You know there is not much truth to truth these days;
Bough breaks and cradle falls,
Isn’t that the way of it?
Targets painted on foreheads,
No clue concerning the movement of Special Forces
Or the trajectory of incoming drone missiles.
Should we think it strange that a lot of folks
Are praying for a martyr’s death?
And so it is, we ignore the casualty count,
We disavow the beached porpoises,
Shrug off the thought of chemically seared senses
And the uneasy notion that we are being left here to die
In our own toxic stew.
To the killers, killing is not a matter of discernment.
Indiscriminate annihilation is an act of domination,
Obliteration consciously embraced,
Whether perceived as dabbling in the dark arts
Or drawing up battle plans for death stars…
This, little more than an afternoon’s diversion
For the privileged few.
The net cast wide and uncaring.
Collateral damage, a conspicuous belch
And a loosening of the belt…
Gluttony’s guests, this band of monopolizing miscreants,
Hidden behind their bank accounts,
Give us the royal wave as they roll past.
As if a bluer blood could ever rise above the stains…
Beneath the dragon’s fiery gaze
The fleeing masses melt in their retreat.
The cheer of legions loyal, loud and robust.
Patriots preferring war to peace.
Theirs a salute to servitude and coerced capitulation.
It must be made clear, everyone must come to understand;
Movie stars, fashion models, and football players
Bring value to this, our mismanaged and morally bankrupt
Excuse for a Motherland.
And thus, the headlines penned,
Give more to these than people starving in Sudan,
Or the radiation that continues to leak in Japan,
Or the oil and chemical dispersants that continue to contaminate
The Gulf,
Or the plight of child soldiers in Kenya,
Or the fact that we are putting guns in the hands of high school students,
Or the perpetuation of poverty around the world,
Or the general unrest
Fueled by rampant acts of greed and political corruption.
Wait, wait! Let me catch my breath…
To all of this,
We hear only whispers and rumors,
Circumstances purposefully overlooked and easily dismissed.
All eyes made starry for the well-to-do.
A plausible deniability,
This death behind the media mask.
Only honest, hard-working successful entrepreneurs
To be found in this meticulously scripted reality.
Only honest, hard-working successful entrepreneurs
To help us shape the ruling class.
In this our present day and time,
We live in a world filled with
Nothing but nonsensical nursery rhymes
Like “ring around the rosy.”
A most morbid circumstance
Made to look, sound, and feel benign;
Innocent songs to play out on the tongues of our children’s children,
At least, the ones unlucky enough to survive.
London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down,
Falling down
London Bridge is falling down,
My fair Lady.
And as we both seem to be on the same page of reality (often misread as cynicism by the uninformed) there is much to be concerned with, much to rattle some consciousness that is smothering with lethargy (or ignorance) yet, when all is said and done with stirring the coals, a flame of hope does eventually show itself. The task is to keep the blaze alight. As I explored in "Just A Matter Of Time" that flame is likely to turn out to be a color we've not imagined yet.
An appropriate ending to a doomsday poem. In spite of my many works describing various cataclysmic things that can go wrong in the future, humans are very adaptable and will respond to severe threats in a positive way. But as long as it is at arms length and being handled by mercenaries, a problem is not really in our radar to think that it is important. What is important, as you so elegantly state, is the truth. And the truth often is hidden because it has a physical and psychological cost to it. I am encouraged because we can and do change things like reversing the loss of the ozone layer and banning DDT.
Major measures of society have shown that 2013 was the best year ever, worldwide. The trend is toward the positive and not the, negative. Yet there are many negative things going on that need to be rapidly corrected.
Jerry is right about the London Bridge. A few years ago I had the pleasure of driving across the newly rebuilt London Bridge joining an island in Lake Havasu to the mainland.
Hah! The London Bridge was falling down so they sold it and sent to Arizona. Sorry, I can't blame the rich. I can blame the rich politicians, who are subsidized by the rich, so I guess I do blame the rich bastards. The real core truth about why America has gone to hell is because for decades and decades the professors and teachers have quit teaching and started bashing America as the reason for all the poverty and hate in the world. So the students began to hate America and those students of teachers began to hate America. What has happened because of all that hate is that America lost it core values. It doesn't seem to me that we will ever get them back. I'm not optimistic.
A Collection of Voices from Around the World is more than just a poetry compilation. It is a partnership of poets from around the globe brought together by an internet poetry forum. That forum, poetrypages.com, has been the home of many a fine poet s
“The woman or man who is a poet, or fiction writer, or playwright, or all of these, is engaged constantly in a jazz ballet of vocabularies, passions, genders, histories, perspectives, death, love, and life. The music of revelation announces itself to
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Major measures of society have shown that 2013 was the best year ever, worldwide. The trend is toward the positive and not the, negative. Yet there are many negative things going on that need to be rapidly corrected.
Jerry is right about the London Bridge. A few years ago I had the pleasure of driving across the newly rebuilt London Bridge joining an island in Lake Havasu to the mainland.
Ron