#wordsmithing - Hello Poetry

A cockroach knows a cockroach— not by insignia, not by the parchment framed behind mahogany, but by the odor of survival, that cold administrative hunger that outlasts every anthem, every oath. They know each other by residue. By the practiced contempt folded beneath public language. By the elegant speech of sacrifice delivered while the people’s bread still clings to their teeth. Neither sovereign nor savior— only leeches lacquered in ceremony, feeding through the arteries of the republic, calling extraction governance, calling decay order. They do not arrive as tyrants do. No drums. No boots striking the square. Only robes, citations, televised restraint— the slow confidence of men who believe institutions belong to them by natural right. And so the rot advances quietly. Through adjournments. Through sealed rooms. Through the grammar of procedure. Like termites in cathedral wood, they hollow the structure from within while praising its strength in public. Their loyalty is primitive and exact: hunger recognizing hunger, filth answering filth, one infestation sustaining another inside the same exhausted machinery. Cockroaches gather where public trust once stood upright. In courts. In studios. In ministerial corridors perfumed with constitutional language and the odor of managed truth. They feed upon justice ceremonially— turning law into spectacle, verdict into theatre, delay into doctrine. Priests of process, parasites of the nation— they inherit the shrine by stripping it bare, then preach sanctity over the emptied altar. And when the streets finally remember themselves, when students, workers, lawyers, families begin speaking in one rising voice, when the screen itself burns white with outrage— the script changes. Suddenly corruption has a smaller face. A safer body. A more disposable name. Now the disease is “fake degrees.” Now the infestation is narrowed to the minor and replaceable— as though the great engines of theft were built by clerks alone. Strange how power launders its language. How an insult hurled at millions returns as precision. How the same mouth that stripped dignity from a generation now retreats into footnotes, clarifications, televised innocence. Even this naming feels too clean— as if language stood outside what it serves. But memory is stubborn. People remember the laughter. The contempt. The rehearsed humiliation disguised as public wisdom. And slowly they begin to understand: the law is not sacred because men recite it. A robe does not cleanse decay. A bench is still wood— still elevation— still vulnerable to the weight seated upon it. That is the terror beneath every failing order— not protest, not outrage, not even exposure— but recognition. The instant the public looks at power without reverence, without hypnosis, without fear— and dares to name the cockroach while it sits upon the bench.

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May 17

May 17, 2026 at 1:10 PM UTC

vpradeep

The Doctrine of Recognition

A cockroach knows a cockroach— not by insignia, not by the parchment framed behind mahogany, but by the odor of survival, that cold administrative hunger that outlasts every anthem, every oath. They know each other by residue. By the practiced contempt folded beneath public language. By the elegant speech of sacrifice delivered while the people’s bread still clings to their teeth. Neither sovereign nor savior— only leeches lacquered in ceremony, feeding through the arteries of the republic, calling extraction governance, calling decay order. They do not arrive as tyrants do. No drums. No boots striking the square. Only robes, citations, televised restraint— the slow confidence of men who believe institutions belong to them by natural right. And so the rot advances quietly. Through adjournments. Through sealed rooms. Through the grammar of procedure. Like termites in cathedral wood, they hollow the structure from within while praising its strength in public. Their loyalty is primitive and exact: hunger recognizing hunger, filth answering filth, one infestation sustaining another inside the same exhausted machinery. Cockroaches gather where public trust once stood upright. In courts. In studios. In ministerial corridors perfumed with constitutional language and the odor of managed truth. They feed upon justice ceremonially— turning law into spectacle, verdict into theatre, delay into doctrine. Priests of process, parasites of the nation— they inherit the shrine by stripping it bare, then preach sanctity over the emptied altar. And when the streets finally remember themselves, when students, workers, lawyers, families begin speaking in one rising voice, when the screen itself burns white with outrage— the script changes. Suddenly corruption has a smaller face. A safer body. A more disposable name. Now the disease is “fake degrees.” Now the infestation is narrowed to the minor and replaceable— as though the great engines of theft were built by clerks alone. Strange how power launders its language. How an insult hurled at millions returns as precision. How the same mouth that stripped dignity from a generation now retreats into footnotes, clarifications, televised innocence. Even this naming feels too clean— as if language stood outside what it serves. But memory is stubborn. People remember the laughter. The contempt. The rehearsed humiliation disguised as public wisdom. And slowly they begin to understand: the law is not sacred because men recite it. A robe does not cleanse decay. A bench is still wood— still elevation— still vulnerable to the weight seated upon it. That is the terror beneath every failing order— not protest, not outrage, not even exposure— but recognition. The instant the public looks at power without reverence, without hypnosis, without fear— and dares to name the cockroach while it sits upon the bench.

95

incredible literally virtually true if you can gnow rants from reason which, btw once renamed notre dame, to feed a blood-lusting mob, to keep it from coming to reason; if you can gnow all that good and evil can be, then way past kipling, or shakenspears du kennst find a satisfied credible literal peace during virtual musings keeping time with chaos in sweet suasion so sweet almost too sweet to be credible, but not. That's the key. Knowing true.

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Jul 24, 2019

Jul 24, 2019 at 12:30 PM UTC

kenpepiton

Incredence ignorance

incredible literally virtually true if you can gnow rants from reason which, btw once renamed notre dame, to feed a blood-lusting mob, to keep it from coming to reason; if you can gnow all that good and evil can be, then way past kipling, or shakenspears du kennst find a satisfied credible literal peace during virtual musings keeping time with chaos in sweet suasion so sweet almost too sweet to be credible, but not. That's the key. Knowing true.

22

We were wondering which theme to choose For next week’s poetry Whether to pick seasonal spring The meteorological quirks of Cumbria Or possibly the wintry ‘weather’ Ever present in Great Britain I wondered whether ‘Weather’ and ‘whether’ Held more personal appeal Being a working man Wordsmith With apron and hammer And a slight Irish stammer Soon I was wondering whether Others had been seduced By this knife-edge theme Of ‘weather’ and ‘whether’ I knew I was not the first To wonder about whether and weather So I began wondering about others Who had wondered about whether and weather Then I found myself wondering whether Others had wondered Whether others had wondered About whether and weather Then I stopped Sean Hunt Windermere March 2016

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Mar 16, 2016

Mar 16, 2016 at 3:03 PM UTC

sean-hunt

Whether Weather or Whether

We were wondering which theme to choose For next week’s poetry Whether to pick seasonal spring The meteorological quirks of Cumbria Or possibly the wintry ‘weather’ Ever present in Great Britain I wondered whether ‘Weather’ and ‘whether’ Held more personal appeal Being a working man Wordsmith With apron and hammer And a slight Irish stammer Soon I was wondering whether Others had been seduced By this knife-edge theme Of ‘weather’ and ‘whether’ I knew I was not the first To wonder about whether and weather So I began wondering about others Who had wondered about whether and weather Then I found myself wondering whether Others had wondered Whether others had wondered About whether and weather Then I stopped Sean Hunt Windermere March 2016

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