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radical druid Posts

The Time is Now: common measure

The only time is now;
your thoughts and prayers and plans
imagining the future won’t
get you out of quicksand.

short measure

It’s movement that you need.
Look down – there at your feet,
is where you start out to the street.
You’ll need both strength and speed.

hymnal stanza

For the battle isn’t out somewhere,
waiting as your courage grows.
No, it’s here. You’ve haven’t got the time
for might-have-beens or clever told-you-sos.

long measure

What you believe is worth your living for –
that’s what’s at stake right now. Make no delay;
without you, its survival chance is poor.
The time is now. There is no other day.

long hymnal stanza

06 MAY 2025

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How Long Have I Seen: clogyrnach

When did I start see it first-hand,
the sickness creeping on our land?
I can tell you when:
I was maybe ten;
you begin
to understand.

What my first thought, that time I knew
that no one out there had a clue?
It’s easy. A child
can sense the defiled
in the wild.
That is true.

How long have I been at this war,
a fight for something else, for more
than my own winning?
Since the beginning,
still spinning,
evermore.

Why do I bother keeping on?
Why fight the weeds that choke the lawn?
What good being still,
while evil acts kill,
and free will
soon is gone?

05 MAY 2025


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Small Change: cinquain

Talking
about dissent
is not really revolt
unless it leads to some real life
action.

Rebels
can’t change the world
without changing themselves;
that’s how all revolution starts:
within.

Shouting
to be louder
than the other side’s team
only makes everyone in range
deafer.

Fascists
don’t really care
how much racket you make;
so long as you keep giving them
money.

Freedom
isn’t achieved
by replacing their side
with just another hierarchy
to fight.

Talking
is just small breeze
in the face of a gale wind;
you’ve got to put an anchor down
to live.

05 APR 2025

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What Else: choka

What else can I say?
The world is what we make it,
or maybe it’s not.
The little splashes we make
barely change the water’s calm.

What else can we do?
From nothing, everything comes
and then it is gone.
How we choose to measure time
makes little difference to it.

What else could there be?
Nothing exists forever;
and how would we know?
We see just the horizon;
life doesn’t stop at our eye.

30 Apr 2025

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What If We Win?: chant royal

The time will surely come, they say,
when rightness splits apart from might,
and we will celebrate that day
with festivals to truth and light,
as all the evils we now face
are dissipated like the dew
when sunshine glows around the place
and pierces all the shadows through.
Imagine that! What songs we’ll sing,
what joy our revolution brings!
Come, sip of freedom’s lemonade,
and talk of love and other things.
What progress we have made.

The sculptures wrought from pure, fine clay
commemorating our brave fight
will stand forever and a day
to prove our way was true and right,
while poets loll about the place
extolling how the angels knew
our cause would always win the race
and validate our point of view.
Imagine that! We toppled kings,
and on the strength of eagle’s wings
brought peace and justice to the glade;
so now, we pull the strings.
What progress we have made!

Look! Those emerging from the fray,
who gave their all to win the fight
and through the clash of battle’s play
continued on and on, despite
not knowing just whose tails they chased,
or who they’d be when it was through,
who kept up their relentless place:
they did just what we asked them to.
Imagine that! They gave their spring
for this great autumn. Let us sing
our praises for the price they paid
to win us everything.
What progress we have made!

Let peal the bells! Let freedom ring!
The pendulum is ours to swing;
we end the pointless mad charade
and will change everything.
What progress we have made.

30 Apr 2025

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Indra’s Neti-Neti: chantey (shanty)

We sail the sea that has no shore,
with just a raft beneath us;
we float until we can no more
and our resources fail us.
We find the wind and let it blow
whichever way it takes us,
without a chart or star above
we journey ’til it breaks us.
We make no claim to know the way,
nor where this life will lead us.
We work our sinews to the bone;
the sea air thins and bleeds us.
We are a wild and wooly crew,
no nation claims or wants us;
we know no home or fatherland –
no distant hamlet haunts us.
We sail because for all we know
the ocean lives inside us.
We keep a steady, weather eye
on where the fog may hide us.
We stand together on the deck
where time and tide defy us,
and with each turn and rolling wave,
we let ourselves be righted.

29 APR 2025

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Anti-Amergin: chant

I am not just my name and sign,
I am not just my sex,
I am not who I voted for,
I am not where I’m from,
I am not just the work I do,
I am not just a son,
I am not from a somewhere else,
I am not just like you,
I am not where I went to school,
I am not what you taught me,
I am not playing on your team,
I am not your opponent,
I am not a mind or body suit,
I am not here forever,
I am not my integrity,
I am not my backstory,
I am not who I seem to you,
I am not a somebody,
I am not a celebrity,
I am not educated,
I am not old and wise and gray,
I am not mid-way through it,
I am not a child prodigy,
I am not a late bloomer,
I am not something that you’ve heard,
I am not just my language,
I am not some well-hidden lamp,
I am not a state secret,
I am not female, am not male,
I am not someone’s father,
I am not better off than you,
I am not part of something,
I am not one of your old friends,
I am not a religion,
I am not what you label me,
I am not through with living.

Who claims to know me, as I am?
Who thinks their claims control me?
Who else pretends to give a damn?
Who wants their cage to hold me?

What does the world want me to be?
Who out there claims to get me?
What good do all these labels do,
When I am neti, neti?

29 APR 2025

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