"doublethink" poems
THEY will have the final word.
Believe what the PARTY says is true.
Even Facecrime gives you away,
For BIG BROTHER is watching you.
Honesty? Bah, such nonsense!
Loyalty is what must sell.
State-spread rumors incite the mob
In your bleak, dystopian hell.
Reject evidence of eyes and ears.
That's what THEY say. Watch how hate
Turns the unquestioning supporter
Against the enemies of the state.
The Goodthinkful, unaware
How language affects their thoughts and behavior,
Show how ignorance is strength
And lavish praise upon their savior.
Manipulating public opinion,
THEY know well-spread lies will last,
For that's how THEY'LL control the future,
And that's how THEY control the past.
Doublethink is what THEY call it:
The clever art of reality control.
Ignorance is strength, THEY tell you.
Controlled insanity is THEIR goal.
The more powerful THEY become,
The less THEY prove to be your friend.
It's NOT about what's good for the people.
Power is NOT a means but an end.
War is declared on language and memory.
Inconvenient facts are rejected.
Science is reviled, and THEY
Discredit people once respected.
Doublespeak narrows the range of thought.
By caving in you might survive.
Two and two make four, but sometimes
THEY'LL say that two and two make five.
Opinions are not tolerated.
Protective stupidity: that's THEIR plan.
You think THEY can't control your thoughts,
But, oh, THEY can. THEY really can.
Do you look at your screen, or does
Your screen look at you? Or Both?
Do you know how much THEY know
Or if THEY know you've kept your oath?
Who's the next to be vaporized?
Who's the next to become an unperson?
As long as THEY control your "thinking,"
Everything can only worsen.
If only to awaken from the nightmare
Where truth becomes a likelihood
And we retain humanity!
Wouldn't that be "doubleplusgood"?
-by Bob B (8-30-18)
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 12:21 PM UTC
I can hear them. There is not one, but might be hundreds of them lurking behind these rickety wood walls.
He is watching. The party has always been watching. I can control my thoughts. Cogito ergo sum. This is my world, no one can touch me. These are my thoughts, my heart beats for what is good for me. My hands scrawling, my brain is just scribbling.
Yet, I’ve known from the start that I am a dead man.
I didn’t commit adultery, I followed them. I am alive, I can feel my heart racing. My blood all over my body... reminds me why I’m here. To survive and live, yet I am still a dead man.
I am no mute, but I can’t speak. While writing this I can picture my hands and feet with shackles, wounds of torture. I’ve been always a dead man.
The prole doesn’t know. They need to know. They should stop listening or watching the telescreen. They should strive to dig the Oldspeak.
Oh, right. Who dares to doublethink against a totalitarian regime anyway?
The guns are always on their hands. The war is always going. It’s always here. The past... is always here. We don’t see it, but it’s here! There’s nowhere to run or hide, the world tried.
I will be the next unperson, vaporising in the history of Oceania. They won’t remember. They’ll try not to remember. We are a nobody. Winston was right. I can feel the boot stamping on my face. This is the future.
My voice... is a thought crime, will never be accepted in this society.
I am a dead man.
I am ready... the Thought Police has been always watching me. The INGSOC. Big Brother. I will never love him!
But I am ready to be trap in the place where there is no darkness. I am ready... for the Ministry of Love.
I won’t ever, ever love Big Brother!
I do not care, for I am already a dead man!
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 10:38 PM UTC
False prophets, you dig our graves with sinister divinations,
Bestow unrepentant indignation, and neglect to hide your shallowness.
Cast condescending shadows from high upon your sanctimonious mount, but
We wear our pride; our faith and love, our shrouds, and we will not be buried in the night.
Oh, I say woe unto them that call evil good and substitute darkness for light.
Oh, weary we may be, but forsaken we are not. Tread lightly when with lust and greed you choose to cast your lots.
Dec 18, 2017
Dec 18, 2017 at 11:31 PM UTC
nothing but a scrap
of paper from a make-up catalog
saying,
“Real Flawless™”
but here i am,
unable to stop
thinking
about what it markets to me
what it asks of me
what it stipulates to be
true.
“Real Flawless”
modern day doublethink:
“my body is mine but
Yours
to look at and
Yours
to judge and so i shape it
to the eye that is
Yours—
i am proud though i make myself
small”
“Real Flawless”
mandatory affirmations, prayers more like,
repeat repeat repeat
how much i love myself even
as i consume comparisons
and then calculate the calories.
