I listen to the names and try to imagine the faces.
In the desert three soldiers died today.
The news on TV is 24 hours a day.
The weatherman's in the desert . Checking for rain. Rain's coming. No one
expects it. Baghdad is hot.
Rain is rare, a gift.
And the names are read quietly. Paced. A number. Another.

Inside the house with the AC on and the TV on,
how easy here to forget what living in the hot sun is like.
In the desert. A sweet taste of water under the sun. The gift of shade.
A palm in the middle of danger.

And the bombs in the sun in this season of reading the names.
A child sits on the curb in the sun in a new pair of sneakers.
He is completely afraid in Baghdad.
The palm is the desert, oranges on the tiny toy truck
in front of him.
The soldiers names are read each day.
All of this, what sounds beautiful in a single day, soldier's names,
oranges,
a boy, palms, going home, a small finely made truck, a toy really.
No talk of this on the TV. Only talk of time lines, troop numbers,
poll numbers, numbers of days engaged, how only a few troops are needed
to do this job.
Danger in the middle of a continent of so much desert.
The plan for the war is to get on with the plan. Forward and not backwards.

But all I know today is about the rhythm of the speech, how it comes
back again and again. Talk of rain. Oranges. Palms swaying.
Things that stay.
And how the buildings all look the same if they are bombed. The landscape,
the window frame where the lavender grew like crazy hours before,
lavender to ward off harm.
A house in Mosel gone. A report of spectacular attacks.

This morning the sky is cloudless and blue again. Today they will read the names.

© Charlene Langfur

Iraq Veteran Returns To Baghdad As A Tourist
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Charlene is an organic gardener and a graduate of the S.U. graduate writing program.

Dear Rupert: What a splendid ruse
To spin your money-losing News!
I cannot emphasise enough
Our need to look just slightly tough
On all monopolies and such
As may appear to own too much;
Because we must be seen to be
As fair as brute expediency
Allows us, more or less, to seem
Without reducing fat cats' cream.

We know your dear News Corporation
Has much adorned our fragrant nation
With paywalls, phone-taps, racism, tits,
Coulson, MacKenzie, other wits
Mostly too numerous to name -
In short, dear chum, the Murdoch fame
Rings out so true across the earth
That it would really not be worth
Inquiring further of your bid;
Indeed, I'd say that if we did,
It could not help but be a stain
And blot upon our Monarch's reign.

Rupert, it is an honour to
Yield up this little gift to you
(And, frankly, it can only be
A short time till the BBC
Is offered, with humility,
To gladden your senility).
Yours most sincerely, Jerry Hunt,
Your faithful Culture Sec., and Conservative.

© Philip Challinor

Rupert Murdoch offers to 'spin off' Sky News for BSkyB deal

-------------------------------------------------------------

Weblog: The Curmudgeon - You'll come for the curses. You'll stay for the mudgeonry.
Books: Philip Challinor's Books

They break news down
to a few column inches
instantly forgettable,
a late night sound-bite
that tweet, tweet, tweets
like birdsong tinnitus.

Exhausted adjectives,
old chestnut clichés
lined up on the page
like the usual suspects
(different words suspicious
as abandoned packages).

And whether it's editors
squeezing the heart out of
a story to make it fit
or the white noise of
too many words filling
vacant space, it's far too easy

just to turn the page.
We need a hook to hang
the horror on, attach
the facts. A net to catch
the moment in. To ask
the question doorstep reporters
never ask themselves:
How does it feel?


© Clare Kirwan

--------------------------------------------------------------
Clare Kirwan is part of Liverpool's Dead Good Poets Society and blogs as Broken Biro