An isolating darkness looms:
A numb yet tingled skin;
And residues of twilight's gloom,
As walls unseen close in.
This place feels sharp, yet vague and stale;
The clash stirs strife within.
My fingers click and spread—a snap!
So faint—I fear I'm dead.
Insipid airs invade my lungs:
The voices haunt my ears;
Adrift in dreamlike black, undone,
Alone, still lacking fear.
Commanded, guided, commandeered
My soul is tugged then shoved;
My anger swells, for loss so sheer,
No helm, no sense, bereft.
To think, therefore to be—I blare!
The real is mine to snatch;
I’ll walk into the tunnel’s flare,
My exit door unlatched.
Honeysuckles commandeered my yard
Ten in a row, watching this old bard
They grow renegade, their roots are super deep.
Providing shade for my red ninety-eight Jeep.
Honeysuckle trees have grown all over my yard
What can I do with this? Being a bard….
I counted the ones that are the easiest to see
They came into our house and commandeered our TV
Now a gang, they have a mascot and are wearing colors
We are just the start one told me. There are many others.
They demanded I make them a breakfast buffet.
My husband asked me “when are they going away?”
My writing muse tells me next to nothing, so I could not reply.
I am hoping these trees get tired of TV by and by.
They are watching Matlock now, as I fix them lunch.
Make it salty, a honeysuckle said to me, and make it crunch.
cool calico cat could come and coddle cuddle cautioned Cali’s cousin
Carmen. Campy Cameron coughed curiously, considering this caution
comical. Calico cat commandeered the cabin and café, a considerable
conquest, considering the coolness of Cali, Carmen and Cameron.
When did being weird
become politically incorrect?
When were old rules disappeared,
and new ones appear unchecked?
I will not be commandeered
into a social engineering project!
I will dance with being weird,
and the devil take your circumspect!
Once, this hollow
in a washed up fish head held
an eye. Now it's just a skull,
an escapee from a crab pot
where it hung as bait to attract
a wandering claw.
I cradle it in my hands,
its flesh picked back to bone.
I see through its ghostly eye
into a submarine world of weed
and waving fronds tipped
with leathery fruit, spiked urchins,
dancing sea worms
and teeth readied
to seize unwary life.
All seems horror, hidden menace
beneath sand or tucked away
in crevices. There, poison barbs,
razor teeth, gullets big enough
to swallow whole lay in wait
and dream beneath
moving shadows.
And then, cast down from above,
a barbed hook baited
with subterfuge, sharpened
to anchor hard in flesh
and be hauled up to drown
a victim in air.
Fish….forgive me for having
commandeered your eye,
but I have done so to honor
your short life
before I lay your head down
on the soft sand and let
the tide take you away,
forever.
Casting my mind back many a year
To childhood days spent catching bees
Those long gone memories do bring a tear
Playing with friends in the summer breeze
A simple jam jar, air holes pierced in the lid
Laden with clover and blades of green grass
To catch a bumblebee, shear delight for a kid
Observing him carefully through the transparent glass
Like little scientists we named differing species
Terminology I can still recall to this day
What a pleasure it is to remember these
Adventure along the hills was our kind of play
It saddens me today to see young minds so numbed
Lush fields of green devoured and disappeared
To technology, children have now succumbed
Our beautiful world has been commandeered
Whilst walking upon a small meadow of green
I spotted a young boy with a glass jar in his hand
My eyes were aghast at what I’d just seen
It seems there’s still hope upon the land
I watched from afar as he examined his catch closely
Suddenly releasing him and away he did fly
With a loving smile, the boy waved him off joyfully
As I meandered off into the distance, wiping a tear from my eye
Waves came in
as big as buses, smashing
on the seawall and exploding
into clouds of watery shrapnel.
I felt the sound inside of me,
guttural, pushing up and shaping
the word "whoosh" in my mouth,
ballooning against my lips
to open and speak it.
"Whoosh" I said on each crash
of water, the shock waves
becoming my breath to speak
its might and power,
my voice commandeered
by the moment.
Whoosh…. Whoosh…. Whoosh
I kept chanting
until I was emptied and there came
the most perfect still.
Rowed my skiff 'long a gentle stream
Afternoon sailed by like fresh whipped cream
When of a sudden, the sky did gleam
with myriad stars, nighttime's regime ...
