Saturday, May 9, 2020

The Unwilling Suspension of Belief - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


The Unwilling Suspension of Belief

Prelates, preachers, premiers, princes, and presidents
Now publish proclamations at the speed of lies
And just as rapidly retract them again
Regretting only their subjects’ lack of wit:

Obey The Science, whatever it is today
For it will be something else tomorrow
And so we need not fear our punishments
For the mistakes that our leaders never made

But, shhhhhhhhhhh…

If everything they teach is proven to be bluff
Then we must be the truth –
                                                and we are enough


The reader will remember the concept of willing suspension of disbelief from drama, such as when the Prologue in Henry V urges the audience to imagine the “The vasty fields of France… / Within this wooden O...”

2 comments:

W.k.kortas said...

Belief is perhaps mankind's greatest gift, and likely his most baleful curse.

Lawrence Hall, HSG said...

Yes.

All the institutions, secular and divine, that I trusted for so long have demonstrated that they are unworthy of trust.

In living memory presidents invited poets and concert pianists for evenings at the White House; now there are but unlettered barbarians and finger-food.