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Tag: victory

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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Lose or Win: rhupunt

What may begin
as lose or win
soon starts to spin
outside that frame.

It seems like play,
this bob and sway:
a bright display,
almost a game,

a wild careen,
drifting between
two wide extremes,
darkness and flame.

Always the chance
in the day’s dance
any advance
could leave you lame.

Each place you are,
gutter or star,
leaves its own scar.
No point in blame.

Thus every art
contains, in part,
true and false starts.
Each ends the same.

27 APR 2017

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Not My Fate: a ballade supreme

They say that love will break your heart,
that trouble waits along the way,
discouraging those at the start
to risk or even try to play;
so many rise and greet the day
expecting nothing good or kind,
and thus, not seeking, never find
the reasons why a life goes by
in come and go, in came and went:
alone we live, alone we die.

They say the race goes to the smart,
that muscled effort is no way
to push or pull the heavy cart
that is a life’s work, day to day.
And the result? So many stay
so far inside a life of mind,
with limbs grown weak, with eyes gone blind;
Why would one even try to fly,
with wasted wings, worn out and bent?
Alone we live, alone we die.

They say that each must learn their part:
that everyone’s a part to play;
a chosen few are called high art –
the rest mere chorus, or display,
with narrow range, a single way
to move and speak their meager lines.
How in this way can one find
their calling, or their reason why,
typecast as just a single kind,
alone we live, alone we die?

I say love suits the heart just fine,
that life is more than toil and grind.
Their bale pronouncements are a lie!
To their sad fate, I’m not consigned:
to live alone, and alone, die.

13 NOV 2010

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The Wrong Side

We all want to be the victor,
to believe that right is always on our side;
and to those who would oppose us,
any kind of sympathy we would deny.

Keeping score, mind on the numbers,
so we never lose an inch of precious ground;
‘Cause there’s only so much of it all,
and never quite enough to go around.

It’s a constant state of vigilance,
just making sure you always end up on the top;
only fools and weak kneed cowards
dare suggest that anyone would dare to stop.

At what price, this precious victory?
To win, at last, and be alone and free;
with no one to share the moment with,
no one to dare to doubt or disagree.

You know, the world is full of choices
and each one of us must live as we decide;
So before you burn your bridges
best make sure to not be stuck on the wrong side.

13 JAN 2009

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Volume is no substitute

Volume is no substitute for power;
It’s not the loudest shouts that prove most true.
These sounds that shake foundations may undo
in minutes what took builders countless hours,
but mere feats of destruction can’t compete
with the small, quiet moments of creation,
wherein the world, envisioned as complete,
becomes reality. And the frustration
of those whose gift consists of only noise,
whose talents lie in laying waste, in spoil,
is that they cannot know the simple joy
of water when it is not brought to boil.

03 JUL 2005

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