.

The Lop-Sided House

A lop-sided house on the edge of a cliff;
A family trying so hard to be nice
As their eavesdropping neighbors spy, wondering if
They can catch every word said on every device.

The father’s been threatened. He can’t speak his mind,
And mother’s been ordered to keep her words vague.
The son is unfocused, the daughter’s unkind
And a truthful opinion is treated like plague—

A plague which demands all that’s normal be drained
Just as eggshells are spread on the floor like spilled coke;
And nothing is honest and nothing’s explained
As they try to survive the tyrannical woke.

A lop-sided house where the children may shout
And the parents must bend to them, kowtow and heel
‘Cause the children may threaten, the children may pout
And there’s nothing that matters but how these kids feel.

Their doctors and teachers and peers try to nail them;
The shrinks and the counselors fight to derail them;
Alarmingly, drag queens and drug sellers trail them;
But in the end it is the State that will fail them.

The pros emphasize the perks victimhood brings.
Don’t discipline children! They’ll take their own lives!
The parents are set up by government stings
So their silence is forced when dysfunction arrives.

The pols blame the world, all adults but themselves;
How they want mom and dad to be constantly flustered!
And if they don’t keep right-think books on their shelves
They’ll be canceled and tortured and then filibustered.

But the house seems so nice what we see from the street!
It’s because mom and dad have learned how to keep mum.
Since they’ll only survive if completely discrete,
They must fend off all questions as if deaf and dumb.

This family’s trapped in that house—that’s the price
Of liberty bartered and broken. And if
The State on a whim decides not to be nice
It will topple that lop-sided house down that cliff.

.

.

Unfriending Me, Unfriending You

Unfriending me, unfriending you—
I do not know what else to do
When all you think about is you
And you despise all I prove true.

Unfriending you, unfriending me
Because the toxic things you see
I tell you I see differently
And so you will not let me be.

Unfriending and unfriending and
Unfriending since I take a stand
And say I do not trust your brand—
Your poison’s sure to kill this land.

Unfriend, unfriend, unfriend, unfriend;
You sneer and tear and rip and rend,
Detesting all who will not bend.
When will your hatred ever end?

.

.

Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.

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27 Responses

  1. Julian D. Woodruff

    Bravo on both, Brian. The time may not be far off when reserve and equinimity are totally alien concepts, when self-control is totally swamped by self-regard, and no one can figuratively see past the end of her or his nose.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Julian! I fear that the days you speak of — when the character assets you have listed have become “alien concepts” — are already here. But in the wake of this election, I am keeping my fingers crossed for a renaissance of civility and honesty.

      Reply
  2. Mark Stellinga

    And it’s gonna take an entire generation to bring us back to some semblance of normality, Brian. Probably longert than that. But it will take far more than simply saying, “Please stop doing that” to get it done. Conservatives need to learn how to fight dirty with dirty – when necessary, and pithy pieces like these certainly help. Nice job –

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Mark! I must say I think you’re right — it will take a generation to undo the damage that has been caused by a leftist insanity which has elevated subjectivity and narcissism over objectivity and recognition that life involves more than satisfying every deluded caprice that pops into a person’s head. How did we ever get here? As for the remedy… I’m not so good at fighting dirty. I just try to tell it like it is. Men can’t be women. Drugs are bad. Committing crime is bad. Terrorism is bad. There. How hard was that?

      Reply
  3. Warren Bonham

    Right on point as always. The lop-sided house, like everything else in our current culture, was built upon a foundation of sand. We all need to build upon a solid foundation. If we do that, even a lop-sided house can withstand a storm.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Yes, built on a foundation of sand. Exactly, Warren! Thank you for the kind comment and I pray that as our society moves forward we build it on solid ground!

