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Category: Lines

Poetry, including verse and song lyrics.

Engagement

If every day you can say something new,
to keep your content fresh and sparkling clean,
it won’t much matter what else you may do,
so long as you don’t say just what you mean.

See, no one wants to dig in all that deep.
The truth is, what we want is light-weight friends,
just close enough to hold but not to keep
beyond the time the current platform ends.

If this were revolution, would it be
so simple to peruse and then pass by?
If our commitment is so fast and free,
it may soon wither up and start to die.

Maybe it doesn’t matter in the end,
but I’m so tired of playing just pretend.

20 Aug 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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We Like To Think

We like to think the truth is complicated,
that life is how it is because it’s hard
to figure it all out while it is happening
and comes at you, rapid fire, non-stop.

We like to think our big brains are so useful,
that the solutions we come up with are so wise.
After all, we spend so much time thinking.
There must be something worthwhile in it.

We like to think we don’t like drama,
that life is better when we keep it real.
But that’s too simple, really, to be right.
If it were just that, wouldn’t everyone do it?

We like to think, because our minds invent
an endless stream of objections and excuses
designed to convince us we don’t know anything.
If we could figure it out, we would. Right?

We like to think the world is complicated.
But that’s because it’s follow-through that’s hard.
If life were simply our imagination,
we’d never need to fix another thing.

We like to think the truth should be more clever
than simple minds like ours can figure out.
But we don’t need more gurus, saints, or teachers.
It’s not that hard to be a better person.

15 AUG 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Saying Nothing: sonnet

So many ways to share our thoughts, and yet,
we choose instead to merely nod and wink
to better justify and then forget
those fleeting moments where we stop to think.

It’s not a conversation that we seek,
nor dialogue that motivates our daily posts.
We tend to lead with pictures, and not speak,
lest we reveal our monsters as mere ghosts.

We give ourselves so little time and space
to build ideas into flesh and blood.
Preoccupied with scandal and disgrace,
we lose our focus wallowing in mud.

And what is that we really want to say?
The world is wrong if it’s not done my way.

14 Aug 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Sing a Morning Song

On the east edge of now, the sun rises
against a somber dawn of fading grays.
In that new light of morning, awaken,
and shake the sleep of apathy away.

What time exists is in this moment, here.
It cannot be extended or exchanged
in some transaction seeming more auspicious
or played to some advantage yet unseen.

Let loose your eyes and ears! Enjoy this instant!
There is no opportunity to come.
Let memory defend itself this evening –
the morning’s hay is made in daylight hours.

What use some future state that never comes,
or dusty, faded memories grown old,
their polished surface worn from excess handling?
The bird is in the bush, never the hand.

Let loose your tongue and find a better song,
one free from someone else’s maudlin words!
There is a song that only you can sing.
If you don’t start it now, no one else will.

11 AUG 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Time Enough

If there is time enough for this and that,
for endless hours to deconstruct ennui
and countless minutes lost in might have been,
then surely there is room for something more.

The clock’s always correct just once a day.
It never moves or gives itself away,
but blithely watches on as we digress,
or find another way to sit and spin.

But we are no mere aspic holding on
to minuscule and tasteless bits of life.
Our grip can only wrestle with our grasp,
and neither proves adhesive in the end.

What else would you have time enough to try?
The busyness of spectacle consumes
so much of what could be but never is,
and leaves us much more lonely than alone.

If there is time to waste, why make much more?
There isn’t any race left us to run.
We hear eternal echoes but have learned to hate our ears.
There’s always time enough to try again.

06 Aug 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Idle Chat(ter)

There is too much of nothing here
for me to speak at length.
To break it down to mere ideas
would take all our strength.

Instead, pretend it’s something grand, more worthy of our time.
That may convince the rest of us
to stand up, down the line.

Besides, we’ve talked and talked to death
our, grief, and shame.
We’ll never be real heroes
while we seek someone to blame.

And further, while we spend our time
conversing this and that,
the foxes in the chicken coop
will dine until they’re fat.

This idle conversation makes us
tired and prone to sleep
while what we think the world should be
grows ponderous and deep.

Instead, let us waste no more words
debating right and wrong.
What chance we have to change our course
will fade before too long.

There’s always talk of nothing much,
of what we plan to do.
A dream is made of simple stuff
’til action makes it true.

So let us talk of something else,
of things that make some sense.
For talk alone won’t change the world –
of that there’s evidence.

05 Aug 2025


© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Too Much is Still Unsaid

Too much is still unsaid that lies beneath
the words we loosely share in public space,
and in that gap between the truth and lies
we share what guilt there is to spare.

Our conversations tend to short and sweet,
like advert jingles meant to sell the steal
from our too willing hands caught in the till.
We keep our missives to the point and brief.

The dialogue may seem a bit one-sided,
since by and large we mostly talk alone.
There is no use in trading misperceptions,
nor wasting time in chasing some strange dreams.

Too much is still unsaid that must be heard:
the words we use all seem to miss the point,
and in the gap between the real and fake
we learn the lessons keeping us alive.

04 Aug 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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