Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Lucy Tonic  Nov 2012
Doublethink
Lucy Tonic Nov 2012
I am money changing hands-
Insignificant and ubiquitous
Imbibed as oxygen
Spit out like old chewing gum
I am the tree that never grows leaves-
Alone but surrounded
Decrepit states of being
Amid tiny sparks of youth
I am a child’s heart-
Intelligent and delicate
Fathoming the depths
Of the outside world
I am detached-
Bought and sold
Young and old
A victim of doublethink
False prophets, you dig our graves with sinister divinations,
Bestow unrepentant indignation, and neglect to hide your shallowness.
Cast condescending shadows from high upon your sanctimonious mount, but
We wear our pride; our faith and love, our shrouds, and we will not be buried in the night.
Oh, I say woe unto them that call evil good and substitute darkness for light.
Oh, weary we may be, but forsaken we are not. Tread lightly when with lust and greed you choose to cast your lots.
Written for First Baptist Church of Worcester Poetry Fest Challenge 1: Acrostic – FBCWOO.
Bob B Aug 2018
THEY will have the final word.
Believe what the PARTY says is true.
Even Facecrime gives you away,
For BIG BROTHER is watching you.

Honesty? Bah, such nonsense!
Loyalty is what must sell.
State-spread rumors incite the mob
In your bleak, dystopian hell.

Reject evidence of eyes and ears.
That's what THEY say. Watch how hate
Turns the unquestioning supporter
Against the enemies of the state.

The Goodthinkful, unaware
How language affects their thoughts and behavior,
Show how ignorance is strength
And lavish praise upon their savior.

Manipulating public opinion,
THEY know well-spread lies will last,
For that's how THEY'LL control the future,
And that's how THEY control the past.

Doublethink is what THEY call it:
The clever art of reality control.
Ignorance is strength, THEY tell you.
Controlled insanity is THEIR goal.

The more powerful THEY become,
The less THEY prove to be your friend.
It's NOT about what's good for the people.
Power is NOT a means but an end.

War is declared on language and memory.
Inconvenient facts are rejected.
Science is reviled, and THEY
Discredit people once respected.

Doublespeak narrows the range of thought.
By caving in you might survive.
Two and two make four, but sometimes
THEY'LL say that two and two make five.

Opinions are not tolerated.
Protective stupidity: that's THEIR plan.
You think THEY can't control your thoughts,
But, oh, THEY can. THEY really can.

Do you look at your screen, or does
Your screen look at you? Or Both?
Do you know how much THEY know
Or if THEY know you've kept your oath?

Who's the next to be vaporized?
Who's the next to become an unperson?
As long as THEY control your "thinking,"
Everything can only worsen.

If only to awaken from the nightmare
Where truth becomes a likelihood
And we retain humanity!
Wouldn't that be "doubleplusgood"?

-by Bob B (8-30-18)
John H Maloney May 2013
But then again, it's hard to tell.
It might, but maybe not. Oh well.
I think it could be ... tough to say.
Just too many shades of gray
and far too much uncertainty
in any possibility
that I just don't know what to do.
I think I'll have to think it through.
Karl  Oct 2014
Doublethink
Karl Oct 2014
I wanted a metamorphosis
To accumulate until my meager brightness
Became supergiant

I wanted to burn brightest and biggest
Subduing galaxies with my gravity

I wanted reflections of my light
To echo through the void

I wanted to grow in blindness
Of my monstrosity until
After millions of years
I could collapse
Into the blackness of singularity
That I might wait patiently for the day
I would be scattered throughout eternity
In a moment of unfathomable
Destruction
Aeolis Est  Mar 2013
Doublethink
Aeolis Est Mar 2013
we repeat the past
a false future forged anew
1984
Adele Nov 2017
I can hear them. There is not one, but might be hundreds of them lurking behind these rickety wood walls.

He is watching. The party has always been watching. I can control my thoughts. Cogito ergo sum. This is my world, no one can touch me. These are my thoughts, my heart beats for what is good for me. My hands scrawling, my brain is just scribbling.

Yet, I’ve known from the start that I am a dead man.

