A Split Screen World by Elizabeth Robin

Live from Las Vegas! Live from the Vatican!

Banners of a bifurcated news . . .

..

Ladies and gentlemen! On the left we have . . . Martha Stewart!

Domestic Product Line Goddess!

Miracle of the Wall Street Boom!

Exclusive contract with Macy’s!

Exclusive contract with JC Penney’s!

Exclusive contract with Home Depot!

..

On the right we have . . . White Smoke!

A packed Vatican Square!

Only the obelisk visible amongst

Praying, praising, palavering masses!

A world awaits the newest Roman emperor

In custom-made red Gucci slip-ons

Dancing shoes for hits like “Pedophilia Exposé.”

..

These, the scenes that pull away from garage-door sized windows

Frames to an unfolding drama daily

A sliver of water, disturbs into a line

Led by monochromatic bubbles speeding

Toward a turtle paddling, diving, paddling

Oblivious to an audience wondering

Do alligators eat turtles? Will the turtle see him in time?

..

Seven rectangles create an HD multiplex lining the dead space

Between the tense encounter and the gym ceiling

Like a bar code one swipes to purchase an unedited view

Channeling seven visions of a split-screen world

CNN remains on smoke, a ticker tape bottom-scrolls

A booming market surge and streaming headlines

Austria’s Klaus Kroell crashes during the Men’s Super G . . . Congressman Tom Cotton downplayed the role that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have had on the nation’s debt . . .

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Read this and you miss the gator lunge, snap the turtle up

Only to spit it out again, a morsel needing too much ambition.

Miss the stark white egret sweeping across the murky water,

Wings floating in a lazy arc of slender grace.

Miss the pudgy bluejay dart, peck, swoop at the trespassing cardinal,

A swirl of sky-n-scarlet punctuating layered olive, avocado, and bottle greens,

Lush lagoon plantings, palmettos and crape myrtles and bamboo . . .

You see, everything in life is a choice.

..

In Las Vegas one felon among so many, Martha signs and breaks contracts

to spectacular applause, a star of the news circuit. Unashamed.

In Rome one empire, rich and well-insulated, expands its corporation with

reproductive policy dictates worldwide. Choose life. Tax free.

..

Fox remains on smoke, a ticker tape bottom-scrolls

a booming market surge and streaming headlines

Judge strikes down NYC ban on sugary drinks . . . Bloomberg appeals . . . Sarah Palin rejoices on behalf of “liberty loving soda drinkers” . . .

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You could watch the screens all day. Some do.

You see, everything in life is a choice.

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Or, you could stroll the stretched-wide flat sands,

Watch comedic interplay in a lowcountry lab’s fruitless sandpiper chase,

Marvel the revelations of an ebbing tide:

Jellyfish larger than basketballs, long tentacles menacing still,

Sand dollars cling, conchs bare, shells aglimmer,

Dolphins slipping along in happy splashes below pelican vees,

A sudden, singular dive-pause-waterplume, its chandelle return,

Each vista offering its own morality play.

What makes news here, does not find its way into the network divide.

..

Nor does Moms Take the Hill

Who that same day the screens did not witness

Flooding the Capital with paper dolls

A cyberbarrage from more than 80,000 women

Paper doll strings,

Eight in each,

The eight children killed every day by gun violence

In America.

But not on Fox, or CNN, or MSNBC . . . not anywhere.

..

Rather, Rachel Ray whips up her latest pork chop

In her slimmed-down self: That made news.

As the World Turns into the tedious amorality

Of a daytime saga, one affair at a time,

Screens, split in their mindless busywork

Laud the unscrupulous corporate queen,

Anticipate the Pope’s clandestine election,

Elevate numerical shifts to oracle status,

Push headlines that distract or numb.

..

Look at the sweeping tides that sway salt marsh grass

Look at the majestic ancient oak dripping mossy veils

Watch the canine melodrama of mix and mingle,

Sharing or stealing ball and stick tosses at the park

Watch the slow blur-by of chickadee acrobatics and osprey swoops

Stopping to bask in a sun-soaked patch blooming yellows and magentas and lavenders.

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You could watch the screens all day. Some do.

A flickering worship of what they empower

A junta bystander, the man of God,

A deal-welching inside trader, the woman of Commerce,

Justify. Rationalize. Excuse.

..

Bee colonies collapse in shocking mystery.

Wetlands disappear in vast acreage.

Wells salinize in domino swoons.

Epic alterations to food and water ensue.

Young lives are snuffed out, without a thought or care.

Every day.

Eight.

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Our screens do not split for this news.

What cannot live in America,

Who dies in America,

What threatens the very survival of Americans,

Does not live in our split screen world.

You see, everything in life is a choice.

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Everything in life is a choice.

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Choose life.