Rant Poem-In The Time of Kali -Yugu

Author, Tess Somerwell, earlier this month, wrote in an article for Psyche Magazine-  ''Long poems might actually be the perfect form for the present: they can represent the sheer unmanageable scale, the vast and messy confusion, the epic ambivalence, of these times.'

John Keats, viewed  a long poem as a space to wander. He felt it was a space you could return to in your memory, or in a rereading. He believed a long poem allowed the reader to dip in and select sections they wished to ponder, at their leisure. I believe Keats was right. I have often found myself doing this exact thing when reading a long poem.

Well, the poem I am sharing with you is 'longish.' It certainly qualifies as an example of Rant Poetry. It became a poem that refused to be denied. It banged around in my head for quite some time demanding to be let out.  Rant poetry can be a release, a relief. It also represents the release of a pressure valve in many ways. Another way of describing these poems is to refer to them as a 'What Cheeses Me Off, Poem.'

In The Time of Kali-Yuga

We are living in the age of quarrel and hypocrisy

The Hindus call it Kali-Yuga

It is a time where others are often defined 

With derisive epithets

Labels are readily assigned

Left, right

Conservative, liberal

Socialist, fascist, communist

-and let’s not forget, woke

Heaven forbid- woke

Never mind that woke means alert to racial prejudice, discrimination

That to be woke is to be well informed.

The word now hijacked, weaponised

Is used to attack those who raise their voices

Against injustice, against racism

Any whiff of wokeness raises hackles

Messengers attract snarling insults

Derided as social justice warriors

Virtue signallers

Disruptors

Sneered at as unworthy commentators, self-styled experts.

We see those who campaign in the streets

Calling for freedom from perceived oppression

Calling out with a hint of delicious irony

Angered enough to demand the very thing

Allowing them to march in the streets

Loudly proclaiming to be victims of democratically elected governments

Or, as they call them,-oppressive regimes, dictatorships

Rage, invective and spittle pour forth

And freedom is their battle cry.

All the while other voices rise up

Demanding their right to free speech

While simultaneously denying that same privilege to anyone

Holding an opposing view

Sporting types, actors, artists performers and scientists

find themselves disparaged for commenting

Considered unworthy of holding an opinion

They are mercilessly flayed

Told to sit down, shut up

Let me tell you how it is...

This is the quarrelsome age

Where people build platforms for themselves using social media

Spruiking loudly, calling themselves- influencers

With little awareness of their broader projections.

Social media where hate and misinformation finds a home, nestling in

beside the blissfully benign.

The is the age of self-entitlement and misguided exceptionalism

This is the age of road rage

This is the age of over-inflated egos

-And what I say goes

Experts know nothing

and conspiracy theories spread quicker than viruses.

This is the age when argument is too often couched using absolutes

and lies become facts if repeated a sufficient number of times 

Then there are the shouty protagonists arranging to broadcast

 Viewpoints and opinions simultaneously

And who don’t realize they are wholly engaged in the dialogue of the deaf

It's not debate, merely guaranteed to grate

-Like cats arguing over the existence of  milk

Kali-Yuga it is

This quarrelsome age is all the rage.

Alan j Wright

It is once again Poetry Friday. Our host this week is Ruth Hersey. Ruth shares a couple of odes, one by Pablo Neruda and one she has written. Both odes eulogize, tables and the contribution they make to our lives. Please visit Ruth to discover more...