and ends up feeling detached, looking in from an outsider’s perspective.
Two sides of a brutal interrogation fight for the reader’s attention, as if he wanted to avoid being a victim to his own poem. Faced with both views at the same time we end up without either, and can only wonder if he intended the reader to be a fly on the wall:
Hit me! Jab me!
Make me say I did it.
Blood on my sport shirt
And my tan suede shoes.Faces like jack-o’-lanterns
In gray slouch hats.Slug me! Beat me!
Scream jumps out
Like blowtorch.
Three kicks between the legs
That kill the kids
I’d make tomorrow.Bar and floor skyrocket
And burst like Roman candles.
When you throw
Cold water on me,
I’ll sign the
Paper . . .
This is a strange story about the global meat market and its use of labels:
Hundreds of tonnes of meat seized during a Food Standards Agency investigation in County Fermanagh must be destroyed, a court has ordered.
Some of the meat was decomposing, foul smelling and green coloured.
The court heard some meat seized at Euro Freeze Ireland (Ltd) in Lisnaskea had bogus health markings and an expiry date of October 2000.
The smell and color were giveaways. What happens when food is engineered not to smell or change color when it decomposes? The information we see on labels will only increase in value as other forms of identification, and therefore trust, disappear.
This brings me back to my concern over cherries made red, almost in a parody of themselves, while the labels to tell you how they are made red are found too alarming to be publically consumed.
I hate to say it but, speaking of rotten meat and things syrupy sweet, this story suddenly reminded me of the poem called “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
I am pretty sure no one uses OpenBSD just because of the music…here’s their latest offering:
Now everybody had it
they was drivin’ around
They was givin’ up their freedoms
for convenience now
Blobbin’ up the freeway, water black as pitch
And somehow little Blobby was a growin’ rich!He was a blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blahIt’s linkin’ time!
Now it was out of control
n’ fishy’s came to depend
on Blobby’s Blob Blah, seemed to be no end
Then his empire spread and to their surprise
Blobby been a growin’ to incredible size!
Ahem. Seems to be about petroleum companies as much as their usual rant against the (in)security of closed-source technology. I think I still like 3.0 the best:
During these hostile and trying times and what-not
OpenBSD may be your family’s only line of defenseI’m secure by default
They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safetyRELEASE TIME!!!!
Stay off, stay off, stay off…
I’m secure by default
stay off, stay off, stay off