4,5,6,7,8, Cynics Countdown Poem by Keith Rushing

Often the news gives me the blues
I really ought to choose
to simply refuse
I mean really, what will I lose

Schadenfreude?
no that isn't it
truth is stranger than fiction
more like a fascination with the surreal
or a blinded self-affliction with the scroungy real deal

Talking heads that speak for work
punctuate sentences with erratic head jerks
nobody normal talks that way, they ask rhetorical questions
when the answer's are known, they're killing time
"rephrase the question, run the clock out
a commercial will spare us the embarrassment of doubt."

Take's a special person to face each new day
with zillions of prying eyes hanging on every word you say
the mendicant voyeurs of utter destruction's charming new day
the slashing machete melt down of the abject speakers foray
'Oh say, can you see by the dawns early light'
What's become of your people and their obsession with fright
desensitization is paramount to achieve an abeyance of light

Frankenfoods, and 'side affects' hideous monsters in the making
high resolution mayhem require victims for the taking
awaking half-dead like Dracula's each dusk
they'll find a cure, there's another vaccine, there's always dumb luck
maybe you won't be the sucker that makes that dreadful scene
bludgeon your mind with a another faker, a different fresh news team
fobbing your leery eyes you ponder "they can't possibly all be the same! "
different day, different month, different year, same game