Tag Archives: illusion

Dividing Up the Blame

There is no religion for the whole of “god”,
just some small and all-too-human scraps.
We are not equipped to know the universe,
nor much more than we hold in our laps.

There is nothing that is end-all, be-all
that we can imagine. Only fools
seek a formula that folds it all in;
we know not the game, or half the rules.

There is no united, single pathway,
nor a sole, most sacred mountaintop.
All we see are ripples and faint echoes,
not where things begin or where they stop.

We are at the shore of a great ocean,
thinking that our buckets hold the sea.
Salt dolls sent to measure depth and distance,
we dissolve. That’s how it’s meant to be.

There is nothing sacred that is separate;
just some shattered fragments, nothing more.
That we cannot put them all together
doesn’t mean we’ve failed. There is no score.

It is not religion that imagines
some connection that escapes our sight.
The small gods we carve out in our image
leave us blind and deaf out in the night.

There is nothing missing from the picture;
only our misjudging of the frame.
Drawing rigid lines between each other,
we each die dividing up the blame.

25 JUL 2017

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The Presence of Today

We either seek to view the world today
through some past generation’s worn and tired lens,
or try to filter what is past and gone
with some new, modern sensibility.

In either case, the picture loses sense;
we only see with skewed perception what we like:
a world that suits our purposes as is,
or one that our reforming might make right.

And while we fight and scrape to prove our case,
what happens to the time that is?
The Now, the only time that is, is lost
and gone before we live its span.

What is the point of living in denial?
The world is what it is; each second’s span
is neither from the future or the past.
It slips away like water in your hand,

and your contention neither gives nor takes
a jot of weight to yesterday’s long gone
nor to tomorrow’s not yet been
if you neglect the presence of today.

24 JUL 2017

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Does Somebody Win?

Doesn’t seem to make much sense at all;
win or lose don’t matter in the end.
It’s a race that seems too close to call;
finish line’s just up around the bend.

Doesn’t seem to change much day to day;
up or down, they’re pretty much the same.
It’s an endless cycle, anyway;
good or bad, the blues still run the game.

Doesn’t seem to be much of a choice;
nothing but illusions and disguise.
If you take a stand, or find your voice,
all you know or say ends up in lies.

Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me;
just another day to make it through.
Wasn’t what they promised it would be:
finding something meaningful to do.

Doesn’t seem there’s anything that’s true;
everyone pretends in something more.
What’s the point in simply playing through?
Who is left to count the final score?

Doesn’t seem to be a worthy cause;
after all, what matters, when it’s done?
Instinct versus artificial law;
both are losers, if somebody’s won.

09 JUN 2017

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A Single Blink: triolet

A moment’s span is very little time;
a single blink and half of it is gone.
Not long enough to make ambition’s climb,
a moment’s span is very little time,
which makes its wasting quite a solemn crime.
On such small pegs, life’s hat is hung upon.
A moment’s span is very little time;
a single blink and half of it is gone.

07 JUN 2017

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The Ancient Lie: tawddgyrch cadwynog

An ancient lie
controls the world,
its flag unfurled
before the eye:

that might is right;
the mystery
of history
is that what light

the meagre flame
of truth reveals,
the winner steals
in a rigged game

won by a cheat,
claimed before birth,
so that true worth
seems like deceit.

06 MAY 2017

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Rainbows and sunshine: tanka

This note may be dark,
but it reflects the weather.
Besides, too much light
fades color from everything.
What a gray world that would make!

Rainbows and sunshine
do not help the whole world grow.
There must be dark storms
to fuel life at its deep roots,
build jungles out of deserts.

Seeing only good
is merely self-hypnosis;
dark and light exist
in equal measure out there.
Why persist out of balance?

05 JUN 2017

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Let’s Toast: stave

It makes no sense to soldier on;
the dusk looks so much like the dawn
that even should the sun eclipse
there is no cause to do backflips
or celebrate the coming day.
But come, let’s toast life, anyway!

Each day begins and ends the same;
with no specific cause to blame
except that living tends to drone
and carry on. You’re born alone,
and by exception find your way.
But come, let’s toast life, anyway!

You buy and sell each moment’s art;
it can’t survive, if split apart
from what creates it, the bruised whole
that struggles to maintain control
and tolerate each passing day.
But come, let’s toast life, anyway!

In vain, we seek to understand;
inventing myths, and gods, and man,
as if we had creative strength
except to measure, width and length,
the box we’ll fill, returned to clay.
But come, let’s toast life, anyway!

What is the point of this charade?
Just prancing horses, on parade,
whose blinders lead just straight ahead
and walk until they fall down dead.
We know this, but walk night and day.
But come, let’s toast life, anyway!

05 JUN 2017

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