"despots" poems
Power is indeed a corruptive force,
Through all of mankind’s history
This has always been true.
Emperors, Kings, Potentates,
Popes, Presidents and Despots too.
Gathering near the Throne are the
Eager Courtier leeches reaching to
touch the anointed one’s robe.
Declaring their undying loyalty,
In the process selling their souls.
Their rewards, a speck of personal power,
Castles and new riches of gold.
Like their Master, the entitled ones
will lie and cheat, while ignoring
The principals of right and good.
Believing “Decency” is but a
poor man’s word, Never uttered
within the hearing of the Ruler.
Never a considered artifact of
absolute power.
The slaves, serfs, the common people
Matter not, but to serve the Ruler.
The power elite will start needless wars,
or offer up sacrificial lambs, all to distract
the unrest of the common man.
They will suppress human rights,
free speech and defame, banish
or imprison their detractors.
All merely smoke and mirrors to conceal,
Controlling agendas of personal greed.
From ancient times down to today
This cycle repeats. Now we are living
our own Textbooks history of tomorrow.
Kingdoms and Nations have perished
From this kind of poisonous corruption,
Needless to say, it will happen again.
Perhaps it already is.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 9:15 PM UTC
High above dear Maple Street
There looms a cold iron curtain of fear
That dares to drop and let all the monsters
Unleash their dreaded promise of chaos
As in Europe despots gift a new World War
Trembling parlors hug the radio
Hallows Eve: the radio
Begins to sing throughout dear Maple Street
The Seventh Trumpet declares all out war
And that heavy iron curtain of fear
Eclipses the sun and invites chaos
In vacant hearts of men into monsters
Halloween Night: the monsters
Now dance to the tune of the radio
Raiding the stores, jumping bridges, chaos
Entombing the stretch of this blood strewn street
Parlors gorging on endless waves of fear
Riding hysteria, imminent war
O great catalyst of war
Twisting the minds of men into monsters
Diving your hands in that great pit of fear
Now throbbing with screams from the radio
No fences nor faces can save Maple Street
Now plunged in the throes of sweet sultry Chaos
And we call it Chaos
This boiling of minds all stewing with war
Once masked with humanity on this street
Now reveals good neighbors make great monsters
Skies of martians (n)or men, the radio
Hissing, twists the knobs and tunes in to fear
And when that curtain of fear
Draws, and shadeless light casts on the chaos
And the broadcast fades on the radio
And mere fiction rescinds the throne of war
What will we make of all of these monsters
Scattered about in a daze through the street
Where there are minds of fear and war,
Chaos reigns and calls to the sleeping monsters;
Tune in to Welles’s radio on Sterling’s street.
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 6:07 PM UTC
We walked amongst the ruins famed in story
Of Rozel-Tower,
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory
And heave in power.
O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder,
Whilst waves marked time.
"Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder,
"And shine sublime!
"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles,
To despots sold.
Souls of deep thinkers, soar like mighty eagles!
The Right uphold.
"Be born! arise! o'er the earth and wild waves bounding,
Peoples and suns!
Let darkness vanish; tocsins be resounding,
And flash, ye guns!
"And you who love no pomps of fog or glamour,
Who fear no shocks,
Brave foam and lightning, hurricane and clamour,--
Exiles: the rocks!"
4.2k
Midnight approaches
Tick tick tock
Won't someone stop
The Doomsday Clock
From striking oil
Drilling rock
Thirsting soil
Aftershock
Deserted hourglass of sand
Shifts to resource hungry hand
Tyrants of time assume command
Greed consumes
This wasted land
First come the roaches
Tick tick tock
The bugs can't stop
The Doomsday Clock
With beehive brains
No voice to talk
And droning minds
Comprise the flock
As lone wolves feast
On sheep they stalk
Then fear encroaches
Tick tick tock
Too scared to stop
The Doomsday Clock
As violence claims
Each city block
Blood drawn on streets
Like sidewalk chalk
When Hatred's loaded
Gun is cocked
Beyond reproaches
Tick tick tock
How could they stop
The Doomsday Clock
When despots trade
In human stock
Waging war
Upon this rock
As profits slaughter
More livestock
The end approaches
Tick tick tock
No hope to stop
The Doomsday Clock
As poisoned skies
Corrode this rock
With toxic lies
Controlling hourglass of sand
Clenched by Atlas choking hand
Titans of industry command
Still Chronos rules
This dying land
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 2:09 PM UTC
a million ears listening
no one hears a thing
basest news a big surprise
ignominy is crowned king
a squander of treasure
best minds laid to waste
price of fear forever accrues
funds the purpose of the place
eyes of a diligent nation
brains filled with briny mush
ears clogged and waxen
expertise in smelling ****
central intel brainiacs
the heft of heavy dudes
a sordid nest of vipers
collecting despots dues
Music selection:
Radiohead,
Artificial Intelligence
Oakland
2/14/11
jbm
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 7:34 PM UTC
Sometime lay your weapons down,
To think of peace and no more fear,
No longer will the young ones die,
To fight for what is so very unclear.
