C: The Angels of Fleet Street

Little angels, they said - torn from this world,
God's gifts so cruelly stolen
Sorrow mixed with the musty smell of sawdust.
You were only words to me -
Horror, tragedy - repeated themselves.
Phrases that jumped out from beneath the magazines in the rack.

Just ink,
I could not grieve for ink alone,
Though all around me cried for the babies.
The children of Fleet Street
Kept the whirr of the printing press alive.

All I had of you was the alphabet
The headlines which taught me of your fate
Smudged now, for always I fall for these words.
The theatre of dreams awaits you, they tell us,
Sentiments that offer little comfort to me
When the hamster quietly sleeps on your smiling faces.