Yesterday’s News Copyright © R J Whiting

The train shatters through the arteries of London;
An avant-garde steel band of hisses and creaks;
Neon insects alight on faces and forms
Slip-sliding into everlasting night.
Monet figures line each platform
De-blurring into ant-like legions
Bound for home.

Over-ground, I see the Evening’s News
Abandoned on the table;
Its banner screams a black oath-
Cuts and more Cuts on the way;
But my outrage, as surely planned,
Doused by a sodden blanket of contempt,
Burns feebly and burns low.

Inside, advertisements peopled
By those whose hair never misbehaves;
Whose teeth shine in architectural glory,
With cheek-bones by Hepworth and by Moore.
Looking up I see; that
None of these people get off at Dollis Hill
None get on at Neasden.

The Sports Pages are filled
By stories that have been debated all day;
As fetid and sour as this battalion of bodies
Retreating from a real day’s work;
Heavy-lidded, they stare through grime
To the Rest-Camps hidden beyond the lines
Of Kingsbury, Canons Park, and Stanmore.

A headline catches my eye:
Great advance in the fight against Cancer;
I read, pulling each black line apart
Like a huge Venetian blind;
Beyond it, the Scientists sit
Moving their counter just one space
In a game of Snakes and Ladders.

I push the paper away.
A gust of wind, ghost-shaped,
Sends it flying to the floor
Like a dying prehistoric bird;
And there it lies, downtrodden
As ephemeral as a mayfly;
It’s the end of the line;
For yesterday’s news.