Park Bench Tales and other writings

Thoughts and writings reflecting the poet within and the activist


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The Hypocrisy of Redaction

The Hypocrisy of Redaction

Somewhere there may be a list of clients

With lists of those recruited to service their desires

Somewhere there may be preserved accounts

To show who paid who for what and when

The demands for these will persist

Since it is unlikely that they don’t exist

But if truth like the cobra were to raise its head

Striking with poison memories some wish to shed

Then those who once shouted must seek to suppress

For the victims then there will be no redress

The perpetrators protected never likely to confess

The architect of such disgrace

No longer able to show his face

So many secrets rest in his grave

His absence part of some reckoning

Lest truth in its entirety came beckoning

Such was the relief of the abusers

Now sheltered by the shield of hypocrisy

The names of the abused to remain hidden

Leaving them to continue to live in fear

When the reality is that for future protection

All must be unlocked to end subjection

Can what is concealed ever be revealed

The release of documents once called fake

The opening of files we were told did not exist

So much never existed and was all a mistake

The story altered once again in another retake

Protected as the narrative is re-enacted

With the black pen that says redacted

Who will be the judges of what to hide

Could it be the very perpetrators that decide

If such men are also able to control the news

They will continue in their thirst to abuse

Copyright: David Hopcroft November 2025

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