Skip to content

Tag: games

The Fire Game: sonnet (Italian)

The fire may turn to embers as we age,
its bright hot essence slowly turned to ash.
Our brave ideals disintegrate so fast,
and our youth’s passion melts to smoldering rage.
Perhaps that’s how we see beyond the cage
that we dismissed back then as balderdash,
imagining our noble, rebel clash
as more than just a temporary stage.

Now, hard against the wall, we find the flame
a gentler reminder of those days
when not to burn at both ends was a shame,
and looking out into the growing haze
we see there is no scoring in this game,
no matter which position someone plays.

08 Jul 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

Leave a Comment

The Passing Game

When someone says we’re out of time, so what?
What difference does one more minute make,
if it’s just on or off, open or shut,
and more of just the same old tired mistakes?

When someone says we’re out of time, does that
mean everything so far is done in vain,
as if one’s whole lifespan’s a welcome mat
for one more doorway labeled “Try Again”?

When someone says we’re out of time, just think:
so much can happen in a minute’s span.
There in the space between two quick eye-blinks
eternity awaits your stretched out hand.

When someone says we’re out of time, hold on,
and just because the clocks have stopped to run
that every opportunity is gone.
If you get just a moment, choose this one.

When someone says we’re out of time, alas,
if only there were more of life than this,
remember, neither water nor the glass
sees anything half-empty or remiss.

When someone says we’re out of time, watch out!
They’re trying to convince you it’s the end,
and in that final moment, raise some doubt
that we are all impermanent, my friend.

When someone says we’re out of time, beware,
they want your share of minutes for their own,
as if there isn’t time enough to spare
between just what you see, and what is shown.

When someone says we’re out of time, big deal.
The end and the beginning are the same.
Who cares that you might miss the big reveal:
all life is just a moment’s passing game.

26 Jun 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

Leave a Comment

The World is Broken: skeltonics

The world is broken;
Cassandras have spoken
their tales of woe.
Let teardrops flow;
and as fear grows,
watch kindness dry
and those who try
to counter lies
with trust and truth
lose friends and youth.
As our illusions
die, confusion
fills our dreaming,
leaves us scheming
more on winning,
our minds spinning
to control
mind, body, soul,
and seek no answers.
We are dancers
in a maelstrom;
there is no music
left while we lose it,
no symphony for cursing
the headache we’re not nursing.
What good is more nay-saying?
What is this game we’re playing?
The world’s not slowing;
we’re not growing.
No point guessing
where we’re going.
You have to choose
to win AND lose.

30 MAY 2017

© 2017, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

Leave a Comment

What price a pawn

What price paid by a pawn who makes,
if merely by sheer luck or chance,
its way through fields strewn by mistakes
in focused, single step advance
to the far end of what it knows,
where all the trappings of a pawn
must be forgotten, and the clothes
befit a king must be put on?

28 JUL 2005

© 2005, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

Leave a Comment
error: Content is protected !!