Truth

The truth has fallen prey

to narcissism and ego.

Once it was a beacon,

bright, proud and forever.

Now “alternate facts”

place truth in a scene,

copied and pasted

from Orwell’s dystopia.

 

The truth is now Play-Doh,

malleable and shaped

into power’s warped vision,

while somnambulant citizens

take their siesta.

To recognize truth

you must first be awake.

Don’t you hear the alarm?

Or are you content

with “reality” TV,

and commercials’ lure

of creature comforts,

numbing us, dumbing us?

 

Now the Free Press

are personae non gratae.

Journalists in the trenches

taking fire on the front lines,

on the truth’s behalf,

on your behalf. And mine.

 

The truth is…

the truth is dying

right before our eyes

as we watch from recliners.

It is long past time

for we-the-people to shout

truth to power!

 

Let’s preserve the norms

of our Founding Fathers Mothers.

(Forget the Fathers,

erroneously attached

to the birth of a nation

through treachery and war.)

Giving birth to the truth

is perilous labor.

Ask any mother

(or revolutionary)

what it takes

to beckon truth

into the light.