Circumstances Beyond Control

I am not a historically or politically savvy individual.I am the average Josephine, or Joe, who reads and listens to the news when it comes to me. Often someone points out an issue that makes me curious.

It seems that local papers in different countries, where freedom of speech is allowed, often have a right or left wing predisposition. This seems reasonable. It is a means to help the bird of prey or dove of peace fly steadily along its path.

Yet, the more I learn the less I know. Thinking of grieving parents whose children have been lost in battle, and watching the news of wars and political attitudes that present what appears to be polar ways of seeing the same truthful situation, causes me distress. I often feel overwhelmed with not knowing fact from fiction.

During my life I have experienced the loss of friends and ideals. I have had to learn, relearn and unlearn principles that have inspired many actions for what appears a just cause. Now, I have gained an understanding that a just cause is often a perception that is part of a splintered picture.

My mind somehow hears unspoken words. I have tried to capture parts of the song that the universe is begging for me to sing.

~

I was at the end of the path, hidden from the passer-bys.

Against a wall, listening, as do proverbial flies,

for what the natural world had in store for others, and me.

Wondering if we could open our eyes to accept what is and can be.

What can we understand because we have known great pains?

Can natural beauty and love survive in spite of sorrow that remains?

~

Looking onto a horizon, where sky is confused with the sea,

there is in an infinite gap, a vast unknown, of all that can be.

Here, beauty stays suspended in a memory protected,

surviving the torment of storms, it is often rejected

But beauty moves with wind and tides.

It holds an emotional resonance with the atmosphere and quietly guides.

~

Looking into another’ eyes, beauty lets connections to people begin.

Beauty emits a spark that creates a flame within.

Rare and extraordinary possibilities of a moment, in which one can revel

draws voyeurs to watch on another level.

~

The Droste effect, of seeing an image within an image,

is sometimes how people form a good marriage.

In films of gladiators in an amphitheatre the audience of the audience

watches the blood sport, knowing they too are drawn to the violence.

The message is the medium, that displays what an individual can fathom.

It supports an impression that reduces the breadth of the chasm.

~

I hear the news present traumatic information full of horror.

It effectively sways the masses into an apathetic torpor.

People believe what they want to believe.

There is the news of sad deaths, the masses bereave.

National heros, dying, to give others relief.

The slant is delivered and supports a cultural belief.

Outliers are villains who destroy national virtues.

Their degenerate societal view often conflicts with revenues.

~

Media is often the unreliable narrator.

The audience must be a watchful spectator.

Perceptions can twist in a tide that does turn.

Each person must navigate layers of a fractal fern.

The deceiver often is unaware of deceptions

Abstractions, pretensions, distractions rejections, distortions.

It takes strength to address the unreliable narrator,

an accelerator, calculator, chelator and delegator.

~

The message in this poem seems wanting, yet that is all I can translate of the vague emotions to scribe the tune of the melodies that pass through the universe.

What is said is as important as what is unsaid.

The scientific method removes what is not true. Life is far more complex than science. Not all truth can be verified with numbers. Statistics are complex and easily manipulated.

We are left to determine how the media controls cultural beliefs. The deception of the unreliable narrators is not necessarily a lie, but an inability to deal with the truth. What results is a vague construct that others might want to believe, or are capable of believing.The simple, hard-working individuals, striving to move into the future, acting as responsible humans who do their best to react to circumstances beyond their control, might be able to hear and follow the words of one less unreliable source.

I remain hopeful that Nations, or national organizations, that have made a sacred pledge to stand together and act against threats as one, will affirm or deny what is being said by the unreliable narrators. They need to act as a benevolent dictator or admit complicity in being an unreliable narrator.