GETTING YOUR NEWS


Getting your news every day
banner headlines never change

deadlines of a century
merely exchange their print

weighted in favor of cables
satiated for a mediocre run

on hopeless pavements
of desperate penury

the next ogre rubs out words
to text his squinted fables

by an air conditioner
that blows hot or cold

up six stories
of venom

about hairline fractures
accidents, drownings, murders

in the asterisk face
of frontal Orwellian truth

down corridors
of the basement press office

the soul draws its fundamental
conclusion to pretend reality

is the business
to write on skeptical pens,

making notes in red and yellow
from quotes on journal margins

as nations make their entreaties
with a bargain for peace

only the find war
from an orifice next door

as doves are released
by the newspaper's express

everyone thinks
they themselves are blameless.