Newscast

The y-axis rises, the x-axis runs.
A matrix of pixels here makes a universe
Of Maxwell’s equations, plastics and glass.

Beautiful women like hard metallic flowers
Recite the day’s political howlers chapter and verse.

Words hasten left to right and overlay the spoken
With the written Dows and Earthquake wrecks
And Thailand floods. The globerati travel
To impress and scold the Arabs fronting microphones
While our home-bound cognoscenti incandesce
Before the cameras.

Enough. A click brings shocking silence. It lasts.
Nothing happens but the night. Then look.
A shadow follows headlights faintly out there
In the falling rain.