Silent Night / the news all-the-time
An anti-war poem
Silent night, holy night. An airstrike last night hit a school, killing at least a dozen children. All is calm, all is bright. Another assassination attempt this morning. Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child. The veteran suicide epidemic continues this year. Holy Infant so tender and mild. U.S. officials pledged today to send military advisors to the conflict. Sleep in heavenly peace. Nuclear missile modernization received additional funding this week. Sleep in heavenly peace. God bless our troops tonight, defending democracy, world-wide.
Discussion
This poem was inspired by Simon and Garfunkels “Silent Night / 7 O’Clock news” which mixed singing of silent night and news headlines from 1966.
Around that same time, in his book Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan was discussing how “if you remove the dateline from the newspaper, it’s a poem.” So, I wanted to apply this observation in my own poem.
Lastly, I wished to update Simon and Garfunkels work a bit and make a piece that should, sadly, reflect the world for the next sixty years by using fictional headlines that probably will be true (and perhaps they already are).
Reminds me of a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thompson has the TV blaring when the front desk calls. He tells the clerk to speak up because "people are being killed." The clerk freaks out thinking there's a murder happening but he calms down when Thompson clarifies that he means on the TV in Vietnam
noting inspiration by simon and garfunkel is a great touch, gonna listen to that song now