I didn’t commit adultery, I followed them. I am alive, I can feel my heart racing. My blood all over my body... reminds me why I’m here. To survive and live, yet I am still a dead man.

I am no mute, but I can’t speak. While writing this I can picture my hands and feet with shackles, wounds of torture. I’ve been always a dead man.

The prole doesn’t know. They need to know. They should stop listening or watching the telescreen. They should strive to dig the Oldspeak.

Oh, right. Who dares to doublethink against a totalitarian regime anyway?

The guns are always on their hands. The war is always going. It’s always here. The past... is always here. We don’t see it, but it’s here! There’s nowhere to run or hide, the world tried.

I will be the next unperson, vaporising in the history of Oceania. They won’t remember. They’ll try not to remember. We are a nobody. Winston was right. I can feel the boot stamping on my face. This is the future.

My voice... is a thought crime, will never be accepted in this society.

I am a dead man.

I am ready... the Thought Police has been always watching me. The INGSOC. Big Brother. I will never love him!

But I am ready to be trap in the place where there is no darkness. I am ready... for the Ministry of Love.

I won’t ever, ever love Big Brother!

I do not care, for I am already a dead man!
GLOSSARY OF TERMS

• Big Brother- the face of the Party, the leader behind the great power. The best part is that we never come to confirm his actual existence. He might not even be real. Maybe the Party just hired an intimidating-looking male model to make those posters. The face of the Party, Big Brother acts as reassurance and a trustworthy entity for many (his name is warm and fuzzywarm and fuzzy and easy to embrace). Yet, he is also your biggest enemy and threat – if you are one of the criminals (he is watching your every move).

• Cogito ergo sum- Renee Descartes, the famous philosopher, used that to prove his own existence. It literally means, "I think; therefore, I am." He claimed that his ability to form thoughts made him a real, living, human being.


• Doublethink- the acceptance of two contradictory ideas or beliefs at the same time.

• INGSOC- "Ingsoc" means "English Socialism." The "Ing-" is based on the pronunciation of "English" and "-soc" on "socialism."


• Oceania - The super state in which protagonist Winston Smith dwells. It is believed to be composed of the Americas, the British Isles (called "Airstrip One" in the novel), Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Southern Africa below the River Congo.

• Ministry of Love- The Ministry of Love (or Miniluv in Newspeak) serves as Oceania's interior ministry. It enforces loyalty to Big Brother through fear, buttressed through a massive apparatus of security and repression, as well as systematic brainwashing


• Oldspeak- normal English usage as opposed to technical or propagandist language


• Prole- a shortening of the word proletarian, a term for the working class.

• Telescreen- a wall-mounted electronic device that doubles as a television and a surveillance camera. Used by the Thought Police to monitor the citizens.


• Thoughtcrime- even more serious offense than committing an actual crime: It's the act of thinking about committing a crime. You have thoughts that conflict with the Party line, like thinking "Big Brother is ungood.”

• Thought Police- a group of people with totalitarian views on a given subject, who constantly monitor others for any deviation from prescribed thinking

• Unperson- someone who has been vaporized. Vaporization is when a person is secretly murdered and erased from society, the present, the universe, and existence. Such a person would be taken out of books, photographs, and articles so that no trace of them is found in the present anywhere – no record of them would be found.


• Winston Smith- a fictional character and the protagonist of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

