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71
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 06:29:38 PM »
When palaces become bureaux,
When statespeople speak in photos,
When cabinet rooms house cost clerks,
And arguments are dog barks,
When slogans pass for free debate,
And admen the agendums dictate,
When the general’s black and white division
Is listened to without derision,
When wars are waged of ‘necessity’
And free will thought (of) beyond capacity,
Then shall the use of reason
Be hail-stormed out of. Season,
Then comes the time, for those who live it,
To resurrect a foolish spirit.
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South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 06:10:01 PM »
Grim-faced, some still found cause(s) for laughter.
Watching the news child as she starves slowly and dies
(Her death edit-quickened for busy lives)
The mourners find/found dark humours offer shelter.
 
Care-weighted, they embrace(d) lightening reliefs:
Jokes feed the hung(a)ry [komickRe-Leaf?!]; quiz-facts pileup to block
Thought routes; thrill films, unlimited, unshock;
While ‘fripperies’ b.come ‘cherished beliefs’. :)

Fools were now of one variety,
Not wise guys in idiots’ garments,
But folly-formed, in fool raiment(s):
Mad ‘kings’ sa,sa,sa-ing by the sea(C.).
73
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 05:33:54 PM »
Marking registers of corpses piled,
The death-camp commandant
Remarks that acts so ‘resonant’
Should not be lost to memory, or ‘de-filed’.

He suggests a plaque should be buried,
With every thousand bodies, to proclaim:
“Bow your heads, you mighty, in shame,
That this great act is to you denied.

We, the Master Race in name,
Did the ‘task’ from which others shied.”
“Brilliant!” The dictator cried.
No fool was there to whistle-stop the ‘game’.
74
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 04:58:36 PM »
Wise confusion died with the fool.
Now (literal, present tense)
Gravity-filled heads of common sense
File through the doors of the business school.

Earnest, busy, streamlined in sharkskin/snakeskin,
Clear-headed Edmunds, patent-pated,,
Think all thoughts profit-motivated:
Ideas are for marketing, not to think in.

This school has no desks for the sweetly bitter.
One must be clear cut.
Ambiguity doesn’t sell: its shop is shut;
Commerce demands wits leaner and fitter.
75
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 12:56:16 PM »
Fool-father Socrates takes The Stand,
His child accused of denying The Truth,
Mocking household gods, corrupting (the) youth:
A social menace; clear enemy of The Grand.

The case against is so ‘strong’
(although it contains not a single ‘fact’)
That no one with a semblance of tact
Would dare to declare it ‘wrong’.

And so ... child and parent went to die:
Arrogant, idle, to some plain rude;
Their self-conscious folly (fully) mis-understood.
Over lost centuries their ‘happy’ voices cry ...
76
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 01:42:55 AM »
Altogether unnecessary,
To/2 serious sounding statesmen,
Dead fools’ posts were left open.
They were ‘wasted’, naturally.
77
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 01:36:53 AM »
Parson Yorick’s ancestors
Followed a dying calling:
Hamlet knew that (his own antics palling)
Cold calculations made cod-pieces of jesters.
78
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 01:31:02 AM »
Alas, poor Yorick,
The sigh was not 4 a single [=1] corpse,
Nor death’s dissolution of human hopes,
But for/4 a loss more/2 general, 2/too ‘specific’.
79
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 03, 2024, 01:13:57 AM »
Victims now, someone told lies of them,
Tricked them with travesties of the fool’s dilemma,
Tied them 2 form-clause catches, 22 in number.
Then, like dogs, they were killed, ad hominem.

*****
80
South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...
« Last post by Phil Talbot on January 01, 2024, 01:41:05 PM »
Innocents followed him:
Noble savages; holy simples;
Skin-saving whimsicals;
Ingenues, bright and dim.

But never again were coxcombs couched
Or crowns cut and egg-middles eaten:
Denied free range, yoked and beaten,
Caged and crestfallen they crouched.

Victims now, someone told lies of them,
Tricked them with travesties of the fool’s dilemma,
Tying them to form-clause catches, 22 in number.
Then, like dogs, they were killed, ad hominem.

*****
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