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Tag: change

Spare Change: curtal sonnet

Published on May 7, 2025

When you begin to want to make a change,
you may have no idea how to start.
In fact, your mind may feel lost and confused;
your friends may think you weird or just deranged,
and you’ll keep your own counsel, if you’re smart,
to keep yourself from being too abused.
Once your decision to proceed is made,
don’t take all their derision much to heart;
they will not understand the path you choose,
and you’ll be, when at last the hurting fades,
amused.

For you to change the world, you start within;
‘though some may see the need, so few will try,
and most will laugh and see what you become
as strange and most usual, a whim.
You may not even know them, by and by,
those who when you feel different, still seem numb,
and not as close to you as they now seem.
Still, you must find the rhythm of your drum,
and seek the source inside where your own dreams
come from.

07 MAY 2025

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Stop Feeding the Wrong Wolf

Published on April 17, 2025

You want to start a revolution?
It’s like when you start to covet:
begin with the things you can see,
the wrongs you find within your reach.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

You want your neighbor to reform?
If you can, make a change yourself:
solutions don’t start somewhere else,
and magically come back to roost.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

You don’t like what your leaders do?
Stop following them, blind and mute.
If you’re awake, get out of bed,
and take your share of blame.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

You want a new and better world?
Decide how who you are fits there,
and if it doesn’t, work on that
before you look outside your door.
Stop feeding the wrong wolf.

17 APR 2025

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Change and transformation

Published on March 4, 2017

“We’re mistaken to think there are things that exist solidly within the flow of experience that is our life. We think of who we are as something that’s permanent, that continues over time in the same unchanging form, independent of external conditions. We also think that the world around us exists in the same solid way. Yet whether we look at ourselves, at objects large or small, or at the conditions of life, we don’t find anything that meets those criteria. We see only change and transformation.” – #DzogchenPonlop #rebelbuddha

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The World Can Change

Published on July 12, 2016

I believe the world does change –
but never all at once.
All things evolve through time and space,
at less than glacier pace;
a secret metamorphosis
that takes place in the dark,
which makes a revolution seem
a sudden show of force,
a show of light in shadows,
a jump in consciousness.
That is illusion, too;
for transformation must begin
as all new life, a seed
that breaks the soil it lies beneath
in silence, out of sight.

Since we are taught not to observe
(or how to make believe)
the cracks in that facade
remain quite hidden and unseen.

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No End of Days

Published on March 16, 2016

The world has not yet made its final twirl
around a sun still managing to burn;
the seasons, although changed somewhat of late,
continue with their ceaseless promenade.

Both wise and foolish prattle on no end,
with new results no different from before;
the civilized maintain the status quo
their barbarous ancestors stumbled on.

The end of days is always almost here;
soothsayers find new suckers without fail.
The young, in spite of things, still become old
and stop all their pretending at some point.

So put away those funeral shrouds for now.
There will be no apocalypse this week.

16 MAY 2016

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Happen

Published on August 10, 2015

If it doesn’t ever happen
was it ever gonna change?
Do the puzzle pieces ever move
or just not look the same?
Are the ones that make it happen
just the ones we find to blame?
Do we pick and choose the enemies
who help us feel less strange?
Are we really hoping those like us
are all that will remain?

If it hasn’t ever happened
who’s to say it ever could?
What percentage of the greater
helps define the greater good?
Are the enemies we’re fighting
just dressed up in different hoods?
Is the only thing preventing change
that no one thinks we should?
Do we really think the universe will
end, misunderstood?

If it’s never gonna happen
what is evolution for?
What’s the point of boats, or bridges,
standing land-locked, on the shore?
Are the only ones who ever learn
the dying, dead or poor?
What’s the reason to keep going,
or for trying any more?
When there’s no one left still standing,
does it matter who just scored?

10 AUG 2015

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Spare Change

Published on April 1, 2014

There is no thing that doesn’t change:
some change, but no one sees;
some change a little, but no more;
some change to great degrees.

Some change and become something else;
some change but look the same;
some change because of point of view;
some change in all but name.

There is no thing that doesn’t change:
some change and never know;
some change without a reason why;
some change but never grow.

Some change to suit a place and time;
some change despite themselves;
some change outside but not within;
some change just for a spell.

There is no thing that doesn’t change;
some change without a clue;
some change for better or for worse;
some change but are not new.

Some change to find a better way;
some change, yet stay behind;
some change but never seem to grow;
some only change their minds.

1 APR 2014

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