Making Headlines

Tamara Woods 11 Comments

There are days that I find myself avoiding the news. I turn off the TV and skip right past all the headlines blaring across my computer screen. But this week, I’m going to pursue the headlines. I’m going to scour over them and find something inspiring. Hopefully you will, too.

Your prompt is to write a poem using a headline or news story for inspiration. Your poem can be a way to tell us what happened, or to tell us how you reacted emotionally to the news. Perhaps you will respond with what you hope will be the outcome of the story. It’s up to you!

Please include the headline or a brief sentence or two about the news story you picked somewhere in your post (it doesn’t have to be in the poem itself). You don’t have to go pursuing the most horrific or sensational stories this week. Shoot, you can use Facebook’s Trending section to find an article…as long as it inspires you!

Please link your entry here, either with a pingback or in the comments. You’ve got until Friday at midnight EST to link up. We will then take all the links and ask the community to vote on their favorite on Saturday.

The winner will be featured on Sunday and be entered for a chance to be included in our Spring edition of the magazine.

11 thoughts on “Making Headlines”

  4. Ebola Calling

    The black river rolls on
    Swallows another
    Carrying it, bobbing along
    Until spitting it up
    Upon a bank downstream
    A temporary spot for relief
    From the roiling maelstrom
    Wrinkled, prune-like
    Pallid and white
    Searing in the sun’s light
    Till swept along once more
    By the unceasing stream
    The black river rolls on

    As on a fruitless spring morn
    After a thunderstorm
    The gutter is flush
    With the rush
    Of tainted water teeming
    With pale pods recently shed
    Pods spotted red
    Once alive now dead
    One carcass among many
    Too copious to count
    Rush to the river
    Through culvert and pipe
    Leap from the drain as logs
    Shed from a ghoulish sluice
    They collide and bounce
    Submerge and repel
    Onward and relentless
    A journey through hell
    The black river rolls on

    All begin so vivid
    Crimson gushing from the eyes
    Every orifice beamed so bright
    Then cold deep dark water
    Sucked all hues from their flesh
    Blanched chest, back and thighs
    Black, yellow or white
    It really makes no matter
    All share the same pasty pallor
    Thanks to the drinking
    Of the foul, flowing water
    The black river rolls on

    During this dystopian
    Drive to the sea
    Lining the riverside
    Former friends and family
    Aching to discern
    The one that they knew
    Soon regretting what they see
    For the ones they loved
    Now more like insect larvae
    Each indistinguishable
    From other colorless drones
    The turgid flow has transformed
    Them into ashen clones
    The black river rolls on
    The bleak river rolls on

    As the flotsam and jetsam
    Of human residue swells
    Congesting into a clotted mass
    Foul, full of fetid smells
    Threatening to clog and congeal
    That terrible dark artery
    At each confluence more souls pour in
    Along glutted tributaries
    Piling into plugs of pale raisins
    Choking with its clumps
    Till suddenly the black river hacks
    As if gagging on a pill
    First it coughs up a few
    Soon it begins to spew
    As over the banks they spill
    Until with a burst
    The crest can surge free
    To carry the cursed
    Along its wretched riparian course
    On its unceasing hajj to the sea
    The black river rolls on
    The bleak river rolls on

    The heaps left behind
    Began to bake in the sun
    Before long they would bloat
    Then burst and be done
    When from the west came a wail
    Jackals were on the run
    For them feast or famine
    Can be nature’s whim
    Today’s reason to binge
    The wicked waters effluvium
    The black river rolls on
    The bleak river rolls on
    Rolls on

    The dregs which remain
    Afloat in the torrent
    Arrive at the salty sea
    The penultimate shipment
    To be cast beyond the strand
    Awash upon their final journey
    To an end like Jonah by god’s hand
    Cast far adrift in a fish’s belly
    And yet still …
    The black river rolls on
    The bleak river rolls on
    Rolls on

    Onward it still sweeps
    Plucking more along the way
    Is there a limit to be had?
    One cannot say
    Even after the supply of fodder
    From the current crisis subsides
    There always will be bodies
    Another outlet will provide
    If not by nature’s handiwork
    Disaster or disease
    Then one can bet
    Man will find a means
    So come down to the banks
    Every mother’s son
    Go in all the way
    There’s no need for thanks
    Because for ever and a day
    The black river rolls on
    Rolls on …
    And on

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