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Tag: illusion

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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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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The Five Pillars

I’ll write this down because I might forget, and in the morning not be as profound. The pillars underlying everything, at least the point of view that shapes my world, are time, essence, identity, impermanence, and illusion. These five interconnected themes mean something when examined separately, but look quite different when viewed as a whole. Of course, they all fold into each other. Time, for example, is critical to the definition of essence, identity, impermanence, and illusion. Those things exist only in or outside of time. Likewise, all are illusions, made just slightly less ephemeral through the lens of identity, which is itself impermanent and without lasting essence. Who we are, or rather how we identify ourselves, is a trick of the light. We imagine ourselves as some primordial space dust come into being before the advent of time and destined to continue after the stars turn cold. But even that illusion does not last our entire lifetime. Lifetime: that’s another tricky word. It implies that the ticking clock is the primary means for measuring a quantity of life. It can be useful, indeed. But despite a deep, unrelenting desire to be of use, to be more than just a simple cog in a mindless machine, most folks, as Thoreau pointed out, lead lives of quiet desperation. They want time, essence, identity, and illusion. They just want them permanently, unchanging, and fixed in the heavens like stars to set your sails against. They are desperate because that ain’t gonna happen. They are quiet because to question the status quo, the societal norms, the will of the gods, is to further reinforce your impermanence. By the same token, considering your quality of life without including all five pillars will likewise lead to imbalance, inequity, injustice, and insignificance.

03 Aug 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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I Love Our Little Talks

Don’t tell me who you stand against
or what you would cut down.
Instead, describe the work you do
and how your world has grown.

Don’t tell me what I should resist
or who we both should hate.
Instead, tell me about your life
and why it is so great.

Don’t tell me how you feel about it
without saying why.
Instead, share things that make you smile
and what things make you try.

Don’t tell me when I should stand up
and walk the path with you.
Instead, convince me with your actions
and what you can do.

Don’t tell me where you draw the line
between what’s right and wrong.
Instead, show me the world you’d make
where everyone belongs.

29 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Something Else

If I am not selling you something,
I am selling you something.
If I am not telling you something,
I am telling you something.
If I am not giving you something,
I am giving you something.
If I am not showing you something,
I am showing you something.
If I am not teaching you something,
I am teaching you something.
If I am not feeding you something,
I am feeding you something.
If I am not promising you something,
I am promising you something.

28 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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The World Doesn’t Need Conquering

You ever had that feeling when you wake up in the morning, full of energy and zest for living, rested in body and mind, ready to conquer the world? Not me. Well, at least not the “me” underlying the illusions of being we inherit at birth and continue to feed up to a certain point.

If it that WERE me, does the world need conquering? Does it want conquering? Why are even our initial waking existential notions so centered around the two towers of control and destruction? Conquer the world. Blow their minds. Blow them away. Rule the world. Take over. Beat the odds. Rock the house. Wow them. Bowl them over. Exactly who are we trying to impose hierarchical superiority on (or over, really)? Is all we want to imagine ourselves with the kind of blood-soaked, usurious, double-dealing, exploitative, imperialist nobility that makes the toils and troubles of this world mere notions, and the remainder of creation our tools and possessions?

The bottom line is this. Anytime we use an expression that involves the preposition “of the world” we have ventured into the swamps at the edge of La-La land. Pretend you comprehend the meaning of the expressions below, assuming that when you hear “of the world” you interpret it as “my world”, “the real world”, “the dream world”, “the next world”, “whole world”, “known world”, “our world”, and also the “unknown world”, because the world to its inhabitants always means at least one of these, simultaneously and often in conflict with each other.

Light of the world
Scourge of the world
Edge of the world
End of the world
Song of the world
Center of the world

Honestly, what business do you have “conquering” all of that?

24 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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The Diamond Sutra: sonnet (Spencerian)

What is an unexcelled and perfect light,
and who would recognize that state as such?
To judge it by comparison’s not right,
and once you’re past that point, there’s just not much

to measure with. No real yardstick or crutch
would be of too much use out there, beyond
the realm of seeing, hearing, and of touch.
How could you catch a ripple in that pond?

Quite honestly, too many saints are fond
of these imaginary turns of phrase.
The truth is out there past such simple bonds,
quite empty of both struggle and malaise.

Enlightenment? What do you hope to see?
Once there is no more seeking, you are free.

09 JUL 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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