The roar and rant of bombs alone,
Enough to cause the strongest to cry,
The battlefields so littered with youth,
Can't stop my tears from flowing down.
We start our lives with hope and dreams,
Learning to love and have playful things,
With our eyes fixed solid on many days,
There comes a joy and peace within.
But leaders can't learn how to share,
They want the power and glory there,
But war is nothing so glorious to see,
When fears and tears outnumber dreams.
I say no longer should people blindly follow,
The leaders who seek to destroy the world,
Instead we should fight them where they stand,
Deny the leaders their quest for destruction.
No more should soldiers die so suddenly,
We hope no more the mothers will cry,
No one but God can take a life we say,
Except in times of self preservation.
So despots where you slither and slide,
Destroy your madness no longer the lie,
Push those who seek no peace of mind,
Until they are gone from all humankind.
Nov 8, 2014
Nov 8, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
How do you spread peace across Earth? First, start with your heart. It matters not where or how you begin. Love is in everyone's heart. Your heart has infinite seeds of love in it, as do the hearts of every other human being on Earth. Toss these seeds of love everywhere. It is amazing, miraculous where they may land, and wherever they may land, they wll sprout. Those with megawealth, those who control global corporations, those who compesate their unconscious lack of self-esteem, because they were not loved enough, if at all, as they were growing up, beome not the bestowers of kindness and caring and magnanimity, but are twisted into despots and tyrants and dictators. Throughout their entire lifetimes, they know no love. Hydrogen bombs and all other weapons they know, because they absorb and pervert worldwide the invaluable recources that could feed the starving, shelter the homeless, heal the sick, educate the unenlightened. Humanity has spent millennia killing each other. Now it is time to take the real power on Earth, Love, and live and love as one. Fling your infinite seeds of love from your hearts everywhere and watch them sweep over all of Earth and watch Peace on Earth bloom forever before your eyes.
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
May 18, 2020
May 18, 2020 at 2:17 AM UTC
but then i am moulded by democracy,
and i see its evils,
and the only good of it
exercised is focused upon
the critical acclaim of theocracy,
and that only spreads upon
a definition: the existence of theocracy
qualifies democracy to become warring,
because under the dicta of the people
no gods exist, but despots do,
and democracy is qualified to eradicate all despots,
even god, with or without the rule of the people,
as the ambition of being without rule:
as ant said unto aardvark: same **** different planet.
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 7:44 PM UTC
Oh ,tyrant king of Babylon
Have you come by any sense
Who wages war on sons of Zion
With inadequate air defense
Toy soldiers of the eagle
Will come as dogs of war
Their guise being benevolence
Their true gift blood and gore
So it seems your problem is oil
Not consummation of lnnocence
Go plant your people in thirsty soil
Then propagandize self defense
For you are the beast of Baghdad
Your very seed affronts Mann and his kind
Another American jackal gone bad
And oh, what a jackal did we find
Now we sit glued to a TV set
Watching the towers crumble and fall
When sleeping with despots ya get what you get
Just part of the cost when america stands tall. Hy
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 10:10 PM UTC
It seems to have spontaneously combusted, but it didn’t. The disease struck long ago, brewed in the petri dish of Depression, WWII, and convergent technologies. Well before that, really, but that was the point of critical mass. By the 1950's, it was an epidemic. The independent Republic of individuals, small towns, coherent communities, distinct cities, local diners, shops and stores tied together with two lane blacktop was crumbling. Things only got worse faster. It was a disease of toxic, lulling dreams. American Dreams. And standardization was its crushing foot that flattened everything and left a homogenized wasteland in its trail. The old gods vanished and the new became despots. Go anywhere in America, Boston or Biloxi. You can’t tell where you are. Most shop at the same stores (real or virtual), eat at the same chain restaurants, wear the same clothes, gulp from the same Internet, swallow similar information, and think (within acceptable variations) the same thoughts. Even sin has become tediously consubstantial. Knowledge has been supplanted by content. Words are squeezed of meaning. Everyone is an expert and no one knows anything. Except Siri and Alexa. The Dreamtime of consumerism, consumption and conformity dominates. All that remains to come is the dominion of AI. Then we will all be watched over by machines of loving grace, free to graze in bovine bliss in the cybernetic meadows of bland utopia.
