For today’s verse, I listened for iambic tetrameters while watching TV last night. The first one I heard would be my first line, and the next would be my last. Old People’s Home for Teenagers gave me ‘I read so much stuff in the papers’ and a news item about Gaza yielded, ‘The last thing anybody wants.’ All I had to do was write 12 rhyming lines to go between them. I’m a bit alarmed at what the process dredged up from my mind:
2. The papers I read so much stuff in the papers. Who can tell what’s fake or true or if it matters? Story shapers bang the drum for red or blue – the way Big 'bacco did for smokers – talk to win, play hocus-focus. 'Save the dolphins,' Dutton cries transparently. The planet fries but he's PM, or so he's planning. Once I thought God would provide, but God is now claimed by the side of short-term greed. It's time for fanning flames of truth, wake from this trance: the last thing anybody wants
Me fail? I fly! 
Haha, very clever Jonathan … but disheartening too.
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I’ll take credit for the cleverness, Sue, and blame the gloom in the demands of rhyme – from which the last line struggles to escape
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Sounds a fair compromise to me!
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I think this is brilliant – and without prevarication – direct and honest – this is where we are at. The ghouls are in charge whether in government or opposition – here or in the whole AUKUS range – the same at every turn. Warmongers and naysayers at the political “leadership” range. But not at the people, citizen level…where all we want is peace, justice, dignity and respect.
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Thanks, Jim. I hope you’re seeing a lot of that last list in the USA
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And that’s the interesting thing – at the non-political level, kindness, helpfulness, generosity, friendliness galore in this land “kitty-corner” across the Pacific to our own land. Concern for family, fair work, interest in the accent – surprisingly many identify it once even if they admit to not being perfectly sure. Every state is like its own country – different in vistas, history, character, landscape, climate…from other states. A nation of at least 50 countries – and even within each of those 50 countries they are even more diverse given the First Nations peoples also bringing broader issues to the table.
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You are a scream!! The joy of seeing someone drawing poetic inspiration from the TV must make one smile at least! How easy it would be if God really did provide … my recollection is that believing this led to a less anxious life, whatever the other shortcomings!!
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Same with me, Mick
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