i need to know what's going on
we're barren over here, yet over there
look at them smugly reading the NEWS
'can you throw one over pal?'
he pretends not to hear me
and looks down the platform
he's pretending to see if his train is about to
arrive, thomas and friends, and it won't be
here soon, so wind it in
i give up and wonder why
platform 1, surely the pinnacle,
has been abandoned of any recreation
although next to my son
is a miniscule glass bottle of whisky
which implies someone was having fun without me there
has peace been achieved?
has the new plastic waste initiative justified government intervention?
how many wickets do we need this morning?
i yell these at the man over on platform 2
i am then taken away
and hope to be a headline in the morning
We are here sorrowfully happy
We are here crying and smiling
We are Rich only on TV
We are Rich only on newspapers.
Where are they says the leaders
Give them the remnants to eat
They deserves a natural glass of wine
And something to take as protein.
We are here living happily happy
With our swollen faces smiling
Lest we appear wretched on TV
Wearing rags with tissue papers.
Cleaning the toilets of our leaders
Inorder to afford bread to eat
We drank their pee as wine
And ate their poop for protein.
Newspapers can be logs for the fire
or non-functional rolling pins
Obsolete as white-stockinged town criers
along with typewriters ~ has-beens
We get to see you rise, step on the cold floor
When the clock strikes five in the dark.
Your cell goes gaga over nothing, you lie
next to our lot, begging attention.
When the lily in your garden and the mynah
Over the sill shows up, your sleep spent,
You look at the mirror to get a fresh impression of you.
And the mirror sees it all.
Why not use the afternoon, after work?
Give us a day’s read. A day past and spent.
Better in sound than in silence, you think.
We complain non-acknowledgement.
Dates, events, ads, drown in oblivion
As you skim through headlines and
Read columns that interest you.
Why this prejudice? We ask.
You seem not to care.
We are a shadow of the past,
Of today, a piece of paper.
Left to lie, an incomplete existence.
We would French Burgundy sip,
Hands of intimate ones grip,
Up the flaps of trousers zip,
Together documents clip,
Through borrowed newspapers flip,
Buckets into rivers dip,
Good waiters in hotels tip,
Open promised parcels rip,
Penniless The Costly skip,
Ideas we think okay quip;
Across Big Waters things ship
We would from seen danger slip,
Try not to over stones trip,
In the bud the hurting nip,
Roofs patch up that waters drip
For the quite clearly familiar
Not a single thing peculiar.
I once wrote Op-Eds for a regional daily paper
Until the new publisher thought me too liberal
He preferred to publish a sensational caper
Than alternative views, well-expressed, literal,
God forbid the public be encouraged to think
Or have the opportunity to read opposing views,
Which is primarily why many local papers stink
Filled, as they are, with advertisements and old news!
After a stint of eight years writing to a deadline,
Producing prodigious amounts of sound opinion
Although I have writing outlets and I feel fine,
The publisher has moved up to a lower dominion.
Written October 1, 2022
Dogpatch
Daisy Mae
Little Abner
T. Cornpone USA
Al Capp
The Future of a Pixilated Past
David J Walker
I see you in every page
Of the archived newspaper
That survived to tell our stories again
When the day and date is alive
and I look forward to
Greeting you revived
at a different stage of
The kaleidoscope ride that
Stops only when its time to get off
I see me in every page
Of the archived paper
Shake the page and the
Words create a
snow globe picture
Of me at a younger age
empty and hungry
for the future
Where we shall live forever
in a printed past captured
in pixilated pictures
In the past, people trusted the press.
For the press had a certain noblesse.
But today, I would say,
trust has withered away —
we are now very hard to imPRESS.
Newspapers
I read a few people read the newspaper anymore
I have in the shed the English written publication going back
twenty years also have some copies of the Guardian
which no longer sell their broadsheet abroad.
Regarding the local newspaper that first was run by a Canadian
It was fun to read they even printed my eccentric views
but it has – the paper- gone down it
is aimed at the affluent
and those who play golf and the little they have of news
is invariable right winged and that is sad, and I think of any more
good dammed self-satisfied than the English community here
but the paper has its use some supermarkets give it away
for free and it is an excellent way to lit the fire in the winter.
But I lament the passing of the Guardian as broadsheet it was
more liberal than it is now and it wasn`t Russia-phobic
I read the Guardian in line every day as it is their politics
and their harping harridans aside a good newspaper.
But I`m getting off the point which is that what is written
on papers endures what’s on internet Internet disappears in a cloud.
Let me ask you, how does the poem change
when "dog" is addressed in the female gender?
come now little "....."
stop shaking
it's only thunder
More specifically,
do you still see a dog?
come now little dog
stop shaking
it's only thunder
MagiCicada 13
When I’m away The New York Times
Gets piled beside my door.
(For longer trips, I hang a bag
To keep them off the floor.)
I read them all when I get back,
In order that they came,
Enjoying news that’s “old;” at least,
That’s what some people claim.
I likely know the bare bones
Of most stories and their stars
From radio and news shows.
(I’ve been gone, but not to Mars!)
Still, there’s so much in the details
A reporter gets to break
That it’s worth a read days later
(And to me, it’s never “fake!”).
So I’m catching up on articles
And crosswords and obits
And until I’m where I should be,
I will never call it quits!
The world revolves these days with strife:
War rears ugly as harsh threats shout;
Terror involves sad loss of lives;
What a pity the down and out.
Brisk tabloid sales paint grim and mad;
Here and somewhere, man devours man;
Killing makes pale reason turned bad;
Then here and there, murder attends.
Newspapers tell of tragedy;
So much to say on the dark side;
Coffers now dwell lest sanity
Choke greedy pay from common tides.
Like gossip we say that we hate;
But turn around and then pretend;
Yet we surely scan news debate;
Our moral ground like contraband.
Day by day we expect bad news;
And find support for curious eyes;
Just as clearly comes battling cues;
Our sad retort floods lies and cries.
Don't blame the press for they do best
Just what you want in hellish tones;
Learn to express scorn for such quests;
Let voice be one to crash such drones.
Leon Enriquez
28 June 2014
Singapore
Newspapers Are So Last Century
By Elton Camp
You still get a paper a young man sneered
Obviously thinking that I was quite weird
He thought that getting the news online
Should, for me, be just perfectly fine
While I am in the process of transition,
I still see need to take the print edition
For one, nothing else does so fine
A messy kitchen garbage can to line
For the fireplace, a paper’s the best
It ignites more easily than the rest
I use it also to peel the potatoes atop
Not a speck on the floor will drop
Especially when I want to swat a fly
To hit him with an iPad I’d never try
And to cancel the paper I’d be a jerk
Since it’d put those folks out of work
So call me an old fogy if you will
I’ll subscribe to the newspaper still
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