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Month: July 2025

I Love Our Little Talks

Published on July 29, 2025

Don’t tell me who you stand against
or what you would cut down.
Instead, describe the work you do
and how your world has grown.

Don’t tell me what I should resist
or who we both should hate.
Instead, tell me about your life
and why it is so great.

Don’t tell me how you feel about it
without saying why.
Instead, share things that make you smile
and what things make you try.

Don’t tell me when I should stand up
and walk the path with you.
Instead, convince me with your actions
and what you can do.

Don’t tell me where you draw the line
between what’s right and wrong.
Instead, show me the world you’d make
where everyone belongs.

29 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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On Sharing the Wealth

Published on July 29, 2025

If you do not add something of yourself
to everything you choose to pass along,
what kind of an inheritance is that?
Why should your downstream children give a damn?

What good is simply sharing more bad news?
How does that help us to improve our lot?
There is no solidarity in that,
just mindless repetition, nothing more.

If all you do is blithely sing along,
what matter if your protest is heartfelt?
If you would fight the mindless, faceless crowd,
it must be with your own identity.

So share a little something of yourself
when you repeat some bit of what you’ve seen,
or else what difference that it comes from you?
You have a song to sing like no one else.

Why did you share that last report or meme?
Do you have nothing of your own to add?
It must mean something to you, after all,
or else why waste your time and energy?

27 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Something Else

Published on July 28, 2025

If I am not selling you something,
I am selling you something.
If I am not telling you something,
I am telling you something.
If I am not giving you something,
I am giving you something.
If I am not showing you something,
I am showing you something.
If I am not teaching you something,
I am teaching you something.
If I am not feeding you something,
I am feeding you something.
If I am not promising you something,
I am promising you something.

28 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Anti-Social Media: free verse

Published on July 25, 2025

They tell you to engage your audience,
to offer readers ways to interact
that draw them in. And offer helpful bits,
like simple rules or things to take and do.

But honestly, who needs one more “how to”,
another great life hack, or useful trick,
especially condensed down to a quick
and easily digested amuse-bouche?

Don’t get too deep, they warn you, or you’ll lose
the interest of the left-swiping crowd.
Be sure to keep it light, above the fold,
or you’ll have no bestseller on your hands.

But honestly, who needs such vapid fans,
so easily discouraged by a thought
that they flee in mortal fear from what you say,
like roaches when you flip the switch at night?

They say to keep it light. Don’t make demands,
if you would keep a growing, loyal base.
It’s all about the numbers, anyway.
No one expects an influencer to care.

But honestly, why bother in that case,
if what you want is followers and “friends”?
If all of this is pointless talk and show,
shut up and try to change the world instead.

25 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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The World Doesn’t Need Conquering

Published on July 24, 2025

You ever had that feeling when you wake up in the morning, full of energy and zest for living, rested in body and mind, ready to conquer the world? Not me. Well, at least not the “me” underlying the illusions of being we inherit at birth and continue to feed up to a certain point.

If it that WERE me, does the world need conquering? Does it want conquering? Why are even our initial waking existential notions so centered around the two towers of control and destruction? Conquer the world. Blow their minds. Blow them away. Rule the world. Take over. Beat the odds. Rock the house. Wow them. Bowl them over. Exactly who are we trying to impose hierarchical superiority on (or over, really)? Is all we want to imagine ourselves with the kind of blood-soaked, usurious, double-dealing, exploitative, imperialist nobility that makes the toils and troubles of this world mere notions, and the remainder of creation our tools and possessions?

The bottom line is this. Anytime we use an expression that involves the preposition “of the world” we have ventured into the swamps at the edge of La-La land. Pretend you comprehend the meaning of the expressions below, assuming that when you hear “of the world” you interpret it as “my world”, “the real world”, “the dream world”, “the next world”, “whole world”, “known world”, “our world”, and also the “unknown world”, because the world to its inhabitants always means at least one of these, simultaneously and often in conflict with each other.

Light of the world
Scourge of the world
Edge of the world
End of the world
Song of the world
Center of the world

Honestly, what business do you have “conquering” all of that?

24 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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No More Martyrs

Published on July 24, 2025

I don’t want to be your obsession.
I don’t want to be your life lesson.
I don’t want to be your physician.
I can’t be your last condition.

I don’t want to be your sole reason.
I don’t want to be your best season.
I don’t want to be your solution.
I won’t be your whole revolution.

I don’t want to be your creation.
I don’t want to be your sedation.
I don’t want to be your reflection.
I can’t be your friendly suggestion.

I don’t want to be your only choice.
I don’t want to be your master’s voice.
I don’t want to be your rival.
I can’t be your hope for survival.

I don’t want to be your obsession.
I don’t want to be your life lesson.
I don’t want to be your sweet nothing.
I won’t be your last chance at something.

24 Jul 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Salt Dolls in the Sea

Published on July 23, 2025

Like Sri Ramakrishna quipped (or maybe “quipped” isn’t quite the right word), we’re all just salt dolls sent out to measure the depth of the ocean. And you don’t need to drink more than a spoonful to figure out the whole thing is salty. Good thing, too, since our little buckets don’t hold all that much water. No matter where we kneel on the shore and dip our bucket, no matter what we call it out there and then when it’s in our bucket, no matter what the shrines we build there look like and who we think is right enough to get in, we’re all drinking the same Kool-Aid, ultimately. When we drink from the source, that is. Anything else is like decaffeinated coffee – brown disappointment water. But what we do on the shore doesn’t really matter in the long run. Because once we get out into the sea, and I don’t mean just a pinky-toe at the edge of the surf, or a brief jump off the boat for a cooling swim, but when you’re out up to your chest and can just feel the sand under your toes. That’s when it happens. You start to melt. Your salt and the salt in the ocean aren’t separate salinities trapped in different decorative shakers. Together, you and the sea are the record player capable of playing a record that contains the frequencies to disintegrate the record player. You never get more than one chance to make a first (or last) impression. You’re traveling at the speed of now. Nothing to prove and all night long to do it in.

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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