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Tag: impermanence

The End of the World: sonnet (English)

Perhaps the world will end tomorrow night.
With so few sane in charge, that would make sense.
Besides, if the Cassandras have it right,
it’s way past time for sitting on the fence,

pretending that our waking up at last
can make a whit of difference to the tide.
What opportunity we had has surely passed.
Our only hope is to survive the ride.

And if the planet stops its steady spin,
it may be just what Mother Nature needs.
Once it’s called as a game no one can win,
who cares for a scorecard none can read?

If everything is ending, what’s the fuss?
There’s no more worry for the two of us.

08 JUL 2025

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A Soul in Cement: sonnet (sonetto rispetto)

I will not live my whole life just to spite
one more imagined evil at my door,
some cloud determined to block out my light,
or leave my spirit destitute. No more.
Why be a tool for either left or right,
when a binary choice is still piss-poor?
You’re always wrong when you pick just one side,
and where you end depends on how you ride.

The truth that can be shown in white or black
is just one more illusion, just a trick
that gives you hope for something permanent.
Reality is change. Stop holding back.
Your life is not cement that will grow thick
and make your purpose more self-evident.

08 JUL 2025

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Any Day Now: Sicilian sestet

Beneath the whisper quiet rush of dawn
as the still sleeping earth begins to wake,
before the last vestige of dark is gone
and daylight gives its weary head a shake,
enjoying one more furtive stretch and yawn,
the chains of each new yesterday can break.

The morning of each now is always new,
its gentle glow scrubbed fresh from last night’s toil,
and with an inner light brings into view
a world not so besmirched with mud and soil,
where there is opportunity for you
to contemplate and shape this mortal coil.

Before you let such moments slip away,
examine what you plan to do, and why
the time you set aside for work, and play,
is more than hours and minutes passing by.
What’s here and now can no more simply stay
than what is born can hope to never die.

02 JUL 2025

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The Passing Game

When someone says we’re out of time, so what?
What difference does one more minute make,
if it’s just on or off, open or shut,
and more of just the same old tired mistakes?

When someone says we’re out of time, does that
mean everything so far is done in vain,
as if one’s whole lifespan’s a welcome mat
for one more doorway labeled “Try Again”?

When someone says we’re out of time, just think:
so much can happen in a minute’s span.
There in the space between two quick eye-blinks
eternity awaits your stretched out hand.

When someone says we’re out of time, hold on,
and just because the clocks have stopped to run
that every opportunity is gone.
If you get just a moment, choose this one.

When someone says we’re out of time, alas,
if only there were more of life than this,
remember, neither water nor the glass
sees anything half-empty or remiss.

When someone says we’re out of time, watch out!
They’re trying to convince you it’s the end,
and in that final moment, raise some doubt
that we are all impermanent, my friend.

When someone says we’re out of time, beware,
they want your share of minutes for their own,
as if there isn’t time enough to spare
between just what you see, and what is shown.

When someone says we’re out of time, big deal.
The end and the beginning are the same.
Who cares that you might miss the big reveal:
all life is just a moment’s passing game.

26 Jun 2025

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Out There: rime royal

You cannot heal a thing by using hate.
That salve infects a wound and makes it burn,
then die and rot. Then it is far too late
to blame the medicine you chose to take
for giving you results you didn’t see.
There’s no returning from such a mistake,
no happiness can bloom from enmity.

You cannot build a lasting thing with spite.
A mortar mixed in this way will not hold,
and starts to crumble when exposed to light.
No matter the great wisdom of your plan,
or skills you may employ to shape and frame,
the end result is flawed and will not stand.
You just replace one evil with the same.

You cannot change unless you understand
the world is what it is because of you,
and is by your own doing, shifting sand.
To learn the words for healing, you must seek
beyond the edges of the map you know.
Out there, past right and wrong, past strong and weak,
is where, to find the future, we must go.

23 Jun 2025

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No Time: rimas dissolutas

There is no time, we cannot start again.
The clocks do not run backwards on command,
nor do the years reverse their gears on queue.

You cannot substitute a now for then,
nor rearrange the instance where you stand.
There is no try again, just simply do.

Besides, who wants to just relive the past,
imagining again those glory days
or that crushing defeat? Who needs the stress?

It’s only memory that really lasts,
until it disappears into a haze
that we call history. Well, more or less.

There is no time but now, and it exists
for just this moment only, and no more.
What starts must surely finish when it’s done.

So let it go. It’s useless to resist.
Besides, what good is all forever for?
There is a thing as having too much fun.

20 Jun 2025

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With Us: pantoum

The world is too much with us to pretend
that it is just a temporary slot,
a way to pass some time from start to end
or make believe it’s separate. It’s not

that it is just a temporary slot,
a proving ground for weighing thought and deed.
It is the whole of everything we’ve got.
There is no other lifetime guaranteed.

A proving ground for weighing thought and deed?
Perhaps that is much simpler than it sounds.
Velocity implies both place and speed;
it’s relative to both the sky and ground.

Perhaps that is much simpler than it sounds:
a way to pass some time from start to end
does not imply more than one go-around.
The world is too much with us to pretend.

18 Jun 2025

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