GLOSSING THINGS OVER

I don’t own a television, but years ago when I did, I wrote this little rhyme as a comment on the power of the medium to distort our perceptions, making the unreal real and the real itself barely believable. 

 







REALITY SHOWS

The news reader has glossy hair
and what a cheerful tie he wears;
his voice has rich mellifluence
when speaking of the world’s affairs
but when he pauses, to the screen
come dying children rank with flies,
intransigent politicos
concealing lies with other lies
and burning cities, earthquakes, storms,
dire famines, warfare, threats of war,
Islamic madmen seeking death ...
 
... eventually it starts to bore
 
so I flick to the other side
to find Big Brother’s freak show there,
but none of them wear cheerful ties
and none of them have glossy hair.