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 6:54 AM UTC
God curse developers
Who bury waste contaminants,
God curse investors
Who prey upon the weak.
God curse the Nazis
Who terrorize minorities
God curse the leaders
Who lie each time they speak.
God curse the despots
Who subjugate their people,
God curse Big Oil
Who swamp the world with greed.
God curse the Jihadists
Who slaughter indiscriminately,
God curse the poor
Who bleat about their need.
God curse the haters
Who bleed the world of latitude
God curse the moaners
Who take away the hope
God curse religion
Which robs us of tomorrow
And God curse the rest of you
Who limit me, my scope!
Marshalg
@thebach
17 May 2011
May 16, 2011
May 16, 2011 at 2:02 PM UTC
#Sarah Josepha Hale (1788–1879)
We bring no earthly wreath for Time;
To man th’immortal Time was given—
Years should be marked by deeds sublime,
That elevate his soul to heaven.
Thou proudly passing year—thy name
Is registered in mind’s bright flame,
And louder than the roar of waves,
Thundering from ocean’s prison caves,
Comes the glad shout that hallows thee
The Year of Freedom’s Jubilee!
‘Tis strange how mind has been chained down,
And reason scourged like branded sin!
How man has shrunk before man’s frown,
And darkened heaven’s own fire within!
But Freedom breathed—the flame burst forth—
Wo to the spoilers of the earth,
Who would withstand its lightning stroke,
And heavier forge the galling yoke;—
As well the breaking reed might dare
The cataract’s rush—the whirlwind’s war!
Ay, thrones must crumble—even as clay,
Searched by the scorching sun and wind!
And crushed be Superstition’s sway
That would with writing scorpions bind
The terror-stricken conscience down
Beneath anointed monarch’s frown;
Till Truth is in her temple sought,
The soul’s unbribed, unfettered thought,
That, science-guided, soars unawed,
And reading Nature rests on God!
This must be-is-the passing year
Has rent the veil, and despots stand
In the keen glance of Truth severe,
With craven brow and palsied hand:—
Ye, who would make man’s spirit free,
And change the Old World’s destiny,
Bring forth from Learning’s halls the light,
And watch, that Virtue’s shield be bright;
Then to the ‘God of order’ raise
The vow of faith, the song of praise,
And on-and sweep Oppression’s chains,
Like ice beneath the vernal rains!
My Country, ay, thy sons are proud,
True heirs of Freedom’s glorious dower;
For never here has knee been bowed
In homage to a mortal power:
No, never here has tyrant reigned,
And never here has thought been chained!
Then who would follow Europe’s sickly light,
When here the soul may put forth all her might,
And show the nations, as they gaze in awe,
That Wisdom dwells with Liberty and Law!
O, when will Time his holiest triumph bring—
‘Freedom o’er all the earth, and Christ alone reigns King!’
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 9:49 AM UTC
Divisiveness is a sword wielded by a leader fool.
The people suffer while the leaders rule and huge
profits for them ensue. A game as old as when
human man did first rise up to stand, within his
own small clan, picking up a club to strike down
his fellow man.
Thousands of years gone by and we have learned
nothing new, still the leaders rant and we implode
and like addled sheep too easily led we march out
to our own inevitable slaughtered end.
Kings and Despots rule for their benefit not ours.
Divisiveness is but one of their deceitful tools.
Divide and concur is the rule.
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 11:47 AM UTC
I'm thinking of Gandhi.
As far as I know,
he never wrote a poem.
But his life was one
of the greatest poems ever.
His poem's theme
was nonviolence.
I would say its theme
was LOVE, love of self
and of everyone else.
He defied despots
not with guns, but with
the steel of love. He walked
to the sea with thousands.
He never fought with hate,
but by fasting 'til death,
if need be. His net worth
was $1 when he was shot
dead. He was the richest
man on Earth, and one of
the greatest poets ever.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Apr 15, 2023
Apr 15, 2023 at 12:13 AM UTC
Despots.
History.
Replete
with those
who’d
control.
Hoist
their
views,
beliefs
onto the
masses.
Today.
Look
around.
Easy
to see.
It’s everywhere.
Manipulation.
Not militarily.
Technological.
Mind melding.
Brainwashing.
One way
or the
other.
Battle zone.
Monocrats.
As with
days of
old.
Battling
for control.
Technology,
waves of
influence
circling the
globe.
Altering
perceptions.
Rewiring
thought.
Pitting one
against the
other.
