Reporting Live ©

Through the media
between the first dawn and late evening
you switch on.

Heads full of football scores,
holidays and shopping lists.
Each minute of your day
filled with western philosophies.
How can you possibly understand
this life, this country, this death.
You have everything you need,
your birthplace has given you freedom of choice.

With the world waiting,
it's nakedness displayed before you
I transmit.

Raw exposure suddenly obvious,
my eyes, now the eyes of millions
see in the burning mist,
shadows like over-exposed x-rays
waving through a bomb flash.
Dark patches of scorched earth
map an invisible retreat
and echo the scream of thousands.

With little feeling,
your teeth coated in chocolate,
you sip tea.

Emotionless and blind,
his answers long extinguished
a grandfather holds a hungry child
suckling his barren breast.
I see a world in chaos
twenty-four hours a day.
My padded vest might stop the bullets,
but my mind aches with anger and frustration.

I end transmission.
As the day explodes into red dust,
you switch off.