"circenses" poems
No trees around,
But there are leaves in the gutter
A thousand eyes in every home
& in every eye there is a storm
A Panoptic Design
Prison planet
Web net
Spider eyes glow red
Multi-layered
Multi-players
Virtual seams rip apart every dream
Virtual screams on virtual screens
Blood & circuses
Hive mind & mob body
In every crack there is a hole
& in every hole there is an eye
In every eye there is a storm
Your streets, the sky-not blind
A thousand eyes
A thousand eyes for every home
Digital trap. Don’t fight back
We wake to dream
We fight the sleep
Is there something we are missing?
5- You are alive
4-Go thru the door
3-What is your reality, really?
2-Yes, I’m talking to you!
1- Look up
Don’t look behind.
We are being followed.
Do you follow?
Do you mind?
Jul 2, 2016
Jul 2, 2016 at 3:28 AM UTC
Bread and circuses
Our world today,
In our sweet, free homeland.
We grow fat on breads
Pastries and sugars
And watch our
Sit coms on tv
Oblivious to the world around us
What's really happening?
Outside these walls of our free country
Aug 28, 2014
Aug 28, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
panem et circenses keep
the animaux at bay
while politicians sell out cheap
to lobbyists who pay
top dollar for the proper vote
the proper bill to vet
twould be enough to get your goat
were there a goat to get.
the clowns have been elected
and the acrobats do spin
no child left unaffected
and the bread is getting thin
elect the thief who steals from you
and wonder why you're broke
your budget strangled till it's blue
and you've no throat to choke
you've spent your time to buy their lies
the check is in the mail
the economic house of cards
stacked all along to fail
to think that wealth would trickle down
and feed the huddled masses
you're full of something rank and brown
and sanctimonious *****
so till the revolution comes
enjoy your present stations
sure, have your cake and eat it too
it's called regurgitation
Feb 10, 2011
Feb 10, 2011 at 6:15 PM UTC
In Ancient Rome the Emperors ensured the populace were kept quiet,
With bloodied slaves to gawp at and a stomach filling diet,
Of bread and wine and spectacles before a baying crowd,
Soporific panaceas channelled the roars they were allowed.
But on Bulbaos’ house in Pompeii he wrote “Militat om nes”
Which in our simple modern tongue in an idiom he says
“I am just a lover but I know that I must fight”
His spray can was a chisel and he made his mark at night.
"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."
Juvenal AD100
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 3:42 PM UTC
You foolish men
Who toy with others' lives
Act as though you're safe
From a revolutionary's knives
You may be fine
With your panem et circenses
But be warned, your actions
Do carry consequences
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
dear eurydice,
what did it feel like to die twice?
did it hurt more the first time,
weaned onto the sticky honey of love,
only to drown in the sugar as it turned to poison?
or did it hurt more the second,
when you were already bled dry,
to once more hear the siren’s song of your beloved,
only to be gutted by his greed?
did it feel more like a stab and a twist,
or was it more of a thud, then emptiness?
did you die a third time,
when you realized your beloved had run out of chances,
and that you had forever sunk?
///
eurydice, i heard a little rumor
that orpheus used to sing to you under the stars.
did his songs paint you a perfect little world
"for your eyes only" he would say
the way that my love did for me?
one that locked away all your fears,
washing across your vision
until it was tinted over with rosemary?
tell me eurydice,
did you dream of orpheus’ song
like i dreamed of my supposed savior,
humming sweet promises
that couldn’t be kept?
///
did you know, eurydice,
the first time i drowned,
i too had been the victim of a viper?
its venom had blinded me first,
it cursed me with sight;
i saw the world unraveled,
bared in all its debauchery
as savagery unsheathed silence,
nailing women to the cross,
and children to their graves;
an utter panem et circenses
while society watched them bleed.
did you know too,
i was smothered in honey,
just like you?
i tasted the sugared ashes
of the skies unfolding,
as stars turned to bombs in the air,
one little boy crying,
and one fat man dying;
society had found its penance
a faux but effortless salvation.
i like to think it was a blessing:
a little gift, the anesthetization that followed,
how the viper had wrangled out my lungs,
emptying me before i could breathe again,
only to find toxins rather than faith pouring in.
i can’t help but wonder, eurydice,
why were you given your lungs back,
if only temporarily?
did it feel good to have that final breath,
a final glimpse of your favorite delusion,
even if you had already fallen?
///
they say that everyone is born twice:
once on the day their umbilical is untangled and cut,
and once on the day they untangle their own mess;
but what happens when you die a third, a fourth,
and a fifth time before you are born again?
i ask this to you eurydice,
because it seems, like you,
i am already dead.
Aug 17, 2024
Aug 17, 2024 at 12:32 AM UTC
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
Jun 24, 2018
Jun 24, 2018 at 12:26 AM UTC