10/3/22 from the news

For the last 4 years I have been sporadically making poems from rearranging the words in news articles. I wrote one today and realized I hadn’t done one for almost a year, can’t read the news all the time. Found this old one that I think holds some of the emotions I am still reeling with.

“Don’t be afraid, we are all together.”

left to bleed. 

Both sides blame each other,

independent war tactics,

What is a normal, natural reaction?

Tears, mourner’s screams echo 

the whole world over. 

too many to name.

We will not let their blood be wasted. 

Called out of work today. I woke up on time, made my lunch, made my breakfast and then decided to text saying i couldn't come in. My first self criticize was, do I just not want to go to work or do I need to not go to work today, the smoke is some what bad again. Yesterday was worse than today. But I had more of a cough this morning. The smoke will probably be worse tomorrow. I flipped a coin five times, the coin told me to go to work but I have already made up my decision. I cried today reading the news. These poems are doing something but they get lost in abstraction. My goal is not to abstract the death, the trauma, or the successes. My goal is to take from the news to construct one piece that has pieces of all that happened, the day before, in one place. How do we all exist through this. No one is unscathed. When I cry reading the news I feel that I am actually human. It is the days I read the news without crying that I begin to feel something in me is off.