John Mason
Priority Viewing
In the middle of prime-time cops and robbers,
corpses at crime scenes, autopsies - who done it
and how and why, forensic science, due process
of law and punishment, TV switches – to news,
to wander-witted
old men roaming blood-puddled streets, calling
the names of their sons, grandsons and Allah;
veiled women wail, hands raised in the air
calling down vengeance on the killers of husbands,
children, who bullet-riddled, broken lie strewn
untreated in ruins; while young men brazen-faced
or scarfed fire pistols, rifles, threaten tanks with slogans,
stand fool-hardy in streets tempting martyrdom.
We watch helpless,
aghast, wonder what can be done as
screens switch to home-grown dramas,
the dilemmas, disasters of celebrity woes,
slipped make-up, split ends, dropped consonants,
crashing marriages, relocation pains, poor
cookery skills, body-size hell, failed
house renovation,
and we know as we always have known,
no-one cares, really cares.
*Original version 26 February 2012 before peer review at Cannon Poets
Page(s) 32
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The