It is one thing to advocate for equality, representation, and unity.
Indeed, each is an inalienable, fundamental right.
But it is a whole new beast to lay waste
to anything that frightens you or that challenges your beliefs,
or that simply does not mirror your very own ideologies.
How heavy the hand of tyranny that now lays across our mouths,
yet how light our opposition.
Though I do acknowledge the delicacy of the issue at hand,
the fragility of the minds of hysterical mobs
who resolve to smashing windows in blind anger,
who ***** out free thought in daft castigation,
or who ban books even, it seems, like those monsters of history
to which they declare themselves to be diametrically opposed-
even in light of that, it is no excuse
to remain subservient to senseless autocrats
and the absurd legislations they bludgeon us with near daily.
To do this – to do nothing - is to lay down and die
without dignity, spineless and shameful,
though it seems that only myself and a handful of others
can recognize this.  Indeed, how easy it is to glimpse from the fringes.
I, a man of only twenty-seven years, do not recognize you, America.
I long for the days of comfort (so far removed from them, I am)
when I could safely retreat into the lofty and quiet halls of my mind
to enjoy a self-assuring thought that only I created -
a thought with no real purpose but to occupy me for a time,
to entertain me in my moments of dull apathy.
Now I shudder in a cold and contrived prison of vetted words
and unnegotiated mandates where I am told
to wrap myself in our flag to keep warm, to feel safe,
that this is for my own good.
I do not recognize you, America, for this thing you have become.

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                     Citizen Potato Head is a Class Enemy

         “A mister no more: Mr. Potato Head goes gender neutral”

              -Mr. Potato Head receives gender neutral name,
                                drops title (usatoday.com)

“Mr.” indeed! No, no, Citizen Potato Head!
Bourgeois titles are forbidden by law
As are toys lacking in social realism
Clearly you are no good Comrade of ours

Lower your eyes in shame, Citizen Potato Head!
Your periderm, your lenticels, your pith
Your reactionary apical buds and lenticles
Your counter-revolutionary vascular ring

Your heteronormative attitude -
All condemn you – and there can be no a-peel!

Panic
Run down the masses, burn all the books
The rumor reigns
Stagnant
Psychic visions with spitting mouths and chained hands
Take their brains away

Monster
Defend it for pity of ugly
Evil with no shame
Fight fair
Hands up, lock eyes with a warrior of God
Shoot him in the back

Whisper
Truth to your heart, shared only sparing
Behind locked doors
Belief
Like the patron saint of ignorance
Justify your way

Hearsay
A circumstantial execution
Of virtue scorned
Heresy
Of one's who'd burn a world rather than bow a head
Deny imperfection

An odyssey of truth
across the seven seas.
An adventure of a lifetime,
take my hand and come with me!

I have a ship named Censor,
I'll navigate her wheel.
I'm the Captain of her anchor,
the master of ideas.

Perception is her mascot,
conscience is her sail.
A religion navigates
a balance on the scale.

Her starboard gravity
will tell you what to know.
Her mesmorizing port
will show you where to go.

They both conceal the waves
to capsize our ideas.
An agenda of our thought
to break a bending will.

The truth is just a scratch,
upon her glossy surface.
Concealing all the bias
will always serve a purpose.

Censorship is analagous to wife-beating.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

TikTok comps
Russian bots
Makeup tutorials
"I'm not like other girls"

Trolls and incels
BuzzFeed articles
Gay fan fiction
Many a pun

Demonetization
Censorship
People hiring hitmen
Buy some hair clips

Twitter ramblings
Anti-vaxxers
Flat earthers
And a partridge in a pear tree

Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
Come sterilize history with me.
We'll whitewash every smudge
until its sparkles and shines,
like fool's gold.

Rich only in our own
limited heads,
we'll believe in
addition by subtraction.
Only this isn't math, it's life.

'Those who do not learn history
are doomed to repeat it.'

Keep me from public
Cover my face
Hide my words
Remove from the world
What little I left.

Scrub away the remains
And let me fade
into obscurity.

a state of standstill is a state of decline
an excess of sediment, an ineffective wine

i only hear that defining moment of time
in the less and less frequent creaking of the keys
the same old letters sadly clack

but can't ever get it back
heart's not in it
can't stay ******
overreactions come to attack

an embarrassing pervert that you already *****
every hour since a desperate hour
wolf crying wolf every five seconds
where the collective cower

****** is always his death name
dont wear it out
wear it where the collective cower

every hour since a desperate hour
hands in the pockets
of that dress with pockets

calling out his death name
when the coming time comes

wolf hands caught in the pockets
of that dress with the pockets

Goverments, royalty and big corporations,
Slowly over taking every nation,
Poison in the water,
Poison in the food,
It is no wonder we wake in a foul mood.
Follow us blindly like good little sheep, we still your freedoms while you flutter and sleep,
Do not question, only repeat,
Follow our orders and gain our ****,
**** away blindly you silly little fools, you will not see us bend the nations rules.
This is our little bubble that you will not burst,
It is your freedoms that we thirst!