rhyme & resistance
WHISPERS IN THE ECHO CHAMBER
Truth once stood with steady feet,
now slips between the screen and street.
It bends beneath the breaking news,
reshaped by clicks, reshared as views.
Democracy, tired and thin,
waits while the arguments begin.
Each voice becomes a sharpened stone,
thrown from a bedroom, cold, alone.
Big Tech smiles with polished grace,
while selling every private space.
A double-edged and glowing sword,
we worship what we can’t afford.
The powerful speak. The people scroll.
The algorithm eats us whole.
Yet somewhere past the noise and sprawl,
truth still tries to reach us all.
So let the static rise and fall.
Let truth’s small beacon guide us all.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
I clicked agree before I knew
what parts of me were passing through.
My name, my face, my midnight fears,
my searches from the worst few years.
They packaged grief and sold it back,
in targeted ads and sponsored lack.
A dress for shame. A pill for doubt.
A perfect life to scroll about.
The screen said, “You are in control,”
then quietly collected soul.
It learned my habits, wants and pain,
then sold them back to me again.
I clicked agree. I always do.
Convenience wears a friendly blue.
And now I wonder, late at night,
who owns the dark when screens are bright.
POVERTY HAS A POSTCODE
Poverty has a postcode now,
a tired street, a lowered brow.
It waits outside the corner shop,
where hope is cheap and prices stop.
It lives in coats that never dry,
in mothers learning not to cry.
In cupboards full of almost meals,
in letters stamped with final deals.
The rich discuss the poor on screens,
with polished teeth and tailored means.
They say, “Be strong. Work hard. Aspire.”
then turn the heating slightly higher.
But hunger does not care for grit,
or speeches made by men who sit.
Poverty has a postcode, yes.
And power knows the full address.
ALGORITHM LOVE
I met you through a glowing square,
your filtered face, your careful hair.
You said you liked my sense of fun,
then sent the same line to everyone.
We matched by chance, or so it seemed.
The app had chosen what we dreamed.
It knew my type, my lonely hour,
my need for sweetness dressed as power.
You asked me things I’d heard before,
then disappeared behind a door.
A typing bubble. Then a ghost.
The modern heartbreak we know most.
Love once arrived with nervous hands.
Now it depends on Wi-Fi bands.
I swiped for hope, but found instead
a marketplace of hearts half-dead.
THE SCHOOL BELL RINGS
The school bell rings. The children file
through corridors of stress and style.
They learn to smile, revise, obey,
and measure worth by grades each day.
A poem becomes a mark scheme fight.
A sentence must be “nearly right.”
Their minds are bright, their hands are small,
but data stands above them all.
The system says, “Prepare to thrive,”
then teaches them to just survive.
To tick the box. To meet the grade.
To fear the smallest choice they’ve made.
But somewhere in a messy line,
a student makes a thought divine.
And there, despite the pressure’s sting,
the real work starts when young minds sing.
MANUFACTURES OUTRAGE
They fed us rage at half past eight,
then told us who to fear and hate.
A headline dressed in blood-red thread,
to keep us scrolling from our bed.
They pointed left. They pointed right.
They split the room and dimmed the light.
We shouted words we didn’t own,
at strangers through a piece of phone.
The truth was buried underneath
the polished lie with perfect teeth.
And while we fought with furious pride,
the powerful quietly stepped aside.
They sold us anger, fresh and hot,
then taxed the little peace we’d got.
Resistance starts when we refuse
to let them choose our daily news.
RENT DAY
Rent day comes with heavy shoes,
and knocks before you even choose.
It sits beside the kitchen sink,
and waits for you to overthink.
The landlord says, “The market’s high.”
You nod because you cannot buy.
The ceiling leaks. The carpets stain.
You pay for mould and call it rain.
Your wages vanish, neat and fast,
into a home that will not last.
A place you clean, but cannot claim,
where every month begins the same.
They call it freedom. Call it choice.
But renting rarely gives you voice.
You build a life in borrowed walls,
and flinch each time the letter falls.