Personal principles are praised, but instead
Public Opinion is too easily led.
The muddy brained People must beg for its bread
bewildered by twenty-six cynics of lead.
They’re so artificial, those bland bywords bred,
representing love signals through colour code thread.
Cold copy-writers our custom importune
composing cant catchwords to cull off our fortune.
Publicity [p]reaches wherever we tread,
an encroaching octopus tentacles spread,
pours bland inky blessings on all but the dead.
Standardization with all pretence shed
industry offers fat profits ahead, -
as promise of status stands sales in good stead.
Cold creams and cosmetics, shampoos for the hair,
stimulants and sedatives, to each his share,
need needs be invented to spare us from care ?
The sales pitch embraces those parts of the nation
accounting for most of mankind’s consumation
according to up-to-date sales’ information
from market research data based computation, -
women, the workers, the young generation.
(Commitments increase as old scruples are shed !)
Spring water purchased in neat plastic bottle,
sports car equipped with an elegant throttle,
all must be sold, unemployment to throttle.
(With credit all waiting from wanting is fled !)
For the recession, combined with inflation,
threatens the structures of civilisation;
savings must shrink or we’ll face confrontation
from all who would otherwise lack occupation.
New goods and services are stimulation.
Odd sorts, shapes and sizes, confuse, so its rare
that housewives, though willing, can truly compare;
that package costs more than the product’s unfair !
With prosperous public to politics wed,
privacy’s threatened, taps can’t be gainsaid.
Consumer protection is often misled
by headlines enticing and small print widespread.
Set in strip lighting, or spoken, or read,
through radio, T.V., broadcasted in bed.
Nor ever has Internet, spammed, been immune,
text message records, repeats, slick slogan, tune.
Printed in polychrome over our head, -
in so many senses, for senseless fathead, -
over the airwaves judiciously spread
from high ultra-violet to low infra-red,
pasted on posters in blue, black, or red,
advertisement squares all our savings have bled !
Author notes
twenty-six cynics of lead... Letters of the alphabet
note William Caxton motto (The first British Printer)
"Through twenty-six soldiers of lead
I will conquer the world"
In a list
Courtesy welcome and extended [Reward: double points]
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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Unique
Now this is a poem people can actually say tells the truth. Corporations will do anything to sell a product even if it means color coding the product so we will buy it. Electrical and electronic companies are the worse, and many times their products have to be returned 2 or 3 times before you get one that works like it is advertised to work.
When I was in broadcasting school, my professor told us "Before we start, I just want you to know that the ads you see on T.V., and hear on the radio, or see in magazines or the paper, are geared to the 14 year old mind. That's why they are so silly to adults, and made the way they are. If the child likes it, the parents are apt to buy." That was in 1977. Today probably, these ads are geared to the 10 year old mind.
This is very well penned and thought out. The rhyme scheme is very good, and the images of the products are colorful and vivid. This poem also reads very smoothly too, and makes the reader sigh that this is exactly what the advertising industry is all about.
Thank you for sharing.
Barbara
. Rewarded 8
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woooooooooooooooooow this poem is very true! i think all that you have wrote is true becuase people do try to persuade you into doing something they also do make them interesting so you will buy them like it says in stanza 6.well keep up the good work because you are a very talented writer!sincerely,
yasmin -
Good
Not really my cup of tea though -
Intriguing....
especially from my perspective as I am a marketing/advertising major.
No offense taken, by the way.
I know there is an ugly side to the business I am enlisting myself in. I will be perfectly honest and tell you up front that yes, I'm in it for the money... but I'm also in it for the opportunity to use my creativity in my job.
With all that said, I think you have not only a brilliant poem here, but also a gem of a commentary on modern society.
I loved your use of alliteration and assonance throughout the piece, your sporadic rhyme scheme, and most of all, your wonderful diction.
You have an incredible taste for words, as well as a talent for knowing just where to place them.
Incredible!
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Rhyme schemes and Timed schemes
With respect, there is nothing sporadic in the rhyme scheme - one suggests that you reread by stanza below.
AAAAAA BB AAAAAA
CCC
DDDDD
EEE
DDDDD
CCC
AAAAAA BB AAAAAA
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This is so true of the world of advertising. The commercialisation of everything is rarely thought of by the masses. You sold me on being negative towards the culture of credit and wanting things we do not need. Well done and good luck in the contest.
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Outstanding
This poem is very contemporary, throwing light on a variety of things that influence everyday life. It shows the modern world of advertising that has increasingly changed the way we live. I thought this poem was well-written and articulate. Best of luck in the contest.
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lol maybe Caxton has a lot to answer for. Still, if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else. There is so much truth in this poem and the lines that really strike me are "Consumer protection is often misled / by headlines enticing and small print widespread" because these two things appear so frequently supposedly to protect us, yet we take so little notice of them. This poem also holds a more personal connotation for me in the first stanza. An excellent write my friend
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This is an AWESOME write. So wonderfully penned. Thank you!
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