      Reply
  4. Roy Eugene Peterson

    What great poems on the state of our nation, culture, and relationships. The thought of state control of family matters is chilling allowing the children to rule the house, the state to invade the house, and the world to think all is well, since not a peep comes from the parents, since the kids may complain to someone if they are disciplined. This truly and clearly puts the disaster we are facing in perspective, but more than that, makes me shudder for the future.
    Unfriending is a particular social media phenomenon wherein I have seen self-centered people preening when they are not worth it, wherein truthfulness is disdained, and wherein daring to speak the truth results in “unfriending.” Your perceptions are my perceptions, and I commend you for great poems that take them all to task.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      In the old days, “unfriending” was called estrangement or alienation. Two persons who had been close had for some reason ceased to maintain cordial relations and no longer spoke. But it happened in face-to-face situations, not on a computer screen as a result of typed opinions.

      “Unfriending” occurs in a particularly modern techno-centric context. Social media in itself is unnatural and artificial — you have “followers” and “friends” with whom you have no actual real-world connection, and whom you may not have even met in the flesh. Opinions and observations are expressed in keyboard prose emissions, where language can seem sharper than it would in personal conversation. Naturally tempers are on edge. And the most dangerous aspect of it all is that the exchanges are done IN PUBLIC, with an audience of scores (or even hundreds) of other individuals who can read what’s going on. In short, what you say is performative, not private. This is why “unfriending” is so common.

      As an academic, I can assert that two of the very worst things in a university are faculty conferences, and a truly poisonous thing called “the list-serve.” The worst sort of intra-departmental hatreds develop in conferences where pedagogical policy is debated, and on computer “list-serves” where all faculty can come to discuss whatever matters they wish. These are where the knives come out, and I am happy to report that many colleges are starting to shut down their list-serves, or restrict their use to administrative announcements. At one university where I worked, the sane and able chairman decided that there would be only one departmental meeting per year, and it would be limited to half an hour in which nothing but ordinary school business would be discussed.

      Guess who objected to these restrictions on the list-serve and on departmental meetings. It was the leftists and the liberals. They wanted the fighting, since it allowed them to focus on attacking any heretics who dissented from left-liberal pedagogical policies.

      Reply
      • Brian A. Yapko

        Thank you for these perceptive insights, Joe — particularly concerning the unsavory practices of academia. You are quite right about “unfriending” — for the most part. Your comment presupposes the kinds of relationships which are mostly built up on line of people who have never met or have rarely met. There is much validity to that and in my own “unfriending” experiences, that covers about 90% of them. But I have now been estranged with two cousins who I have known since I was under 5 years old, as well as friends from high school who are appalled that I could join “the garbage” and “the deplorables.” No amount of intelligent argument with citations to evidence and authority can make these people change their minds. And I am now anathema to people who were part of life for decades. It’s quite disturbing. It’s equally astonishing that the religion of liberalism can have people “sitting shiva” for me because I’m no longer a Democrat and voted for “the convicted felon.”

        Your insights regarding academia are particuarly crucial on this page where there are many readers who are themselves part of the academic world — often as students. It is extremely important for them to understand the bullying that has gone into the departmental meetings and to understand that they are being deliberately deprived of conservative viewpoints to counterbalance the steady of diet of liberalism that they are fed. Your observation that it is ieftists and liberals who want to fight and bully and hound comes as no surprise. From the French Revolutionaries to the Bolsheviks to the present day, it is leftist liberals who are the agitators, who want to burn everything down and who want to punish those who disagree in the worst possible way. And those who don’t actively punish simply knit by the guillotine.

    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Roy — you get right to the heart of the matter with the idea of state control of family matters. Foremost on my mind have been those parents who are punished for not supporting the “gender transitions” of children and who, in fact, are carved out of the decision-making process. The teachers keep secrets from the parents and this is despicable. Period. But there are many other ways the State intrudes into the home and it’s a toxic direction for society to go. I’m so pleased that my poetry spoke to you and for you and am grateful as well for your own consistency in taking the bad guys to task.

      Reply
  5. Paul A. Freeman

    Two interesting poems, the second especially so since it could be the viewpoint from both sides of the cultural divide. Haven’t you ever wondered if people who fervently believe in climate change, for instance, are as certain that they are right as many on conservative sites are certain they are wrong?

    Dismissing people with different views as idiots, ultra-woke or even treacherous hardly helps anyone, and is much of the reason for the current situation.

