Mission of Mercenary

The month of October has been designated OctPoWriMo, or October Poetry Writing Month. According to my friend and poet, Beth Camp, the idea is to write a poem every day for the month of October.

I don’t know much about writing poetry. I love Shakespeare’s plays, and I know what iambic pentameter is. I admire many of the poets I’ve had the pleasure to get to know, either through their works or in person.

Now for the caveat: unless you count winning a spot reading at Auntie’s for the Spokesman-Review limerick contest, my poetry writing is non-existent. Until today. This poem, which I chose to call “Mission of Mercenary,” is a feeble attempt to participate for one day in OctPoWriMo (please don’t tell my poet friends) and to finally enter the blog battle Rachael Ritchie hosts on her blog every month. By the way, this month’s blog battle word is “clone.” So here goes.

Mission of Mercenary

Commando clones,
Faded facsimiles of the
Original individual who is
Forever forgotten,

Employ disappearing drones,
Disruptive duplicates
Destined to decimate

A colony in the
Constellation Cassiopeia.

Teetering thrones,
Tenanted by a
Special species,

Divided by their differences
And doomed to die,
They pause to plead for
Deliverance.

The attackers advance,
Determined to destroy
The indigenous inhabitants,
Whose fatal flaw is that
They are not identical.

Advocates for the adoption
Of the doctrine of diversity
Unintentionally create more clones.