That's News to Me

NEWS POEMS

Headlines—May 8, 2001
A man stabbed at Sunset Motel,
Branchburg, Route 33,
over a woman.
Four juveniles set a homeless woman on fire.
Her life is saved by the six layers of clothing she wore.
The flames burned through four.
A drowning in the frigid center of Deal Lake,
Asbury Park, a canoe capsizes.
Begrudged employees strike.
McVeigh wants a stay, to delay trial.
Mr. Viola from Bogota offers $5,000 reward for his wife.
She left through the back door on Valentine’s Day.
An orthopedic surgeon sexually assaults girls.
Studies show the heart repairs itself.

Headlines—Summer 2001
Shark week on Discovery Channel after sharks swallow
five; one rips off legs of a man honeymooning in Bahamas.
A bunch of Becton students switch a Discovery
video for porn, stump the substitute teacher,
with scenes of topless lesbians
on Holocaust Remembrance Day. 
Swastika marked playgrounds,
school budgets voted down.
Students in Germany gone Columbine.
The dis-stink-uishing stink of the NJ Turnpike,
dead fish of Saddle Brook Park pond, Hackensack River,
after 100 degree days, no rain, a heat wave.
And I dig up Berry’s Creek buried tales.
Seniors blow their SSI in AC,
Octoberfest, games of UNO, Bingo
ith Vic Hoofers and drunk Legionnaires.
Gene therapy for hemopheliacs shows promise.

Pets Seeking Homes
Adopt Smash,
a domestic shorthair, good with
other cats, dogs.

Headlines—April 2002
Rats coming out of the river,
one as big as a dog,
near empty truck lots.
They carry typhus, plague,
they’re bold but won’t attack.
A murdered coed strangled for love and
passion of a football scholarship sacrificed.
All for her.
A rebel anti-smoking campaign,
re-done intersections,
a free-for-all of right of ways.
A guy named Firestone
belts a cop in the stomach
with a tire iron.
A 31-year old Hackensack man grazed
in the head by a freight train
survives; fell asleep after a few beers.
Kids with seizure disorders, a head
marked up like train tracks from surgeries.
and Trantino is free
The FBI wants you.
Uncle Sam wants micro-managers to run the world. 

Help Wanted
Accounting, administrative assistant, auto sales, carpenter, cashier, cabinet maker, bookkeeper, banker, bartender, butcher, biller, carpenter, clerk, child care, concierge, collections, counselor, customer service, computer sales, CRT, data entry, driver, EMT, electrician, environmental worker, engineer, food service, factory help, gas station attendent, general office help, graphics, hairstylist health care, hotels, housekeeper, home inspector, Human resources, insurance, janitor, kite flyer, legal secretary, landscaper, lab technician, machinist, maintenance worker, mechanic, mail room, manicurist, marketing, mechanic, model, medical transcriptionist, nurse, optometrist, photographer, porter, restaurant help, salesman, surveryor, teacher, veterinarian, roofer, retail, 

Ads
Classic ’69 Caddy
Affordable cleaning
Toy trains wanted
Free cell phones
Unique business opportunities
Hair transplants and removal
Cellulite control
Tax free tobacco
Private dancers
Asians, redheads, blondes, brunettes

Obituaries
Vietnam War vets
Leave behind wives, dead girlfriends,
Cars, memberships,
Birthplace, life, death

Police Blotter
Tenant-landlord disputes, parking spaces,
Neighbors fights over picket fences,
one aims high, shoots his own home.
TROs, MO’s and RORs
flim-flams, backyard robberies.
Kids leave their weed on the dash in the Meadows.
Snagged.
Hotel thefts, purse snatches, lost cell phones, CC’s.
Criminal sexual contact, and all he wanted was a
bear hug, front and back. A pervert named Geddis
wants to play scrunch-scrunch, double whammy,
watch little boys go potty
in a school bathroom stall.
A heat wave triggers a candelight book reading, fire.
A 2 year-old dies on her birthday after a dryer fire.
A kid drowns in the Hudson River,
retrieving an unlaced, expensive sneaker
that all the kids covet.
It slipped off.
False alarms, road kills.
A guy steals ten rolls of film.
A go-go-bar owner shoots himself in the foot,
struggling with a robber.

Headlines—Sept. 16, 2003
Seventeen hurt in a bus crash
Bush won’t back off on Saddam
Thousands hunt for kidnapped missionaries
In Colombia.
Hans Blix attacks Iraq’s weapons spin.
Hurricane Isabel’s winds come ashore.

Headlines—Fall 2003
Blackout blankets northeast U.S.
D.C. sniper goes on trial.