You relinquish your beauty when you allow others to decide what is beautiful about you.

If you're not satisfied;
do not be willing
to be pacified.

Open up your eyes we're all disguised, we're hypnotized. We have overdosed with these pointless posts just to see how much we can boast. We're all trapped liquid inside a bottle that is wrapped with a title named "social media" We're all to blame, cause all we dig for is fame. Acceptance is where we find our bliss, but is all of this worth being blind

Fell the Christmas tree
for us to dress
and pine-scent our homes
in weeks of Nativity.

Discard the Christmas tree,
as January blows in
and the council men come
to clear the needled streets.

Forget the Christmas tree
as we start again
and media’s ‘Blue Monday’
brings the suicide spree.

Grow the Christmas tree
for us to dress,
pine-scent our homes
and delay unwelcome reverie.

Waves of hysteria
crash against my screen
before I flush them
away
with eye drops of
wrath
and a brick with your
name on it

               -Richard J. Treitner
                    2016

By Arcassin Burnham

You'll be blinded by the social scene in corners of your
Brain is shutting off right as we speak,
I'm looking at the t.v. and every lie that's spoken on
The news its what we don't get to see,
Record every moment spent with your family declaring
As an alpha, you will make decisions wisely, for the kids,
Cause they will see better days,
But get them pass these flashing screens ,
Away from the evils , away from the insane,
Won't make you a better parent than me, not being cocky,
For I prepare for every contengency,
I'll never be like the family that was birthing before me,
Carrying around secrecy like it's a sport,
I promise you all I never will come up short,
I'm still on the rise,
While you sit and just scrutinize,
I swear I will have no time,
For the ignorance that you possess,
See the fire in my eyes.

In a valley down by the danger,
surrounded by silver-naked-trees,
there is trust and there is dust
on plaid blanket, pressed by knees.

Where the orange orb floats through darkness
as midnight and finite as deathly intentions,
they surrender, known pretenders,
**** and pink, among green-glassed drinks,
living as common competition, in a silicon city;
living as voices-of-a-generation, in the pretty gritty.

The on-screen horror
Was as vivid as the real thing.
We watched as people died
Fighting against an evil king.
While in our own lives
We just smiled and went along.
Maybe we might have stood up
If accompanied by a clever song.

It won for best picture
The saddest we had seen
It shocked and appalled us
In nearly every scene.
The Director thanked Jesus
The author and his wife.
Yet the king is still alive,
But this time in real life.

Screen heroes heroes as shallow
As comic-book supermen;
They are full of flash and dash
Then they run back home again.
We honor them much more
Than the people who save us
And fail to see the blessings
Their dedication gave us.

Day to day our teachers
And our medical personnel,
Our police and our firefighters
Confront a real-life hell.
Those people and the military
Are paid the lower wages
While people who show profit
Get rich while the holocaust rages.

So, filmmakers are delighted
With each new massacre.
After all, making ****** fortunes
Is what entertainment is for.
The media allows much more time
To the ogres in our society.
Villainy is more photogenic
Than any kind of propriety.

As long as the public can’t resist
Buying those pathetic rags,
The tabloid press will still reward
Snoops, gossips and nags.
Those are the same fools
Who then go on to elect
Crooks and thieves and liars
With disastrous global effect.