her resistance to learning turns to crackle and hiss.
the problem is not with her ears.
Shared with Reena’s Xploration Challenge #413 and based on an interesting incident this week. The inappropriate title comes from a translation of the subject’s name. The form is the Wayra: This short syllabic verse has 5 lines with a syllable count of 5/7/7/6/8. It is unrhymed and incorporates onomatopoeia within the verse.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Wherever You Go, There Your Choice Is
One day, we’re flying high The next may be lying low Our choice always tells us why We found which way to go
This poem is a reworking of Christopher Reilley’s An Alphabet For Burning The Lie, ” which was shared as part of the dVerse Abecedarian challenge last week and was a righteous diatribe that I felt needed rhyming – because I’m a rhymer!
As ash drifts from the burned norms of its old commands, America breathes the dust; strength is all it understands.
Beneath the banners stitched with grief and gathered gold, the crowd learns the echo turns to the only creed they hold.
Courts now bend like reeds to the winds they’ve made, their roots gnawed by the loyal until they’ve clearly frayed.
Down Main Street, drums of order loudly cry, battle-ready brutes insisting, “Comply, comply!”
Each eagle, drafted, trimmed to fit the slogan’s line, wild eyes trained to turn away from what may shine.
Fear is franchised at the borders of the mind, sold as safety, wrapped in propaganda’s bind.
Gagged teachers mouthing history becomes a crime, while the blackboard holds the truth beyond our time.
Hymns to the flag drown out the hungry pleas, and bless the power, while on the streets they freeze.
In ink from executive pens, dissent grows ever weaker, as though the very page flinches from the speaker.
Jails have risen where libraries used to breathe, new ‘good books’ are written purely to deceive.
Kettles of rage, all night, are set to simmering, by those who trade within the screen’s glimmering.
Law is now a mirror, only flattering the strong, reflecting back the only face it loved all along.
Marches wear masks of smiles, rehearsed and refined, while history’s dragged, uncredited, left far behind.
Neighbours are sorted, coded, and soon to be filed away, names grown thin like paper, night after night, day after day.
Oaths have been edited with a most ruthless pen, and mercy’s crossed out once, then crossed out again.
Prayers from police land like cold coins with a clatter an alms for peace poured away like they didn’t matter.
Questions are quarantined so sickness may be sealed, behind the plastic words, the truth is never revealed.
Rights fall like leaves in the seasons turned by polls, privileges granted to those in the most favoured roles.
Screens sermonise obedience in sparkling, vibrant hues, and bless the cruel with a charisma they can’t refuse.
Teaching grievances from lecterns across many stages, word salads are spilt all over the digital pages.
Under long shadows, the uniforms teach of a new grammar, the syntax of which is taught under threat of the hammer.
Votes are vacuumed up from the ever-hopeful room, a quiet consent descends as the game is set to resume.
Whispers take the long way home these nights, cold amongst the promises of ever brighter lights.
Xenon-bright lies blaze, marking the exits clear, herding the frightened ever forward towards the fear.
Yards fill with flags, while faces fade from view, belonging swapped for a theatre of the untrue.
Zero-sum dawns demand a different sun, we answer with a love and rage as one, refusing every night they’ve just begun.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
See The World Like A Poet And An Artist
The oh-so-ordinary may seem little more than functional and pragmatic. Take the artist’s view of the scene or the poet’s filter, sensational and dramatic.
A body humming with the city’s dread, days shrink to margins and murmurs. A world of fragments, half-perceived, a ghost drifting through wet gestures.
On cold steel, a reckoning of bone, the tangled world falls away below. Meeting the weight of life, welcoming it like death, the distant galaxies, quiet as confession.
A shapeless breath, braided soft with prayer, the current flows into the silence known. So the heaviness learned to float, stillness threads through the trembling puddles.
Into the vastness, mercy arrived without knocking, healed with the strange truth of being seen. Something uncharted unfurled inside, a distant glimmer now whispered in the night.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Reboot The Real Work
Paralysed by the fear of failure You procrastinate to begin Everything follows when you get to work To lose is to learn, and to learn is to win
All our old ideas are in a box marked ‘habit’ They must be true but we’ve forgotten why Our rote behaviours lead to mindlessness And so it came to be as the time went by
God, I’ve got a nose to pick with you. Are you listening to my angry prayer? A few fucks in front of the altar? It’s not like you’ve never heard me swear.
My reverent heresy is born from The institution blindly followed. To commit their violence in your name Fed on half-truths, easily swallowed.
Shared with Tanka Tuesday – oxymoron but mine is just a nine-syllable quatrain. I got my challenges mixed up.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Peace Is In Staying The Course
Riding the waves of acceptance and rejection Tranquillity does not wander in every direction
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #239 – smile, which immediately made me think of the Fall and so I went investigating the lyrics of their album containing the titular song. The italicised words are taken from various songs from the album Perverted By Language.
Repetitious history Disease-ridden southern spectres To fall, to rise again
Back to trade, back to barter War is over with no shots fired
Undone, the strife-knot For it’s… The death of the dimwits That makes US smile
Global majority Once perverted by language Definitive
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Cut The Strings That Pull Your Mind
Fear, suspicion and desire all may beg For your time and attentions A spark may be lighting the powder keg To blow up your pretensions
This morning, the sun rose without my asking Before I lunch, I chose the freshest vegetables In the afternoon came an uninvited guest I trust that in the evening, a cool breeze will come
Inspired by this post at Existential Comics that features an AI Socrates! I recommend giving it a try and posting your results in the comments. (Actually, on review, Socrates is such an asshole that he just keeps repeating himself. He refused to write a poem with me.)
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
If You Want To Be Unsteady
Seek the cave only for shelter Peace must be found amongst your stresses Running from problems is no answer Make your choices and judgments your successes
1994ever 