Secrets

Tags

Australian poet, National Security, poem, poetry, State secrets, Traitors, Treason, Triolet

𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐬

From public knowledge, some things must be kept,
Or else our enemies will also know.
We have no love of secrecy — except,
From public knowledge some things must be kept.
Our enemies at spying are adept —
They seek to know all of our secrets, so,
From public knowledge some things must be kept,
Or else our enemies will also know.

— D.N. O’Brien

A Pressing Problem

Tags

Australian poet, Military secrets, Official secrets, poem, poetry, Press freedom, State secrets, Treason, Triolet

𝐀 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦

We want to publish every fact and lie!
And even all the secrets of the State!
We care not that some foreign friends may die.
We want to publish every fact and lie!
You wish us to be prudent? Tell us why!
Security? Your rules we’d abrogate!
We want to publish every fact and lie!
And even all the secrets of the State!

— D.N. O’Brien

No Secret

Tags

Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, limerick, poem, poetry, State secrets, Treason

You’re a leaker? No, you are a traitor;
With our foes you’re a collaborator,
And the secrets you sell
Earn a ticket to Hell;
You’ll be heading there, sooner or later.