[lit-ideas] Re: The History of Effects

Thank you, Julie.  I loved that.  

Mike Geary
Memphis
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Julie Krueger 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 4:24 PM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] The History of Effects


  From today's "Writer's Almanac":

  The History of Effects
  by William Greenway

  The Bible was created by Bishop Ussher
  in 4004 B.C. Then Galileo cooked the universe
  too long, and the earth, like a yolk, slipped off
  center and everything began to wobble.
  Freud needed a reason to talk about sex,
  and Marx wrote a bestseller
  so he could retire rich.
  When the species started to hunt
  for their origin, they discovered Darwin.

  So now the ears of corn put down 
  tethers to the earth, trees rake
  the wind into piles, the sun turns the world
  like a ballerina, the way a magnet whirls
  a rotor. Silence squelches the radios,
  and darkness the bulbs. Automobiles are invented 
  to reach the malls, and choppers to haul
  body bags, and animals come to live with us
  to quench our loneliness and nourish our hunger.
  We've begun to love the people who need us
  as dandruff rises from sweaters to infect our hair, 
  and parachutes are the white flags
  of suicides that fail.
  Julie Krueger

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