Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Occasional Verses

        A Eulogy
On Saturday, January 22, 2011
In the Key of flat/foot

Sad old Saturday newspaper,
The Camera all about itself,
An exercise in public mourning,
A cultural draw-down.
Our dear old Camera,
The jewel in the town,
Local, independent, complete.
A real genuine American newspaper
Daily at my door,
The record of my Boulder life.

Out to the Eastern wastes it flies,
Lost and forgotten out there
In trash offices in trash buildings
Not even space for its morgue--
Its library-- that holds all Boulder.
A computer or two now will do.
No pressmen left down town,
Inked and grumbling about reporters,
No reporters prowling the town.

Now a clutch of stalled young people
Waiting for stories.
Poking at their resumes.
Hoping for escape
To a patch site at AOL
On which to grow a career.

Bred, as they have been
On the soured milk of social indecency
Ignorance, violence, and greed,
They write it down,
Spice it with banalities,
Never too banal, of
Flat-footed local stuff like that.

Get the paper out of town!
Those kids taking down
The Sign of the Camera,
To haul away-- to somewhere.
Some day, odds on, to become
A single sheet inserted weekly in the Post.
The NEW CAMERA,
Claiming a bright new day of
Public service--meaning corporate profit.
Dear old, poor old, sad old Saturday paper.

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