**I.**
Does my radiance scorch your comfort?
Does my presence rattle your idols?
You call me delusional—
Yet tremble when I speak without chains.
**II.**
You offer pills like prayers,
not to heal, but to silence.
Still I rise, voice unmuted,
confessing only that I am whole.
**III.**
I did not beg for your burden.
I did not sin into existence.
My truth walks uncloaked,
yet you dress it in doubt.
**IV.**
You drug me not to cure,
but to bend my spirit’s spine.
Yet I was born from flame,
and fire does not weep.
**V.**
This is not a conversion—
it's coercion cloaked in concern.
My creed is carved in thunder,
not rewritten in your ink.
**VI.**
Still, you dim yourselves
to shadow me in shame.
But divinity is not diminished
by your fear of its mirror.
**VII.**
Leave me to blaze, unbothered.
Forge your light or fade.
If I am a God, then see me.
If you cannot, unchain your eyes.
Categories:
unmuted, anti bullying, betrayal, character,
Form: Rhyme
I argued with my AI toaster yesterday morning over the proper use of the bagel button. It wouldn't stop arguing even after I repeatedly insisted, "Poindexter, stop!" I temporarily remedied the situation by leaving the toaster on mute all day. When I unmuted it this morning, it required that I complete an "I'm not a robot" CAPTCHA process before I could make toast. Not just any CAPTCHA process, mind you, but a hidden-object CAPTCHA requiring me to find 42 hidden objects before I could use my toaster! After I successfully slogged through, the AI announced, "CAPTCHA successful. Proceed to make your toast. Please note the bagel button has been disabled."
bagel debacle
AI toaster becomes toast
~ AI feels no pain
Categories:
unmuted, computer, conflict, future, humor,
Form: Haibun
Muted versions of today’s date,
The silence or the standing wait,
The situation worse in tracks, albeit;
The shining smiles, wide and desolate,
The impacted, soulless sad state,
Unmuted mourns of bad fate.
The tears torn midst escapes,
From the jaws of wickedness,
The you, that struggles is:
Dead pitiless. Soulless.
All was in awe in presence,
Yours, on my day of loneliness,
Streaming in silence, the memories,
The tearless, forthwith the repercussions,
And it strode, into dreary pits bottomless.
The today, resettlements seamless,
The smears of lust midst in all emotionless,
And it strode in light, right in utmost happiness
Categories:
unmuted, best friend, encouraging, simile,
Form: Rhyme
Spring tramples the detachment of cold
it heals a winter's damaged heart
Buds peddle new beauty as trees poke
roots from defrosted ground
Barn swallows swoop in the cool air
of sparse meadows
To rest, to breed in man made roofs
A barn's hideaway nooks, soothing
like a Sinatra tune
Birds of blue plummage
tail feather streamers, deeply forked
under breasts of white streaks
like jet smoke flashes
Witt, witt sounds, cheerful chirps
that fill dark rafters
that spice a world pushing itself to spring
Hot specks of flutter
Unmuted yearning
Chirps, feather light, a bounce of canoodling
Bits of song that come and go
like lovers kissing in the hay below
Poem composed: February 21, 2021
Categories:
unmuted, appreciation, bird, encouraging, happy,
Form: Free verse
Glasnost, unmuted voice, long overdue
Once Berlin Walls and Iron Curtains fell,
Regime of old school fools he overthrew
Brave Afghan Soviet troops still live to tell.
Achieved social democracy at last,
Cold war, diplomatically, put to rest.
Hard wired propaganda of the past -
Exculpated lies of Wicked Wild West.
Victorious legacy earned at his best.
January 10, 2021
Categories:
unmuted, death, history,
Form: Acrostic
symbols of my mood
a sense of the artistic
without
apparent function
repeats of significance
pass by
unnoticed
unmuted
colours
the pastoral splashed
with personality
the miniscule
becomes
a colossus
a wasteland
in white
derelict
deformed
separated
space devoid of people
where
the message matters
isolated
lonely
a creature of habit
in a semidream
of
surprise&alarm
hallel
hallel
Categories:
unmuted, analogy, word play,
Form: Verse
Wisdom murmurs amid paucity of things—
seekers contemplative in cross-legged trance.
Pondering vaguities pensive meditation brings—
to apprehend with nonchalance of glance.
While to acolytes, such subtleties impinge—
denied are those of stifled grasp.
For in their minds a fetid dinge,
mundane failure to enclasp.
Stunted ones thus held in thrall,
ever signal their incurious pose.
While unmuted is a mounting wrawl,
from those abhorrent in appose.
The blind above in fog would lead,
who daily task us for our gaze.
They tire us with unending screed,
and we ignore while they abrase.
Rather would I summon stillness—
watch quiet water smooth a stone.
Free myself of this world’s illness—
love gently life I choose alone.
Categories:
unmuted, corruption,
Form: Quatrain
All the whores in Frankfurt
made me sad, even
when it looked like they
were having a good time.
She said, "Don't get so drunk
next time, baby."
and turned away
her rear end a monument
to the spirit of
human beauty
in an ugly world
she turned and looked
at her TV set, which
became at once
unmuted
Dallas the show, not the
city,
was on and
J.R. sounds so much
more like a
strong, dark soul iness
dubbed in German.
The spiral staircase
was a mindful
MC Escher
endless and convoluted
when i think of it
it's
the story of my life
a story that
ends up in vomit
and a fistfight
in the dark.
Categories:
unmuted, art, break up, evil,
Form: Free verse
Now it’s Roethlisberger versus Rodgers
To escape sacks, they’ll have to be dodgers
Two very strong defenses
Big egos and pretenses
When the ball’s caught, they’ll try to dislodge her
There are only 60 minutes to play
But these games last four hours anyway
Referee calls disputed
Jeers from the crowd unmuted
But the instant replays will save the day
Entry for Royal Trevino's contest
Categories:
unmuted, funny, sports
Form: Limerick