The news is news to me.
As best described as pixels of tears and broken bones,
Anchors hold with voices gold,
And not much more is seen or heard,
But little is known of those involved except that they do suffer.

That they must hold their kin by arms, by legs, by fingers, by blood,
No shame can be described as that which cannot be solved.
That which is missing pieces,
An equation with no solution,
A world of story-telling and unseen resolution.

I see not much by way of pain,
For I live here, I’m far away.
The action is not centered,
To my core, or to my life,
I do not witness fear by eye, I do not fear at all.

Know it, I do not, the taste of blood running,
The smell of burning rubber and tendons,
I do not catch the wanting scent of death or hear the sound of sirens.

No make or model or vision of mind,
Could recreate what one can find,
When met with horror and grief and loss,
And yet it’s found with double clicks,
And yet it’s seen on tiny screens,
And yet it rests in palms of hands,
And yet to this I see no end.

I tend to say I don’t understand,
Those whose plights can be seen from newsstands,
Those whose tragedy is to me but stinking ink on a freshly printed page,
And yet I feel something, not sympathy but nothing.

I feel no remorse, no salted tear to moisten my eyes,
No bitter grip upon my throat as if holding back my cries.
I simply sit here and scroll along,
Reading through those who are dead and gone,
Names and numbers repeating with vigor,
Lu and Collier and Downes and Richard.



All missing something,
Be it life or limb,
Be it friends and family and innocence,
And yet here I am pasting their names,
Like icons in frames, like video games.

So strange it seems to me, I admit,
To write and produce a tribute to it.
To words from monitors and bright white lights,
And printed text and red, blue, green,
So strange indeed so strange it seems,
But I know that news is just news to me.