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Tag: impermanence

Out There: rime royal

You cannot heal a thing by using hate.
That salve infects a wound and makes it burn,
then die and rot. Then it is far too late
to blame the medicine you chose to take
for giving you results you didn’t see.
There’s no returning from such a mistake,
no happiness can bloom from enmity.

You cannot build a lasting thing with spite.
A mortar mixed in this way will not hold,
and starts to crumble when exposed to light.
No matter the great wisdom of your plan,
or skills you may employ to shape and frame,
the end result is flawed and will not stand.
You just replace one evil with the same.

You cannot change unless you understand
the world is what it is because of you,
and is by your own doing, shifting sand.
To learn the words for healing, you must seek
beyond the edges of the map you know.
Out there, past right and wrong, past strong and weak,
is where, to find the future, we must go.

23 Jun 2025

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No Time: rimas dissolutas

There is no time, we cannot start again.
The clocks do not run backwards on command,
nor do the years reverse their gears on queue.

You cannot substitute a now for then,
nor rearrange the instance where you stand.
There is no try again, just simply do.

Besides, who wants to just relive the past,
imagining again those glory days
or that crushing defeat? Who needs the stress?

It’s only memory that really lasts,
until it disappears into a haze
that we call history. Well, more or less.

There is no time but now, and it exists
for just this moment only, and no more.
What starts must surely finish when it’s done.

So let it go. It’s useless to resist.
Besides, what good is all forever for?
There is a thing as having too much fun.

20 Jun 2025

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With Us: pantoum

The world is too much with us to pretend
that it is just a temporary slot,
a way to pass some time from start to end
or make believe it’s separate. It’s not

that it is just a temporary slot,
a proving ground for weighing thought and deed.
It is the whole of everything we’ve got.
There is no other lifetime guaranteed.

A proving ground for weighing thought and deed?
Perhaps that is much simpler than it sounds.
Velocity implies both place and speed;
it’s relative to both the sky and ground.

Perhaps that is much simpler than it sounds:
a way to pass some time from start to end
does not imply more than one go-around.
The world is too much with us to pretend.

18 Jun 2025

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Connecting Flights: ottava rima

Against the current swims the steadfast one
who thinks to beat the ocean at its game.
What starts as just a wager made in fun
becomes, after an hour, much the same
as boasting that you could stare down the sun.
You cannot win. Admit it. There’s no shame
in realizing you are very small,
and not much worry to the world at all.

Against the pull of time, our lives spin out
and at the end, our threadless, empty spools
have sewn us neither certainty nor doubt,
but just the simple winding sheet of fools,
that wraps up both the whisper and the shout
and never bothers teaching us the rules.
That threadbare piece of cloth becomes our shroud.
It’s all the carry-on we are allowed.

17 Jun 2025

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The Minute Waltz: englyn proest gadwynog

In just a minute’s brief span
the world is made and unmade.
Try as you may, no one can
restore colors once they fade,

nor take back a piece once played.
There is no time but right now;
all the rest is lost in shade,
turned underneath new farrows.

You can choose to grow or die –
to sink a root or wither;
at least you think you decide,
while doing both or either.

27 May 2025

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What Else: choka

What else can I say?
The world is what we make it,
or maybe it’s not.
The little splashes we make
barely change the water’s calm.

What else can we do?
From nothing, everything comes
and then it is gone.
How we choose to measure time
makes little difference to it.

What else could there be?
Nothing exists forever;
and how would we know?
We see just the horizon;
life doesn’t stop at our eye.

30 Apr 2025

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Emptiness

Our entire lifetime:
a short line drawn in water;
soon nothing remains.
It doesn’t matter what ink
or how much pressure you use.

What seems important
doesn’t leave an impression
in time’s vast ocean.
Each of us is a mirage;
Not even wetness is real.

17 FEB 2025

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