Love and Journalism

1.
Glimpses of love are better,
wandering in and out,
viewing from afar.
Hearing of romance
and genuine contentment.
Clumsy hands
don't work well with butterflies

2.
Watching joy wander about in a glass box
Slowly sucking in its last bits of life.
To break the glass would be selfish,
to watch it suffer is agonizing.
Someday the glass will melt on its own
and I will breathe the same air.

3.
A notion comes to the end and
slapping the platen back into place
I begin again.
I wish I could have heard
a press room full of sound,
a typewritten cacophony.
Watching the paper work its way out
looking like corn hurriedly eaten at a fair
moving steadily across the roller
and eventually hearing the intermittent bell
of a line completed.
The gentle click of keys in a coffee shop
is far from this delight;
an audible storm of words
whizzing about,
making their way onto a page.
Where has the romance of journalism gone?
Quiet writers exploiting from behind lattes,
outspoken ones splattered on television.
I wish I was there when papers landed on corners
wrapped in twine.
A frenzy of nickles flew from eager hands,
and people wept
until the next edition.