As I took in this scene, I found myself
riding a pounding ocean's foaming surf
My peaceful stream naught but an estuary
My oars commandeered by a playful faerie
she wore a diamond headpiece, which made her eyes look azure.
Her self-assured smile walked ahead of her dangling earrings.
Like a prism, she commandeered the entire speakeasy.
We men had heard of her, but none of us knew she was real.
One dapper gentleman stood up to ask her to dance.
She laughed; I am the entertainment, she told him.
Sit and watch. Her act was beyond exciting.
That was forty years ago, and I still remember her.
What holds us together
has been torn, the unity
of a people split apart.
Both poles have lost
their grip and rupture
into division.
Categories now proliferate
and place each soul
into a labeled box governed
by the ideologue.
Word by word, language
has been commandeered by fear
and threatened with shame.
Good words are put on trial,
stripped of meaning and sentenced
to silence. They sleep in old books
sought out by the apparatchiks
for removal or to be replaced
by neutered covers.
Soon Macbeth will be lobotomized
to reduce the risk of upset.
The grand order has gone mad.
Long lines of citizenry queue
for entry into asylums
now spreading
like shopping malls.
Others won't leave home
and ossify in the safety
of their shuttered rooms.
Meanwhile, to the chants
of a sterilized song,
children skip towards
glittering castles hanging
precariously in thin air,
proud parents happily
clapping them along.
Schools are closed for Veterans’ Day
So Henry, here at home,
Requested that he have a chance
To write my daily poem.
He commandeered my notebook
And began to neatly write,
Resulting in a poem so cool
It filled me with delight.
He typed it up and posted it
To send it on its way.
My grandson, 9 years old, must have
My rhyming DNA!
Henry’s Poem (called “Veterans of the Ocean”)
Coast Guard guards the coast;
Beaches welcome their host.
Waves come,
Waves go,
Sand gets in your feet, oho!
Waves are high,
Waves are low,
How many veterans do you know?
Smug Cat was excited to be alone in her hot human's house.
She could hear whatever she needed to hear, including a mouse.
There was a gentle rain outside, which made her happier yet.
She was the luckiest non-human today the most joyful pet!
She commandeered the house, it was hers to do as she wished.
Heard some wipers outside, they made melodies as they swished.
Her eyes began to close, and she relaxed onto her queenly bed.
She had not had this kind of relaxation since the announcement was read.
It is a boy! Hooray! Hooray! A baby boy born today!
She did not like this new kid, he always got in her way.
He got served first, and his milk looked better.
He was always snuggling into mommy’s sweater.
A car door slammed. They were back!
She was now again on the “look at this cute baby” track!
Grow Up America Do the Right Thing
Doctors and nurses are exhausted, stressed and depressed.
Working themselves to death, for people who don’t care.
Fighting a fight the USA is not winning.
I have a suggestion.
No due diligence, you can stay at home.
No concern about others, you do not get a hospital bed.
The unvaccinated are unknowingly murdering innocent people.
Taking up the hospital rooms, they are sentencing others to death.
Heart attack victims, stroke victims, and other victims are dying.
Because the hospital beds are full of selfish people who care only about themselves.
Focusing on their “right” to not get a Covid-19 vaccine.
I think this should be the way it goes down.
No vaccine, no bed.
No vaccine, no hospital services.
The anti-vaccine freaks’ selfishness is killing others.
They have commandeered the entire health care system.
Their “rights” are murdering the spirit of many doctors and nurses.
Who get to watch others die, because they cannot get a bed.
Grow up America. Get united and do the right thing.
I thought one muse was bad, but now there are two.
Trixie brought her cousin Ruby home to belittle me.
They have commandeered the typewriter.
I am not allowed to interject a thought.
It is all about them; they are preteens no doubt.
If I had make up, I would be hiding it.
I am sure they have put my toothbrush into the toilet.
More than once.
Can I just? I start to suggest.
Trixie brings the roll of black duct tape.
They begin winding it around my head.
It wasn’t enough that they have bound my hands?
Now I have to have my eyes covered.
You had better not be using my account! I think.
I hear them tittering, so I know they are.
What is next? The Ouija board?
How will they do that without my hands?
I snicker a bit.
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