Nature’s prime directive is to fit in
Blend, then the picked-off one may not be you.
Sacrifice those different again; again,
Save the many is society’s glue.
Easy to spot those who will not conform,
With their outrageous dress, their walk, their speech
Hunted prey, a chosen role they perform,
No need to pity that tormented screech.
Eyes with far-sight see too much that’s hidden.
Write for the congenital myopic.
Education limit, best forbidden,
Questions arise; dissimulate the topic.
All will be well when all is forgotten,
Then together we shall all hit bottom.
Author notes
When I first read 1984, it was 20 years in the furture. Things change, 24 years later we have new targets for our fear.
A contest entry
- 1984 by LittleAnn.
600 points, ended September 25, 2008, 14 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - The Sonnet Experiment by ArchOblivion.
1100 points, ended October 2, 2008, 16 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
I love constructive critism, please indulge.
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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Amazing, it successfully riled me up as I love to hear peoples views on our every .... insane world. You know I found it almost ironic that nonconformity can come in a set form of poetry and that makes it all the more spectacular. I feel like I should write the president....Anyway great write! Thank you so much for your entry and good luck!
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Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I wouldn't bother with the president, I think it would go right over his ever so high head, small minded as it is.
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I actually read 1984 in 1984 & saw the eponymous film in the same year. I was still at school & didn't know what all the fuss was about really. They say if Orwell had waited another year to publish it would have been called 1994! I like this sonnet. I would like to use it for my next column as I think it has a great contemporary paranoid feel.
I'm still scared of wasps.
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It seems to me that one of those old Greek platwrights worte something about wasps. They are clearly a plague on mankind, sent to torment us for sins against the Gods. I suppose we've really blown it lately, even the honey bees
have become killers.
Okey-dokey; that's idiomatic Americian for your welcome to do as you wish with that poem. I'm honored. In the sixties we thought 1984 was about Stalin and the REDS. It wasn't until 2004 we found it was about ourselves. If our corruption isn't curtailed soon you Brits will have the last laugh on us, for a while. Are you going to write about paranoia in the Amecician context of just in general? -
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I thought Aristophanes' play Wasps was about the propensity for litigation in Athens (no change with solicitors there then)!
Maybe wasps are just misunderstood. Anyway, the little blighters have all gone to Spain now September has come (Well I assume they all go to Spain, that's what most Brits who hate the cold do, although I can't see the attraction of a country where you can't drink the tapwater & whose population is more arrogant than even the Austrians are to foreigners).
Aristophanes also gives us the term 'cloud cuckoo land', by which I assume he was referring to the House of Commons LMAO!
I actually wasn't going to write about paranoia at all, I just wanted a variety of sonnets from AP members to show that it can be quite a varied form in both type & subject matter.
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You have every right to be frightened of the wasps.
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