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I am glad The Somerville Times is alive and healthy, but this is not true for many newspapers. It is harder and harder to find a community newspaper, as they have been closing at a rapid pace across the country. Lawrence Kessenich addresses this in his poem Obituary. This poem first appeared in his book Age of Wonders, published by Big Table Publishing Company. To order go to: lawrence-writer.com.

OBITUARY

Lawrence Kessenich

The last newspaper landed on our sidewalk
today, skinny as an anorexic teenager,
front page announcing its demise, bullied
into submission by electronic Furies.

Though its newsprint is fresh and crisp, it shows
its age – no links, no videos, no searching
for words, except with those archaic
technologies, the eyes and the mind. I recall

its heyday, when, fat as a politician
on the take, it surprised us every morning
with news we hadn’t already heard a dozen
ways: RUSSIA INVADES HUNGARY, GLENN ORBITS

THE EARTH, BOBBY KENNEDY SHOT. Bulked up
with want ads and two-page department store
spreads, it had the presence to support those
weighty headlines, a thick tome of world events

dropped on our doorstep as if delivered
by God, celebrated with ritual cups
of coffee, read with the close attention
given biblical texts and argued over

as vehemently, while we washed the sacred
printers ink from our hands and watched
it spiral down the drain.

— Lawrence Kessenich
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To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to:
Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143
dougholder@post.harvard.edu