CONFESSION ZERO

Petraeus: Iraq Security Improved, but `Fragile, Reversible’ There is a method to it, a scheme that leaches, oozing ugliness from the general’s lips. It burns my anxious ears and disbelieving eyes. I hear Gaspar Noe ’s `Irreversible’, see the weight of its cruel cacophony. Olympic Torch Arrives in the U.S. Not a moment too soon. Come, light! Come, ember! Make your way to the crown of La liberté éclairant le monde , reaching out, extend thy transporters bough, with oily rag, ignite the world’s puddled iron . ~ Detainee Program Strains Va. Jail The strange flowers drop their wayward petals, perching them upon the aged ground. Powerless to return to their original nourishment, unable to abscond of newfound freedom . ~ 400 Children Removed From Sect’s Texas Ranch The use of pale children widens the neglect of virtue. Minds beset by scurrilous trust pilfering souls as ransom for toll at the slipshod gates of anguish © 2008 mrp/tpm

Clashes along Olympic torch route Joined together, torch through London, game afoot, ire captures sober flame, hurls down its host, nineteen nations to go... Some progress in Russia-US ties The blankets been cleaved off the pyre revealing the slip-knotted sleeping giant alarm! Shh… Sleep now... Ben-Hur star Charlton Heston dies John Charles Carter joins them at present- Ben-Hur, Michelangelo, Moses, and El Cid, nodding to twilight, guns steadied... U.S. forces clash with Iraq militia Boil burn boil burn boil burn `n bubble! Extremists unfound in this capricious mix, citizens hunched, resentment... © 2008 mrp/tpm

China jails outspoken activist over Tibet views Dissident jailed for using tongue, shackled of seditious idioms, U.S. speechless... Al-Sadr calls for million-Iraqi rally against U.S. One million liberated flora marching to our one hundred forty thousand, more than enough blooms... At least eight killed in Pennsylvania house fire When the heat of raging fire’s so intense, one house will be consumed, resolute, only numbers remain... ATA discontinues flights, files for bankruptcy Seeing this I thought I’d been asleep, the god-awful roar of the recent past, stagnant oil rigs... NATO backs Bush's European Missle Shield Again with the ideas shielding pragmatism, roar of incoming freedom haters, hiss of outbound liberators... Chinese spying on the rise, U.S. says Shady secrets have a hard time sleeping when carried in official satchels over seas... © 2008 mrp/tpm

McCain Faces Test in Wooing Elite Donors Gluttony stomps upon the feet. Fury pounds upon the back. Even of the pain influence seeks tenure. Who are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race Colors mingle on the thick canvas, prisms of points in time, splintered carcass... Cleric Suspends Battle in Basra by Shiite Militia They say it’s the thickness of blood that shapes our hearts… All this dissolving. Tracking a Marine Lost at Home He was looking for home when eyes returned, murdered occasion... As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record I ask… are our souls still living? Does the clamor of riches gush of blood? Nourishment, flesh? Olympic Torch Begins Its Journey in Beijing Vast ancient capital, peoples republic, Olympiad to veil your tyranny, akin to our September. © 2008 mrp/tpm

These are the first words that my muse threw down to me after reading the headlines last night. Parents Didn't Expect Daughter To Die During Prayer Didn’t have to be child wrapped in such faith, stench of miracle. Destroying Torture Tapes - Freeing themselves from serious legal trouble A shrieking pale is and shall be the ghosts haunting the masters of this, frame by frame Crash of U.S. economy has begun Neither sidewalk nor gutter could tell me what’s going to happen because of this, walking my daughter home from school ...no gas in the car. Aid groups- Somalia too risky Waiting for someone abandoned there, knee-deep in blood-rooted Africa. Does anyone care? West Bank faces toxic waste crisis And dark spot upon the skin of a darling peoples, waiting, needing to be seen, an illness far worse which came before... McCain warns of Iraq genocide And there he was, hunched like a sniper, crowd of microphones, a glazed, suffering face of one who knows not where they are