Author Archives: JRL

This Anymore

I don’t want to do this anymore.
The world is not doing any worse than it ever was.
We’re not going to hell in a handbasket.
We made up hell to convince ourselves this wasn’t so bad after all.
We imagine that things are going to get better.
We offer thoughts and prayers to make it so.

I don’t want to do this anymore.
I never thought I would get this old.
I never dreamed that as the world gets smaller and smaller, so would I.
When you say your first word, it’s hard to imagine running out of things to say.
But it happens.
At some point past your natural expiration date
you see yourself fading away. Continue reading

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We Aren’t Really Talking Anyway

It doesn’t matter, anyway,
if you don’t hear a word I say.
And if you hear, why don’t you listen?
Does it matter what you’re missing,
if the words there in your presence
don’t much matter. Does it make sense
to pretend that conversation’s
what we after? It’s a new situation. Continue reading

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The Last Present

There is no time like the Present; 
that’s what all the pundits say.
They’ll be saying it next season.
It’s the one that got away. 
There is no time but the present; 
that just now and yesterday, 
the coming nexts or maybe soons
that occupy and stay. Continue reading

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The Soundtrack of Your Life

The music that you listen to, that fills the quiet space,
is like the soundtrack of your life. Its sound describes the place
exactly where you’re at, and why, and what will happen next.

It’s not a mixtape or a set of songs. It’s more than that:
the foley artists earn their due, painting in sound your steps,
the voices in your head, the creaking joints and bones. Continue reading

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Time The Changeling

What has been need not always be what is.
There is a sense of time that must erase the world that is what was and built the now.
Against such force, what armed and booted thugs can stand and keep their sense of distance from the truth? Continue reading

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Aristotalitarian Logic

The world is like a file folder system in which everything has its right folder, label, drawer, shelf, cabinet, space, wall, room, floor, building, block, neighborhood, suburb, city, metropolitan area, county/parish, region, state, country, continent, land mass, planet, etc.

And your whole life is spent figuring that out.

So there, you’ve saved a minute. Don’t thank me. Continue reading

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Between a Place and Hard Rock

I love hearing songs I haven’t heard in a while. That’s why I’ll test drive streaming service playlists like “70s Hard Rock” and hope for the best: that it will include essentials like AC/DC, Sabbath, Kiss, UFO, NWOBHM, BOC, etc., … Continue reading

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