Can you see the Silence?

I have nothing but words to shine into the darkness
There are no dollars to buy your opinion
No marketing team to tell you what to think
Only words, and even those are murdered,
Hidden under the rubble of truth

All while oil lights the water
And munitions light the sky
And the smoke, the smoke
Is choking, burning, like phosphorous
Right down to the bone

Can you see beneath the noise?
If you look very carefully, you'll see
The gold-plated shackles
Placed on our democracy
Stretch to

An instant of clarity before
Twisted
Lies
Are
Spruiked

Wound over our eyes
And through our hearts
Choking our souls and silencing
Our screams with the nightmare cloth
Of kleptocratic dreams

A shroud of complacency
Woven from green dye and oil
While money buys the signal
And buries the noise

Can you see the silence?
The voices fallen quiet

Can you see the silence beneath the screen?

 A.J. Ponder

Well, I'm not sure if enjoyed is the right word, but I hope the poem has sparked something for you. It's one of my #protest poetry pieces.

If you enjoyed it, you may also enjoy some of my other protest pieces linked below, or if you'd rather have some fairy tale poetry my Portal to Fairytale poetry is here, or one of my personal favourites, Time Wyrm.

Your Billionaire Overlord: Today, I'm making the millions...

It's a New Age: The world's moved on. Once, the mighty pen could tear down kingdoms...

The Circle of Life :We have let the snakes...

Ask me not

Ask me no secrets
I'll tell you no lies

Ask for no boon and
You'll get no surprise

For questions are deadly
When you're in the know

And Grifters be hiding 
behind solid gold doors

With solid gold excuses
And solid gold mores

And they pay well for silence
...

So listen well to their threat
...

You can ask not for your country
And not for yourself

You can ask and be answered
You can knock on that door

But never, dear, never
Don't you dare ask for more

There we go, it's been a while since I wrote a poem-but I had this saying rattling around my head and when I looked it up all I got was "Ask me no questions..." If anyone can think of a poem, or fairy tale I might have got "Ask me no secrets, I'll tell you no lies." I'd really appreciate it, I'm absolutely drawing a blank. 

Have a great week,

A.J. 

And if you like this poem you may also like:

Today - by my special guest "Billionaire Overlord" 
or

The Circle of Life

#protest poetry

Sex Sells

Sex sells

Lolling curvaceously over

The unnecessary

I want it

Primitive response

Higher order thinking subsumed in

How do I get it?

This thing

This curvaceous

Beauteous organ of desire

So even the smartest among us

Pull the wool out of their eyes,

Knit it into elaborate blindfolds

Embroider them in red
And smile at their cleverness

Donning the objectified

Wrapper
and

Wondering
How the world

Became so dark

A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page

We consume more than just things.  Ideas and morality (I'm not so much thinking Victorian morality as the whole blurry and not so blurry good/evil thing), politics, these are part of the constructs we create, fed, as it were, by outside influences.  Those influences are increasingly stereotyped and marketed with all the passion money can buy.

Anyway, that's enough of that.  I think I'll leave my protesting to the poetry.  Much better that way.

& for those who are interested,
John Horrocks',  "Something in the Waters"

is being launched at Rona Gallery Sunday, December 12 at 3:30pm.  I'll definitely try to make it.  Should be fun.


A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page