Twenty-Five Degrees Celsius Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

... as the political temperature rises:

Can you hear a ripple of imminence?
The sense that things are changing impalpably
That we are being morphed to a new state
Amused, bemused, beguiled, placated
Locked into a soporific sauna of clammy lies
And that those who tend the embers envision
Our frog consciousness will slowly dwindle.

Can you feel the rise of prescience?
A fear that rights are degrading irremediably
Being eroded gradually without debate
Abused, refused, reviled, negated
As the fug stupefies and the will dies
And those who intend to rob us of decision
Slop the coals with a swindle ladle.

But also conceive sentience in the silence?
The dictate that lines must be drawn finally -
That soft-soaping set aside, it is never too late
Awakened, goaded, riled, rededicated
To step up, green as we are, blinking our eyes
Rejecting the parboiled amphibian option
To fight for truth and love as best we are able.