Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Poem: "(Un)Truths"

This poem came out of the April 7, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from Shirley Barrette. It also fills the "Reality Is Illusion" square in my 3-16-15 card for the [community profile] genprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette.


"(Un)Truths"


It began with

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

and grew into a movement
that extends beyond fiction into fact.

Doublespeak is the matter-antimatter collision
of thought in which opposing ideas
react to obliterate logic.

It defines a world in which

Hate is love
Hope is despair
Reality is illusion

so that truths and untruths swirl
together and all things are subject to
interpretation, reinterpretation, subjugation.

It is a ship of fools ultimately destined
to runaground on one inescapable rock:

facts do not cease to be true just
because someone is refusing
to acknowledge their truth,

and reality is what remains
even if you disbelieve it.

* * *

Notes:

The three italicized lines come from the novel 1984.  The term doublespeak also derives from there, via the word doublethink used in the novel.

Tags: cyberfunded creativity, fishbowl, linguistics, poem, poetry, politics, reading, weblit, writing
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  • 2 comments
siege

siege

April 13 2015, 01:10:41 UTC 6 years ago

Denial results in madness, and madness is something different from insanity: for insanity is not necessarily curable. All the mad need to to lift their madness is turn to acceptance of the truths they deny.

And yet, because much of that denial is foundational to them -- factless Truths which they insist on because of tradition or logic based in rhetoric and false information -- the madness persists.
ysabetwordsmith

Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

April 13 2015, 01:25:22 UTC 6 years ago

That is a fascinating way of looking at it.

Much madness results from it being perceived as preferable to dealing with intolerable truths.