Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/ poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Child’s Garden of Worse(s)
Some poets wrote verses which were not meant to charm the reader but to get them a Stalin prize.
-Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, 1963
The children who are permitted to live Are not permitted to read what they want When they ask for adventures our censors give Ideology, instead of a jaunt
The children who are not submissive to the code Not following this week’s fashions in science Or who presume to kick against the goad Will be inclusively loved into compliance
And from the Hippocrene a taste, a drink? Oh, no! Children are now forbidden to dream or think