Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Paul Butters Feb 2016
So you would conquer the world.
Do what Napoleon and ****** tried to do.
Take all our lands
And submit them to your Law.

But can’t you see?
You’ll never win their hearts.
Some will passively resist you,
Whatever that is.
And others will welcome you with open arms
Whilst waiting for the chance to strike.

Worse still
Your very own “folk”
Will grow green with envy
And plot and scheme
To bring you down.

The higher you get
The nearer that precipice you creep
And the greater your fall.

The bigger you are
The easier target you become.

Paranoia will annoy you,
But traitors will do worse.

Take my advice, my friend
And stay within your patch.
Have no “retreats from Moscow”
On your CV.
Better to win hearts and minds
By making sure
That you are truly Good.

Paul Butters
Addressed to anyone of the conquering persuasion! Was going to call this "Passive Resistance" but went on a different slant...
IsReaL E Summers Dec 2015
Soliloquys of repitoires
He pulls out the demon-arm
To see if harm
Feels better than being alone.
His hearts at "home..."
He roams...
To feed...
Lion.
Poet.
Warrior.
We...
He has needs.
Nothing & everything... all at once.
Austin Heath Nov 2015
To call this madness is no longer indignant,
nor would it be a cliche to call me;
Insane, mad, crazy, or wild.

I pilot a nightmare
at the speed of homicide
into the jaws of hell,
the heart of a storm.

My friends are jackals and demons,
With eyes glassy and trapped open.
Heartless as myself.
Howling vulgarities into the apocalypse,
laughing as they bleed
From the mouth.

With death as our bride, and
standing elbow to elbow with legends,
we bear gifts of iron and fire.
We scream into the sunset,
And we are immortal forever,
Even if we die every day.

Remember me this way,
as immortal forever,
Even if I don't see tomorrow,
For I am no longer
Flesh & bone
Steel & fire.

I am a legend.

With love,
Yellowjacket
Robert C Howard Aug 2013
Jacques and Emile's veins
pounded in their skulls
as they scrambled down the ladder
and through the labyrinth of sewers
to rejoin their fellow assassins
beneath the Parisian thoroughfares.

They'd tracked the **** Captain's moves
for past a week and knew precisely
what he drank and where he ******.
They were ready when he
Stumbled down the brothel stairs.

When Jacques stepped left for a clearer shot
he found a bucket with his foot.

The German wheeled and spotted them -
raising his whistle to his mouth,
but before he had a chance to blow,
A silent report from Emile's rifle
crashed into his trachea
And he crumpled like a rag.

Back in the tunnels
Jacques bragged like a circus barker,
"You should have seen the look on
Gerry's face before we brought him down."

Emile had seen his face alright,
but thought only of the whistle
that would have doomed them all.

What do you when the world goes mad
and **** tanks roll into the Champs Élysées?
Who do you **** and why and how?

Jacques was sound asleep
and deaf to his comrades' whispers -
pondering what to do and when.

The decision came quickly and a
different sort of mission was planned
and Emile selected to execute it.

What do you do when the world goes mad?

*August, 2013
The outline of this story is true but the names and exact circumstances are fiction. A violinist I knew was about to enter the Paris Conservatory when the tanks came and he joined the French Underground instead.  The Liberation of Paris was planned in support of the amazing courage and effectiveness of the French Underground.
Brent Kincaid Nov 2015
(I’m) talking about
Freedom!
Peace and liberty
A land of
Freedom!
Love and equality
Freedom!
Is what we need to see!

Maya Angelou said it
So, it has to be
The caged bird sings
But it is not free.
Pretending for money
Won’t make it be.
There is no substitute
For being free.

Freedom for you
Freedom for me
Freedom!
For every ethnicity!
Freedom!
For both gay and straight
Freedom!
For all, we can’t wait.

Always there are thieves
Who would steal your rights.
They exist on the left
And they exist on the right.
They get paid to rob you
And never let you be
If you aren’t vigilant
You’re never really free.

Freedom!
Before someone kills it.
Freedom!
Because the country wills it!
Freedom!
Saw The Liberty Bell crack.
Freedom!
It’s yours if you take it back.

Democracy is a concept
And we have to protect it.
Money-making crooks
Will try to make you reject it.
They tell you everything
Will end up just fine
Because freedom cuts in
To their bottom profit line.

