Virtuosity

Posted on December 19, 2024 by JRL

Is the solution
so simple and black and white
that you can tweet it?
Weighing in with your two cents
isn’t risking your money.

Is the right answer
pitting our us against them
in a blind fool’s game?
No one wins a war of words
without caring how you score.

Is this the moment
when we prove how right we are,
simply counting coup
to display our bravery
in a virtual showdown?

Is the solution
shouting at our enemies
until they go deaf?
Just being the loudest noise
is a hollow victory.

19 DEC 2024

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Nothing to Say

Posted on December 10, 2024 by JRL

Social media is an infectious disease, spread by word of mouth. We pretend we have something worth saying out loud each day.

Who cares how diligently we reshare or like? We like to think we improve silence, but no one listens.

What real change are we making, parroting this stuff? No one sounds original speaking others’ words.

Why are we so important? Our lives go so fast. Before the ink dries, our contract expires.

10 DEC 2024

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Imagine What

Posted on December 7, 2024 by JRL

Imagine what the world looks like right now: a mass illusion wrapped up in a dream. There are no other lands or hidden gods, nor unconnected causes or effects.

What would you change or wish you could improve, in just this moment while you have the chance? Before you take a breath, your time is done. Before a single step, there’s no more dance.

Imagine this: reality goes on, beyond the small abstractions of your mind. The moving finger finds the waning moon, but cannot simply grasp it in the sky.

What will you do to change the world you see, brave champion of just the truth you know?

07 DEC 2024

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When You Want

Posted on December 6, 2024 by JRL

When you want to learn
don’t start with what you don’t know;
examine yourself.
Remember, your ignorance
begins at the beginning.

When you want to grow
don’t start seeking the sunshine.
Connect to the ground.
Until your roots are dirty,
you won’t need much chlorophyll.

When you want to love
don’t start with the external.
You won’t find much there
only the same emptiness
reflected in the mirror.

06 DEC 2024

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So Many Words

Posted on December 3, 2024 by JRL

So many words for such a thing so small
it barely leaves a ripple at the shore,
and all its no-so-grand comings and goings
are little noticed after, or before.

So brief an episode is this thing life:
a moment’s breath in an eternal now
that being full, is emptiness itself,
containing neither what nor who nor how.

What good is such a nothing span of time?
What works can be accomplished end to end?
Alone, it has no substance to speak of;
it makes no mark to show that it has been.

And yet without it all we have is words;
just rocks that never grow to become birds.

03 DEC 2024

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Without a Trace

Posted on November 27, 2024 by JRL

Without gratitude
to season today’s living,
the soup of being
has little or no flavor.
Who would eat such a bland dish?

Without noticing
the beauty of this moment,
a colorless world
clothes our life in only gray.
Who would want such a sad view?

Without compassion
leaking from our open wounds,
life’s armor will rust,
making any movement stiff.
Who enjoys such a forced dance?

Without awareness
of the truth of emptiness,
we become so full
of our own self-importance.
Who finds joy so all alone?

27 NOV 2024

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What’s the Score?

Posted on November 25, 2024 by JRL

Just to speculate
on some ideal world to come,
that will not arrive
so long as “they” oppose it,
is a poor and fruitless game.
We cannot evolve
in the future, on our own,
without each other.
The true barrier to peace
is never your enemies.
What kind of a world
includes just one kind of thought,
one right and no wrong?
Imagine the scoreboard reads
Me one, everyone zero.

25 NOV 2024

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