Author Archives: JRL

Anybody’s Anything: droighneach

Nothing that is temporary becomes infinite;
each thing’s just a project. It starts and it finishes,
simply an effect of a cause, made of composites
that wax and wane. Being comes and then diminishes. Continue reading

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Here and Back Again

Sometimes it’s funny the way the world looks different when you learn a new thing or catch a strange foreign film or think at least to yourself that you’ve come up with an idea, the result of figuring out exactly … Continue reading

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The Tipping Point

We reached the tipping point
when male pattern baldness
and erectile dysfunction
became more important
than curing cancer
or infant mortality.
When all the television shows
about poor people
in situation dramedies
were replaced by “reality” programs
about the hard lives
of people born or married
to wealth and power. Continue reading

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Mr. and Mrs. John Q: double dactyl

Higgledy-piggledy
Public, John Q.
voted for this mess and
gave it no thought:
just what would happen
when truth lost its way
and no ticket back
could be bought. Continue reading

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What Urgency: descort

What’s so urgent
all of a sudden?
It’s not like the world woke up yesterday
as a hot mess,
broken into tiny fractions
by some new denominator.

Where have you been?
Wake up and smell the coffee;
some of us been drinking a pot a day
since Reaganomics. Continue reading

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Score None for Everyone: deibhidhe

When kingdoms fall, what is left
besides the dead and bereft?
War leaves all wounded and poor,
most more wretched than before.

Who cares how right the victors,
their flags, displayed in pictures,
atop the now rotting crop
of those stopped. Continue reading

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The Way of Not Alone: cywydd llosgyrnog

The way is not so wild and free
that you walk independently
or win victory alone.
You may travel without a clue
of who or what walks next to you,
there through all that you have known. Continue reading

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