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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Monday, August 13, 2007

WHY I WATCH THE NEWS

by David Feela


It’s the anchor woman
that attracts me.
The Taliban or the latest presidential polls
are just bits of gossip fluttering
past her glossy lips.

I imagine she’s talking to me,
directly, and that between the storm
on the east coast and the 9th inning home run
during yesterday's major league game
she’ll ask to see my stamps.

When that happens, who cares
how many people died in a Japanese earthquake
or if the cost of crude has hit a new high.
The shadows playing across her blouse
make me want to care about world affairs.

Or it’s her slender legs
barely touching in the half light
beneath her news desk
that open my mind to the potential
for peace in the Mideast.

I don’t know why
but I’m in love with the news.


David Feela is a poet, free-lance writer, writing instructor, book collector, and thrift store pirate. His work has appeared in regional and national publications, including High Country News’s "Writers on the Range," Mountain Gazette, and in the newspaper as a "Colorado Voice" for The Denver Post. He is a contributing editor and columnist for Inside/Outside Southwest and for The Four Corners Free Press. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments (Maverick Press), won the Southwest Poet Series. His web page can be viewed at www.geocities.com/feelasophy.