Literature/Writing 141

A collection of pieces from a 1991 writing course.

What makes experience worth waiting for?

WHAT MAKES experience worth waiting for?
Why not indulge in hedonistic now?
Always, there is an easy open door.
Temptation beckons, there to show us how
To bypass patience, tedium, long tracks,
Achieving simulated wealth and peace:
A fraction of the cost for gilded wax.
Make merry, 'fore we find ourselves deceased!
But will the faux experience ring true
With want forgone, anticipation skipped?
Next year, will memory be there for you
Or will you be by some new fashion gripped?
  For quality through time can resonate,
  Genuine art is thus proved worth the wait

RonRisley – 11 Apr 2005 (revised 17 Apr 2005)

Corporate Personhood

I am skeptical about bumper stickers as an effective form of communication. Can any important social issue be reduced to a message that fits on a 5″ x 12″ sign with type large enough to be read from a distance at highway speeds? It seems as though it is a medium that begs for reductionist thinking and pandering to stereotypes. You can’t really even fit a haiku comfortably on a bumper sticker.

Continue reading Corporate Personhood

What Profit, then, in contemplating ends

WHAT PROFIT, then, in contemplating ends
While things begin, at midpoint, at the last?
We know that tricky time just warps and bends
Perceptions of our now, our then, our past.
We celebrate a birth e'en though we know
That fleeting fame leads only to the grave:
But for this life, death would not be a foe
'Tis ends make moments rare enough to save.
Indeed, our moments make eternity,
What matters matters 'twixt myself and thou,
Connects the ancient with modernity:
The only true forever happens now.
  To know that night will fall before too long
  Must not diminish wonder at the dawn

RonRisley – 06 Apr 2005