[Newspoetry] Some NewsPoems, from The Bronx, NY (and re Philly and LA) - hope ya like 'em

[Innercity1 at aol.com]

Dear NewsPoets (William Gillespie et al.) --

    Below are two "NewsPoems," both about the recent anti-corporate protests 
(Philly/RNC August 1-4; L.A./DNC August 14-17).  Philly I attended; L.A. I 
had to observe from afar, being based in The Bronx, New York, and without 
travel money.  I work with a non-profit community organization here (I'll 
paste a recent non-poetic news piece below the poems).  Our Web site, beyond 
weekly Community Reinvestment, environmental justice and other news, has a 
number of News (type) Poems, at

<www.innercitypress.org/poems499.html>;

<www.innercitypress.org/pobronx.html>; and

<www.innercitypress.org/wildcard.html>.

    I like NewsPoetry.com very much -- esp. the indexing, and the 
multiplicity of forms / "genres."  As I get more acquainted with the ins and 
outs of HTML, I hope to submit some other-than-regular-text poems.  But here 
are these; hope you like them.

--Matthew Lee, Esq.
Executive Director
Inner City Press/Community on the Move
 & Inner City Public Interest Law Center
1919 Washington Avenue
Bronx, NY 10457
Tel: 718-716-3540
Fax: 718-716-3161
Web: <www.innercitypress.org>

Poem 1:

"The World According to Citigroup" -- Philadelphia, August 2, 2000

By Matthew Lee
InnerCityPress.org

We closed down Market
Street in Philly, with only a bull
Horn, a banner, and sets of sunglasses
Green like a dollar bill: this is how
Citigroup sees the world, seeking to suck
Profit out of civil wars, bankrolling
Slave labor in pre-fab prisons
Like over the river in Camden
Across the seas on U'wa land
It might have been Chase
Calling for counter-insurgency
In the name of investor confidence
But the new kid in town
Was formed in Ninety-Eight
When Greenspan blessed the wet dream
Of Sanford I. Weill, he of the hospital wings
The superstar of penny stocks
Hard-selling funeral insurance over kitchen tables
Squeezing what's there, from oil to whatever an old
Woman's paid on her mortgage
See how the markets can make your head
Spin as riot cops move in
Seizing houses, fencing off the fund-
Raising barbecue, where pimply Senators
Are treated like Archangels, fully served
By the pimps of the Fortune Five Hundred
Bankrolling the shameful tastes
Of  venereal lawmakers, pot smoking
Puritans, all driven in air-conditioned
Digital busses to the virtual summit
Where compassion is lip-synched
Milli Vanilli's invested in emerging markets
Judges arrive in Black Hawk copters
Of course the drug war's spread to here
Didn't you hear? Ecuador's merged
With a Caymans-based hedge fund
Greenspan approved the whole thing -
Didn't you here? Or are not the salmon
Colored pages of Financial Times
Your Bible and bedtime meditation
Outmoded, you are, reading the Gospel in hard
Copy while stock tips scuttle the Internet
Like the porno of greed, believe, 
Why don't you, that commerce's
Not ascendant, that Cendant
Conglomerates unknown
Don't matter more that Buddha
And Mohamed combined, arbitraging even
The call to prayer, selling burgers in Burma