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“A Plague on Both Your Houses” . . . and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me’.”
Philip K. Dick

[Loneliness is your only friend]

In the face of algorithms, surveillance capitalism,
Political hacking, be in the world, not of it, the plague
Of lies and distortions, amoral predict-and-control,
Trust you to be the Truth and the Mercy, you are
The lived ethic  . . .
Jamie Dedes

Here we are at our first Tuesday in 2020 with responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, The Plague, January 7, which asked poets to write about living in a hacked world that is driving our consumption one our politics and policies

Today’s thoughtful collection is collection is courtesy of  Anjum Wasim Dar, Irma Do, Kakali Das Ghosh, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Mike Stone, and Clarissa Simmens.

Enjoy! and do join us for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt, which will post tomorrow morning. All are welcome to come out and play, beginning poets, emerging and pro.

E- Plague Massacre

No hack ride nor tool
a horse would pass through rush hour
masked rider, no fool.

No Pied Piper to kill
wired theft e-connect exposed
bankrupt, ethics raped.

hotmail then Yahoo
info data all gone, lost
paper pen, safer?

No! Black or White Hat
safe, not kidnapped to Kenya
e-mail hit by hack,

This plague will not die
communications may fly
mouse lives in wi-fi

© 2020, Anjum Wasim Dar

Anjum-ji’s sites are:

“POETRY PEACE and REFORM Go Together -Let Us All Strive for PEACE on EARTH for ALL -Let Us Make a Better World -WRITE To Make PEACE PREVAIL.” Anjum Wasim Dar

Liar, Liar

Cough, cough, ahem,
Excuse me,
You’re on fire
Yes, you, holding the cell phone
And scrolling
Scrolling
Is it Facebook? Instagram?
Twitter? Tiktok?
Or maybe just the news?
Oh, you don’t notice the smell?
The smoke coming from your pants?
Those pants twisted from all the gymnastics you do –
Well, not actual gymnastics
But the mental gymnastics you do
So you can sleep at night
Oh wait, that’s right
You don’t sleep
You’re scrolling
At 2 AM
Your body, your mind
Your life
Hacked
Into believing
You’re the only one entitled to the American Dream

© 2020, Irma Do

©️2019, Irma Do (I Do Run, And I do a few other things too …)

Light in the darkness

A hot smoke is emitting from our land
Smoke of the volcano is terrible – its natural
But fumes of pseudo politics-jelousy and diplomacy is more deadly
The sun in the sky is the source of energy
But today we need a sun on the ground
A real politician
A true leader
Who can shine light in the darkness of despair
He may the one who can bring a strong cool shower on the hot smoke
From the wound of earthly heart .

© 2020, Kakali Das Ghosh

:: hack ::

although

twitter account,

hotmail hacked,

hacked me off,

will continue to write

low-quality, quickly

put-together articles,

hack llanelltyd

© 2020, Sonja Benskin Mesher

Sonja’s sites are:

The Good Old Days

A dry wind rushes the fallen leaves along
Like a desiccated school marm hurrying
Her children in from recess or maybe
A frightened father calling his kids to the shelter
During the insane oscillations of the incoming sirens:
Choose your metaphor based on where you live,
And I think about our politicians calling us
To return to the good old days
When people were nicer
When they listened to each other before talking
When they all knew what was right
And it was pretty much the same for all folks
But nobody tells them how to return,
That to return to those good old days
You have to be those good old people
Instead of what you’ve somehow become
Today.

© 2020, Mike Stone, Raanana Israel

Find more of Mike’s poetry at his website HERE. His Amazon page is  HERE.

A Plague on Both Your Houses!

*Mercutio, “Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare

Email bloated with accusing words
My own house, party,
Insisting on money
Issues like wet tissues
Disintegrating like my love of democracy
The issue is money to win
Worse, the other house
Opposing party
Tweets full of hatred
From a man I do not follow
Yet due to dictatorial rules
He raids my daily reading
With pictures and vitriol
Bacterial words of disease
Slamming the republic
Mocking my once-great land

I will vote
I will vote my house
Though plagued
Yet there is still a chance
For healing
Despite the unfeeling
Of those we put in power…

“We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look – what’s going down?”**

**Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth“

© 2020, Clarissa Simmens

Find Clarissa on her Amazon’s Author Page, on her blog, and on Facebook HERE;

Poetry Rocks the World!

Jamie Dedes. About /Testimonials / Disclosure / Facebook / Medium / Ko-fi

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