The News

I try. Yes, I do, I try
to keep up with all
the news and the nonsense,
the chills and the joys —
those, not too often —
that run across 
my various feeds.

Emails, podcasts,
Notifications, alerts,
Stuff to buy, 
Stuff to avoid,
Keeping up is
Stunningly time consuming,
even when I
recklessly
relentlessly
delete, delete, delete

In my youth, to raise
political consciousness, I took
a physically demanding
mind numbing
production line
factory job
hand-sanding furniture
as each piece exited
on a conveyor belt
the heat chamber that
quick dried 
the sprayed on varnish.

After a few months, 
the line supervisor,
post lunch tipsy,
took my hand,
declared himself a brujo
and skipped me —
literally, he had me skip too 
besides the conveyor belt —
to another spot
where I then hand-sanded with
a partner.

He was  friendly enough,
anxious to land a different, better
job not inhaling sanded varnish.
Politico as I was, I tried,
not too subtly, to introduce
during our lunch breaks
Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse Tung thought.

He was disinterested.
I was disappointed.
He told me:
I like to read the Herald Examiner,
LA’s other newspaper then.

I can read the entire paper
front to back,
news, sports and classifieds
in a single, short sitting.
During lunch, too.
You can have your theory.
I get my fill of news and tragedy,
Entertainment and bargains.

It took me a while to finally
figure out that he
got it right.
I quit the drudgery, 
finished college,
made a life.
These days,
I’d like to subscribe 
to the Herald Examiner too.

March 7 2025