Poetry from Alan Martin

FIFTY METRE NEWS

Highly transmissable,

this blight of homely airs

that leaks from my radio,

on the hour, every hour,

if I am not lightning fast;

the dreadful news

in morbid repitition.

Gloom enumerated,

a tally of corpses;

hubble bubble

by the week they double.  

And after a while,

of this circus from Hades, 

my senses would blank

like a window with shutters.

No wave long or short would ever get through,

and the ghastly would normalise,

and the psychos go more so;

news making news making news making news.     

But I am the witchfinder general,

and will hear of this hex no more today.

I will miss the clowns, though,

whose reckless antics 

still entertain,

as though a joke could not give pain.

But soon I creep back,

to the rest of the world,

after all,

though dreadfully toxic,

it’s company,

and I crave my reactions;

though dreadfully toxic,

I need to be me,

but today I won’t;

today will be real

if I zoom out and see. 

All my news today is local,

as important as the distance

I would walk to convey it,

so I am rarely for stirring;

it’s usually trivial,

but I’ll take 50 metres,

24/7.

A. Martin   January 2021

Alan Martin is a Pembrokeshire native who has worked in several UK locations as an engineering inspector. He now lives on a smallholding in mid-county with his wife and son.