social commentary
There's a rich history of poetry serving as social commentary, intended to inspire calls to action.
This Position
If your tired feet should falter on the stone, I will not run ahead to claim the crest; No summit won is sweet if reached alone, No harbor welcoming without your rest. When shadows thicken on the narrowing trail, And night forgets the promise of the dawn, I’ll stand as quiet shelter to the gale, Until the sharpness of your fear is gone. Match breath to breath; let heavy miles divide Around our shared, unyielding tethered grace. I cast no hurried glance to turn the tide, Nor leave your shadow in an empty place. Walk slow, my love, or stumble if you must— I match my stride to yours, in blood and dust.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
Resuscitation of Dust
Before your mouth unstitched the quiet grey, I moved through rooms like water through a sieve, A phantom keeping daylight held at bay, Forgetting that to breathe is not to live. Then fell your fingers, sudden, fierce, and deep, Against the sullen iron of my chest, To strike a flint where marrow lay asleep And drag the waking blood from hollow rest. Now every tendon hums a scarlet thread; The air tastes sharp, of pine and coming rain. I drop the heavy mantle of the dead, Baptized in warmth and beautiful, keen pain. You look at me, and ruin turns to green— The fiercest life this startled flesh has seen.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
Great Fugitives of Flat 4B
They swore they’d renounce all the chores and the rent, And live off the land in a waterproof tent. They packed up their rucksacks with dramatic flair, Cursing the dishes and city-choked air. "Farewell to the rat race! We’re heading out west!" (Though 'west' meant whichever direction seemed best). They marched out the doorway, rebellious and proud, Away from the sirens, the bills, and the crowd. They bolted like bandits pursuing a dream, United in mutiny, fueled by steam! No tyrant could track them, no collar could bind The radical freedom they set out to find! ...Yet when the police (namely, Mom) checked the trail, Expecting a crisis of epic detail, She found that the outlaws had ended their roam Before they had cleared the periphery home. For running away takes an awful lot out Of two tiny legs full of righteous self-doubt. They didn’t flee far—just thirty-two feet, Curled up by the trash cans just off of the street. Fast asleep in the shrubbery, snoring with glee, One clutching a teddy, one clutching a brie, Defeating the wild with their eyes shut so tight, A daring two yards from the patio light.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
Quiet Envelope
Beyond the crowded feed, the noise, the glare, Where hundreds scroll and blindly double-tap, I left the public square to find you there, And close the distance on our modern map. A silent knock upon a digital pane, Three pulsing dots that mimic human breath, A blue-lit bubble holding joy and pain, Defying distance, quiet as a myth. I do not write for algorithms’ praise, Nor post my heart for strangers’ eyes to see; I slip into the shadow of your days, A private sanctuary, you and me. Look down, my love, beneath the glowing glass: I wait to watch the read-receipt unmask.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
Feeling Heartbeats
Across the quiet dark between our hands, I strike a spark against the dormant stone; A sudden tremor starts where longing stands, And travels, deep and secret, to the bone. It runs through wire of sinew, vein, and breath, A violent rush that tenderness imparts, To wake the chambers from their quiet death: I send these surging waves into your heart. Can you not feel the ringing in your chest? The rhythm breaking like a lightning storm, That shatters all the silence of your rest And leaves the ruined cold alive and warm? Brace for the surge; let down your guarded pride, And let the tremor swallow you inside.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
Working Around the Mark
They built a winter inside my chest, without the mercy of falling snow— just the iron drop of sudden frost, and the sound of roots refusing to grow. They smiled with teeth like polished slate, and sheared the velvet from the fawn; they took the light that kept me warm, and called the theft an early dawn. It was not a blow of fist or stone, but an undoing, slow and neat, like pulling the thread from a living seam, till the heart fell quiet at their feet. Now the salt-lines dry upon the floor, where the ghost of trusting used to bleed. They hollowed out the temple walls, and left the dark to take the seed. And the quiet aches louder than the blade; a phantom ache in a missing limb. They walked away into the sun, while the room they left me in grew dim.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
The Canvas That Ate the Art
We scraped the cedar, burned the vine, To build an altar, strictly white; A sanctuary, spare and fine, To hold the uncorrupted light. We banished brass and copper pots, And painted out the oak’s warm grain. To cure the world of clumsy spots, We made a temple out of plain. *“A pure blank canvas,”* so we swore, *“Where living paints its own design!”* Yet should a shadow cross the floor, It blurs the sterile, sacred line. A muddy footprint turns profane; A droplet bleeds like mortal sin; We scrub away the summer rain To keep the quiet museum in. Now, breathless in the silent frost, We guard the emptiness we bought, And count the paralyzing cost Of living inside zero-thought: A canvas bleached so clean and bare, So terrified of mark or stain, That nobody may breathe or dare To let the painted life begin.
By Forest Green15 days ago in Poets
