I’m very disappointed
The remaining 3 won’t quit,
Since “60 Minutes” took a real
Below-the-belt type hit.
The correspondents who are left
Gave reasons I found lame,
Because we know that long-loved show
Will never be the same.
Presenting a united front
Would make the message clear,
But who am I to give advice
On somebody’s career?
I’m sure they talked amongst themselves*
Though I could only sputtuh
When I heard what they’d decided,
Which was very unlike buttuh.
*Couldn’t resist the Linda Richman reference
(Google her on old Saturday Night Lives)
WAS UNEXPECTED
THANKFULLY, NO ONE SHOT DEAD
ROOM WAS FULL OF DREAD
Anchors without rancour are rare today.
They don’t just report rumors, they dissect some.
Men like Brinkley and Huntley, anchors aweigh,
anchors without rancour.
They steer clear of party-lines with no humdrum.
No newshawk floored CBS such a long stay
as Walter Cronkite whose candor ranks as plumb.
War correspondents, like Murrow kept at bay
and cleared away critics like so much pond scum.
Mark Levin at FOX deals much in the same way -
anchors without rancour.
Disappearing Art
Not many people send
Handwritten letters any more.
We used to go the mailbox
Full of high hopes.
Maybe a favorite aunt wrote
That she was coming for a visit,
Or we discovered a letter
From that special person, and
We’d tear it open right there!
After we’d read them, often
We tied the letters in packets
With a piece of blue string,
To be reread and savored
Later, over and over again.
Sadly, now that we can send e-mails
Nearly anywhere in the world
And expect a quick reply,
Written letters seem old-fashioned.
And yet, we’ve learned so much
About the past from letters
That helped us understand
The letter-writers and their times -
Letters from a president, a statesman,
A prairie mother, a soldier overseas.
What of the correspondents of today?
Will museums display their e-mails?
I wonder how great will be the loss –
All the stories that will never be written
And all the history we will never know.
Ravenous rats in our lives
Determined to nibble the nipples
Stabbed by knives
Cutting tenuous triples in ripples
Undulating and ululating
In horror
At the humiliating and excruciating
Error and terror
Erstwhile partners and associates
Commit or omit
To implicate affiliates
Whose remit
Captures, raptures and sutures caverns
Embedded deep within bowels, dowels, towels, trowels and vowels of the Earth
Away from testing and truculent taverns
Where felt, unleashed wrath
Against ravages rodents havoc wreak
In the calm we covet
Even when we struggle up the creek
And services of a vet
We seek, click and tweak
In our endeavor
To kick, tick and stick
Into the peace favour and flavor
Singled out as the linchpin
Enmeshed
In a twin pin whose sapience spin
Bashed, crushed, slashed and trashed
In burrows dug by ravenous rodents
Ferocious and noxious
Whose complicit correspondents
In spite of behavior fractious
Slump and succumb
To energies injected in the strategy
Ensuring ravenous rodents run numb
As triumphant emerge our deployed and employed synergy.
Rappers represent
Modern day correspondents
In the hip-hop age
Producers present
Orchestrated sound agents
Musical front page
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