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Tag: purpose

On Poetry and Prettiness

Published on June 5, 2025

Poetry does not need to be pretty.
It is a distillation of images, of ideas,
to their primary essence.

Poetry is not about cleverness,
although you have to smart to use it well.
Maybe not book-smart,
but your eyes need to see the world
as it is, as it could be, and as it was:
and each in the other two.

Some say it’s about the show, not tell,
but showing someone a sheet of music
isn’t about what it looks like
on the printed page.
There are rules you need to know, sometimes,
that can serve as prison bars,
or a box spring.

Poetry does not need to “make” sense.
It is for the senses.
It should move you
as if you were a dancer,
and the song
was the only thing in the world
stuck with you in the amber of time.

05 Jun 2025

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Travel Plans: englyn unodl union

Published on May 29, 2025

In retrospect, I should have known:
if the world changes, you have grown. Doesn’t mean
it’s all neat and clean. You’re shown
maybe a thing or two, alone.

You have a choice. Choose to care.
It matters how you get there; the end
depends on it. So beware:
life’s not a solo affair.

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The Write to Read: caudate sonnet

Published on April 28, 2025

What good to write when so few have the time
to do much more than nod and swipe me gone?
Opinions vary, but to ramble on
without an audience seems too sublime.
Besides, what difference can a few short lines
make when the world needs changing, not anon,
but here and now, before the chance is gone?
The line between much good, and none, is fine.

What matter does it make, ten thousand friends,
when only two or three may even try
to navigate through streams of postured talk
that lives for but a moment, then it ends,
before it has a chance to qualify
as something just more useful than a rock?

You read me? I’m in shock.

It does me good to think of you out there,
afloat in that great ether realm, somewhere;
I write on, since you care.

Together, let us seek some peace of mind;
there is no limit to what we can find.

28 APR 2025

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Your Feet Know the Way: benison

Published on April 21, 2025

Your path begins there at your feet;
the first move is the hardest one.
Until the last step is complete
you will not know the task is done.

Along the way, you’ll see the world;
you’ll wonder why, and how, and when,
and sift through miles of sand, and pearls,
each whole day through, and then again.

What answers will you seek, or find,
no one else knows. They are your own.
If you will learn, or lose your mind,
depends on you and you alone.

You have a choice, with every breath:
to love or hate, to lose or gain,
to see rebirth in every death,
to seek out joy or dwell on pain.

May you find what you need to do
to build more bridges where you can,
so that when your time here is through
you don’t regret taking a stand.

Your path begins right here and now;
your feet already know the way.
You need not wonder where, or how,
but only when: and that’s today.

21 APR 2025

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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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Let’s Toast: stave

Published on June 5, 2017

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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