The News At 8

5 dead on the evening news
What more can be said? It's more or less through.
Five families will mourn, will never be whole,
As five warm bodies slowly grow cold.
I wonder about their lives now that they're gone,
Did they gave their parents hell, if they had a single mom
A single father perhaps, but that's slightly less common
I wonder if they grew up living on ramen?
I wonder where they went to school, if they ever got bullied
If they were studious, if they were unruly,
If they smoked and drank and seeked nepenthe
Or escaped their sorrows through spirituality,
Or lashed out at people to hide their fears,
If they dreaded the end of the passage of years?
What did they major in, what were their dreams,
Was there a difference in what their world was -
And how their world seemed?
How did they live every day, how did they think,
What memories and people now circle the sink?
What will be wasted and forgotten and buried deep down
With five dead on the news and six feet below ground?
Five universes died in their entirety at once,
How big and how small is a genius, a dunce?
How much is a life, when it's all said and done,
Five dead on the news, might just as well be one.
The difference between infinity and more of the same
Means nothing to someone watching the grains
Of the sands of time slowly drain on a screen
While electric sheep populate these robotic dreams
What do five deaths mean to those who still live,
What can five rotting corpses still possibly give?