wordsout by godfrey rust
The sailing of the ark  < 8 of 45



8

The siren voices of false certainty
re-phrase with seamless arguments

the serpent’s many-layered lie
to each succeeding generation. Goebbels,

Saatchi and the hosts of cults and gurus
prove and reprove the prophet’s words—

“a man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest”. The last

tragedy in Eden was not the fall
from innocence, but the deal itself:

the fruit was rotten. The knowledge
for which Adam sacrificed his all turned out to be

no more than gullibility—having swallowed the apple
it seems we’ll swallow almost anything.


Goebbels Hitler’s propaganda minister.

Saatchi The UK’s most celebrated advertising agency of the 1980s.

“a man hears what he wants to hear...” From Paul Simon’s The Boxer.

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