Social media is an infectious disease, spread by word of mouth. We pretend we have something worth saying out loud each day.
Who cares how diligently we reshare or like? We like to think we improve silence, but no one listens.
What real change are we making, parroting this stuff? No one sounds original speaking others’ words.
Why are we so important? Our lives go so fast. Before the ink dries, our contract expires.
10 DEC 2024
The wise men all say look within; and still, we focus outward. Is it because we’re deaf, or stupid? Maybe we’re just cowards.
In so many ways, our memories are like poetry: distillations of images that if given too much solid detail become stodgy, boring and definitely unmusical. Show, don’t tell; as if in telling too much, you’re actually hiding behind an edifice of words and not revealing the soft, white underbelly everyone suspects is there.
And how far back does a really accurate memory go? How useful is it to remember everything in detail? If a manic-depressive were to actually appreciate while at one end of the spectrum the absolute height or depth of the opposite cycle, how even keeled they might become! Like the mystic story of the king who wished to have something to both sober him when he felt too happy, and intoxicate him when he felt too dry, and was eventually given a trinket inscribed “this too shall pass”. Is there REALLY a middle way?
Each moment of my time has its own price;
and some cannot be purchased with mere coin.
Let my donation of it be my vice,
and cursed be those who would by ruse purloin
five minutes, nay, one instant without leave.
That being mine, it lacks the holy grace
of your own lifespan, I will not believe.
Yours trades for no more value by its face,
nor is it alloyed from ores of more worth.
There are some things for which my time is stored;
though just a few, they each claim sacred berths.
You would rob these slyly, and what’s more,
believe it chattel due some wage you pay.
But what I give my hours is mine to rank;
and there are more important things each day
than what results in funds placed in the bank.
Each moment of my time is not for hire,
nor is it leisure waiting your concern.
My candle’s length is not your source for fire;
and I alone choose how and what to burn.
20 JAN 2005
Aleister Crowley once said, and I liberally paraphrase, that if you love life you do not waste your time, for that is the primary measure applied against it. I dedicate this poem to telemarketers, spammers, door-to-door salesmen (of either tangible products or intangible salvation of some kind), clients who call after hours, and all those who would infringe upon my time without my express consent or request.
A pebble leaned against a towering wall
(at least that’s how it first appeared to me)
just barely seen beyond the shadow’s fall,
not much more than a speck of loose debris,
looking like it had been carelessly knocked free
and now was fated to be swept away
by passersby on their way down the street;
the lesser are forgotten in that way.
A smaller piece of stone, I can’t recall;
it seemed so insignificant, tiny.
Yet how it seemed in juxtapose enthralled
me, and caused me to think of destiny.
Because the cause for much we cannot see,
we overlook the obvious and stay
in search of greater meaning than we need;
the lesser are forgotten in that way.
The edifice that blocks the eye, the wall,
is built of unseen bits and filagree
that separate, are not much to see at all
but joined together seem like majesty.
So useless, insignificant, maybe,
these molecules of fundamental clay
that lend their strength and will the great to be;
the lesser are forgotten in that way.
Perhaps the towering wall is that which leans,
and depends on the pebble where it lays,
believing in what other people see;
the lesser are forgotten in that way.
03 APR 2004
