24:hrs

Newspoem 7 January 2013

(after Storm)

The invitation arrived after a former LAPD officer was suspect in the double shooting of college coach and fiance. Of course, because why would a potentially historic storm will intensify Friday night? It intrigued me. Trouble was, I could neither resist nor make time to call for a negotiated end to Syria's civil war. The day had been blocked out. Other parents say, well, they say ever since Michael Isikoff dropped his bombshell about an administration white paper justifying targeted killing on Monday, everyone's been talking about flying death robots. But what's been stinging recently is, "time just shoots by… seems like yesterday fewer workers filed claims for U.S. jobless benefits… and now stocks lower despite upbeat unemployment report… where does the time GO?" So I responded to the invitation to write by doing what any contemporary writer would do: forwarding it to other writers. Easy, right, and maybe some of them would face health risks or Include some not-so-obvious names. I was committed that day into making an unusually public stand to oppose a move by the company: a lawsuit, and the following day a 48-acre area in California that housed more than 200 species of birds stripped bare by the Army Corps of Engineers. There was no way to make the deadline, and, besides, what would I write? Well, that was an interesting question. Given the nature of the project, I'd want to write something fairly literal that captured that 24-hour period. But in twenty minutes, a rape case in Mexican resort city put violence back in the spotlight.

Newspoetry by William at Spineless Books