EMPIRE HEAD-LINES

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 torch.

Clashes along Olympic torch route
Joined together torch through London, game afoot
Ire captures sober flame, hurls down its host
Nineteen nations to go


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


NATO backs Bush's European Missle Shield
Again with the ideas shielding pragmatism
Roar of incoming freedom haters
Hiss of outbound liberators

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

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

Bush lauds pace of Iraq progress
Something is missing
Which explains such optimism, his legendary dim sightedness
I say this as it would be shameful not to mention his strengths