Twenty-Four Hour Non-Stop News
switched off reels back: everything leveled, gray toned
I’m picking my way through it for something to retrieve
and stumble on a vandalized world war monument, the number
obscured, another for the planet, protest flyers mixed in with
those for a gala, a supplement to prolong life and warnings
about a rising body count in some country’s war, names
keep changing, two automated toy fighters preparing for
another round pop up every few minutes, bets swirl around
them like empty ticker tape from another era
there was a cat, I tell someone next morning, who
found me staring at a black screen, slipped into
an Amazon box in Utah, six days later, discovered
alive in a California warehouse, able to breathe
through a small tear in the box, a micro chip scanned
located her owners she’s back with now
and a horse, I say, bets chased in the derby
another horse grabbed, a heart galloping race
to the finish line no one expected, couldn’t
catch my breath, no don’t recall any thing else
yes, here all night
About the Author: Linda Lerner’s Taking the F Train (NYQ Books, 2021)was a finalist in the 2022 Paterson Poetry Prize; How It Was (2020—2021) and Is, a chapbook of pandemic related poems, Iniquity Press/vendetta Books, 2023; poems recently appeared in Gargoyle, One Art, Big City Lit, Pinyon Review, etc. Previous collections include, Yes, the Ducks Were Real, & Takes Guts and Years Sometimes (NYQ Books(2011 & 2015)
Image Credit: “NPS 1972 Centennial, NBC Today Show” Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia.
As It Ought To Be 
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