Gagging Order [new poem]

I’VE BEEN GETTING REACTIONS in messages from many who seem to want to shut me up. Nothing new there. 😄 So here’s my response to them in a poem. (HINT: You have to read it to the end to get it properly, as the first two-thirds involves a kind of ‘dramatic irony’!). Normally, all my poems go on my other site for poems and music ( https://thenakedtroubadour.com ), but this one seems relevant to my work here as that is what some folks are trying to shut me up about. So here’s the message… read on…

A hand is firmly clamped upon this mouth.
From now on everything’s an overshare!
I’ll say no more about the undeclared
directions of this world or its controversies
which swirl and curl themselves like snakes
round every lighthouse groping soul
which lives the not-for-selfsome role.
I think from hence, from this time forth,
I’ll stick to posting images of cats
and little dogs which look like rats
or coffee draped in foam shaped like a heart
or duck-face fotos taken of my mates and me
while cruising at some party taking ecstasy,
or maybe of my hero dad on Fathers’ Day
(guaranteed to wring some tears along the way)
or maybe I’ll announce a life event
for instance me linked to some hapless chick
“in a relationship” 🤣 displayed upon my page
with pride (who cares if one month later
that “relationship” will quietly have died!)
or exhibit endless “selfies” from a lousy cam
— all of which will look almost the same
and never show you who or what I really am.
On some of these I’ll stick my tongue out
with a gargoyle grimace of the damned
or pretend to be some metalhead
or member of an ancient band
like Ozzie or that bloke from Kiss
the first and little pinkies raised on both my fists
a gothic mortal risen from some strange abyss
tattooed with my muthas face and monograms.
(Altho I’ll never let you see my belly or my ass
as both would witness all my bonus kilograms).
I’ll only proffer pictures taken aeons ago
before the years played havoc with my status quo.
In short, I promise not to make you feel uneasy
troubled or distressed and from now on
there’ll be no more controversial views expressed
or any nasty thing which might make you depressed
or melt your snowflake heart into your dirt.
Instead I guarantee to make you blessed
with pics that I have gathered from the net
depicting angels or some mythic creatures
haunting worlds you’ve never seen —
there’ll be so many that you’ll be hard pressed
to find a single one of me among
these captured shots from other galaxies!
Perhaps I’ll witter on about how energised
my chakras are or how enlightened I’ve become
attaining higher consciousness
and making loads of dough
through running spirit aura workshops
(funny how some people always have to crow
about their mastery of inner Qi
and other unsubstantiated energies 😉).
Furthermore, I’ll make sure only positive
and happy stuff comes from this pen.
My head I’ll bury in the sand and never take a stand
on any truthful human principle again.
No more will feeling poems flow onto this profile
from my heart. From now on, I’m a fartist and
my artistry has died along with my integrity —
the greenery has dried, conscience seared in pride,
lively vigorous debate I now declare has putrified.
Will you now finally be undisturbed and satisfied?

I’m sure U would. But so U know, I tell U here & now,
it’s only in your dreams that I could just submit
my heart and soul and mind to your rapacious needs
such as I laid out up above (the very thought blunts
arrows made of love and makes my spirit bleed).
I have responsibility that’s not to you, for every day
when I awake, I ask my Master, “Where, O precious
Lord, am I to plant those seeds You gave me in a sack
& all the rest You give (for there is nothing that I lack)”.
And then I sow them where I’m told; it’s all for free.
Sometimes, I’m planting just for me so I can see a tree
and copy how it grows — first buds, then leaves
and then much fruit will come which overflows.
You think if you can stop some words from being said
then you’ll have made that subject as if dead?
But truth is like the water in a kettle fully boiled,
in that if you try to stop the steam it will explode
into your face — your little plans then will be spoiled.
Instead of running from what wrecks your fantasies,
just feed your mind and then from truth never recoil.

And so, my frightened friends, if you are triggered
by my fruitly stream of spiel, then please know this:
There’s nothing in my heart I can in truth conceal.
In trying to force me to encase it all behind a dam,
& make myself far less than who in truth I really am,
you’re only proving you love ignorance and fear.
The bottom line: You’ll never ever gag this mutineer.

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© 2021, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. 
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]