written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Monday 7 November 2011

Years from now...

Good Afternoon folks.

This week's theme is Sci-Fi which, I'll admit, has been a struggle. Not only was I up at 5.30am today trying to write something- I realised about an hour before work that I promised you all a poem.
Until that point I had drawn a picture of the pope shooting a bazooka into the sky (with a cross and swastika on his tunic) and made a surreal news feed idea about him shooting down an American satellite. This all came from a piece I read the other day about the Church of England threatening to cut their huge investment stakes in our internet providers. In the wake of the Jo Yeates murder trial- this made the headlines in some papers and it got me thinking- do they really believe censorship is going to change people's behaviour. In the wake of all the troubles we have in the world, can they not see that there may be slightly more outside influences on us than extreme porn and some propoganda. Anyway, I thought maybe the nightmare dream of a future in which the Church calls on its power to rule was worrying enough- and the idea for my promised poem eventually surfaced.

Influenced

A poll commissioned for TV
with texts all charged at 20p
sent shudders through the soul of me
The thought of Intervention.

Was it this dystopian dream
that shook me as I slept, or screen
after screen of trailed gun fire
on an unwatched streaming news.

How paranoid must the Church be
to invest in our ISPs
to block our viewing on TV
in case we do discover,

that what goes on behind our backs
the endless terrorist attacks
are not about who's white or black
but through misinformation.

So those who claim a right divine
and see the other ivory shrines
collapse under the weight of minds
in Middle East uprisings

they seek to censor truth rebuked
to deny nudity from youth
to confiscate and take away
then masturbate upon it.

We make decisions every day
on what to hear and what to say
the violence will not go away
if we don't see more pictures.

The blind man plays no violent games
reads no news feeds of children maimed
but still won't call out Jesus' name
for fear of dark inside him.

He sees the things we do not see
and looks inside for sanctity
believes in what he knows to be
and with that feels empowered.




Thanks for reading guys. A little rushed but I couldn't let you all down- a slightly more polished version of this will be read on Friday at the event. Speak soon, S.

2 comments:

Damp incendiary device said...

Shaun, that's a bloody good poem. It has fluidity, the rhythm works and the ending was a thought provoker. Not bad for a rush job in the morning, not bad at all :)

Anonymous said...

Bloody good poem. Very reminiscent of Ste's poetic style. Can't wait to hear the polished version on Friday.

Ash