“Real Flawless”
the only reason
beauty is pain is
because it tears
us in two.
Apr 4, 2025
Apr 4, 2025 at 11:49 AM UTC
Everyone has something
that makes them doublethink
when they're standing
at the railroad crossing
Jun 9, 2019
Jun 9, 2019 at 3:22 PM UTC
The pathetic get pedantic
with thoughts mostly planted
the world they misunderstand it
yet there’s still discourse demanded
so they take terminology and brand it
as whatever they need to stand fit
and begin digging us into the **** ditch
of their messy rhetorical **** sandwich.
They use the term doublethink
as a subtle wink
to how they’re dumb and stink
on a drug that sinks.
They use echo chamber
to dismiss with anger
the opinions of strangers
for perceived danger.
Anything they don’t like is virtue signaling
it’s my Aunt Gertrude’s symphony
to construe simply
the spider’s spindling.
They call others thought police
while they have a lot to preach
because they want a monopoly
over what the public got to see.
They use the term hivemind
to deny why
the other side cries
saying they want a prize
for parroting the right thing
they avoid the scorpion’s sting
by diminishing and destructing
the other’s mind as nothing.
All of these terms have their place
yet we use them to race
to arguments lacking grace
putting palm to face
to bomb the brakes
of the train that takes
us to a lane of fake
******** banter waste.
Jun 18, 2020
Jun 18, 2020 at 6:46 AM UTC
Prince of Shapes-
oh you hurtful
mystery,
living an illusion
flipped me around til my feet
were pointing up
closed off in doublethink how
on earth did I ever fall so...
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 9:20 AM UTC
I am money changing hands-
Insignificant and ubiquitous
Imbibed as oxygen
Spit out like old chewing gum
I am the tree that never grows leaves-
Alone but surrounded
Decrepit states of being
Amid tiny sparks of youth
I am a child’s heart-
Intelligent and delicate
Fathoming the depths
Of the outside world
I am detached-
Bought and sold
Young and old
A victim of doublethink
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 2:28 PM UTC
I Can Write But I Can’t Speak
I can write but I can’t speak.
It’s as if God says,
“You have a message. Write the words.
I’ll give written words a glaze,
But eloquence that can be heard’s
Off limits, for I slow you down
For honesty, integrity:
To **** the vanity you’ve sown.
I’ll make you stumble, clumsy, dumb,
Slow-thinking, witless,
Sounding somewhat girlish.
I’ve obscured your verbal self
So that you can’t impress.
I keep you in the house
So you must guess
What is and what is not success.
Left there to stammer,
Lose my language;
Syntax, grammar
In a sandwich
Of aphasic doublethink,
The phrases weak,
Technique oblique,
My karma manifestly leaking,
Left to do my dharmic seeking,
(Swim or sink)
Through scribbled, scratched and silent ink.
I Can Write But I Can’t Speak 2.11.2003
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 4:42 AM UTC
When you whisper to me
The word “forever,”
My heart melts
And still races, somehow—
Doublethink.
And I agree,
Forever sounds perfect to me.
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 6:36 AM UTC
But then again, it's hard to tell.
It might, but maybe not. Oh well.
I think it could be ... tough to say.
Just too many shades of gray
and far too much uncertainty
in any possibility
that I just don't know what to do.
I think I'll have to think it through.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 5:13 PM UTC
A wall of doublethink
denies my hands,
wrapped and bound
by wordy chains
I bend to their demands.
Look; the questions on my knuckles,
phrases down my fingers.
These second-thoughts like shining buckles,
locked tight; words left to linger.
In haunted glass I watch your decent,
unable to reach out;
wishing words could extricate,
but gagged am I by cruel doubt.
Dec 29, 2020
Dec 29, 2020 at 9:56 AM UTC
I wanted a metamorphosis
To accumulate until my meager brightness
Became supergiant
I wanted to burn brightest and biggest
Subduing galaxies with my gravity
I wanted reflections of my light
To echo through the void
I wanted to grow in blindness
Of my monstrosity until
After millions of years
I could collapse
Into the blackness of singularity
That I might wait patiently for the day
I would be scattered throughout eternity
In a moment of unfathomable
Destruction
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 9:15 AM UTC
we repeat the past
a false future forged anew
1984
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 11:21 AM UTC
Every time I push people away,
I wait for the door to rat-a-tat-tat
and revolve back into my face;
I had never considered how often I steal opportunities away from myself by running.
I run until I collapse,
and I've stolen compassion, and understanding with every half-sprint I take away from everyone that has ever cared for me,
because what do you do when they genuinely love you?
