Miltonian sonnet* - Gavin Hewitt: TV news reporter
Dull dust-blown shoes stand in eternal dust.
The denim shirt surrounds a thickened neck.
The précis matched against time’s rigid check
Broadcasts a message countering mistrust.
Distant the filthy disagreeing clouds
Pall grievously another killing war
The dead are food for deadline’s avid maw
Screens flicker, forecasting advancing shrouds.
But now the shirt’s exchanged for coat and tie,
With news of banks and theories just revealed.
Switch to a scarf, windproof, light-glimmered eye
Provincial murder now requires his art.
From that square face an instinct to impart
The hack’s quick truthfulness of wounds unhealed.
(* eg, To Mr Lawrence).
Dull dust-blown shoes stand in eternal dust.
The denim shirt surrounds a thickened neck.
The précis matched against time’s rigid check
Broadcasts a message countering mistrust.
Distant the filthy disagreeing clouds
Pall grievously another killing war
The dead are food for deadline’s avid maw
Screens flicker, forecasting advancing shrouds.
But now the shirt’s exchanged for coat and tie,
With news of banks and theories just revealed.
Switch to a scarf, windproof, light-glimmered eye
Provincial murder now requires his art.
From that square face an instinct to impart
The hack’s quick truthfulness of wounds unhealed.
(* eg, To Mr Lawrence).
NOTE. Ughh, far too hard for an amateur. The seemingly random distribution of the rhymed lines after the first two quatrains left me unbelayed. Why, Milton, why?
