Puppet Master

There’s always been something controlling me,

I knew, but I knew not what,

Something diverting and foiling me

Since the days that I lay in my cot,

I thought it was simply a parent thing

As they whispered their rules in my ear,

The things that were right and the things that were wrong

And the things I would most have to fear.

 

They sent me to school and the teachers, too,

Must have read from the very same book,

They always laid blame and they said it the same

And the cane lent a sting to their hook.

‘You’re coming to learn, not to think for yourself,

You’ll repeat everything that I say,

And maybe just some of these rules will stick

If you dwell on the rules every day!’

 

Then once in the world my employers unfurled

All the rules and the regs I would keep,

I didn’t last long, I’d seen them before

And told them they put me to sleep.

The government fined and unlicensed me

From a book that they said was the law,

The magistrates sat on a heap of these books

As I shrugged and I said, ‘What for?’

 

I sat in the jail for contempt of court,

Spent plenty of time in my cell,

The world was consumed with a million rules

Designed to consign you to hell.

I watched all the lawyers and prisoners, cops

As they danced to the rules of the cot,

And sensed they were puppets, and most of them fools

Who would baulk at the words, ‘I will not!’

 

They’d hate to be questioned, they thought they were right,

If you disagreed you were canned,

They’d lock you away for a hospital stay

There was no going back, it was planned.

You had to be made to agree with their way

So they clamped electrodes on your head,

Then slide up the volts, and it wasn’t their fault

If it happened you ended up dead.

 

They called it Electro-therapy

And said it was doing you good,

But the thoughts in my brain they were never the same

When I came out from under that hood,

I saw the strings jerking from shoulders and heads

In a vision you couldn’t conceive,

And there were the hands that were pulling their strings

When I called out, ‘I don’t believe!’

 

‘I’ve never believed and I’ll never believe,’

I called, and they all moved away,

A thunderous cracking of mortar and ceiling,

It all fell apart on that day.

The strings fell away from my shoulders and hands

And I knew I was finally free,

And then I called up to the Puppet Master,

‘You won’t be controlling me!’

 

People were falling all over the place

As he dropped all the strings from his hands,

The bearded Master could see the disaster,

‘You’ve ruined my world and my plans!’

He paused for a moment and then he was gone

Leaving people to blink in the light,

The rules were the rules of the Puppet Master

Now we can decide what is right!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Harmony Babin]

When I read the title, I laughed a little, because me and an old boyfriend of mine would play fight over who was the puppet master in the relationship, haha! But this poem is truly about life and the hardships and knowing what's right and what's wrong and even confusion. Life is difficult and we always face people who have difference opinions from our own over what's right and what's wrong. We just have to know when to respect someone's opinion in the end.

[Latifa]

‘You’re coming to learn, not to think for yourself
this line alone raise so many questions
I enjoyed reading this piece

[TPK Stories]

Excellently constructed and very nice tale! Well done David!

[Daniel Sala]

What an excellent poem, flows so well and contains a world perfectly.

[Stevo The POE-t]

Thanks for sharing it... I enjoyed it... Great read...

[Marie]

I'm inclined to live my life by very structured rules that I made up for myself. Yet there's something in my that defies uthority; that dances to the edge, seeing just what I can get away with...

[Bob Sherunkle]

David,that's pretty much sums up life for most,if they can see it! I particularly enjoyed the line,"As they danced to the rules of the cot".Absolutle brilliant.Is this two fingers to a New world order?or just to life in general.Again,loved it.