The Poetry Marathon

All things end
In the end
Time moves on

In the end
All things change
Life moves on

All things change
Such is life
So we grow

Book in hand, eyes on page,
Printed books, traditional
And still very functional
Even paper stiff with age.

Eyes on screen, phone in hand
Ebooks, newer, more compact
Still are books, for all that
Readers worldwide understand

Fingers brush dots in groups
Ears take books in audio
These are reading too, you know
Readers read, we’re quite the troop

Words connect us, in translation
Different forms, same information

There’s three sides to every story
My side, your side, and the truth.
No one person sees it all, but
Anyone can learn to sleuth.

Ask your questions, open-minded,
Really listen to replies
Find connections, check your sources,
Slowly sift out truth and lies

Truth might not be what we wanted
If so, what are we to do?
Truth cannot control our actions
We cannot control what’s true.

Butterflies live in air that is, to them,
As solid as water.
They swim, or fly,
Tumbled by the currents.

A garden of butterflies is, perhaps,
A kind of aquarium
Where we can sit
Surrounded by air fish.

High in the northen hemisphere
We’ve been, it’s true:
Since late in June
Embarking on endarkening.

Despite its annual pressence here
The shorter days,
(still summer-hazed)
Are yearly worth remarkening.

Of such delights is Earth supplied
That time still takes us by surprise

Reach for the skies
Climb higher, higher
Powering into the blue

Shake the earth as you
Reach for the skies
Achieving lift-off

Aiming for the moon
Begins with flying.
Reach for the skies!

Description: Several interlocking cycles of words, which can be read starting in a few different places. Moving left-to-right, one reading might be:

I hear your words have meanings even the meaningless interjections mean something to me I can’t unsee

Another might be:

Words have meanings even the meaningless interjections mean I am here I hear your words have meanings (etc)

And another:

I hear your meanings even when you don’t mean them (…or say you don’t…) even the meaningless chatter in scripted exchanges unchanging uncaring (note: I never got the script)

All the different lines converge on a smaller circle made up of the words:

So please won’t you mean what you say what you mean what you say what you mean what you say…

The first rule of Detection Club: play fair
Rather, the zeroth rule because rule one
Is introduce the criminal early on
And keep their thoughts off-air

The next three rules restrain the gothic trend
No ghosts, no made-up drugs, no high-tech tools
No more than one mysterious hidden room
To get you to “the end”

The fifth rule reads as racist in our day,
Though written to confront it at the time.
Let’s say: Do not use “foreign” to mean “crime”
Or “danger” in that way.

Rule six rules out the lucky guess to win
Rules seven, eight and nine forbid the ruse
Of ever purposefully withholding clues.
And ten: no secret twins.

So if you swear detection tales to tell,
Shall Knox, GK, and Christie wish you well.

after GK Chesterton

“For Honour!” cries the foolish wretch
“I cannot compromise!”
The modern wise philosopher
Just shakes their head and sighs.

What use is honour to us now
Except for making waves?
Go with the flow, to stand one’s ground
Is no way to behave.

You’ll make the rest of us look bad
With your old-fashioned views.
You’ll have to change the way you feel
Or be declared a prude.

Oh, keep your stupid honour then;
But you and I are done!
For honour is a foolish thing —
I’m proud to say I’ve none.

“Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed”
— From the dedication poem for The Man Who was Thursday

I scout around, I scent the air
Quite fruitlessly I cast my fly
No inspiration anywhere

The barren minutes flutter by
My thoughts net only empty space
Quite fruitlessly I cast my fly

My idle pen just spins in place
Vague doodles overtake the page
My thoughts net only empty space

I seek this dullness to assuage
In metaphor and meta-verse
Vague doodles overtake the page

Such tricks just make my struggles worse
A wild goose chase of wasted time
In metaphor and meta-verse

So as I pen this final rhyme
I scout around, I scent the air
A wild goose chase of wasted time
No inspiration anywhere