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Winston Smith

2017, Orwellian times are here
This future from a past of fiction
Winston Smiths we all became
Our re-education now
Seems so utterly complete
Existing in this totalitarian state
A time of perpetual death
And unwinnable wars

We seek the Winston of old
He who was once in us all
He who would question the Minitrue
(Even if quietly)
Why do we believe the Newspeak?
Have I misspelled?
Is the truth really the truth?
Or is it only as the truth is written

Have we now become the Proles?
The uneducated, the working class
In new age terms we are the 99%
Of middle class, the Outer Party almost gone
Those thought police control the minds
The shock jocks on the airwaves
Where ruling elite behold only to their own
Have we become the unpersons of our time?

They watch us now, most every day
Every place, every way, every time,
Do we really love the big mutha
Or are we so saturated, our ideas so controlled
That we cannot think an original thought
Where we believe that black is white
Is really black is white
Doublethink the contradictory beliefs

The names may change yet the intoxication
Of the ideology still remains
Where the O’Brien’s of this new world lead
And everything’s right until they’re caught
Where the Hates are funded and contrived
Under the spreading chestnut trees
Who has betrayed the revolution?
By whose hand does this world now turn?

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Quietly,
just
say,
ooh!

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he doesn’t want a truth

he will not tell,

he knows

it has no worth,

that he would lose

what he already has,

he says

he avoids reality

by denying the truth,

he is intelligent,

he does not mean to insult

but the known is fearful,

even when the truth

will not be told,

it can be

a poor bedfellow

to a fool,

especially

an old one,

he knows

he knows better

than to tell,

assumptions,

a truth,

he fears loss,

it is confusing,

what will make him

cease

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Opening Lines

Someone once told me to
“write with impunity”
I didn’t know what they meant
so I just continued to write
whatever I damn well pleased

They told me
“pour your words onto the page”
but I drank too many of them instead
and ended up vomiting poems that
always had the word “carrot”

I heard the Eagles sing “listen to the music”
I tried to listen but in the end I was,
tone deaf, rhythm deaf and beat deaf
as a musician I would have made
a mediocre carrot farmer

I was told to try “art”, I said “which one”
my paintings were colourful, abstract and bad
I could not “get” faces,
and no matter what I painted
somewhere, there was always a carrot!

If a poem was just a title, or just one line
I could nail it, but I cannot keep to task
This poem was supposed to say
“something about love”
but it just feels like carrots

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once upon a time the world was sold an ass by the story telling of just 12 men whose
words were plagiarised by the powerful, to suit the few – we may never know their truth – today an
ass sells stories created in his own image and tells us it is news

once, a conclave of unrepentant sinners sat in judgement on better people – now ruby shoes
adorn the feet of a man elevated to power on a single puff of white smoke – as the blind
knelt and prayed, the sighted should have seen this coming.

everywhere, fanatical nations without lands rise & rage against someone’s idolatry,
based on nothing more than their own twisted ideology; who knew it would come to this.
I would ask Little Johnny, if he knew now what he knew then, what would he do

the ignorant chase Pokémon through the streets, an excuse for not having to look at the
poor and homeless as they walk by with their heads buried in metallic sand – you see,
the poor have no value in a game that has no value in a game that has no value within a game

feel the greed, where the greedy are too rich for the rich, yet the rich are still greedy for the
money of the poor who are still poor because the rich are too greedy and the greedy just
want more, too greedy

we now ignore where the wrong have wronged, where the few have wronged the true,
where the true can no longer speak the truth because the few can spew what they will say is
true, no fact check now, for the ABC is for them, not you

we awake in a bed, not a boat, hoping beyond hope that the words we will hear are a
solution not a joke – we are not Armani in a suit, or a budgie in a sack, our politics should
say, we are better than that

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I started washing kimonos, slowly,

and only ever by hand

They were beautiful, so delicate

I would wash them in soft water

for hard water was too harsh

After washing they were hung to

dry in the cherry blossom orchards

where the falling blossoms would

delicately stroke each kimono,

infusing in each a heady scent

Field after field of cherry blossom

So many kimonos floating on the wind

As each kimono would dry, I would gently

fold it and place it on clean brown paper

and tie it with hand spun string

I would wash the kimonos with love and care,

though that is not to say they were dirty

After each was prepared I would find a soul

for the kimono, give permission for it to be worn

then bow, retreat, and return to the task at hand

I will wash 20 thousand red kimonos,
ask forgiveness and give
permission for them to be worn

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The alto sax hung by its neck strap in silence
Its shadow lost on the smoke stained wall
A cloud of recycled nicotine hovered low
And the light flickered over the worn pool table

In the dim light lonely men shuffled the beer stained floor
Nickels and dimes stacked the faded green cushion
Shaking hands and fading eyesight lined the shots
Pool cues ran across nicotine stained fingers

A refuge for old men till it was their time to pass
(The “d” word was rarely used here)
Their memories of better days were long gone
Lost, mostly, in a haze of alcohol and heroin

History had carved its self into places like this
Tongue and groove walls from an age long gone
Old men in crumpled suits, with even older souls
Jackie Gleason’s for sure but no Paul Newman’s

A three legged dog lay quietly in the corner
Dizzy Gillespie played on the antique jukebox
as arthritic fingers tapped along to the jazz beat
If time had a throwback this was where it landed

Along the front of the bar ran a polished brass rail
With the faux marble top it seemed out of place
An ageing poet sat on a stool reading Bukowski and
Like everything else, no one noticed and no one cared

Suddenly the door flew open blowing eddies of snow across the floor
Those in the bar shivered as one but, not from the cold
Many thought they saw a shimmer of something in the air
But most would deny they saw anything at all

The lights went out one by one; pool table, ceiling, bar
Initially the red and blue neon sign defied the lack of power
But it to eventually buzzed and crackled before finally dying
Only the jukebox remained with Dizzy now playing in the dark

The sudden sound of a wooden chair scraping across the floor
Sent shivers up the spine of all there that night
No one moved, the darkness enveloping, hearts racing
Their hair literally stood on end, but more was to come

As Dizzy began playing Hot House on the jukebox
The sound of an alto sax pierced the night air
This was real; this was now, no jukebox sound
In the dark the sax played jazz with a spirit possessed

On and on it went, the riffs splitting the air, no one spoke
Minutes passed, the music played, then slowed
till finally the sax stopped and the jukebox played no more
A sense of calm now flowed over all within

Lights flickered, returning shadows to the walls
The neon sign dazzling all after the darkness
The old men looked around and saw the chair
Now set under where the sax had hung

Its outline visible on the tongue and groove wall
The alto sax now rested on the wooden chair
The only object left on the wall was the plaque which read
Charlie “Yardbird” Parker played here