    Humorously dismissing the rise in greenhouse gasses as a case of farting cows while smugly threatening to celebrate the non-existence of global warming with another steak on the barbecue, also isn’t much help, either, nor is listing endless links to ‘prove’ a point one way or the other.

    Both sides claiming victimhood, too, doesn’t help matters. How often do we hear ‘First they’ll come for… whoever,’ as a defense, when soon maybe ‘first they’ll come for the pantomime dame, or a person who dares to say ‘Happy holidays.’

    A couple of years back, on a thread here, the absence of children from their parents’ Thanksgiving and Christmas tables was blamed on the younger folks’ ‘wrong’ views. Claiming because the Bible says you should respect your parents and therefore young people are dutybound to attend such celebrations (as was in one of the comments) doesn’t really help.

    This is something I think we should mull over, not have a knee-jerk reaction that vilifies the messenger.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Paul, what you’re saying is basically this: “Both sides do it, and it’s bad, and neither side should be doing it.” That’s a cop-out maneuver.

      How does that attitude address any important issue? I think “climate change” is a hysteria-driven fraud pushed by global activists with a pernicious sociopolitical agenda; you think it is an overwhelming apocalyptic danger that demands savage repression and restriction. Only old-fashioned sentimentalist liberals believe there is wiggle-room between those two positions.

      Modern industrial civilization runs on oil, coal, and natural gas — three gifts to us from dead dinosaurs and extinct plants. Trying to force people to switch to silly absurdities like wind and solar power, or to cut back on electricity usage, or to eat less meat than they would like to eat, is obnoxiously intrusive and arrogant on the part of “Climate Change” fanatics. Will you just leave us the hell alone?

      Retreating to the “both sides do it” argument is the fallback position of an increasingly desperate liberalism that knows its days of intellectual hegemony are numbered.

      Reply
      • Brian A. Yapko

        Thank you, Joe, for speaking out on a subject that is truly annoying to many of us. There is a huge discrepancy between what leftists say and what leftists do — Gavin Newsom and Greta Thunberg are emblemmatic of their hypocrisy — one which would blame some poor guy in West Virginia for using a gas-powered car to get to work or run a generator but who utterly ignores the fact that it is China which is responsible for the lion’s share of the world’s pollution. They go after the easy targets rather than the ones that would actually make a difference because they can feel virtuous without having to actually lose anything. Low hanging fruit. I’m all for protecting nature when it makes sense in ways that make sense. One of my charities is the Nature Conservancy and they do great work. But guilting people for living and making “them” make ridiculous, useless sacrifices is a failing policy. It’s like berating people on the Titanic for drinking water while the ship is sinking. It ain’t going to make a difference except you’re going to make a whole bunch of people needlessly thirsty.

    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much for your considered comment, Paul. With respect to the first poem, I cannot agree that there is proportionality as between the left and the right. A government which compel invasion into people’s homes and privacies is a uniquely leftist phenomenon. It is a leftist policy to discouraging home schooling and private school, it is a leftist policy to require (not encourage, but require) teachers to keep secrets from parents concerning gender identity, use of pronouns in school, etc. In California, as in Canada, a parent can get in real trouble for doing anything to discourage or even question their own child concerning the desire to transition. The Cultural Revolution keeps recurring decade after decade and it’s not the conservatives that keep reviving it.

      On unfriending, I see your point regarding people’s inability to hear others on both sides. True enough. Though I must observe this: I was a Democrat until 2023 and I often brought up Democrat issues among family and friends on social media, including visceral dislike of Trump, promoting Hillary, then Biden, talking about LGB issues. I cannot recall ever being unfriended or attacked by a conservative in the eleven years I was on Facebook before making the political switch. But once I came out as a Republican the amount of vitriole I experienced blew my mind. And honestly, coming out as conservative was WAY harder than coming out as gay. In short, while I think you are right in the abstract, my experience is that it is the leftists who have the harder time containing their rage. The political philosophy seems to be “how dare you?” They have weaponized outrage and the practice of canceling people. I know this now since I am on the receiving end.

