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POETRY: CRITIQUE OF POWER

Skewed Parallel and the Intractable Hubristic 

Zig zagging a bit

But it feels ok

 

For you maybe 

 

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line

But that sounds cold 

Without living the turns, little is learnt

 

I've learnt all I need to know

 

Haste gives rise to a strange thinness

A dilution of encounters

 

I don't do depth 

 

Losing the richness of the moment 

Often it's hard to remember

the significance 

The faces and the meaning

 

That suits me very well

 

You get there quicker

 

But lose the love

 

Not a commodity I recognise 

 

Let's talk before it's too late

                        © Mark Cole 2025

Time for a New Story

Overturning the bland and the stagnant

Minds have defaulted to vacuous norms

For the same approach 

The outcome is already known 

 

Not like Apollo or Everest

Flight or vaccines

They pushed hard at the edges 

Redefining the next questions

 

That's what needed

Vision and action 

A dynamic that moves the parameters 

New ways to unravel the unsolvable puzzles

 

Reconsidering the fixed frameworks 

Challenging the assumptions 

Making new connections 

Across historical silos of evidence

 

Splicing together

The novel and the original

Any previous rules 

Redrafted and applied with elan

 

New thoughts

 

Fresh answers 

 

World critical



                        © Mark Cole 2025

The Dissection of Hubris

A slow steady hand

The first cut superficial

Reflects the initial layer of arrogance

The next exposes and displays presumption

A further incision traces and separates disdain

Probing deeper highlights ostentation

Another subtle stroke identifies the necrosis of conceit

At osseous level, the extent of the affliction of pomposity is revealed

 

It may be too late to save the patient

 

The lesson never seems to be learned

History lies exhausted from retelling the same story

 

The surgeon reluctantly gives way to the mortician

 

Praesis ut prosis ne ut imperes

 

(Lead in order to serve, not rule)   



                        © Mark Cole 2021

Taking Your Own Medicine

Step up in a marvelous manner

Speak as you need to do

Be kind, be true but hear what you are saying to others

Offer to yourself your wisdom and experience

Test your own pontification

If it's good enough for others

In short, take your own advice and act on it

Advise the adviser

 

Hypocrisy sucks

So do the decent thing

 

The only real measure of integrity


                           © Mark Cole 2021

The Fate of the Proud Fool

Proud Fool sits on top of the pile 

Unaware of the obvious subluxation 

The mass built on partial truths and blown smoke

A temporary structure by any measure

 

But Proud Fool doesn't see it

Pockets are stuffed with bias

The head full of imagined importance

Surety of class and position

 

Tongue spinning linguistic traps

Cozen purposing for power

Stepping on necks 

The grubby mantra

 

Poor Proud Fool

The makeshift can never sustain

Entropy quickened by hubris

Back at sea level sipping from the cup of ridicule

 

History predicted

Karma delivered.

     
                         © Mark Cole 2024

 

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