Garbage In Garbage Out : Tech Blog

 
The following is a transcript of the Barack Obama inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, which I thought was great:

Praise song for the day.

It had him acting so mad that he was
Too Afraid to Swallow;
His knee pain, literally means, see:
A Single Leg to Stand On;

Swimming so erratically,
He’s Struggling In Classes That Are Nothing To [...]

What:
I cannot do
Is:
What I won’t
Wrong:
It may be
With:
Pure apathy
Me.
Who is “I”?
The “me” that I know
Lives outside
Myself,
Just to the left
Of center.
Encased
Defined
Concerned
Encircled
Empty.

In the sun of the desert sky
In the dirt that blows in my eye
I searched my life for you
In the palms of my father’s hands
In the borders that police no man’s land
I searched the lines for you
In the mean and cold places, wrinkled faces, brutal races
at the bases of mesas and in cases where embraces [...]

No-one mentions Athel trees
Or the hamburger sand there
Blown in sheets
Jerusalem ought to choke rock sales
Voodoo (and concerned with black males)
Save the bullheads from the plot
Pocketed bullets from the sailor’s lot
Some burned pigs, wandering, lost there
Tooth marked (and concerned with welfare)
Mark the boundary with weeds
Buried treasure, in walls, unseen
But with destruction, uncovered
Voodoo (our time there discovered)
No-one [...]

For Melissa
Still, like the drifting desert sand Mojave knew.
Dull, as the rusting cars there stand, Mojave blued.
Eyes, wide open, tears run.
Wild!
Try. Try. Try. She’s never coming home.
What was I thinking when you were sinking?
(Where was my head? Where were my hands? Where was my heart?)
Traded them in on pieces of tin.
(What did you do? What [...]

You’ve spent the last seven years
Trying to be the part
Not the person
Why?
You love to like
The need to leave but
Cannot face the need to be
Free.
So hope becomes the frailest fortress
Around the slightest of these vain things
That, elitist brother
feeds your pleasure
Breathe.

For Rush
Draggin’ my ass from Kansas City
Looking for a quick score, a ride and some pity
No luck with the pity hunt, just a ride from this stuck up cunt
And of all places, she kicked me out here.
So I wander the alleys of this piss of a town
Except for one, lights off at midnight all around
Just [...]

I don’t know how a cherry tree relates to me
Especially now that I don’t have one in my yard anymore.
The only one I ever planted was small and thin and desperate to grow.
I haven’t seen it since I sold out for a taste of something “better”.
Most of the trees I’ve planted since then were mature [...]