As a writer and poet who absorbs the world and then bleeds out truth, I'm finding it harder and harder to break through the political propaganda that television, radio, and web media has conjured to dominate and control so many minds. I can work around the programming by introducing abstract moral truths, but the moment I reference modern cultural, my work goes ignored.

I feel myself losing touch with a society that I’ve taken for granted my entire writing life. In a gluttonous feast of sensational media
that has proven nearly impossible to extricate ourselves,
we allow the power of profiteers and con-artists
to stream content into our minds that programs us
to accept unprecedented levels of violence.
We celebrate military-style police powers
to remove our freedoms of expression,
the rights to own property at reasonable expense,
and our most basic rights to life under a banner of liberty.
In an **** of hatred and greed, a large swath of society
has proven comfortable with exterminating
or imprisoning human beings for the color of their skin
or the origin of their birth in private-for-profit prisons.
Yes, I definitely feel we are lost in a spiral of human descent,
where there is no end, only torment and death.

-Ron Gavalik

Symmetry deficits call for chiaroscuro.
Highlight the summits,
and diffuse shadows at the vertex
of cheekbone and mandible.
Colour the apples, rubescent as newborn flesh,
and soften edges for a gentle definition.

If you paint claret from bow to corner
it can create something fuller; induce desire-
Valencia can bleach the blemishes.
Liquid or matte lies in pesky furrows
and rots like carrion in warm weather:
remember to blot excess sebum prior.

Are you pneumatic? Applications can support you-
with enough you can acquire
something ample for a decade.
Look to the lens. It winks;
raise brow in a clean cut, diagonal
from nostril edge: the playful frame apertures admire.

Flash.

Share with friends:
refresh/close/open,
and sigh at affirmations.

Social media is a weakness. I’m so closely linked to what you do. I could stop. I could ‘unfollow’ but that would be rude and I’m better than that. We both are. So we continue ‘following’ the others every move. So I feel my heart collapse and explode simultaneously every time I open your story or hear the birds in the morning thinking of you. I’ll check twitter and when I see you’re ok without me, I’ll turn away, bitter. Anxiety will envelop me till the next time I grow desperate and write in your name to find my new dose, the newest update.

we live in times
that make it difficult
to differentiate reality from fiction

     not in the field of literature
     where borders always have been fluid

but in quotidian discourses
of politicians  television  internet
speakers present unproven attitudes
as if they were reality unquestionable

and they get huffy and evasive
if proof comes out that they are wrong
they claim that they have been misquoted
or at least misunderstood

and even if they do recant
this never hits the front page of the medium
but somewhere inside mixed with trivialities
few people check

so it seems to be up to every one of us
to use our brains and bother
whether the data we are being served
are edible or rotten

bccause these speakers
seem to have forgotten
what communication is about

we need to really understand each other

Posting once meant sending a letter
Written in cursive, observing good form;
Decency good - politeness much better
Both mindful and kind, was most people’s norm

The internet came with lightning bolt speed
And missives, then dismissives sped about
The craft of writing, soon began to bleed  
And Johnson’s words* became a lost redoubt

Soon all could chat alone, with ‘friends’ worldwide
A foamy blather, that soon turned cruel                        
As politics dilated our divide  
And set us, verbal swords in hand, to duel

We fight and hate for ‘likes’ - and our pretenses
We **** our souls with “panem et circenses”**  

©2018 C. Green

In Descartes reading misery, contemplating life.
letting go is torture, keep momentum rife.
Seek out the pro's that teach the winning game,
searching for bragging rights, craving all the fame,
Nobody stops to calculate as words tear and multiply,
yearning for the screens real truth, never asking why,
the bumps in narrow roads deepen, crawling closer to the curve,
are pedestrians ready, have they rehearsed how to serve?