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Month: June 2025

You Are the Path: rondeau redoubled

Published on June 25, 2025

The path you walk is yours to choose,
no matter where that journey starts
or how you follow the faint clues
that will distract you. If you’re smart,

you’ll use your eyes to look around,
to take in what you see, and use
the little things along the way.
The path you walk is yours to choose.

Each day brings more and different news,
some light and darkness, and their parts
decay and birth. You’ll see such views
no matter where your journey starts,

or who may travel at your side.
Take all the time you need. You lose
nothing with each step you decide,
or how you follow the faint clues.

So take a moment. There’s no use
pretending that your life is art
that takes great skill. That’s just a ruse
that will distract you. If you’re smart,

you’ll simply walk, and from the start
imagine with your mind and heart
a world that underneath your shoes
includes you, an integral part.
The path you walk is you.

25 Jun 2025

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Our Secret: rondeau

Published on June 24, 2025

What is the secret we all seek?
Despite the clever words we speak,
our desperation grows and thrives,
infecting every segment of our lives,
convincing us that we are weak.

And those who struggle, we call freaks,
and frightened, hide our flaws and leaks
away from others’ prying eyes.
That is the secret.

We passively exploit the meek,
and shame our smartest nerds and geeks.
into neat boxes to survive,
destroying their creative drive,
in service to the working week.
That is our secret.

24 Jun 2025

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What Is It: rispetto

Published on June 23, 2025

What is it that we try to do?
It seems the same old tired song:
me being right, and blaming you
when everything around goes wrong.

What good does that do anyone,
when neither side can win or lose?
It’s not enjoyable or fun
for either team. Why would you choose

to carry on in such a way?
Who likes to play this sorry game?
It seems a waste of a good day.
If we keep going, who’s to blame?

What is it that we want to be?
That seems a tired line
tied up with some great destiny.
But it is yours, or mine?

What difference can it really make,
if we don’t ever try to change?
Instead, let’s learn from our mistakes.
Together, it won’t seem so strange.

23 Jun 2025

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Shut Up and Row: rionnaird tri-nard

Published on June 23, 2025

Don’t ask me how I’m doing,
or just what I’ve been thinking.
I’m far too busy bailing
my little boat that’s sinking.
I must keep things in focus.
Do not keep up your prattle,
belay your hocus pocus.
It’s hard enough a battle.

Leave off me with your jabbing.
I don’t need added tension.
Besides, what good is gabbing
when I must pay attention?
There’s no time for that nonsense
when we both should be rowing.
Spare me your show and pretense
’til we get where we’re going.

23 Jun 2025

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Out There: rime royal

Published on June 23, 2025

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 Substitute for Progress: qasida

Published on June 22, 2025

Salutations and our greeting.
Welcome to this special meeting.
As you know, our time is fleeting,
so please take your assigned seating.

We control a heart that’s beating.
Ever forward, no retreating.
Never mind the lambs, their bleating
will grow softer. They’re just tweeting.

Taste the fatted calf we’re eating,
as this project nears completing,
raised free-range, on grain, no cheating,
farm-to-table, heart still beating.

All the numbers say we’re beating
anyone who tried competing.
We’re as sound as central heating.
Our position is concreting.

Still, this message bears repeating:
going soft is self-defeating.
Never mind the weak entreating
you for mercy in defeating.

This concludes our special meeting.
Please return your hood and sheeting.
The exit survey you’re completing
keeps our cause from obsoleting.

22 Jun 2025

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Dog in the Rain: Burns stanza

Published on June 20, 2025

When the gods start bowling in the sky,
my wee, little dog starts in to cry
and seeks a spot secure and up high,
tucked behind my head.
She whines ’til the thunderstorm goes by
and will not go to bed.

She’s such a brave and fearsome critter,
but howling, loud winds set her a jitter.
Listen to how her heart goes pitter
pat. Her quaking chest
betrays her fear. She’s all a twitter,
and can get no rest.

When the dark skies are weeping sadly
my sweet dog is behaving badly:
she sneaks under my pillow, gladly,
to hide from the storm,
and cries and whimpers, low and madly
tho’ she’s inside and warm.

20 Jun 2025

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