Shadows and Forms

Author’s note: From the archives. This poem is an exercise in questioning rather than answering.

If shadows could make forms
and forms could make shadows,
would we see what is visible
in a world where truth is convoluted
into a material lie?

The packet rules the mind—
what matters if your pocket
is full of gold, and you get heart shaped likes?

How does justice and virtue exist
in a world full of greed?
Greed for gold,
Greed for likes,
Greed for lust,
Greed for ease.
If I’m at ease, it makes no odds if
bodies pile in war torn countries.

Doom scroll and distract,
listen to strangers advise you
to manifest the perfect life.
Fill their bank,
whilst others suffer quietly.

Who pays the price?
You and I?
Humanity is in turmoil.
What would the Gods say
to politicians who turn a blind eye
to climate change,
or to the inventors of AI?

Shall we seek a lie
to appease our gluttony?
Or tell ourselves reality is
an illusion of the abstract mind?
That we create our own reality?

Or take responsibility for the part we play?

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Thank you for reading.