As with
the past
yet more
insidious,
dangerous.
Minds
in a
vice grip.
Addicted
to the
screen.
Unable
to let
go.
New despots,
same as
the old!
Feb 23, 2024
Feb 23, 2024 at 9:01 AM UTC
Let's say a foreign government
Butcher's a U.S. resident
In Istanbul, Turkey, while
You're the U.S. president.
What's more important to you
Is making more money down the line
By maintaining business ties
That NOT even ****** can undermine.
If greed is your primary motive,
You'll justify your point of view
By asking yourself the following question:
What would the current president do?
Let's say certain autocrats
Make dissenters disappear.
You're entranced by how the despots
Maintain their power that you hold dear.
If power is your primary motive,
You'll justify your point of view
By asking yourself the following question:
What would the current president do?
If people desperate for asylum
Come to your border seeking relief,
And you want to show the heartlessness
Of a xenophobic commander in chief,
Then show them that your heartlessness
Can justify your point of view
By asking yourself the following question:
What would the current president do?
If you want to stop an investigation
That possibly looks bad for you,
You can obstruct justice by asking,
What would the current president do?
If you think your unscrupulousness
Allows you to break every taboo,
You've learned a lot from asking yourself,
What would the current president do?
-by Bob B (11-21-18)
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 9:28 AM UTC
Branches on the path did the rest of the work for me:
All I had to do was tear the rest of the canvas off my
Vans. The rubber sole floated where I threw it, bobbed
Whitely out of view. Now, tell me we can go
To my beloved 60s, the ones I know nothing about
While under umbrella’d leaves just touching the creek
We’re stealing kisses, my heart rides on box-car hitches
And rusted out Fords, all the way to absolute nowhere
But, something mauve glows down the way, utopias
And despots and kids who gave a **** knew what
They ought to fight for and did. Skip the ambiguity,
Stop all the foreplay, give me something real this time
While I drag my bones in a hometown I wasn’t born in
Praying the trees take back the concrete. I don’t know,
Say it’s the whiskey and cigarettes making me uneasy,
But there’s some elegance in the way I saw her move
That makes fidelity a hard, loving hand, just a little too
Hard then I’ll take my borrowed wings some vague
Direction north, past the towers of Lebanon,
Laid to rest with highschool friends, both dead
In wax and paper, tied in all these loose ends.
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 12:47 PM UTC
I'd like to step foot,
In the land of dictatorships,
Despots,
And dead-men;
To voice my Western opinion,
Through the veil of the immune.
I'd like to step foot,
In the land of the lions,
The gazelle,
And bright birds,
To experience all,
That cannot be said through mere words.
I'd like to step foot,
In the land of old Queens;
The land of abdication,
From which the French coast, it gleams.
I'd like to step foot,
In the permafrost of the north,
And experience why,
Others don't venture forth.
I'd like to step foot,
In the tropics of the south,
Where the rain pounds just like,
A forgotten old sink,
In which the sound is so loud,
You can't hear yourself think.
I'd like to step foot,
On the island of the abnormal,
Off the coast of the near-east,
Where it seems strange to act formal.
I'd like to wade through,
The ocean of men,
In a Tokyo square,
In which you lose count at ten.
I'd like to float forth,
From the bounds of this Earth,
And with my own eyes,
See all life as it's worth,
From our desolate moon,
Watch our world as it rise,
And from eons away,
Watch a star as it sighs.
I'd like to see life,
Through my eyes,
As a prize.
Sep 7, 2010
Sep 7, 2010 at 4:18 PM UTC
Along the shore of the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh
a little girl of about seven, dressed in a track suit
threw chunks of bread to nearby ducks and geese.
The geese, twice the size of their mallard brethren,
aggressively pushed between the ducks
to gobble up each morsel.
The girl placed her hands on her hips
and scolded the winged despots for their greed.
A few of the ducks joined in the protest,
and quacked in solidarity, for justice.
The geese remained undeterred in their conquest.
Clearly frustrated, the little girl gave up.
She handed the bag of bread to her mother
and then ran off to join a group of older children
playing frisbee in a nearby grass field.
The ruling geese and the victimized ducks
continued to swim near the shore,
hungry and confused,
and without that reliable food source.
