Wake Up: gwawdonyn hir

Posted on June 4, 2025 by JRL

Wake up! The dawn is slowly creeping
behind the darkness. Just stop sleeping.
Dry those nightmare tears; end your weeping,
else your other dreams worth keeping
lose momentum and never see the light.
Right now is the only time to fight.
Please heed your urgent alarm’s beeping.

Wake up! There is not much time to lose.
You are defined by the path you choose,
not how you echo the world’s sad news
or crumble with each impact or bruise.
With every breath you must either stand or fall,
and only now exists for us all.
There is no option for you to snooze.

04 Jun 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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The Pursuit of Happiness: gwawdodyn

Posted on June 3, 2025 by JRL

To pursue happiness is the dream
America is built on, it seems.
The constant search, living beyond our means,
an old wineskin stretched at the seams.

But God help those who try and succeed:
we have a psychological need,
not to deny winning in terms of wealth,
but to hate any whose words and deeds

suggest real success is in the mind,
that toys and treasures you may find
outside yourself can never feed your soul,
and gold that glitters leaves you blind

to what in this life really matters.
Success is not served on gold platters,
nor is it found by taking more and more.
There is no pit, and no ladder.

03 Jun 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Good Morning: gloss (glosa)

Posted on June 2, 2025 by JRL

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning – Carl Sandburg

You say you’re woke because your eyes
are open and you’re out of bed,
and yet describing what you see, you fail
to see yourself and choose instead
to catalog the failings of the world
that won’t conform to how you feel
and what you really want to see,
since reality has no appeal.

Your eyes are open, but you’re blind;
the world is what it’s always been.
It spins around each morning
and repeats itself, again.

You wonder why so few around
seem to believe your point of view,
without the benefit of your insight
or the mirror looking back at you.

You say, “Wake up!” to those who sleep,
“and smell the coffee’s sweet perfume,”
but disregard the fact that some
see more than just your tiny room
where stranger creatures come and go
to satisfy your cravings,
and make the world a better place
and something good worth saving.

02 JUN 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Nothing Left to Lose: ghazal

Posted on June 2, 2025 by JRL

When you first discover love, you find something to lose;
not quite yourself, a place apart that you’re afraid to lose.

But then you realize that time itself is meaningless and small,
an artificial sense of space too infinite to lose.

Inside each single moment, in that space between your breaths,
exists an entire universe where we find what we lose.

There is no separation between you and your beloved;
illusions of both time and space become just tools you lose.

And as the lines evaporate, observer and observed
become an integrated, simple thing with nothing left to lose.

02 Jun 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Nothing Matters: free verse

Posted on May 31, 2025 by JRL

If nothing is a thing at all
then nothing comes from something;
that’s logic if you presuppose
that something there is that doesn’t
love the void:
that a thing that is cannot become
if there’s no seed or spark or speck
from which it comes to being.
It could be some eternal mind,
a divine will, or cosmic dust;
the truth is, it is just unseen
by those who claim to know the truth,
or lack enough creative juice
to see beyond what they can see.

The sages from the east propose
that it’s all in the mind.
Perhaps, that’s well enough to pass some tests
but has its own illusions.

A thing that can escape the mind?
How could we even guess it’s there?
The way things work, and intertwine,
the madness in the universe
in which we see some super-mind,
where do such notions grow and thrive,
except in our imaginations?

If a thing is nothing much,
then what is something after all?
There’s so much chaos, anyway,
unless you’re looking at the whole;
then the observer and observed
become just one united field.

If you and I could see the truth,
what good is that, if you and I
cannot imagine something else
that might contain us both?

31 MAY 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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No One Writes Letters: epistle

Posted on May 30, 2025 by JRL

Dear reader: do you wonder what
the point may be in all of this?
Why do we bother keeping track
of who said what to whom and such?

On an entire stretch of sandy beach
we seek a single special grain,
imagining some magic quest
in which we play the hero’s role.

All the while, the soundtrack seems
to telegraph our every thought;
instead of showing what we feel,
we let the song push us along.

And in the end, what’s the use?
We focus on the world outside,
where what we do makes little mark
and when we leave, won’t miss us.

I’m writing you, because it seems
the sanest way to pass the time,
and share the world, our hopes and dreams.
You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.

So now, farewell, at least for now.
We’ll muddle through this mess, somehow.
So long as you and I both care,
there’s still a chance we’ll get somewhere.

30 May 2025

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Travel Plans: englyn unodl union

Posted on May 29, 2025 by JRL

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.

© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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