I don't know why it is so hard to believe that they could love me,
or that I am not wasting their time by asking for help,
but I know that I live in this doublethink,
where I both love myself, but no one else could possibly love me too.
Haven't you seen me like this before?
I'm on the brink of understanding
I have a difficult time loving myself in actions, just in theories in my head.
This is why I run like this,
and by constantly shielding myself from perceived danger,
I am actually blocking potential kindness too.
If I shut off the danger and the kindness, what will I have left for myself? Nothing.
I can't keep doing this,
I am going to have to let them in.
Nov 2, 2021
Nov 2, 2021 at 9:34 PM UTC
We all do it.
Videos.
Either it's massive *** organs and bad acting
to hilarious music.
Or it's baby armadillos being tickled.
For me today, it was the glossy pages
Of National Geographic
depicting beautiful, fragile ocean life.
Everything was as it should be in the tiny reserves.
Or was it? Doublethink asked.
Were there really no plastic bags floating by?
The miracle of life
Is so addictive.
But the synthetic version,
In two dimensions on your screen
Or the shiny pages of my magazine
Is no replacement
For the intimacy, reality, or
beauty
that overcomes
without filters.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 9:46 PM UTC
He rode into town like a wannabe--
The town we'll simply call D.C.--
And sat back with his feet upon the desk.
He brought his team--a ruthless bunch,
Most of whom are out to lunch
And operate in a manner quite grotesque.
Yep, a real phenomenon--
This man known as Teflon Don…
It didn't take long for him
To know he had to sink or swim
And this guy was determined not to sink.
Confuse and befuddle, he said,
And that's how he would get ahead:
By practicing the art of doublethink.
Yep, a real phenomenon--
This man known as Teflon Don…
Undo progress done before,
Defy the critics keeping score,
And do not worry if you sound uncouth.
Such was the man's M.O.
To win he knew he must let go
Of any close connection with the truth.
Yep, a real phenomenon--
This man known as Teflon Don…
Trusting not his experts here,
He let Putin have his ear,
And yet his fans never seemed to mind.
He could do no wrong, they felt.
Such is how the cards were dealt.
And how they hate it when their man's maligned!
Yep, a real phenomenon--
This man known as Teflon Don…
He can lie, cheat, and steal,
Come on strong and cop a feel,
And some say even get away with killing.
And yet his fans will all bow down
And do obeisance to their clown,
Which others find incredibly blood chilling.
Yep, a real phenomenon--
This man known as Teflon Don…
-by Bob B (2-26-19)
Feb 26, 2019
Feb 26, 2019 at 9:33 AM UTC
Dire straits necessitated
yours truly to bethink
outside the box (literally outdoors
of squarish structured nested dwelling),
where blinding albedo effect
forced me to blink,
additionally also ruffled tail feathers
of this sole surviving male bobolink
(North American songbird,
Dolichonyx oryzivorus)
pushing survival species
to extinction brink,
thus series of unfortunate events
woke resident chewink
(North American bird,
Pipilo erythrophthalmus
also called: towhee
or ground-robin),
tweeted from within
his cozy armoire *****
polar vortex froze habitat,
whereby arctic wind found
brushy areas to clink
unwittingly brambles ferocious
waving circular rotation
wrought minuscule countersink
eh, no bigger than a cufflink
his ornate bejeweled complex edifice
compliments of sizable income
allowed, enabled, and provided
opportunity in tandem
with significant other
to create acronym named ****
(dual income without kid)
acquiring handsome combined income
rendering and selling stylized goldfinch
also known as distelfink
common motif in
hex signs and fraktur,
which interpretive native folk art
eye state meaningless
without rhyme nor reason,
superfluous gibberish by George,
and/or...well... courtesy
following more purposeless gobbledygook
defying poetaster to incorporate doublethink
intelligently nsync with downlink
playfully, jauntily, and deliberately
creating confounding badinage eyewink
at thee, no doubt many
an anonymous innocent
reader calling me ratfink
under their breath or more
colorful brutal appellation
inducing cheeks of unknown followers
turning fifty plus shades of firepink
moost definitely concurring gink
perfectly apropos description
concluded individually versus
collectively, quickly, and
unanimously i.e. (think) groupthink
I approve this entire message, which
most likely tinders pet peeve,
concluding GoDaddy liberally did hoodwink.
Dec 20, 2019
Dec 20, 2019 at 7:55 PM UTC