24/5

A relentless injection of

Objectivity, Into hotel lobbies, airport lounges, Chinese takeaways

The restless consumer of

Headlines sits eyes drowned in the pool.

Words chase each other along the static plasma

across a famine stricken country, through the local triviality;

past the dour grey suits trying to wriggle free from an answer,

headlines take laps of the length of this screen.

The gravitas of the anchors shown

with the weight of their apathy

Neutered in their pastel blue suit, sweating under the lights,

Boredom greets you in the guise of concern,

The water sits to the left, a reminder they’re human

You wish, you could look away, but you can’t.

In every anodyne cell the world talks to no one.

Fastened to be ignored upon a faux-substance panelled wall

The place where eyes are idly hung between shifts

They’re hooked.

and drip-fed Water-Cooler topics, To wash it down, days condensed into managable chunks, remove the bones, and homogenise it.

The five-minute hate concludes

Until that’s a wrap and

the return

of a fresh packet of intransitive angles.

They return, stapled smiles,

I have not moved

yet have travelled so far,

My own grand tour

courtesy of bbc news 24