WE HAVE BEEN WARNED

There was a time when people

waited for poets to publish

another tome, sought them out

in book stores and periodicals.

Later, in the pub there was talk

of the albatross, ancient kings,

and scandalous nights when one

of them tickled the fancy of some

laird’s daughter. Poets were thinkers,

and therefore drunkards. They fought

in wars, died too young, and told

us who we were.

In the core of our great pride, at the

heart of our narrow universe, our hubris

had not yet stabbed us in the back,

so we held our heads high as we marched

through our animal farm brave new world.

When we left the land, machines became

our hands, we traded our feet for wheels

and our slings and arrows for dreams of

mass destruction, our sense of touch

lost in this new, artificial absence of

truth. The poets tried to tell us of our

need for red wheelbarrows glazed with

rainwater beside the white chickens, how

faces in the metro were no more real than

petals on a wet, black bough. They asked us

what rough beast we had loosed to slouch

toward Bethlehem. And we paused, but

not long enough..

We live in our own ashes, thoughtless in

our loss of wonder, buried in the consequences

of glorified ignorance, proud of our great stupidity,

enthralled by the mundane and pointless.

Love my neighbor? I don’t even know his name,

have no idea of her pain, step over their blood

running in the gutter of our thoughts and prayers.

Prayers? Don’t make me laugh! We have left behind

all sense of God, lost all hope, and dread His return.

Who are your poets, now?

Your artists?

Your thinkers?

Who are you?

What are you doing?

Why?

What are you

waiting for?

Reviews

[Akinlolu]

What on earth did we leave behind? I suspect it's beyond prayers, wheelbarrows and other stuff. I think we left behind our essence as humans. We forgot whom we are. We left home behind. We're looking for home, for love, for peace, for acceptance, for whatever it is that makes us whole. It's the reason I think why suicide rate skyrocketing and why we treat the next man like trash and we can't relate with a woman without seeing her as a sex toy. I believe when we recover our humanness, we'll have lesser issues. But when and how do we do this? I rest my case.
A gut wrenching peace for me. Thanks.

[Vol]

Akinlolu,
We live in a dark time where anything can happen, and little of good for us either individually or as a race/species on this big blue ball here it stays the course while we, the people run mindlessly out of control. I believe if it is a problem, only God can fix it, we just pour morre gfasoline on the

[Vol]

(oops) more gasoline on the fire at our feet.
Vol

[JessyJacob]

hands became machines -- i think a small correction, i didnt quite follow what you are trying to say, anyhow nice write up.

[Vol]

Try harder...

[Beccy]

Thus far it seems, the warning has not been heeded and we have been gradually anesthetized to consequence. To the point I think, where we have become blind sided by all the bull**** that is daily rammed driven down our throats by big tech and the so-called great and good, whose only agenda is to self serve.

I don't think we have quite lost all hope, but it's becoming a close run thing and there are truly times when I genuinely despair.

Beccy.

[Vol]

Beccy!
D****t, get outta my head! or maybe, "Why, goodness, Milady, don't we think alike?" I'm not worried about hope, or anything else, much. I am with those who favor the existence of God, and it's his problem, not mine.
Vol

[Ken Simm.]

We live in our own ashes, thoughtless in

our loss of wonder, buried in the consequences

of glorified ignorance, proud of our great stupidity,

enthralled by the mundane and pointless.

So very true.
When we were Bards. When we were artists of meaning. When we were not famous for all the wrong reasons. When we suffered for our art. And that meant everything.
True poetry. Exemplary writing and words from an artist.

[Vol]

Ken,
WOW, man. Thank you. Ye are living in a washed out,tepid version of that old Irish curse, "May you live in interesting times." The decline of western culture is ending as Eliot predicted, "Not with a baqng, but a whimper."
Vol

[Lorry]

So I'm not alone in thinking that the old days weren't so terrible and waiting for a writers new work was part of the deal?
Now no one wants to wait for anything and if you don't constantly update them, they will hmjust sigh loudly and move on to the next bright and shiny thing.
Now all people are good for is to be born, consume then die... and they even make you pay for that!!!
I'd comment further Vol, but a pop up just popped up inviting me to to try the next must have, that weirdly isn't available in any shop anywhere and only available when you're trying to read a f*****g poem online!
Maybe it's time for my meds too! 😊

[Vol]

Lorry,
Thinking is SO passe...
Vol

[willweb]

Todays world doesn't allow thought unless it is the pre-programed thoughts they demand you think. Seems like we have to hide to think anything original, to offer a new version, to talk crazy amongst those who used to be called crazy. Me, What am I waiting for? I post my stuff and sit back wondering what difference, if any, I have made. Still waiting...you know what Petty says, "The waiting is the hardest part."

[Vol]

WW,
Even worse, I think, is the fact that nobody even wants to think for themselves. I must have been lucky, the best educators I sat under all said to question EVERYTHING! Including myself, but especially authority. We are the people in the famous Macintosh ad, but with no heroes in the wings.

[willweb]

I think you are right. Keep swinging that hammer my friend. Everything happens in cycles. The minds of people may just right themselves in a few hundred years.

[Vol]

WW,
We'll all be thinking in Chinese by then.
Vol