      Reply
  6. T. M. Moore

    Brian: “Unfriending” is well written, carefully and precisely formatted, and accurate in assessing the nature of the tribalism into which we have descended as a nation. There are no political solutions to this malady. It is a matter of the heart. Poetry can soften the heart, or at least expose its follies. But we need more power than poetry to bring us together as one people.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much for this, T.M. I love your insights here: it is indeed a matter of the heart and being tolerant and respectful of others comes from within. I fully agree — we need more than poetry to bring us together. Pearl Harbor brought Americans together in 1941, as did 9/11 in 2001. Temporarily. I’d like to know if there’s something that can unify us as a country that does not involve awful tragedy and/or war.

      Reply
  7. Enid Cokinos

    Brian, your poetry always captures what’s going on in the world so perfectly. Thank you for speaking up and saying what many know to be true. I’m hopeful that a great awaking is now underway! Keep putting your beautiful words out there.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Enid, for this appreciative comment! I am with you 100% — may this be a great awakening!

      Reply
  8. David Dixon

    Of course loved both. The final line of ‘Unfriending’ reminded me of the old saying that hate is like taking poison to harm the other person. And maybe in modern America, and the world?, that is more than a metaphor. Thank you for being you!!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, David! A very sweet comment! I love that quote which I believe is attributable to St. Augustine of Hippo. Mark Twain had a great variation on it: “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

      Reply
  9. Daniel Tuton

    Two very insightful and pointed poems, Brian. The seeds of this phenomenon are quite old–I remember back in the early 80’s reading my first (semi-tongue-in-cheek) article on political correctness, I think it was either in the Sacramento Bee or the San Francisco Chronicle. I was quite a bit further left then than I am now, but even then I alarmedly declared to the friend who made me aware of it that P.C. is a fascist concept. Group ostracism, unwarranted judgments, and even legal persecution have initiated a reign of terror in many different arenas. I think the pendulum may be swinging back; I just hope it doesn’t swing too far. Thanks for a great couple of poems!

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you so much, Dan! I had not even thought about political correctness but you’re right! That’s where it starts! That “reign of terror” you describe is very apt. It reminds me of the French Revolution and is a good reminder of how dangerous it can be when those in power try to control people’s minds and hearts. Far too many are okay with the idea of “thought police.”

      Reply
  10. Margaret Coats

    The topic of “surviving woke” carries a nice double entendre. Does a person survive onslaughts of wokeness to which he is hostile, or survive as woke himself, by surrendering (perhaps unwillingly)? The catch is that successful survival means others never know the difference. This interferes with every kind of intimacy, and necessarily contributes to isolation and unhappiness.

    “The Lop-Sided House” does well to treat the woke attack on the nuclear family, as this is the fundamental unit of human society. Parents are the target, as their position of authority is equally fundamental. We are, however, far into the stage where adults experience wokeness not only through children, but directly at work and in social or professional associations.

    And as “Unfriending” points out, virtually from individuals the target person may never have met. Brian, I am very sorry to know of your unhappy experiences on social media, where family and friendship relations of many years can be so easily destroyed by postings that take hardly any thought to make.

    Because this can be so thoughtlessly done (I know one young man who unfriended a brother merely to make room for new friends), I was surprised at the word “hatred” in the last line of the poem. I’m not discounting the pain inflicted; it’s serious. And I don’t know social media platforms, so I don’t get hurt. But it seems the human emotions that lead to unfriending can be very shallow. The effect of hatred without the reality? Maybe human personalities are being robbed of substance by the potential of technology.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      Thank you very much, Margaret, for your insightful comments. The nuclear family is indeed under attack and governmental interference with its autonomy is definitely something that is contributing to this sad affair.

      In a way, I envy you for not being on social media. You’re surprised about the word “hate” but I can assure you there are people on Facebook and other platforms who are not only impolite but dreadfully hateful in some of the things they say — not condescending but insulting and acid-tongued in the worst possible way. Honestly, the modern world would have been better off had it never been invented. It’s much harder to dismiss, insult, cut-off when engaged with someone in person. Then the effort must be made to resolve rather than cancel. Presumably. At a minimum, as you aptly put it: “human personalities are robbed of substance by the potential of technology.” A point that could be the springboard for many long discussions.

      Reply

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