When I walked the streets of Babylon
I thought I walked in heaven.
All those young minds gleaming
From their beautiful heads.
Dreaming
Of all the myriad ways they would go.
Their waterfalls, their tidal waves,
Their landslides of learning Split by clocks
And sidewalks so crowded they were painted like streets
To accommodate the masses Of young minds gathered there.
Now those streets are dark.
No mind dares speak or dissension make
In Babylon, where the Great King,
Conformity Incarnate,
Rules with an iron hand.
Do not speak here, seeking to teach!
We in our youth will teach you in your age,
And be damned your experience
And sage advice.
We will not learn, we will demand
That all go one way, and
One way only.
No one may question the King,
And the King demands conformity.
| Copyright © 2023 by Roger Owens |
Roger, do you yourself, as channel for this poem’s bleak outlook, see college campuses today as comprising so uniformly conforming student bodies?
ReplyDeleteWhat I see is a powerful groupthink that tries mightily to force such conformity. This was really inspired by students and an administrator at Stanford shouting down and attacking Federal Judge Kyle Duncan, invited to speak to the school's Federalist Society. That they even have a Federalist Society shows not all students are bowing to the woke mob, but for an administrator (for INCLUSION!) to not only not stop the mob but to join them shows just how far this ugliness has gone. This hypocrite had a prepared statement, proving she had every intention of disrupting the speech ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the back story!
DeleteSomewhere we have lost the strength to act as an individual force for change. This poem does a mighty good job of expressing this unfortunate turn of events.
ReplyDelete