Jul 19, 2017
Jul 19, 2017 at 7:54 PM UTC
Never had it been of the application of force between
interludes of terrible waiting that getting on with hostilities
was more calming than the imagination of the horrors
that lay ahead
The initial wave knew the sacrifice would be written about
until the heavens decided that history was full enough of
our failures, shaking loose its detachment from the fate of
its hapless creation
They were led by men who could be counted on to exhort
them with words as to their duty; to be told of the good
hunting to come, but to men who had no fantasies of their
own, words only fabricate a hero
There was no marksmanship or survival skill that could
shield a man fated to crush the spirit inside the prayers
uttered by his mother; there was no training that could
prepare him for life or judgment day
And yet those whom absolution abandoned to their own
devices had fallen in love with their conquerors only to
weep bitterly as the beachcombers liberated them from
their supposed occupation
It made them wonder of the desperation that was
stronger than hope; about how a woman could fall in
love with the eyes of the enemy; and how the enemy
could have a heart for love
But his witness of human nature amidst the horrors
of despots would remain in abeyance until the fears of a
common man had met courage in the moment he realized
how mankind could never love him as does a God
He wondered if he would be different; would he be death
unable to laugh or understand a broken nail; would he be
able to believe in men; would he be able to love someone
when he knew his heart was left behind?
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 7:59 PM UTC
She signs in the
Rain
So that I may see –
Drizzled words, despots and
Defiance, never defeat.
And
She cries in the
Rain
So that I may never see –
What could never be cured, be
Culled; our calamity.
And
I walk on in the
Rain
So that I may never learn how to –
Fix, never learn to forgive,
Most certainly, to forget.
And
It’s just that simple in the
Rain,
Sign, cry or walk –
We become disposable,
And like chalk on sidewalks,
We all wash away.
Oct 31, 2016
Oct 31, 2016 at 10:25 PM UTC
Exhausted by death, we took the car and drove
Away, past gut-torn children and the like -
The stricken hospital, top-heavy despots, dust.
Someone cried, and for a while the earth stood still.
Then on we rushed as sand got in our eyes,
Through states with something rotten at the heart
And effigies that stared with wrinkled lips,
And women crying over families spent,
And gunned-through houses, doors and windows, gone.
And once a grimed-up pick up cut us up,
Tore past in clouds - Land Cruiser tyres churned -
And at the wheel a man's split-second face,
A turban and a beard, fanatic stare,
Long gone in dirt, but at that time,
We knew him to be mad. Then on we drove
To pastures new and sand dunes stretching miles.
At noon, a woman offered food, her children
Clustered round her, shut-up face. We left
Her scratching yet more dust, and sped into
The only sun, into a slap-up village where
The kids in rags kept up their pestering cries
Of hunger, sickness, want, disease, and pain
That stretched back years. They clawed the car,
Tore strands of air between their teeth and we
Were heart-struck at their noise. By dusk
We headed out again – the clamour died -
Catching the western sun before it sank,
We disembarked and tucked it up in bed,
Knowing ourselves at home, and finally
Slept at last where it was warm and dark.
Jun 5, 2011
Jun 5, 2011 at 9:19 AM UTC
I am lost in the loose ended threads which make my life;
they weld me down along glistening metal lanes
with screws and nuts and bolts once in a while ,
rather carelessly with a callow scraping grip,
perhaps it's a young apprentice
inexperienced in dealing with insubordination
to fix me in my place.
sometimes these threads look like faceless feelings,
pre-emptive if you will,
sometimes they look like ununderstandings by me or others
sometimes they look like despots called people
sometimes they look like elevators built around caves of people
shedding tears and hides.
So yes ,sometimes the metal feels like the deep cold of the sea.
powdered with nuts and bolts forgotten in the hazy blue saline,
but probing my shaky heart and my remoulding mind like frosty bullets.
Overrun with senseless weeds from inside,
and grim from ruins of lost ships
and here and there with inviting treasures
worthwhile, anew
in the cascades of worldliness of all things beautiful.
sometimes the metal feels like the lullaby of the sea
sedating almost,
amidst the wilderness of conflicts ,jarring bronze contradictions
and of course, the ever so ubiquitous, soupy shallow free floating worldly wise grime.
while other times oy romantics,
it feels like a fish net topping me from reaching out
to places and peoples and experiences of this world.
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 8:37 PM UTC
We are all demagogues in a world controlled by despots,
A world where we have grown afraid to denude the powerful
And sequester the impoverished under the sheets,
A fear to stick it to the man rather stick with the man.
Although it begins with one life, it ends with countless casualties.
For our definition of what we believe is right, differs from what we believe is good.
The foundation of good, for it is no universal language rather a universal dictum.
With lessons unknown to all, simply comprehended by some.
For only a handful selected by God occupy the hole the devil burned through.
Leaving the delicious gift of persuasion on earth, awaiting the tasting intentions whether good or evil.
Convinced by all with set beliefs while thy axioms remain unknown.
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 8:30 AM UTC