Sunday, July 24, 2016

879 - Breaking News


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: fatal, horrendous and gaping.


Breaking News

The headline news is a horrendous show,
Build around some disastrous glow,
Often fatal, usually tearful,
The net result’s to make us fearful:
The news we didn’t really need to know.

The bystanders are interviewed, apropos,
And display the intellect of an escargot.
As some mangy cat’s extracted from a drain
Only to turn and run back down again:
The news we didn’t really need to know.

Half the Middle East’s aglow,
There’s crop failure in Bordeaux,
(Australia makes a better red)
An ancient pop-star’s passed away
(Most people thought he was already dead)
And quinoa will soon be passé;
The news we didn’t really need to know.

Politicians support the status quo,
There’s an elephant that paints just like Van Gogh
Drug cheats lament that they were caught
Unconcerned for the name of sport,
While we celebrate the wars that we have fought:
The ones we won and the ones we ought
The news we didn’t really need to know.

Gaping kids at some puppet show,
New fungal diseases attack our toes,
The sudden demise of some dot.com,
Fashion critiques of some high school prom,
The ease with which you can make a bomb
It's a hundred years since the Somme,
Can someone please protect me from
The news we didn’t really need to know.
.
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© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
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23 comments:

  1. Sigh.
    And the spin. Please, please protect me from the spin. Vertigo has become my disease du jour.

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  2. what a world we've created and live in...spider in its web :)

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  3. I agree, the stuff which we see on the news tears us apart at times.

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  4. AnonymousJuly 24, 2016

    Perfect rant on the state of the world..or at least the media version of it!!

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  5. Good view of the world we've created, shame the media can't comment on all the wonderful good things in our world, natual and created by us humans. I enjoyed this poem.

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  6. But we need your attention or else you won't buy what our advertisers have got for sale.

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    Replies
    1. Commercial News! Yikes, are you mad? The world according to Rupert. But even the ABC is grim.

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  7. Can someone please protect me from
    The news we didn’t really need to know.

    Every day I catch up on the news from around the world, and ask myself why I seek to mire myself in everything you have listed so eloquently (and in rhyme). This speaks to the very heart of the matter.

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  8. Yeah oh yeah, I'm totally absorbed in your poem

    Happy Sunday

    Much love...

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  9. AnonymousJuly 24, 2016

    Clever use of the three words, good rhyme, interesting news items, and a good sense of humour such as Australian red is better than Bordeaux,elephants paintings Van Gogh and requests for protection. Sounds like a job for Miss T M Tress.

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  10. What would happen, I wonder, if we simply quit listening to, or watching, the news? The world would go on in its shallow way, and we who quit listening/watching would, I hope, become deeper...like rivers of wisdom.

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  11. Can someone please protect me from
    The news we didn’t really need to know

    That sums it all. A lot of things imperfect impacting on us. It is best not to know!

    Hank

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  12. Me, too, kiddo. One needs a stiff drink to make it through one newscast any more. Sigh. I nodded and tapped my foot all the way through this poem, love the rhythm. Especially loved the cat that was rescued and ran back down the drain.......must be a Trump follower. LOL.

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  13. You are right on! Excellent commentary/piece.
    ZQ

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  14. This is simply brilliant.

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  15. I avoid news...I will check a bit to see headlines, but then I am always sorry I did. Fabulous poem and I agree Brilliant!

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  16. Excellent! And here we are, addicted accept maybe for the one-week a month we decide to turn it all off.

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  17. AnonymousJuly 25, 2016

    I so agree and have to wonder what would happen if the majority of us just stopped looking and wore signs that said, I refuse to read, look at, or contemplate anything that isn't natural, spiritually and humanely uplifting?

    Elizabeth

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  18. Such an apt summation!

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  19. Sigh...I want to turn it off...but can't.

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  20. AnonymousJuly 25, 2016

    Brilliant both in composition and content!
    If I have a favourite from all these wonderful lines it is
    "The bystanders are interviewed, apropos,
    And display the intellect of an escargot."

    ReplyDelete

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