We walk down lines drawn
By others long dead,
Straight jacketed in abject morality.
We tread carefully on the path
Of right,
Ignoring red the faced sins
That clutch our ankles.
We long to please, to adhere
To virtues we are told we ought to posses.
We eat up their doctrines, their incantations
Of what is ‘proper’,
As if we were still living in the Dark Ages.
What rigidity!
How placidly we follow!
Oh, break free,
Cast off the metallic shackles which bind us
To the heavy rules and regulations
We’ve been conditioned to obey.
Deny, for once, the words of strict parents,
The advice of well-to-do teachers,
The empty, rehearsed words of priests,
Reading from books written by dead men
To keep you in your place.
Throw away their slogans and pomp,
Disgrace yourself to ‘decent’ society,
And just do what you want.
When a little voice whispers in your ear
That it might be fun to break away,
And do this or that,
They call it the devil.
By any name, whether you recognise it
As the spark inside you that cannot be snuffed,
Or the red horned beast who nudges you towards your own indulgence,
It is not always wise to ignore it.
It can be good, so good,
So sweet to do what, deep down, you've always wanted.
Do
Whatever
The hell
You like.
Go for it, with an unstoppable force, do it,
Go deep down into sticky sins and feel
Alive and incorrigible and determined;
Turn your face on those who shake their heads
Exclaiming sadly that you’re not what they expected.
Do not conform
To archaic ideas
Of how you should act.
Make your own
Godamn rules!
If something feels good then try it, at least once,
Realise on your own what is right and wrong,
Make your own definitions
For those silly out-dated words.
Do things not recommended, for a change,
Discover that they are not as evil as you’ve been told.
Find out independently what does and does not
Repel you, excite you, and motivate you.
Revel and marvel,
That what they spoon feed you isn’t always
Exactly the way it works,
Break free of the oppressive mould
You’ve been fashioned into since birth.
When indulgent impulse
Tugs on your sleeve,
Put it on your tongue and let it dissolve
Like a lovely candy,
And decide yourself what to do,
Without the constraints of the 'rational' and the 'pure'
Weighing you down.
Author notes
Quote Prompt: 'The devil's voice is sweet to hear' Stephen King.
I never get why people follow so blindly what they've been told to do.
Why not obey YOURSELF?
Just because someone tells you something is wrong, does it make it so? And even if it is, is it not fun to do anyway?
When I mention the devil in this poem, its really more to do with how people blame the devil for our own 'wicked' impulses, rather than blame ourselves. They are afraid you might actually start to listen to your inner voice.
Listen to your devil, if you must call it that.
Sometimes, as King says, it's sweet. It wants you to break free it wants you to do what you secretly want to do, even though you've been told its naughty.
For me, giving into some of my indulgences is one of the most fun things to do in my life. If I wasnt true to my own pleasures I'd be a fake.
I make my own wrong and right.
There are of course some things that are, to me, not good to do. Obvious ones, like rape, murder, child molestation. There are laws against those sort of things for a reason. But i've made that decision for myself. I see the anger, pain, grief and insanity that those kinds of violations cause and I can see no right in it.
But there are many things that some people frown upon that I do enjoy and want to do and screw anyone who doesn't agree.
Live your own life. Know your own boundaries. Don't accept the straight-forward virtues, morals, rights and wrongs that people tell you from when you start to grow up. MAKE YOUR OWN.
This isn't an anti-religious poem, but I do think that some religious figures put too much pressure on people to live a certain way, and that a lot of people do blindly take authority from the church and other dogmas instead of creating their own.
ANYWAY...lol. I hope this fits with the contest. I happen to be somewhat anti-authority and very into doing my own thing. The quote made me think of the things deep down we find sweet to hear, but fear doing out of restraint.
A contest entry
- Dark, Light, and In Between by Wandering Woodchuck.
550 points, ended August 9, 2008, 17 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Tell me what you think.
Comments
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inspiring
i adore it! i'm glad you enjoyed suffocation.liberation. definatley the first half really has me relating. no more sheep no more complacency no more programming. i dig anything on that level:
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I detect a fierce streak of independence and adventure. I like your take on the quote. I think that you have to live with the consequences of your actions and some people may hold eccentricities against you, but if you can live with that and don't need to be part of the herd, I say go for it.
Mike
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