This derives from a television news report from one of those awful regional TV stations - 'Where you are' - that chip in after you’ve watched the national news. The central story is true - I have met the parents.
Two cardboard cut-out characters
Sit grinning while the titles roll
(and mindless music fails to stir).
They’re there to tell us of banalities:
The factory fire, the labourers’ strike,
The wind, the rain, the endless drought.
Their lives, like ours, move drearily along.
They dream of Big Time, London, National News.
They pray for murder, aircraft falling from the skies,
Derailment with a plenitude of death,
An apocalyptic horseman (any one will do)
To whom their fortune’s wagon may be hitched
To take them to the stars
(Clichés roll easy from their lips).
And now, Tonight’s Top Story, they announce.
Their tones are grave, their smiles removed.
Beneath the words a hint of thrills to come.
A car is shown, pulled vertically up,
And water drips from every crack.
One young girl survived the plunge
The other drowned still strapped into her seat.
Sisters. Young. Both still at school.
And beautiful, no doubt – and rich?
Rich would make it seem like retribution,
(They’ll make the implication rich).
At home the parents paralysed with grief
See what should be seen only in the nightmare’s eye,
The pictures of their children’s tragedy
And hear those glib and almost gloating words
Spoken by unfeeling fools.
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