Shouting Murder

left alone we snap on the tell-a-
vision, an annoyance we prefer to death.
talking heads beautifully quaffed
mouth their scripted fears.
mesmerized, we absorb
the killing fields,
those spaces where life
and death merge into shouted refrains,
each new horror squeezed into thirty
second blurbs.
from across the nation
come images flashing,
each mysterious death
leading to closure.
we love the twisted memories
of ancient slaughters, and though
our memories have lost the details,
we smile to see them
now in color, with graphs,
slow motion, and instant replays
recreating basal brainwaves
inherited from warlike
ancestors.