(I’m) talking about
Freedom!
Peace and liberty
A land of
Freedom!
Love and equality
Freedom!
Is what we need to see!
Sinai Nov 2015
The rainforest is calling
But not as loud as my guardian
You don't have to take the hard way everytime she said
I could hardly believe her

Believe me when I say
How I want nothing more than
To walk the road of least resistance
All the way back to you
Free of everything I feel I have to prove
Liberated from the weight of pride

But I was never made for that
I don't know how to do easy
So I'm gonna pack my back
Tie my shoes
And I'm gonna carry your memory
All the way to that ******* forest
Brent Kincaid Oct 2015
I’m not going crazy.
I’m not being lazy.
Please don’t be a grouch
If I want to lie on the couch
And do nothing much today.
Believe me when I say
It’s not what you think
It’s not from drugs or drink.
It’s not a neurosis
It’s Multiple Sclerosis.

I may seem to stagger
I can no longer swagger.
So, understand this please
I can’t command my knees.
I’m fighting back day and night
And I won’t give up the fight.
What looks like one thing
Can be a much worse thing.
It’s not a neurosis
It’s Multiple Sclerosis.

Life is so full of challenges.
The list of what the damage is
Sometimes seems to outweigh
The cost of living life today.
But, I will not ever surrender.
I must be my best defender
As nobody pays my body bill.
I fight despair and always will.
It’s not a neurosis
It’s Multiple Sclerosis.
(This is in honor of my friend Annie
and all the other sufferers from
this crippling disease.)
I was born to make a difference
Not to stay stagnant in the indifference
That is the default.
I never saw the point of being the basic
I'm just basic on the essential things
But when it comes for the rest
I'm very advanced
I will make sure the ones repressed will be at a freelance.
Hold your rifles diligently, i'm not calling to arms
Unless their only option is complete harm
We carry our hearts before the onslaught,
For their traps to be caught
Failing in the midst of revival.
The resistance is the greatest outcome humanity can ever create.
Evie Hammond Aug 2015
Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.

And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression.

And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.

Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
From V for Vendetta. A remarkable tale filled with beautiful words.
¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯
. . . of incantations in                        
cantankerous philosophy!                
Of these lying liabilities,                    
   what startling objection, so accosting,
has exhausted me? More so than    
named quite unfortunate atrocity!  
Shall hordes of thought be accursed
by degrees of displeasing hostility  
such that satiated curiosity                
be evermore abashed in me?            

                    “. . . but I have admonished thee,”
                                                            said­ he,

this subtle, blackened tenant            
with a tin man's tonality.                  
This paper drum that bends to sing
does beg of him the courtesy;          
yet, acrid rhetoric singes the hair    
with unfavorable flintlock fidelity.
His evasive guarantee then              
upends the pores relentlessly.        

“These words will compel a poor
                    foresight to bleed in the fray
          as cascading tears cast their weight
                              upon cheek in dismay . . .”


. . . to quash the cypress toxin          
of a caustic potpourri—                    
a dissembling toupee                        
to one's balding reality.                    
O lasting opacity                                
of such poignant translucency,        
this flagrant serendipity,                  
once spawned, must always be?    
Possibly; though, I cannot count    
how many sets see dawns at sea.    

                    “. . . but I have astonished thee,”
            said he

through this Möbius rebuttal          
like some soap on TV,                      
though, it’s ne'er some rerun          
what’s cliché wants creativity.        
The veiling lee of his lofty marquee
     beclouds that one pyrrhic mystery—
that now-clandestine oblation        
of one bless'ed unanimity.              

“Akin to a twin whose soul’s
                    one sin was mine to portray.
          ‘I’ll pay ne’er a thought!’
                              curs’ed common naïveté . . .”


. . . and yet, that's cause to bend    
reverent knee, not to thee,              
but to that which mine                    
eye's sole endeavor is to see.          
“So, leave me be!”                            
I lament, ostensibly,                        
“Lest that passage fall paved          
by none other than me.”                
Perhaps the Second World war    
is just my cup of tea.                      

                    “. . . or perhaps this darkness is me,”
said he


∘ ⊱‧⌍  ⌈✞⌋  ⌌‧⊰ ∞
﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋﹋
Next page