Short Herded Poems

fresh improper
free stuck journey
grave herded beast...

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Weary travelers weave through silent
Passageways like cattle herded to market
Masked faces, eyes shifting anxiously,
Everyone wanting to be somewhere else.


written June 8, 2021...

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When confronted with
edicts of expendability,
the sanest of minds
condemn usury as a practice
defecating on
the nobler edicts of survival
until all herded
charge the very gates of compliance....

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Crippled thoughts
herded together,
fenced in, 
anxious,
desperate to 
bloom and die
like dammed tears.

Perhaps I could write
if not intimidated
by contours of ink
that might 
disturb the pain....

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I remember a smile
and shuddered a laugh
those kids gasp at trumpet
a latent talent scrambled
our laughter grown in disapproval
leaving before removal
In between her smiles and howls
until the echoes are herded
gently into memory...

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The cows, they lowed
   The sheep, they bleated
The pigs, they squealed
   Herded together tight, overheated

Squeezed into lines
   Individuality stripped
Indignity's design
   Poked, prodded, whipped

through airport corridors
  lines stretching forever
making tasty hors d'oeuvres
  for blue-uniformed beasts, however......

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Life is burning quickly away
 Find those who wander astray
   Bring them here to realize
 The need to hide such curious eyes
   Find a way to disappear
 To make them think you were never here
   Through countless hells you're to wander
 Do as your told, don't stop to ponder
   Herded as sheep into a pen
 Soon to find out it's the lion's den...

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Herded humans
Sweltering trains
Dead cargo
Suffering remains

Gunshot glory
Spurting spite
Guarded genocide
Barbwire lights

Warsaw widows
Stripped of food
Numbered days
Ribs that protrude

Anesthetized surgeons
Screaming knife
Smoldering smokestacks
Vacating life

Conveyor belt corpses
Rolling into ravines
Six million taken
Will no one intervene...

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Lured across the world were we,
to setting sun, ancient sea,
lured to pastures greener?

Wanderlust gripped the core of me,
to setting sun, and ancient sea.
Naiveté fueled, footloose; free,
lured to pastures greener?

Herded, prodded, poked, 
primed-pumped,
gripped by fool's gold's glittering sump;
always searching never free;
to take a moments time for me....

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Nameless faces

The streets are filled with nameless faces
Wandering through the town
No one talks, all are strangers
Herded up and down
Trudging steps they take and go
While staring at the floor
Thoughts they flutter to and fro
As they do their daily chore
Conversations never heard
Companionship's unknown 
No one speaks a single word
Where the nameless faces roam...

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a frosted farmhouse--
smoke blends silently
into the dark clouds 

first winter storm--
tire tracks fill quickly
along the old dirt road

snow blows sideways--
north winds
rattle a window

a flashlight glitters--
cattle are herded
into the barn

laden with snow
the trees succumb and bend--
a farmer prays over supper

embers burn low--
the fields have white blankets
for a frigid night...

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Lured across the world are we,
to setting sun, ancient sea,
privileged ones so carefree
lured to pastures greener?

Wander led the core of me,
to foreign suns Pharisees.
Naiveté fueled, footloose, free,
lured to pastures greener?

Herded child of Galilee
primed-pumped, then set free
fool's gold seeking protégée
lured to pastures greener?

Stop searching, surely, you see
beauty is all around thee....

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Lest we forget 
The face of evil 
And deny the truth 
Of history
Remember the victims 
Who suffered and died;
Tormented, persecuted, 
Dispossessed, taken captive, 
Herded like animals 
Into the crowded carriages 
And transported 
To the Nazi death camps. 

             Remember them 

             Remember them...

    
            W.A CHOLT.  Copyright Fergal O Reilly. 2018.  Posted on 6th September 2018....

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Land of the free, home of the brave
but on the brink our freedom sways 
What can we do
Make sure she stays!
Let's stop and think
that flag we raise. 
Machiavellian regime's-Coordinate 
An Orwellian theme
A prophetic haze
cyberspace and blackout craze 
Death by drone, Killer clones 
IPhones herded them to zones 
A Sodomized Pompeii 
Normalitized unpure 
Lord show the way 
So much still so unsure 
In these last days...

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Inti, the Sun God, was happy always
Moon deferred to him in all kinds of phase.
Incas pussyfooted under his gaze.
He ruled Mexico in the good old days
The priests and alpacas met Inti’s gaze.
Mita system was society’s craze.
Children of twelve were not allowed to laze.
Boys herded llamas and alpacas for days.
Girls gathered plants for medicines and glaze.
Inca society will simply amaze
Conquering others whose children are slaves....

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I used to chase cattle
Which we called riding herd
It sometimes was a battle
Some of you may have heard

My dog herded cows
Better than Jim
Even I could run plows
Better than him

You see I like farming
I just let you know
My plantings not harming
And my seeds are to sow

It is the season to harvest and reap
The fruit and the veggies I’m going to keep
The winter is good with lots of food
I can just sit here in my hot-tub “nude”...

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The devil sits on your shoulder
So you’ve grown more bold
This joke is past its prime
Every time you open your mouth
Dust pours out
Your mind moldy
Manufactured to fit ideals of your ancestors
Lost in the pool
Just part of an institution
A herded sheep
Told when to wake
When to sleep
Told when to wake
When to sleep
Our not my master
You may think you have me beat
Still I breathe
Fighting for us
My horns will be felt
My roar will be heard...

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And the world slumbers on,
While its sons and its daughters,
Are herded, like sheep, 
Down the dark streets, to slaughter.

How fragile the thread.
By which street life hangs
With the guns and the drugs, 
And the warring of gangs.

Dismount, while you can,
From that street carousel.
It's end destination
Will be prison, or hell.

With the world on the streets
Swiftly going insane, 
'Stead of gettin' more guns, 
You'd best be growin' some brains....

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Ashamed
   I see what you have and I want it.
I am immediately ashamed.
   Indignant over the fact that these feelings could breed with in me;
dismayed at the buckeye of truth that may lie dormant.
   Time has a way of encouraging one on their way.
To feel crowded and herded onto the paths that are tamped down before us.
   Expectation in the abstract is just a thought.
However, once that possibility comes anywhere near, it is time to move on.
   An epiphany cures all....

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Angolan Shipyard
Portuguese Courtyard
Slaves
Indentured servants of
Black seed

Sadist sovereignty 
Dutch property
Animals
Herded into a treasure chest
Of disease

Shackled humanity
Shipwrecked Christianity
Excess 
Baptized on the bottom
Of the sea

Altered Destiny 
English colony 
1619
Stock on a manifest
Of greed

Work your land
Savage not man
Bartered
A pound of flesh for
A crown overseas

Sold by brethren
Held by heathens
Caimile
Your daddy was 
Born free...

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