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Tag: life

A Soul in Cement: sonnet (sonetto rispetto)

Published on July 8, 2025

I will not live my whole life just to spite
one more imagined evil at my door,
some cloud determined to block out my light,
or leave my spirit destitute. No more.
Why be a tool for either left or right,
when a binary choice is still piss-poor?
You’re always wrong when you pick just one side,
and where you end depends on how you ride.

The truth that can be shown in white or black
is just one more illusion, just a trick
that gives you hope for something permanent.
Reality is change. Stop holding back.
Your life is not cement that will grow thick
and make your purpose more self-evident.

08 JUL 2025

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Left of How: English sonnet

Published on May 21, 2025

The world evolves without suspense or trick;
it is and it becomes, with no delay,
both seed and flower’s dried husk, derelict
from newborn babe within each single day.

What seems to be so permanent and cast
in stone, begins to crumble at its birth;
mere nothingness is all that seems to last –
and we know just exactly what that’s worth.

The past and future are both fantasy;
they live both in our minds, and not at all.
You may as well believe you are a tree
to think spring comes again after your fall.

And yet, life is worth living, here and now.
You’re given when and where; what’s left is how.

21 MAY 2025

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So Many Words

Published on December 3, 2024

So many words for such a thing so small
it barely leaves a ripple at the shore,
and all its no-so-grand comings and goings
are little noticed after, or before.

So brief an episode is this thing life:
a moment’s breath in an eternal now
that being full, is emptiness itself,
containing neither what nor who nor how.

What good is such a nothing span of time?
What works can be accomplished end to end?
Alone, it has no substance to speak of;
it makes no mark to show that it has been.

And yet without it all we have is words;
just rocks that never grow to become birds.

03 DEC 2024

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A Single Blink: triolet

Published on June 7, 2017

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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These Three Things: triad

Published on June 7, 2017

On these three things the world depends:
life purpose, effort and one’s friends.

The first provides velocity:
forward motion, destiny.
The second supplements one’s sails
when wind and tide desist or fail.

The third reminds us to respect
those in the world whose paths connect
with our own journey, for a while,
and share our sorrows and our smiles.

Without these things, the world is flat;
and our adventure, nothing that
is worth much. Neither time nor health
is substitute for this true wealth.

07 JUN 2017

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Plain Speaking: toddaid

Published on June 6, 2017

“You must speak more plainly, sir,” he said,
“Most men ignore the complicated.
Their jaded minds and souls seek simple things:
weak drinks, brutal sports, the understated.”

“How much more sad that seems,” I made reply,
“to have no dreams than see them all fade.
A life made of no attribute but length.
I’d not have strength for such charade.”

“Aye,” he answered back, “’tis quite a showing:
all the time knowing there’s nothing more,
no real sense of self, nor point in being,
for years, seeing naught but shuttered doors.”

I spoke then, “What a statement on mankind:
that so few find a purpose beyond toil,
but slowly fade to nothing, spoiled and torn;
just born to return back to the soil.”

06 JUN 2017

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