Thursday, December 30, 2021

A Child's Garden of Worse(s) - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Child’s Garden of Worse(s)

 

Some poets wrote verses which were not meant to charm the reader

but to get them a Stalin prize.

 

Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, 1963

 

The children who are permitted to live

Are not permitted to read what they want

When they ask for adventures our censors give

Ideology, instead of a jaunt

 

The children who are not submissive to the code

Not following this week’s fashions in science

Or who presume to kick against the goad

Will be inclusively loved into compliance

 

And from the Hippocrene a taste, a drink?

Oh, no! Children are now forbidden to dream or think

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