-INSPIRED BY GEORGE ORWELL’s 1984-

(a life-changing recommended read)
Andre Baez Feb 2014
Today I woke up and saw blood run down my nose,
The wetness shocked me like water from a hose,
As I searched myself I came across many lines,
Far more than a person my age should have designed,
Upon my canvas also lies a bit of weight,
Not enough for muscles just enough to be in shape,
My entire body is covered in a throw of fur,
Mentally I could never give into shaving, it's absurd,
Why should I change the Lords work?
My moms work, my pops work, it's what I'm worth,
Physically, I'm far from a perfect being,
But, who can seriously claim to be perfect, see
A crease from furrowed brows and tough thoughts,
Is what's needed for many to eventually get across,
The bridge that holds our destiny,
If we're true to ourselves then soon we'll see,
That each one of us is one of the worlds instruments,
A tool to be used in whatever way to represent,
The total collectiveness of our spirit,
The human spirit and the lives that go near it,
Social justifications for monstrous actions,
Aren't enough to give any sense of satisfaction,
The mind is only of a single individual,
As such the thoughts of others and their ridicule,
Is not enough to influence a movement or a truth,
An idea can spread contagions to the youth,
Through them and so on the ways get passed on,
Thrown out are false ideas and politicians who were lax on,
The middle and under man and their predicaments,
**** their lack of care, we are Gods fingerprints,
For whom the bells toll, hands fly up and grab,
Our faces by the cheeks and together we will laugh,
Because a world of unity comes after the stage fright,
Look at the anonymous who fight each day and each night,
The wordless texts written on marketing magazines,
The muted audio coming from blanketed screens,
A voiceless march on solders of love,
A war on peace will flare out in blood,
The thin red line that traces arches outside of my nose,
It works it's way left then right, to and fro,
A painting on the working canvas of my soul,
Colors swirling and mixing just outside the window,
Lies potential waiting to be tapped,
Along with my own, it's the wane to be attacked,
Through ambivalent works we are attached,
Malevolent words are weakness in the face of intelligence, wrath.

Wrath is the enemy of the dreams we have earned,
The dreams that have been worked for, burned for and yearned for,
Oh Lord, the chore is hard to absorb,
Which is why more is to be given,
For more are willing, to lend themselves to the cause of children,
And old men and women, trapped in prisons and similar buildings, Westboro baptist churches and terrorist organizations,
Government agents, with Wes Craven woven situations,
A nightmare is on Elm street, and your street and my street,
Even if you don't see it, you can hear it,
The gunshots may not ring off near your house,
But the ambulance goes past your house to the ER in clouds,
And out of your mouth comes "I hope they're fine, wow."
But in truth it's a passing moment in your own life, wow.

Just like that, it's the fragility of things,
A bird of Hermes eating it's own wings,
Reality based upon countless simplicities,
Recipes are made from human soliloquies,
Stories passed down ****** and through ink,
Written tales of woe and tales of victory,
Strategies to make the mind seek peace,
In mournful situations where bodies reek,
Media slavery and private prison sceneries,
Are overbearing distortions of American Dreams,
Big Brother is only a few decades from being,
Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasian countries,
Are already practicing a form of doublethink,
Freedom of thought is the freedom of newspeak,
Guy Fawkes, wake up kids, nothing is as it seems,
The revolution is now and forever recurring.
Kai  Jun 2019
Railroad Crossing
Kai Jun 2019
Everyone has something
that makes them doublethink
when they're standing
at the railroad crossing
Inspired by the song "Dear" by Cavetown.
F White Jan 2015
Prince of Shapes-
oh you hurtful
mystery,
living an illusion

flipped me around til my feet
were pointing up

closed off in doublethink how
on earth did I ever fall so...
Copyright fhw, 2015
Andrew Rueter Jun 2020
The pathetic get pedantic
with thoughts mostly planted
the world they misunderstand it
yet there’s still discourse demanded
so they take terminology and brand it
as whatever they need to stand fit
and begin digging us into the **** ditch
of their messy rhetorical **** sandwich.

They use the term doublethink
as a subtle wink
to how they’re dumb and stink
on a drug that sinks.

They use echo chamber
to dismiss with anger
the opinions of strangers
for perceived danger.

Anything they don’t like is virtue signaling
it’s my Aunt Gertrude’s symphony
to construe simply
the spider’s spindling.

They call others thought police
while they have a lot to preach
because they want a monopoly
over what the public got to see.

They use the term hivemind
to deny why
the other side cries
saying they want a prize
for parroting the right thing
they avoid the scorpion’s sting
by diminishing and destructing
the other’s mind as nothing.

All of these terms have their place
yet we use them to race
to arguments lacking grace
putting palm to face
to bomb the brakes
of the train that takes
us to a lane of fake
******* banter waste.

— The End —